Wednesday - Saturday 17-20 April - Home to Killin

Back in mid-January we thought we may still be able to fit in a trip to Spain. Then a tenant gave notice and factoring in the work that would be required as a result, we thought maybe we would get to France for a few weeks come early March. The work on the house expanded to fill the time available and we finally declared it complete on Tuesday afternoon (16 April) - although we did take last week off, spending two nights at the C&CC club site at Crowden (£31 per night; campsites have become awfully expensive, but on this occasion the location suited us), followed by two nights on Ma-in-Law's drive, followed by a night on a campsite almost within spitting distance of the M62 at Heywood (£25 per night - not worth it for the facilities available and the noise of the motorway). Friday night was spent parked in a road near to Martin & Sue's house (phreerunner.blogspot.com) who kindly invited us around for dinner. After running Fletcher Moss parkrun with them on Saturday morning, followed by coffee and cake at the nearby clubhouse, back home we went to tackle a lengthy to-do list in a small amount of time.

By Wednesday morning this week Bertie had been unpacked and repacked and northwards we went. Shap was our objective for the end of the day, via couple of hours in Halifax with Ma-in-Law. The journey sped by for me, as I sat in the back learning how to use a particular bit of software so as to achieve a task related to the TGO Challenge. The evening at Shap passed in the same vein until Mick finally dragged me out of the rabbit hole in which I'd become entrenched, pointing out that it was past my bedtime.

My work-on-the-road efforts continued into Thursday morning, and we were in Scotland before I finally started looking at hill-bagging.co.uk to decide what hill I was going to tackle that afternoon. Strathyre was where we found ourselves, in a community car park where we were happy to oblige the request to pay £5 per day. 

One hill was bagged in the rain on Thursday afternoon, two in mixed conditions on Friday morning. Friday's linear route involved Mick having to drive a few minutes down the road to pick me up. Bertie was probably only missing for half an hour and returned to find the only other vehicle present was now parked where Bertie had been. Fortunately there wasn't a lack of other options - it's a sizeable car park. 

With a pause just long enough for me to strip off my smelly clothes, have a flannel wash and slip into something fresh, straight over to the Broch Cafe we went for lunch. We snagged the last inside table - fortuitous timing as having been so cool on the hills all morning, I wouldn't have fancied sitting outside. 

Lunch.

I didn't find time during the rest of the afternoon to plan a hill for Saturday, so that was my first task on Saturday morning ... except that our mobile phone signal, that had been good enough to stream TV for the last two days, had mysteriously disappeared overnight. That led us to be away before breakfast, for the 10-minute drive up to Lochearnhead. The drive warmed Bertie up (it had gone down to 2 degrees overnight; Bertie's heating, set to 7 degrees, had come on at 3am) and the car park in Lochearnhead had the benefit of not just a good phone signal, allowing hill research, but also some public toilets and bins. 

With hill bagged, a decision needed to be made as to where we were going to spend our final night before reaching Newtonmore tomorrow morning. That decision was made, but with the day being young, I suggested we stopped off at Killin en-route.

Continuing our quality control visits to cafes within the TGO Challenge area. Mick's Victoria Sponge was truly massive. My Boiled Fruit Loaf looked disappointing by comparison, but its flavour made up for its relative lack of size. 

We didn't then leave Killin. Given the choice between going 25 minutes further along the road to pay £7 to stay in a Forestry Commission car park, or staying here for free, staying here seemed the obvious choice. It's Bertie's second visit here, although last time Mick wasn't with me and the weather was jolly wet.