The first day that Hillary hasn’t been up at 6am! In fact I distinctly heard soft sussurations of a gentle rumbling nature from the direction of her bed close to 6:30am.
Finally got our act together and caught the train out 28 km to Nairn to see Robyn and Charlie. Of course we had to go via a bike shop for coffee and a replacement gear cable (John broke one coming out of Fort Augustus). John is winning the “no pumping” competition as I had to add air to my tyres (down to 30 psi/2MPa from 65/4 leaving London) and he won’t pump his up on the whole trip!.
Robyn and Charlie are in good spirits, helped no doubt by having their son twenty kilometres away. A lovely if veeery slow coming Buddha Bowl of haloumi, tahini, chicken peas and etc set me up for the afternoon. I had my second IrnBru soft drink (the old Creaming Soda ultra-sweet mildly lemon soft drink but with ferric chloride in it for a bit of colour) in my life. The other was in my university days forty years ago.
We said our goodbyes and went to the beach. Realising that we hadn’t taken photos of the couple. Maybe their next visitors can get happy snaps?
Nairn is famously the driest place in Scotland (what? Only rain’s every second day?) and is therefore a beach resort complete with ocean bathing, children’s water park and mini golf. All at 12C and a brisk breeze. Kids were running around in bathers and, I swear, at least one wore a rashie in case of sunburn and one lady had her beach lazyboy set up facing the sun.
Back in town it was get some supplies for another home cooked dinner, sort out my bother with O2 mobile phone plan (thankyou Ahmed at call centre), have a pint of Caledonian beer at the Castle Tavern next to our digs, while waiting for Hillary to finish checking out kilt shops as she has the house key, cook and bed.
A route for the next couple of days was found and hotel bookings two days ahead made. We have never been so organised
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18Randell Holland and 17 others