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

My last day in Scotland was magnificent. We went to a very remote glen where two ancient iron age brochs nestled amongst glorious scenery and lovely old trees that danced. The road had a 14% gradient and switchbacks, and I wondered how I would do riding on it, since the surface was very gravelly. At a vista point in the middle of nowhere we had a picnic, and I photographed the snowman that had been built there by some previous lunatic touring Scotland in February.

We travelled over moors and a series of glens, and as we rounded each corner the landscape got more stunning. The mountains were snow covered and looked like iced buns. We got a look across a loch to Skye. News of the week is that the toll is now removed from the bridge, as it has paid for itself. I don’t know that I’ve seen the Skye bridge, though I’ve been over there on a ferry.

It was a wonderful way to end my time there, and out of the wind it was quite mild, with stuff budding and getting ready for spring.

I flew south the next day. The next few days are a blur…a lot going on. I met another friend, “Taliesin”, and we did a day trip in Cambridge. I ran out of steam but enjoyed exploring the fantastic old buildings and magnificent bookshops. I stayed the last several days in Hitchin and got to go on snarfari. It has its own system of plaques and I got many of them, Taliesin grew up there and took me to a bunch of places I never saw while the snow quietly came down.

On my last night, Talitha’s erstwhile room mate Pete invited us over for a bonfire, and it was grand. I met some new people, some of whom I understand actually liked me and I can come back, so that’s okay.

And so it goes. I flew home on a busy flight, and listened to lots of music. Meanwhile, I recover from the jetlag of doom, and leave you for now. I will be back in this journal at the end of March/beginning of April as I prepare for my ride (or flight) to Texas.

The train to Cambridge.

The back of the house in Hitchin where I stayed: a snarf in its own right.

The plane to California.

If you can’t figure out which is which, I will help you pick out some
new glasses or a therapist. ;-)

Well, I’m safe in Hitchin with my wonderful friend Talitha. It’s good to stop travelling for a while and just be comfortable. :-)

Am borrowing a computer so really don’t have much time to update, but will post a summary, probably when I get back home.

I love Hitchin.

I made it through security and stuff ok. I’m happy to report that unlike Luton, the departures lounge at this little place does have a BT wireless connection
i can use.

I’m waiting for my plane. The boarding card says it’s 30 minutes late and the website says it’s 20 minutes early. I’m going to look at an airport screen in a minute.

Ta-ta for now. Will write up yesterday’s fantastic trip some other time. Am leaving Scotland with a smile and a memory of wonderful snow covered mountains and red deer galore. :-)

I’m leaving Scotland on Tuesday, and my time is likely to be limited online after that point. Also, I won’t be so much touring as spending time researching and writing, as well as visiting and chatting with friends. So if you don’t hear much after Tuesday, that’s why. I return to the USA on the 21st of February.

Friday 11th

The weather’s been wild and windy all weekend, really. Dad took me out for a short drive in the morning; we first visited an ancient burial mound which is just round the corner. What a wonderful site…it is just behind some residential estate, but the silence is almost complete. The mound rises up from the forest floor, and at the top is an old yew tree, gnarly and interesting. You can still see the stones which covered it - until recently the place was overgrown - and get a sense of what it was like. I could have sat there and contemplated the nature of the universe for quite some time…

I love still, ancient places like this…I always have. I remember on one of my earliest trips to Scotland the fascination I had for them. I was crawling inside ancient burial mounds when I was nine.

We went to Strathpeffer for a better look around this time. There were a few daffs in bloom, and the odd blackthorn with white flowers. Took a look at the old buildings and went to say hello to the eagle stone, an ancient Pictish symbol stone with an eagle and a horseshoe on it. I took lots of pictures of the country lane and its flora, and then loved with a very friendly little cat which showed up, tail straight up in the air, to be paid its due respects. ;-)

In the afternoon, we went to meet Mam’s friends Ann and Archie. I did enjoy the visit. They’re both well-educated, interesting and have a sense of humour. My parents enjoy their company. I had a bit of trouble managing their steep driveway in my heels though. ;-)

The Weekend

I spent almost the whole weekend with my brother, sister in law and the girls. It was fun, a change of pace; I took books with me. We caught up on one another and chatter, but the weather was literally foul and we didn’t go anywhere on a trip. We did, however, play ten pin bowling. I was unutterably bad at it, but I did score a flukish strike, which I could hardly believe. It was a hoot though. I got a kick from the decor being a scene of the Las Vegas strip. ;-) (The pyramid is a dead giveaway. ;-)

Beyond that it was chat, watching films (I loved Shrek 2!), waiting for and watching the snow, shopping, watching Bethany do brilliant stuff with The Sims, eating, watching Lauren twirl to Angelina Ballerina, and getting addicted to Bob the Builder. ;-) It’s interesting to me but it’s basic family stuff and not very interesting to you.

The flooding is at Bonar Bridge

The snowy hills are a view from just around the corner, in the direction of where we were heading

The falls are Shin Falls

The rest is just…a lot of weather, all within about a 6 hour period, and sometimes changing at five minute intervals. ;-)

Pancakes, British style. I’m a sugar & lemon kinda girl.

The antenna is 800′ high.

View of Cromarty harbor; check out the oil rigs lined up in a row.

The Nigg Ferry; it can carry about two cars across the Firth. It’s a
short ride but cuts a lot of time off. Nigg is where they repair the oil
rigs.

I told you it was a silly hat. The hotel behind me is a snarf. ;-) And
my ears were warm. ;-)

I woke up this morning to snow. Lots and lots of it. It snowed, then the sun came out, then it snowed, then the sun came out. So we didn’t go to Aberdeenshire, and I spent a whole morning preparing data to slide quietly into the database when I have a fast connection. Oh, and I sewed patches on my snarf bag. OK as long as you don’t inspect it too closely. ;-)

After lunch we did go out, heading in the direction of Bonar Bridge. We had a lot of weather. Rain, snow, sleet, glorious sunshine, gale force winds, rainbows, fog. It was great. Every five minutes a different weather condition. The road we took is wonderful: it’s picturesque in a totally different way to the road to Ullapool. There is a lot of vegetation and subtle colour, especially in this pre-spring season. Deciduous and evergreen trees mix and then you get bouts of moorland which are currently snow-covered. It wasn’t really a stop and explore kind of a trip, but I did take some quick pictures of the flooding at Bonar Bridge.

We arrived at Shin Falls in glorious sunshine and by the time Dad and I had finished walking down to them it was snowing again. I took scads of pictures of the mossy undergrowth and thoroughly enjoyed my little walk. I also played with the slow shutter setting on my camera with interesting and/or pretty results. I got a couple of goodies in the shop there - it’s owned by Harrods of London - and then we had to head back to make sure we arrived home in the light.

We did make a quick stop at Carbisdale Castle to snarf the Gaelic marker there, and then went to Invergordon where we got up close and personal to the gigantic oil rigs we’d seen from Cromarty. They were huger than I ever imagined, right by the shore, and with a backdrop of steel grey sky were quite imposing. I spotted a new snarf plaque and developed a technique of speed snarfing: your parent parks, then you run like crazy to not be in the cold as much as you can, dodging the driving rain, take your pictures in five seconds flat, then run like crazy back to the car.

I hear that Camilla and Charles are about to wed. About darn time, IMO. Here’s hoping it will be a happier match and when the media is done with them they can still handle the whole thing with grace.

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.

This was primarily an errands kind of day…in the morning we went to fetch eggs from the egg ladies. I stayed in the car with Dad until I finally succumbed and got out to take pictures of the nifty trees. Nothing runs rapidly in Scotland but the water, but apparently one always learns something new when talking to the egg ladies. Meanwhile, the behaviour of the free range chickens reminded me what “pecking order” really means.

We took a series of single track roads down to Dingwall, where my parents bumped into yet another acqutaintance. I had to dash to the loo; there is something about the cold air that has that effect. ;-)

Some shopping later, with my Cadbury’s Buttons addiction suitable assuaged, we went to our last errand, which was to go to the San Francisco Music Box company. In the middle of nowhere - quite literally - is a little farm where a Yorkshire family has been quietly building a business for a few years now. My parents’ first visit there was because of my amusement at the link with SF on my first trip to Scotland in 2001; they’ve been taking people up there ever since. I am delighted at the way they’ve expanded and grown and seem to be doing well.

We ended up chatting for a good while and I introduced them to Markeroni. We compared notes about our experiences in America and running businesses and it turns out that David, the artist (it’s also a gallery of sorts) is also a bit of an animal rescue guy. They are nursing a couple of injured swans in addition to their other jobs.

My parents got me the opal necklace I requested for my birthday. It’s lovely. :-)

They sell music boxes, of course, and gifts and jewellery. I can sense an article brewing here…I have for some time now. ;-)

We came home for pancakes…it’s Pancake Day! I had a few - lemon and sugar. Mmm. For those unfamiliar with the tradition, it’s what we do before Lent: the idea is to use up all the good stuff, eggs, sugar, milk in one crazy pancake frenzy…then deprive yourself for 40 days. I won’t, but many do.

In the afternoon Anne came round with Lauren, who filled all available space for the next hour or so. She is sweet, but tiring…I get tired just watching her endless make-believe and energy. Anne got her ready for ballet and she made the cutest little picture, all that pink.

Then we had dinner and went out to Avoch, where my brother and SIL first lived when they came to Scotland. It was a dark drive and it’s hard to see with people’s tendency to carry ten million lights on their cars.

And now it’s the evening, and time to hit “send later” on this post, and tomorrow I am having my eyes tested and it’s another day.