Friday to Monday, 6th to 9th December

As I prepared some lunch and a cup of tea on Friday it was, for the first time since June, to the pleasing lack of any knocking coming from the gas cupboard. That gas cupboard was, by then, the home of a new regulator, although that piece of kit turned out not to be the problem. Rather, some oil (from the LPG) had settled in the low point of the gas pipes. The thrumming and pulsing was the gas pushing its way through that oil. We now have a spare regulator as given the choice between having the old regulator re-fitted (which would have involved having to take the whole refillable gas system back out and then refit) or having the spare, it seemed the better option.

That lunch was had in the uninspiring location of a retail park, shortly after I’d given Decathlon a bit more business by buying myself a nice fleecy-lined pair of winter running tights (oh, I miss those summer runs in southern Germany!). Then we found ourselves with a lack of anything to do for the rest of the day and little idea as to where we might spend the night.

After a few false starts, a number of height-barriered car parks and a bit of driving around, we resigned ourselves to a night on the side of a street in Wolverhampton, finding ourselves a spot that wasn’t outside anyone’s house. We had a surprisingly peaceful night, after a late afternoon walk around the local streets, ogling some impressive houses, but not quite dodging the regular showers.

Saturday morning started with Wolverhampton parkrun, which (surprisingly) we’d never done before. It’s three laps on tarmac, around West Park, which sits a few minutes walk from the city centre. With just the smallest of inclines on the perimeter path, it’s a fast course, allowing me to achieve my best time since early September. Mick resolved to take it steady, having only just recovered from the injury he incurred in Stirling in October. That resolution didn’t come to fruition, but I can’t blame him for his accidental speed as he did exactly what he said he would and stayed behind the 27 minute pacer, who came in a minute and a half ahead of schedule.

We had no time to hang around after the run, needing to zip off to my Aunt’s house for the first visit of a busy day. It was whilst we were there that I had a search around Bertie for my fleece jacket only to remember that I’d left it at the start of the parkrun. Doh!

The second activity of the day a low-key party (for ‘party’ read ‘sitting around a table eating cake’) with various family members for my grandmother’s 98th birthday. I hope I don’t need to point out the birthday girl in this snap:

Various family members with my gran. She lost her hearing aid last week, so communication was difficult, but we all came away feeling sure she’d enjoyed herself.

By the end of the day we’d stopped for a meal at my sister’s house near Stoke and made our way up to Halifax to spend a couple of nights on Ma-in-Law’s driveway. Mick’s older brother and his wife, who we don’t see very often, was up visiting, so we thought we’d nip up to spend some time with them. I intended (but failed) to take a photo of the two boys with their mum.

The main activities during our 2-day stay were chatting and eating, although I did also take myself out for a little jogette on Sunday morning. With Bertie having been lashed by wind and rain all night, Mick questioned my sanity, but I think my reasoning was sound: I needed some exercise at some point during the day and by running I would be out in the weather for less time than if I went for the equivalent walk. I had rain, hail and stop-you-in-your-tracks wind on my undulating route (there are no options from Ma-in-Law’s house that don’t involve noticeable undulations). I arrived back refreshed and wishing I’d worn those new fleecy-lined tights!

We’re now back home, but it’s only a month before we’ll be off again. I must book our Channel Tunnel crossing…

Wednesday and Thursday 4-5 December

Where's Bertie? He's enjoying a couple of days in Ironbridge.
Weather: Wednesday: foggy till early afternoon and very cold; Thursday: overcast with a frosty start but gradually warming up.

"Theory has it that the next trip isn’t going to be until January."

That was the very last statement I made in my last post. Then we booked Bertie in for his overdue gas check/fridge service*, and with our chosen service location being an hour's drive from home and with our appointment being at 8.30 on Friday morning, it seemed more sensible to leave home on Wednesday and make a short trip of it than to have an early start on Friday and battle rush-hour traffic.

Our first planned activity of the trip was a visit to the RAF Museum at Cosford, which has long been on the 'must go there' list. All things considered, it's impressive that we've managed not to go until now.

Alas, it wasn't the best day for it. The night had been colder than forecast, such that when I went out to Bertie first thing his internal temperature was 0.2 degrees. I popped his heating on, but it took a while for the boiler frost-protection valve to warm up enough to stay reset (I reset it a number of times, but every time I tried to fill the hot tank the valve would pop again and out would pour the water). On the road only half an hour later than intended (which, all things considered, was pretty good going), all went well until we reached the M54 when suddenly the gloriously sunny day was replaced by thick fog. Arriving at the museum, we could barely see the planes dotted around outside and the temperature was such that it was clearly an indoor-activity sort of a day.

Fortunately, there are four hangars of stuff to see (and the planes outside aren't open midweek at this time of year anyway). Unfortunately, the heating in the hangars is variable and on the cool side of comfortable, even with outdoor layers on. The combination of the weather, not being able to go inside any of the planes, there being so few visitors (i.e. no atmosphere) and having already been to other (excellent!) plane/automobile museums this year, meant that it wasn't a stand-out day, but we won't write the place off and will make an effort to go back sometime in summer.

One benefit of there being so few visitors was that we could play with the interactive exhibits without getting in the way of any children, for whom they are intended.

Planes

Just before dusk we left Cosford and headed to Ironbridge, by which time the fog, which had only cleared a couple or three hours earlier, was building again. It was only as we started descending towards the town that it struck us that spending the night next to a river in a steep-sided valley wasn't going to be the warmest option.

By this morning the temperature had risen a little (still a frosty start, mind) and the fog had lifted, but at the cost of it being overcast.

Snaps from our morning run

A run along the Severn Valley Way (using the bed of an ex-railway line) started our day, but with the impediment of Severn Trent Water having closed part of the route for major works. 'Cycleway and Footpath Closed - follow diversion' said the signs at each end of the closed section. Ha! What diversion signs? We saw not a single one. We did manage to find our way around (up 100', down 100') albeit on the way back we had to fight our way through some barriers.

My original intention for today had been to visit one or more of the Ironbridge Museums. Earlier in the week I did some research and looked at buying an annual pass for the entire museum network (by far the best value option). For some reason that now escapes me, I decided against. An odd decision, I thought today when the weather was still cold enough to make me think that the inside of a museum would have been the perfect way to spend the day.

Admittedly we could have paid the small penalty of the walk-up price of the tickets, but instead we've had a quiet day. Aside from the period spent inside The Tea Emporium...

We placed the exact same food and drink order as when we were last here (6 December 2015) and it was still just as good. My breakfast included grilled halloumi and bubble & squeak.

...the whole day has seen us wrapped up warm. As I type this I'm wearing a hat, fingerless mittens, a fleece jacket and a blanket, and have just spent a period researching the options for fitting Bertie with a larger capacity leisure battery. His existing 100Ah, in combination with his solar panel, is almost always adequate. It only fails to be enough when it's very cold (such that we want to run the heating lots), it's December/January (sun too low for much solar energy) and/or we're sitting in a forest or in the bottom of a steep-sided valley. That set of circumstances has only happened a small handful of times in 3 years, but it's enough to make us think that a little investment would be worthwhile.

I took this photo at around 2pm today. At just gone 11am tomorrow those cooling towers are due to be gone. Such a shame that we won't be able to be here to witness their demolition.

^{(*We probably need a new gas regulator too. The existing one has been knocking and pulsing since May or June. The greater the demand for gas, the worse it is. It's still working, but better to get it fixed before it fails completely. Unfortunately 'fixed' probably means 'replaced' and a replacement for our model (with a crash-sensing isolator, so that we can drive with the gas turned on) isn't cheap.)
(As an aside: Amazon Prime Video streamed a number of Premiership football matches last night and it was an unusual treat for Mick to be able to watch a Liverpool match live. At half time, I checked how much data the first half had used and had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I found that it had taken 2.1GB. A quick rummage in the Prime Video App's settings and I discovered that there are separate quality settings for Download (which I already had set to 'Good' rather than 'Better' or 'Best) and for Streaming. Having made the necessary modification, the second half used a far more reasonable 300MB. At least I discovered that in a month when I have no other use for my data allowance. It would have been a more painful lesson had we been on an extended trip.)}
 

Sunday 27 to Thursday 31 October

(I have a track record on this blog of failing to write the final blog post of a trip. On this occasion I did write it ... then completely failed to publish it. Belatedly, here it is. I've edited it with a couple of updates relevant to the original text.) 

On Saturday evening I checked the weather forecast.  There was a small chance of some light rain during a one-hour period overnight, but otherwise, it was going to be dry. We don’t like to use Bertie’s exterior insulating cab-window cover (‘eyemask’) when rain is expected, not wanting to deal with/store it wet. We applied the cover … and it rained most of the night.

Sunday was a day of socialising, starting with a small detour to drop in on [Conrad http://conradwalks.blogspot.com]. Tea/coffee and pastries accompanied our happy couple of hours of chatting, before we had to drag ourselves away to relocate to St-Annes-on-the-Sea.

After an uneventful drive, Bertie was installed into the motorhome parking at St Annes, whereupon a decision had to be made: how long to stay? The maximum is 3 nights, and the daily price decreases as the days increase (£8.40 for one night; £15.xx for two nights; £22 for three nights). I fancied a trip up to Blackpool whilst we were there, so we went for the maximum stay.

As darkness fell, friends Al and Nicky arrived and a sociable evening ensued, relocating after a while into the Toby Carvery directly behind Bertie for a meal. Before 9pm we were the only people left sitting in the restaurant end of the establishment. At just gone 10pm we felt like we should probably leave, relocating the few steps back to Bertie.

Monday dawned another glorious day, albeit it was a bit cool as we headed out for a run. Mick’s outing wasn’t overly successful, abandoned after just over a mile as he concluded his thigh strain isn’t adequately recovered. Breakfast and a quick shower was followed by Al arriving to taxi us to his house for the day.

Snaps from Monday’s run

As he drove us back at gone 9pm, we watched the temperature display on his dashboard drop to 2 degrees before recovering to 3 degrees at St Anne’s. That was one of those days when we wished we had the remote-control-by-App option on Bertie’s heating! Putting the heating on was our first priority, followed by applying his eyemask (we take it off by day to let the heat in – the opposite regime to summer in Germany when we applied the eyemask by day, then removed it at night to let the heat out), by which time it was warming up indoors.  It must have been a late night as we challenged our tired minds to a crossword before bed.

Tuesday felt a bit of an odd day. Usually, if we’re going to do touristy things, we set about it in the morning. On this occasion, with the intention of seeing Blackpool’s illuminations, we didn’t want to travel into the resort until the afternoon, which left us knocking around until after lunch. I finished unravelling a pair of socks I’d already knitted twice this summer (hopefully on the third attempt I’ll manage to make them fit; I may achieve this by going back to my tried-and-trusted top-down pattern rather than repeating the toe-up pattern that has been proving tricky to get the sizing right), progressed a bit further on the jumper I’m knitting as well as researching the things we could do in Blackpool (some of which we will do in future, but I’ll prebook).

 

Yay! After knitting five socks (three of them ripped back), I have a pair that fit.

As predicted, I achieved this by reverting to the top-down pattern.

The yarn wouldn't have been able to withstand another ripping-back.

Blackpool does attract some ridicule as a resort, but I enjoyed our afternoon there. Our walks along the piers, through the fairground ride and attractions, transported me back to childhood holidays in other UK beach resorts. The illuminations, on the other hand, were a disappointment. I’ve only ever been to Blackpool once before, for one evening, sometime in the early 1980s and a shufty around t’internet confirms that my recollection of big pictures made of individual bulbs is not false and that I’m not alone in thinking that today’s illuminations are not a patch on what they were (although undoubtedly they’re a lot more energy efficient these days!).

 

A departure from our usual summit selfies

We’d caught the train from St Anne’s to Blackpool, as it’s cheaper than the bus. They only run once per hour, but we timed our arrival at the station nicely for the return journey. Unfortunately, Northern Rail had other ideas and cancelled both our train and the next one. We ended up walking a distance before catching a bus for a couple of miles (£5.80 for 2 miles of journey – ouch – a taxi may have been cheaper!). Having now established that parking in Blackpool is plentiful (at least mid-week in late October), in future we’d just drive there. (Post blog note: thanks to the second train being cancelled too, we were entitled to a refund of the full price of our return tickets, so we didn't end up out of pocket.)

And that brings us up to date. We left St Anne’s on Wednesday morning and drove down to Ma-in-Law’s in Halifax, before completing our trip yesterday (Thursday). Theory has it that the next trip isn’t going to be until January. 

 

I made the first square of this blanket in April 2017. It reached single-bed size in Jan 2018, when I decided I hadn't quite had enough of making squares, so I continued on to make it double-bed sized (it didn't just sit around - it was in use during the whole of the extension phase). It's a well travelled blanket, as I've worked on it in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Spain, as well as in the Bay of Biscay, but as it got bigger it became less portable and progress slowed accordingly. I took it with me on this trip determined to finally get the last 34 squares joined and to put on the border. Here it is, all finished, back in its proper place at home, where it makes me smile every time I walk into the bedroom. As a fun fact: the making of this blanket has required the sewing in of 3,267 yarn ends!   

Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 October

Given our track record for spending entire days inside museums, it was naive of me to think that we could achieve more than one sightseeing mission in Glasgow on Thursday.

The Kelvingrove Museum - a fine building.

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was our first (and, as it turned out, only) port of call, where we didn't get off to a very efficient start by pausing for coffee before we got past the main entrance hall. We then spent an entire hour in the first room we entered. There are 22 rooms. Even with those that weren't of particular interest to us, it was clear that this place was going to fill the entire day.

Every art work had a little plaque next to it giving not just the usual title/artist/year, but also a snippet of information.

The entire layout of the museum made sense, apart from the Spitfire above the elephants and giraffe. In fact, the Spitfire was the white elephant amongst the exhibits in general.

As our departure time approached (I wanted to be on the 1650 train back to Bertie) we started doing our best (but still poor) impression of people who are able to whizz through an entire museum in ten minutes. That informed us that we could easily go back and spent another few hours there.

That return visit, plus the other things I'd like to see in Glasgow will have to wait for some unknown point in the future.

Back at Bertie we surveyed our options and made a snap decision to return to the Caravan Club Site at Strathclyde Country Park. That positioned me nicely yesterday (Friday) morning to nip out first thing for a trot around Strathclyde Loch.

It was nice to see so many other people walking and running on the same paths (even if most blanked my greetings), particularly on an overcast, frosty morning. In Spain and Germany it's perfectly normal for people to be out in such numbers, getting a bit of daily exercise without the excuse/incentive of having a dog to walk. In the UK, outside of London, it's not something that I'm used to seeing. It just goes to show: put in good infrastructure to allow people to walk by or around some water and they will use it!

Looking along the length of the loch

Some unreasonably large chunks of time have been lost over the last couple of days in trying to decide what we're doing next. Yesterday morning's session resulted in a decision to do Penrith parkrun today and after a ridiculously long time spent hunting, I eventually found somewhere relatively nearby to spend the night.

That's to where we headed, although not without a slightly alarming moment* on the M74 when, driving along in the rain, one of Bertie's windscreen wipers suddenly came adrift from its arm. Fortunately we are good Boy Scouts, and carry a spare, so once I'd taken a second to establish that the mount was broken, all I needed to do was to nip into the wardrobe, grab the new one* and fit it. With the knowledge of how dangerous hard shoulders are, I had that new wiper fitted with a speed that I reckon would have impressed even a Formula 1 pit crew. Not wanting to be without a spare for longer than necessary (both wipers are the same age, so the other could go the same way at any moment), within five minutes of regaining the main carriageway (Mick was driving) I had a replacement ordered, ready for collection in Penrith this morning.

Last night's kipping spot turned out to be perfect, giving us just a 20-minute drive to the parkrun location this morning. There, to Mick's dismay (considering he can't run at the moment) we discovered we had no TV signal for the rugby semi-final, but his dismay was shortlived when I downloaded the ITV App onto my phone and set it up ready for him to press the 'Play' button to set off the live streaming at kick off. I got back to Bertie twenty minutes or so through the first half to find that Mick had pressed 'Play' only then to be asked for a password. If it had been the other way around, I'm afraid I would have reset Mick's password without hesitation, but he was too polite to do that, so I found him watching the game via text updates on the BBC news website. As it happens, I also didn't know my password, so I had to reset it anyway, which allowed him to watch the rest of the match.

Off the top of my head, I think I've run 32 different parkrun courses. My favourite thus far has been Kräherwald in Stuttgart. The most attractive I've come across in the UK is Aviemore. At the bottom of the pile is Penrith, being two almost-dead-flat laps of some football fields.

It's not going to be an event I remember for the course, but for the 'what are the chances of that?!' occurrence just before the run. I was in the ladies' toilets, in a queue formed of just me and one other woman. We exchanged a few words about the weather (of course!), then after looking at me for a few moments, she asked if I was in the motorhome. "I thought I recognised you!" she exclaimed and in response to my blank look she explained that we had met in the car park of Aldi just over three weeks ago when she and her husband had knocked on Bertie's door to ask us about our experience of owning a Hymer B444.

With the rugby successfully won by England, and long after all other parkrunners had left, off we headed to Halfords to collect our windscreen wiper, whereafter another chunk of time was lost to the 'where next' question. All enthusiasm for the intended sightseeing had been lost due to the weather being cold, wet and miserable and Mick's leg isn't yet up for any rough walking. We opted for luxury instead - another campsite for mains power to fritter the rest of the day away with books, knitting and (hopefully - TV signal permitting) a bit of Strictly later.

<sup>(*I don't think I mentioned the equivalent alarming moment that occurred on our drive north three weeks or so ago, when on our way to the Falkirk Wheel we rounded a bend to find a motorhome (another Hymer, as it happens) coming towards us on our side of the road. After a few moments of both Mick & I wondering if we'd accidentally entered a one-way street the wrong way, the other vehicle moved onto the left carriageway and waved an apology. I just had time to notice the German number plates before we passed.)
* I'm glad we chose the wardrobe as a suitable place to store the spare windscreen wiper, making it so quickly and easily accessible from inside the vehicle.)</sup>

Wednesday 23 October

Last night's kipping spot was a good distance away from the road, such that only the loudest of exhaust pipes could be heard. The downside was being immediately adjacent to a railway track with a frequent service (all quiet between around 11pm and 6am), but it did put us within an easy walk of a railway station this morning to take us into Glasgow for a bit of touristing.

We started our day in the city with walking part of the route of the Glasgow Mural Trail, taking in 15 of the 25 artworks detailed on the Trail's website (14 really as one was almost completely covered by hoardings). Those by a chap called Smug particularly stood out for their quality. (Note: to reduce the number of photos I need to attach to this post I've used collages of three photos each. Hopefully the dividing lines between the works are clear enough.)

The collage immediately above is of a single work, which covered a huge area (the entire length of a sizeable car park). It took four photos to capture it all, although I've only included three here.

We found a couple of works not mentioned on the Mural Trail website, of which this was one.

By the time we'd seen all of those we were ready for elevenses, so via George Square ...

Impressive town hall!

...we made our way to a Wetherspoons for bottomless cups of hot drinks. Because of their pricing structure, it made sense to have items off their breakfast menu with those drinks, which we followed a while later with a couple of lunches. As is usually the case with Wetherspoons, the building itself was worth seeing, having originally been built in the 1800s for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

I threw various ideas for our afternoon's activities at Mick over lunch and a visit to The Lighthouse (the first architectural project of Mackintosh and housing an exhibtion about his work) won. A little detour on our way there took us to the Tourist Office where an enthusiastic assistant talked us through, in detail, what there is to see and do in and around the city. As a result, after we'd visited The Lighthouse ...

View from The Lighthouse's tower, having ascended 135 steps

...we nipped into the Museum of Modern Art. The benefit of most museums in the UK being free ('donations appreciated') is that there's nothing necessarily lost by going to one that you suspect may not be your cup of tea, and this was a case in point. The building was interesting (and there were a couple of exhibits about its history) as were a couple of the film-based works and a few other bits and pieces. There was also plenty that one, other or both of us walked by with barely a glance.

By then rush hour was almost upon us so (via M&S for a couple of deli salads for tea) we hotfooted it back to the station for the train back to Bertie. There are plenty of things left in Glasgow that I wouldn't mind seeing, but with the problem that they're spread far and wide.

Sunday 20 to Tuesday 22 October

Our parking spot for Saturday night may not have been much to look at, but it was level and quiet. It wasn't so good during the day on Sunday - a sunny day - being in the shade of the only stand of tall trees around. That wasn't a problem for me, as I spent much of the day keeping warm by cycling and walking my way up a couple of hills (full report here), but for Mick, who was resting a thigh strain incurred on Saturday, it was a day of sitting around wearing a hat and wrapped in a blanket*.

By the time I was back and my bike had been restowed in the boot...

Just in case you're interested, this is what Bertie's boot looks like on this trip, with two bikes in amongst the usual gubbins.

...he was more than ready to move to a sunnier spot, so we headed off to the place we'd earmarked for Sunday night. We didn't get that far, as at my start point for Monday's walk we found a two-vehicle parking area that we adjudged to be suitable for a night-stop. It turned out not to be as good as expected, with the little B road being busier overnight (with many speeding vehicles) than the A road next to which we parked last week. It was, however, as convenient as could be for my walk yesterday morning.

Once I'd rendezvoused with Mick on the other side of the hill (which hadn't been my intention when I set out - see full report for details), a quick decision had to be made as to where to go next. We pulled in at the first available place: a) for me to change my sodden footwear; and b) to look at a map, which resulted in us heading to the Decathlon store on the west side of Glasgow. After all, a Bertie trip wouldn't be complete without at least one trip to Decathlon, would it?

Lunch was had in the car park, then a considerable haul of 'stuff' was bought from the store. It seemed an outlandish amount to spend, until we analysed quite how much we'd bought. Just the running shoes* or the waterproof jacket could easily have come to the total bill, had we bought branded items.

Over lunch I surveyed our options as to where to go next, resulting in a reservation at Strathclyde Caravan Club Site. There I prioritised a long hot shower over doing laundry (and over all of that I prioritised putting outside the shoes I'd worn for yesterday morning's walk - wading through 57 bogs can't half make your shoes stink! They stayed outside until we came to leave today.).

Having been then too tired to contemplate laundry, that was my first job today. By the time everything was dry and put away, there was only time for coffee and necessary chores (service point and all that) before we had to leave the site. We didn't go far, just crossing the road to the Toby Carvery for a roast dinner and some downloading of stuff using their wifi. Aside from a short loch-side walk, it's since been a quiet afternoon of doing not much.

Bootles, footballs, weed and a poor swan.

^{(*He could have put Bertie's heating on, but opted to keep warm without burning any of Bertie's gas supply (although it's holding up well considering how much the heating has been used. I guess the fridge isn't having to work so hard in this weather, and is thus being less gas-hungry.)
*The running shoes cost £25 and are my second pair of the same model. My assessment having covered the best part of 400 miles in my first pair (and they're not ready for retirement yet) is that they're value for money. Mick has a pair too, although for general use rather than for running. He took a bit of persuading to buy them (assuming low price = not durable or comfortable) but has also been impressed.)}

Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 October

Amulree is, as far as we could see, a very small settlement, yet it has a village hall with above-average parking facilities (tarmacked with marked out spaces). Even better, rather than keeping that car park closed off when the hall is not in use, they are happy for people to park, with 'donations appreciated'. That was convenient for us on Thursday morning, as it was only a kilometre along the road from the track we wanted to use to access a couple of hills.

Our hills weren't big ones (627m and 617m respectively), but it wasn't the best day for it, with the cloud down below 450m when we set out, but at least the rain paused whilst we were out. (Full report can be read here.)

Feeling that the village hall wasn't an appropriate place to spend the night, and wanting to visit Crieff on Friday morning, we needed to find somewhere in between. I'd eyed up a place on Google Maps, an out-and-back detour totalling 3 miles from the A822, but when we got there it proved not to be suitable. Backtracking to the main road we settled Bertie into a spot I'd pointed out just before we turned off onto the minor road. After the recent rain, some churned up mud made it look less attractive than it would in summer, but we were level, well off the road (no buffetting) and it was quiet overnight.

After the short drive to Crieff and a quick bagging of the Knock of Crieff (excellent viewpoint! Full report here) on Friday morning, we thought we'd take a little look at the town, having no memory of the place from when we walked through on our way from Lowestoft to Ardnamurchan in 2011. Bertie was slotted into one of the free car parks and with rain falling it seemed like a good idea to have elevenses before heading out.

During the next half an hour the car park filled around us and we watched some horrendously inept drivers trying to manoeuvre into spaces ("For goodness sake, turn the steering wheel!"). It was making us nervous of leaving Bertie there, particularly given the tightness of the space next to us. On analysis it turned out we weren't that fussed on visiting Crieff, so we moved on.

Where to go next, bearing in mind we wanted to be in Bridge of Allan this morning (Saturday)? Perhaps straight to Bridge of Allan?

We were heading in that direction*, driving along the A9, when I saw the sign for Dunblane, underneath which was a brown tourist sign for the cathedral. A quick survey of the occupants of Bertie discerned that neither of us had ever been to the cathedral (although Mick had driven through Dunblane many times, as that was the route of the A9 when he first moved to Scotland, in the late 1970s).

The car park to which I directed us turned out to belong to the cemetary, so we spent a while dithering over whether it was approrpriate to leave Bertie there. By the time we'd finished lunch we'd observed that it was being used almost exclusively by dog walkers and as a rest stop for business vans, rather than by visitors to the cemetary. That made us feel better about leaving Bertie for a couple of hours (and we did visit the graveyard, as it happens).

The cathedral with its two-tone tower resulting from a couple of extra storeys having been added in a few hundred years ago.

An enthusiastic guide gave us an introduction to the history of the cathedral before we wandered around. It's not huge, but it has an interesting enough history to have made the effort worthwhile. Had it been earlier in the day, we probably would have visited the museum across the road too.

An elevated view of the cathedral's interior. From the 1620s the section between where I took this snap and the rood screen stood roofless for the best part of 300 years.

It had been our intention to move on, but once back at Bertie we concluded that staying where we were was unlikely to offend anyone (end of a dead-end road, out of sight of houses and too late in the day for there to be a funeral). Graveyards always seem to make for quiet neighbours and last night was no exception.

We were gone before it got light this morning, with our destination being the University of Stirling, which (as of last Saturday) is the home of a new parkrun. With Scottish parkruns not starting until 9.30am, we arrived excessively early. This was intentional and worked out well. By 8.15, when the England v Australia rugby match kicked off, we had the aerial out on the roof, the TV tuned in and were only 2 minutes from the run's start line.

Mick did have the option of sitting out the run, but chose to miss the second half of the rugby instead (immediately on arriving back at Bertie he grabbed his phone to read what had happened, whilst I washed the comprehensive covering of mud off his legs (and mine)).

It's a nice course they've got there, being two-and-a-bit laps of the loch, mainly on engineered paths (bit splashy and muddy today), with views of hills and the Wallace Monument (and, of course, across the loch). With excellent timing, the rain which had been falling since yesterday evening stopped about ten minutes before the start.

Post-run coffee was enjoyed in the bistro in one of the halls of residence, chatting with a trio from Dundee. When they left we would have followed suit, except that there was a TV at the other end of the room showing the Ireland v New Zealand match. Thus it happened that we were by far the last parkrunners to leave the venue, at around 1315.

The second round of refreshments included cake and an excellent smoked salmon and spinach omelette

Even then we didn't leave the university immediately, as we had no idea to where we were heading next. Maps and hill lists were consulted and via a supermarket (Bertie's cupboards and fridge were running *very* low) we've travelled to the north end of the Carron Valley Reservoir. We arrived to find a Dutch car parked in our intended spot with four shifty-looking men just heading off into the woodland adjacent. I'm pretty sure they were Geocaching. They were only here for twenty minutes or so, before kindly vacating our spot.

I've looked at the map since arriving here and have confirmed my suspicion: we walked within half a kilometre of this spot on our way from Land's End to John o'Groats in 2008.

^{(*There was a point during that journey, well before we reached the A9, that I said to Mick: "Conrad's left a comment. He said ... hump .... HUMP!". Whilst Mick was still trying to work out why Conrad was talking about humps, he hit the traffic-calming measure, of which I was trying to warn him, without braking. We've had worse (mainly in Norway); this was a gentle rise up then an extended flat top before the ramp back down, so it only resulted in a slight rearranging of the contents of Bertie's cupboards.)}

Monday 14 to Wednesday 16 October

When we left Invernahavon Campsite last Thursday morning our intention had been to go to another campsite on Sunday night on the basis that we would likely need a service point by then. On Sunday afternoon, when Louise & David asked where we were headed next, we decided that the toilet and drinking water situation were such that we could delay such servicing for another night. That allowed us to stay just north of Dalwhinnie on Sunday night and to walk up a couple of Munros to the east of the A9 on Monday (if you feel so inclined you can read about that walk here).

Sunday night's rain behaved as forecast (i.e. it stopped by Monday morning) and we had good conditions and an enjoyable walk. Then, on our way back down off the hills, we looked across the valley to The Fara and decided that, if the weather forecast was good enough, we would go up it (and its neighbouring Marilyn) on Tuesday.

There's not a campsite around Dalwhinnie, so the decision meant another night's delay before we would reach a campsite. This wasn't a problem as such, but our lack of drinking water did make me kick myself as the previous afternoon we had been parked outside of (and indeed paid for the use of) the public toilets in Kingussie. I could easily have filled a 5-litre water container there, but because we were most definitely going to a campsite on Monday afternoon, I didn't bother.

By Monday night we were down to our last litre and a half of drinking water, which we reserved for Tuesday's walk. For hot drinks, we drank out of Bertie's tank (and, in all honesty, there's no good reason why we don't do that all of the time).

Tuesday's walk (report here) passed off not quite to plan (we made it up The Fara but not up Meall nan Eagan, due to a shoot), following which I set about trying to decide which campsite we would visit. Killin was the first choice, until I discovered that the Caravan Club is treating this week as high season (school half-term, I presume?) and if we were going to be paying £25 for a campsite then the more obvious choice was Blair Atholl.

Once installed on our pitch (hardstanding, but we had to drive over grass to get to it) we did very little for the rest of the day, although we did both manage to stir ourselves to use the showers. How disappointing! What's the point of having a temperature control knob if the hottest setting available is still only warm?

On Tuesday evening we did something most unusual: we popped an aerial up on Bertie's roof and looked for some TV reception - and found some! We didn't have a large selection of channels, but that didn't matter as we were only after Channel 4. Thus we got to watch the Bake Off in real time, rather than downloading it the following day.

At some point overnight on Tuesday it started to rain, giving an unpleasant start to Wednesday. Hills were off the agenda in that weather, so we stayed on our pitch for as long as we possibly could and enjoyed the entertainment provided by (based on appearances) a grandma, two mums and two children packing away a soggy tent on the adjacent pitch. Their pole removal method was 'interesting', but impressively, they did manage to wrestle the tent back into its bag after a few failed attempts.

The latest departure time from the campsite is noon and we were within 90 seconds of that time when we rolled out of the gates.

Via a stop in Pitlochry for the Co-op, we arrived at a location just to the west of Dunkeld, positioning ourselves for Thursday's planned activity. Google Maps had told me that reaching Stirling via Crieff was 2 miles shorter than reaching it via the A9, which was as good excuse as I needed to take the alternative route and bag a few hills along the A822.

By late in the afternoon the rain had stopped, although being under trees we hadn't noticed that the sun had also come out. It was only as I set out for a run that I came to appreciate that from a thoroughly miserable morning we now had a stunning late afternoon.

Snaps taken during my run

I'll finish with a mention of seasonal indicators: when we arrived in Scotland two weeks ago, I noted that there were only a few hints of autumn in the colour of the trees. I'm not sure if I've missed the subtle day-on-day changes, but in Blair Atholl we suddenly seemed to have been plunged into the height of autumn, with golden colours all around. All we need now is some crisp sunny days to set off those colours nicely.

Saturday and Sunday 12-13 October - Inshriach Forest and Kingussie

Arriving at the location where we had arranged to meet Louise and David (and their campervan, Ellie) on Friday, it was like being thrown back to a time before the late 1990s. I'm sure all readers of this blog remember the days before most people had mobile phones, when the time and place to meet someone couldn't be changed at the last minute, nor updates of progress or delays given. It's an unusual scenario these days, and thus it felt rather odd to find ourselves in a phoneless situation (i.e. no mobile phone signal) awaiting the arrival of Ellie.

The lack of modern comms mattered not in the event. Exactly in the middle of the ETA window given days in advance, at 9.15pm, in the pitch dark, Ellie slipped into the space next to Bertie. It might have been a different matter if Bertie hadn't been the only white-box-on-wheels in the car park, as Louise confessed that she probably wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a line-up.

Refreshments and chatting ensued whilst rain pattered down on Bertie's roof. A jolly good time, and a late night, was had.

Saturday dawned a fine day! Yay! After a week of rain, we had a good forecast for two consecutive days!

We don't get to see Louise and David very often (on account of living 500 miles apart), and we'd not yet met their van Ellie, so Saturday morning was taken up with a tour (and much admiration) of Ellie. We might then have gone out for a walk, except it was time for elevenses. It was gone 1pm (but pre-lunch) by the time we got ourselves out the door for the walk that I've written about on t'other blog, here

Action Selfie

Back at Bertie/Ellie, the rest of the day passed away with tea/beer/wine (according to who was doing the drinking), curry and some spectacularly good cake.

I caught some unfortunate facial expressions in this snap of us eating spectacularly good cake, baked by Louise

A relocation to Kingussie took place on Sunday morning as a run was on the agenda and it had been agreed that the cycle path between Kingussie and Newtonmore (the very one we'd run with Martin and Sue a week previously) met the elevation and distance brief nicely. This week the weather was far more amenable to the activity and another lovely chatty run was had. It's been so enjoyable to have two consecutive chatty Sunday runs. I shall miss that in future weeks.

There was an inversion on Sunday morning (just 1 degree as we drove along the valley) which gave an atmospheric view as we passed Ruthven Barracks.

In hindsight we could have gone out for a stroll on Sunday afternoon, but I think the main reason that no-one suggested that was because in a bizarre disruption to the usual linearity of time, one minute it was half past eleven and we were having a post-run elevenses and the next minute it was approaching 5pm and it was time for us to head in opposite directions.

Louise, David and van Ellie were waved off northwards as Bertie's nose was pointed south. A quick look at the weather forecast and a map had led me to choose a hill to climb on Monday, the location of which suggested the use of an overnighting spot we've used before, just to the north of Dalwhinnie.

I can't remember exactly when, but at some point after dark (but well before bedtime) it started to rain. At least it had stayed stopped for the weekend and we crossed our fingers that the forecast would come good for a fine day on Monday.

Monday 7 - Friday 11 October - Around Newtonmore

In the week preceding this trip, we had unusually high rainfall at home. During that time the Highlands had it relatively dry and when we arrived up here the rivers and burns were low. Alas, the wet weather followed us and this week has been blighted by fast-changing weather forecasts (which kept promising us dry days, only to change their minds) and *a lot* of rain.

As a result, there's not as much to report as I would have liked.

On Monday afternoon, having taken full advantage of the campsite facilities (i.e. didn't leave until noon), we parked at the road end above Newtonmore, conveniently situated for the next hill I wanted to tackle. In between squally showers my objective sat in the sunshine...

Not long after I took this snap Bertie was being violently rocked by the wind and absolutely lashed by rain

...but I had to conclude that my shins were just too sore to tackle it on that day.

By the end of Monday, Tuesday's weather forecast was pretty abysmal, but there was a window of 'not so bad' so I got up early and grabbed it for my walk up Creag Liath (which I've written further about on http://gayleybird.blogspot.com/2019/10/creag-liath-nh663007-743m.html?m=1).

Summit selfie

It was raining (again!) by the time I got back from that outing and, with a few brief pauses, continued on throughout the day and night and into Wednesday. Indoor activities prevailed.

Wednesday saw us return to Invernahavon Caravan Site. Ideally, we wouldn't have returned there until Thursday, so that we could service Bertie's tanks on Friday before we left, but the timing was dictated by the fact that Wednesday was the last night before the site closed for the season. As rain pattered down, it was another afternoon of mainly indoor activities, broken by taking a run along the cycle route adjacent to (and a bit lower than) the A9.

The only other hills on my 'to do' list in this area are bigger than I would feel inclined to tackle in the current weather, so I came up with a more weather-appropriate activity for Thursday: a visit to the Highland Folk Museum. We'd run past it last Sunday, as it sits between Newtonmore and Kingussie, but it wasn't until I visited their website that I came to appreciate how big the site is (a mile from end to end, so they say).

1700s Township, in the drizzle

Whilst it's a large open-air site, with a good selection of buildings (ranging from a 1700s Township at one end to a 1930s croft at the other, with a baker's dozen of other buildings in between (none of which is a bakery!)), it only took us just shy of 2.5 showery hours to feel that we had seen (and via the guidebook, read about) everything. For two people with a strong track record of spending hours longer than the average visitor in museums, that was a quick visit, but it was an enjoyable and worthwhile diversion in our day. I'd recommend dropping in if you happen to be passing.

Part of the middle section of the site. The Lewis Blackhouse was one of the exhibits here, but due to the timing of the rain, I didn't get a snap of it.

A chunk of Wednesday evening had been spent poring over maps, trying to find a route for Sunday that met a particular set of parameters. As a result of that activity, and a set of messages that bounced back and forth with the other interested party, Thursday afternoon saw us parked up in Kincraig for a run along the Badenoch Way. It turned out that it didn't meet Sunday's requirements, but it was a lovely (if lumpy!) route through forest, up above the river.

Path through the woods

A view that I would have captured better if it hadn't been a hastily grabbed snap mid run.

Via a visit to the chapel that sits almost hidden on a rise above Loch Insh, we returned to Bertie just in time for the rain to start again in earnest.

By this morning (Friday) the banks of the Spey had proved too low to hold back the quantity of water now rushing down river, and yet still the rain fell, albeit with some brief pauses during which the occasional glimpse of a snippet of blue sky was seen.

With a need for a substantial restocking of groceries, it was up to Aviemore that we headed first thing. There's a lot of development going on there at the moment, with a new hotel being built next to the roundabout at the southern entrance to the town, and another site being cleared north of Tesco that a local chap told us is earmarked for another chain hotel (Premier Inn?). There's also a new retail park, which benefitted us in two respects: an Aldi, and plentiful parking with a 3-hour limit. Within 2 hours, we had shopped, walked through town, browsed various outlets and were ready to move on again.

As I type this we are at the rendezvous point for this weekend's meet-up, however, there is no phone signal here, so having typed all this it will now sit and patiently wait for the opportunity to be posted.

Wednesday 2 to Sunday 6 October: to and around Newtonmore (Scotland)

Prologue

At the point of Bertie rolling off the Channel Tunnel Shuttle back on to British soil on 3 September our intention was to stay at home until Christmas. By the time we reached the M25, we’d decided to go away for October. That decision didn’t vary in the intervening month although the ‘plan’ (insofar as we do plan these things) was subject to some alterations, starting with the decision to attend the TGO Challenge Scottish Reunion in Newtonmore this weekend.

Wednesday 2 October – Sunday 6 October

“Are you on speed?!” Mick asked me on Wednesday morning. It was a question posed with bemusement having witnessed me leap out of bed just before the alarm to start rushing around like a woman possessed.

I kept my focus as I fulfilled all of the pre-trip jobs that couldn’t be completed further in advance together with those I couldn’t find the enthusiasm to do in the rain the day before and, once finished, I adjudged that I had just shy of 30 minutes spare, taking into account the need to shower and have breakfast. That gave me time for a quick (in both senses of the word) run. I timed it just right and a minute before our ‘we want to be away by’ time of 9.30am Bertie’s tyres rolled onto the road (would have been two minutes if I hadn’t left without my phone on the first departure attempt!).

After a visit to Ma-in-Law in Halifax and a couple of night-stops en-route (one we’ve used before, one we hadn’t) we arrived in Newtonmore around lunchtime on Friday, our purpose there being the TGO Challenge Reunion weekend.

 

There was also a brief stop at the Falkirk Wheel so I could take a run along the Forth & Clyde. The only other two occasions I’ve set foot on this tow path (in 2008 and 2010) we were walking the length of the country. Thursday’s outing was rather more modest!

We hadn’t made any decision as to where we were going to stay whilst in Newtonmore, but the vague plan was to use the village car park during the day before driving to an undecided ‘elsewhere’ to overnight. The spanner in the works was finding that the car park has become subject to general prohibition* on vehicles ‘adapted or manufactured for the purpose of sleeping’.

What to do? Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone (i.e. day and night parking)? On the basis that we would be eating and drinking there for the next two nights, we asked the Balavil Hotel whether we could stay in their car park. ‘No’, came the answer, because the hotel was fully booked and the car park is small, but it was quickly followed by a ‘but’.

Climbing over the reception desk (I’m sure there must be a proper entrance somewhere!), a very nice man called Fraser took us outside and pointed to a house just up the road and said “I live there” he said “You can park on my drive.”

What a star! What utter kindness!

Friday afternoon was spent in the bar (not in a raucous way: Mick was restrained; I don’t drink) chatting to various Challengers as they arrived, following which we adjourned to the dining room with Martin & Sue for dinner. A relatively early night would have been had, as we’d all complained of tiredness, except that Mick & I hadn’t yet done the crossword and it turned out to be a tricky one. It was thus later than intended by the time we pulled Bertie’s bed down into the sleeping position and crawled in, under multiple blankets given the weather forecast (we’d already had one frost, on the first night of the trip).

On Saturday I woke at 4am with a tummy ache, which I feared was going to scupper the day’s planned activities, but by 8.30, when we were due to meet Martin & Sue, I was tired but otherwise felt fine.

M&S kindly provided us with transport to Aviemore parkrun, where Mick got a shout-out for it being his 50^th such run and for laying claim to the longest time taken between 1^st and 50^th parkrun (a title I initially claimed at Christmas last year) at 12 years and 11 months.

In the pre-run brief it was asserted that Aviemore is the most scenic parkrun in the UK and based on others in which I have participated, I can’t dispute the claim. It really was lovely. If I’d had my phone on me, I would have stopped to take photos. As it goes, I’ll just pop in this one that I’ve stolen from Martin’s blog. It tickled me how Mick and Sue are standing there in their short shirt-sleeves, whereas I’m wearing multiple layers, a hat and gloves and still look like I’m freezing (which I was – it was 4 degrees out. I did take the jacket off before the start.):

 

Post-run coffees/cake at the local cafe preceded a quick change back in Newtonmore, before M&S drove us a few miles south to the west side of a Marilyn up which none of us had before been. A pleasing hill, with excellent views, including of the wet weather approaching from the south. That rain held off until we were back in Newtonmore, whereupon it arrived and stayed for around 18 hours.

Four happy hikers on a windy summit

The formal TGO Challenge Reunion events took place on the Saturday evening, with a three-course meal and a charity raffle. With 48 people at the meal and 20 raffle prizes available, the chances of winning were good. We donated an Ordnance Survey quiz book and came away with a box of Green & Black’s chocolate, which seemed a good exchange to me – and Cairngorm Mountain Rescue team benefited to the tune of £210 too.

(Phew, nearly caught up. Anyone still with me?)

That brings us to today, which started at 7am with an exchange of messages agreeing a half-hour delay to the time we intended to meet M&S for a run, in the hope that the rain would have eased a little by then, per the forecast. Ease it did, such that it was light rain that accompanied us on the outward leg of our out-and-back to Kingussie. I think it had finally stopped by the time we got back, although I can’t say at what point it did finally fizzle out.

Bertie provided a venue for post-run coffee and pastries, whereafter it felt like time to vacate Fraser’s driveway. We didn’t come far, opting for the more expensive Invernahavon campsite, rather than Spey Bridge, on the basis that there’s hardstanding here. After 18 hours of rain, parking on grass wasn’t an appealing option.

We have another rendezvous with friends arranged for next weekend, but in the meantime all plans are fluid, depending on weather and inclination. I’ll report back in a few days…

 

(*I can understand banning such vehicles at night, but why can a tourist in a car stop there whilst doing touristy things in the village, but a tourist in a motorhome (even one that fits within a single parking space) cannot? We could have parked on the road immediately outside the almost-empty car park, right opposite two houses, which was a tempting option.)