Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Feb 10, 2005

09 February - Inverness and Cromarty

Filed in Britain 2005 (1), Travel

Got up early this morning so we could go down to Inverness. The rush hour is a source of smiles for me. You get that much traffic in Sunnyvale at maybe midnight. ;-)

We wandered around the rather bitterly cold city for a short while until it was time for my eye appointment. I had my eyes tested for the first time in eight years (shame on me). The optometrist was very thorough and interesting to chat to. Once he realised I was a geek of sorts, he commented on all the ways that his software could have been made better. ;-)

My new glasses will be waiting for me in Hitchin. They are rounded, but smaller. I think they suit me, but I’m sure someone will tell me if they don’t. ;-) I am considering contact lenses, so it’s just a stop gap.

We went looking around and shopping, though I wasn’t in a buying kind of mood. Found several new plaques and a stone set into the market cross which we’d totally missed before. The stone, by tradition, was where people came to wash their laundry and was a meeting point. So it’s a snarf (stone) within a snarf (market cross) next to a snarf - the town hall. ;-)

It was just too cold to be looking for landmarks - the kind of bitter, biting cold where you need to take your gloves off to press the camera shutter, and get camera shake because they freeze instantly and you shiver. I located the local Starbucks (i.e. the local wireless hotspot ;-) and topped up my mobile phone. A wry and tired looking clerk commented that I now had another piece of plastic to add to my collection. Over here, pay as you go is much more common than contracts, and there is a lot more choice in the service providers and deals. One way of topping up is to get a card which has a bar code and is linked to your phone, and you add money at various points, like the supermarket. IMO it’s a lot more sane than the monthly contracts you’re bound to in the States, but then the British are more sensible in some ways and wouldn’t stand for nonsense like that. ;-)

On the way home we stopped in PC World and once I finally tracked down a sales critter I got more flash memory. It was annoyingly pricy but by the time I had done with Cromarty I had 64 new pictures, so I guess it was worth it. (I could only get 40 on my 128 MB flash memory card; yes, I’m talking majorly high resolution and big file sizes here ;-)

We came home for lunch and then Dad and I went out to Cromarty. The goal was to retake some pictures at a reasonable resolution. It was darker today but not as stormy, so the light was not the same. You can stand in the same place but you never get the same picture twice. So, I will show the pictures to Ms. Shendoah and if she likes, we’ll talk about getting prints made. ;-)

I got a bunch of other pictures too - it was a photography trip - and my dad spotted a snarf that I missed, and I got to visit a snarf I’d seen before but we’d never stopped at. And there was much rejoicing, and wearing of thick woollen gloves and silly pointy hats. I also got to see the little two-car ferry that goes across to Nigg, and lots of interesting and cool stuff on the harbour.

It was a nice trip out.

We also stopped by the gigantic antenna where Dad’s ham radio gang has a beacon, and gawped at the thing. It’s 700′ above sea level and towers a further 800′. I was taking pictures both for Don and for myself, and was suitably impressed. I have now fulfilled all requests for taking pictures and am quite happy. ;-)

Tomorrow we are heading off to the Aberdeenshire area, which is new for me. We look at the weather forecast and decide where it’s least likely to be horrible. ;-) Right now we have rain and wind lashing at the windows. And I am getting ready for bed; I will send this and hole up in my cave and go to sleep.