Cruisin’ the Countryside

We collected our car this morning and Alex has enjoyed resetting everything to suit his requirements. We did over 1500 miles in it and it’s only done about a couple of hundred miles since we handed it back. It was a nice day, not as warm as yesterday but no sign of rain as we drove towards Dingwall for Brunch at a lovely café we’ve used before called, ”Grants.”

Coming out of Dingwall I saw it was only 5 miles to Strathpeffer so I decided I was going to find the cache near the Eagle Stone. Alex took the opportunity to book in for a game of golf on Wednesday, Ladies Day again but he has runs on the board so they’ll let him play. I said before I’d only go around a Golf Course with him again if I could drive a cart which suits him just fine because his Achilles Tendon is still causing problems and no way could he walk around the Course so I’ll be driving him. Apparently there are some steep drops so I might just have to use some of my Jeep training.

After Strathpeffer Alex got lost, I didn’t because I had no idea where we were supposed to be going. I saw the causeway across the Cromarty Firth and said I wanted to go over it but Alex told me we wouldn’t be going that way. A little while later we crossed the causeway on our way back to Inverness.

Tomorrow we’re going to Glasgow to see “The Aunties”, Nora is 88 and Kate is 92.

Blue Tit

Carving on a post within Strathpeffer Railway Station.

Robin

The Victorian Strathpeffer Railway Station, people alighted here when going to the Spa.

Finding my Feet in Inverness

I felt I needed to keep my feet firmly on the ground today so we decided to walk into Inverness. It didn’t take long going down the paths rather than beside the roads. Our first stop was Boots to get sore throat cures for me and an ankle support for someone who pulled his Achilles Tendon evading an approaching car then aggravated it standing on a moving paver. We watched One Man Band busker and surveyed the throngs in Eastgate Shopping Centre. Alex found a café that made good coffee (harder to find than you might think) and I enjoyed sitting. On a level surface. Still.

Walking back home took much longer. I wanted to walk back along the canal and since I seem to have no sense of direction just now it seemed the wise thing to do to follow Alex’s lead. I walked and he limped for ages then realized that we needed to change direction. We went through some very sad looking Council Houses which had a nice big grassed are and Playground on its edge. Next to that was the Canal but a steep bank was between the two and there was no track up to the Canal path so we walked along parallel past an excellent collection of Allotments. The “track” that we eventually took up to the canal was very slippery and steep, I didn’t think we were going to make it but we did, probably with a lot more damage to Alex’s tendon. There were a couple of people fishing on the canal which was nice to see and plenty of people walking, enjoying the sunshine. We were hot! When we reached the Muirton Lock there was a lot of activity with the fluoro vest brigade so we knew a boat was going to come through but we ran out of patience before anything did. We arrived back at the house where Mark and Lena were sitting outside enjoying the sun, when we’d left there was so much mist we couldn’t even see the Kessock Bridge. What a change.

Tomorrow we’re going to get another rental car and see where it takes us.

Busker in Academy Street, Inverness.

Row Houses beside the River Ness.

Tomnahurich and Kenneth Streets.

Alottments beside the Council Housing Estate.

I hope this scarecrow had attitude, he certainly didn’t have size!

Beautiful day beside the canal.