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

Checked in; I made a fateful decision to put my laptop in checked baggage. You already know what that led to.

But it sure was nice to be unburdened for a short time. Next time I will be buying hand luggage with wheels. ;-)

The departure lounge was much nicer than arrivals, and it would have been nice to get through the previous night. I called my parents to say I really was on my way, and then screen-watched until the gate was announced, and headed up. I was one of the first on the plane and got a groovy seat - second row in, window. This allowed me to enjoy the view as we flew over pretty English rolling countryside, above the clouds, and then down above the awesome Highlands with steep, grey drops and lochs nestled in the glens. It wasn’t a long flight, only an hour or so - the plane arrived some twenty minutes early, and my parents were there waiting for me. Happy reunions. :-)

Got my luggage, complete with trashed laptop screen - luckily the laptop does still work, and is now hooked up to a flat screen care of my big brother. We will have to hook it into the Borg, whoops, network when I get back, as it’s now useless as a portable and would probably cost as much to fix as to replace. I know I said I wanted a lighter one eventually, with USB but this is a kind of ridiculous way of getting my wish. ;-)

We stopped at Borders for coffee in Starbucks. It made me laugh. I come five thousand miles, and I’m snacking in Borders and Starbucks. :-) I showed off a bit by ordering the appropriate sizes and combinations. Coffee-buying used to be simple in my youth. ;-)

We took a slightly long way round so that I could remember some of the local scenery, which I did. It’s full-blown Fall here, and the trees are glorious: all copper and red and yellow, their leaves spiralling slowly to the ground as you drive along. I have never been to Scotland at this time of year before, so it’s novel and beautiful and there is a lot of it.

After that we came home and I settled in. I eventually sorted out which doors went to actual rooms and which go to closets. There are lots of doors here, and a pretty view out of the back window, and a bird table out front from which I’ve seen a great many familiar faces: great, blue and coal tits, robins, blackbirds, thrushes, dunnocks and sparrows, collared doves, greenfinches and chaffinches. It’s great to be in a place where I recognise the wild birds.

The house is on the edge of farmland, and in the background is a woodland where you can wander around if you want. There are “sausage” hay bales in the field, and every morning so far there has been a different scene for me to enjoy. Sunrise tends to be pale here, at least in my limited experience, and the first morning when I woke up around seven or so, there was frost on the ground and a bit of ghostly mist. I went out into the garden and left footprints gratuitously in the frosty grass. ;-)

2nd November

In the morning we headed to Dingwall, local shopping centre and source of plaques and war memorials for Markeroni. Dad and I went wandering about while Mam did what she had to. It was cold and crisp, but dry. The buildings there are old and functional, made of grey stone; there‘s Victorian influence, but nothing too ornate. It still amuses me that *everything* there is in some wise older than California’s statehood.

We nipped into a newsagent’s where I bought postcards and, on a whim, a box of fireworks and some sparklers. These are the first fireworks I’ve ever bought, so I guess I am all grown-up now. Allegedly. ;-)

They were stored in an ice-cream freezer. Growing up, all you could get were Standard fireworks, but these are called Cosmic, and I got the Mars boxed set. For ten pounds I got nearly two dozen fireworks and two packets of sparklers, and they turned out to be a bargain. More about that later.

We had to go over to Rosemarkie to babysit Lauren, my nearly-four-year-old niece. My sister in law, Anne, was heading off to work and Ian, my brother, was doing work-related stuff away from home. It was nice to see Anne, however briefly. The afternoon was spent in entertaining a very happy little girl who accepted me immediately and without question, meeting my older niece briefly between school and Brownies (Bethany is nine now) and writing postcards. Then we had tea, and went home.

I’m missing out all the conversations and catchings up. They’re personal, and not really interesting to anyone else. There is still no broadband in the Highlands, so uploading photographs takes an awfully long time. But I do download my piccies, and write a bit, and have already written two travel articles with many more ideas coming to mind. This place gives me enough space to just be, and the creativity comes flooding back. It’s great. :-)

Just a few random posts

• Setting boundaries (4)
• Photo of the Week: Addiction (0)
• 29 November 2003 (0)
• Lush (4)
• Setting out (transcribed) (0)

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