Travelling into the past

If you pop into the Glen Mhor Hotel on the banks of the River Ness you’ll be transported back in time. Not because it’s an antiquated place, but because in its front lounge there is an array of vintage Scottish rail posters. They’re all, I think, prints of paintings by Norman Wilkinson, a famous landscape…

The Next Stop

I got back this weekend from a six-day journey down the Inverness to Edinburgh train line.  I stopped at every station, twenty-three in total, including my start and end points.  I tried to spend at least a couple of hours in each place, staying overnight where timetables dictated.  It was an interesting chance to see…

Fyrish Monument

It’s a sad state of affairs that it takes someone from abroad to encourage me to see something under my nose. I try to be good at making the most of the amazing scenery and history on my doorstep, but in the case of the Fyrish monument, about half an hour north of Inverness and…

Glen Affric

Nicole and I went for a walk out Glen Affric the weekend before last and I’ve just got round to uploading a few photos.  It was our first time out there, I think, since we got engaged.  Shame really, it’s such a lovely walk and one of the prettiest and most accessible parts of the…

Planning the next adventure

I’ve got two trips for this year bubbling away in the planning stage, and they’re both rail-based. The second one, scheduled for the summer, is the bigger of the two.  Nicole and I will be travelling Europe by train, overlapping with the southern France leg of Niall’s world wonder hunting and taking in a total of six countries.…

North and south

Inverness really feels like the middle of the country at times. Though that’s not far from the truth.  If you were to draw a straight line from the top of Shetland to the bottom of the Scottish mainland, then draw another from the westernmost inhabited part of Scotland (the south end of the Western Isles)…

Going off the rails?

You may have read a wee while back about the Scottish Government’s consultation on rail services in Scotland beyond 2014. When launched, it made a few headlines because of eye-catching questions like whether alcohol should be banned from trains or whether the sleeper service and daytime cross-border journeys between the north of Scotland and England…

Why I’m learning Esperanto

I’ve always been interested in languages. It’s probably the single thing that most powerfully demonstrates human diversity and represents the gateway to understanding the world better.  If there is one free skill I’d love to have for no effort in return, it would be fluency in one or more other languages.  I am not fluent…

A not very dynamic argument

The independence referendum is scheduled, according to the Scottish Government, for the second half of the current parliamentary term. This will mean it will probably be in 2014 or 2015. It sounds like a long way away, but we can expect its influence to beat regularly throughout politics between now and then, and I daresay…

Torridon and Applecross

This past weekend, we hit the west coast with a group of friends to go hillwalking. We climbed a mountain at Torridon on Saturday (Mullach an Rathain, for those are interested).  It would have been two peaks but the weather was against us. Then on Sunday Nicole and I drove around the spectacular Applecross peninsula…

Dunrobin Castle

Yesterday, to take a break from all the painting, decorating and tidying of the flat, Nicole and I did a day trip to Dunrobin Castle. On the east coast of Sutherland, just north of the town of Golspie and accessible via its own dedicated railway station, it’s a spectacular location in a beautiful part of…

False start

So, we’re only a week into the new season of Scottish football, and already the Old Firm have swept aside their opponents (one of whom, Aberdeen, really should be expected to do better). Meanwhile the national team have lost heavily to Norway, and three teams who started their European campaign were out, mostly to embarrassing…