Thread: Ramblings from the UK.

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Tuesday 25th May.

Two fine days in a row!
Someone must've pulled the cork and let the genie out of the bottle!

The girls took James' car and headed to Kirkwall for a Girls' Shopping day.
James wasn't feeling too crash-hot after yesterday's excursion/exertion so decided to blob for a bit to catch up on e-mails etc.
Charlie also spent time on the pooter; working out accommodation for us upon our return to Scotland, while I swotted up a book I'd bought the other day about Orkney in general.
Truly fascinating...a history that predates Egyptians, Greeks, Aztecs...and they've got the artefacts to prove it.

James surfaced around 10:00, so we headed out to Warkmile (sp) Cove, they took the dog for a walk down on the beach while I stayed in the car swotting my book.
On again to Kirkwall for lunch, where I ordered tomato soup and a sandwich,
It duly arrived, I took one look and said: That doesn't look like tomato soup.
"No, We've run out of tomato; that's onion."
Splutter! Onions, celery, leeks are anathema to me; get that shit out of my sight! (Leeks are the worst...just the smell of them and I'm dry-retching...can't help it.)
"Oh. So what do you want to replace the soup?"
Squid rings.
Which duly arrived...after James and Charlie had finished their meals. They were squid rings, not onion rings, but they'd been cooked in the same vat as onion rings...betcha boots...I could taste it...not good.
And then they had the temerity to try to charge for my soup?!?!
Yeah right!

Okay...backtrack a bit to Tankerness and Rerwick Head, the site of gun emplacements protecting Scapa Flow during WWII.
We wandered around here for more than two hours, raising more questions than we could supply answers.
I must try to find out more about (relatively modern) land-based defensive gunnery architecture.

Then headed back toward Kirkwall. I had noticed a dead tractor farm opposite the airport the other day that had a pretty cool looking Fergy 35X in front of the main building; so when Charlie said "Shall we call in?" I couldn't say 'No.'
Crikey am I glad we did! The owner, Stevie Ross, gets his main source of income from honouring guarantees on and servicing JCB equipment in the Orkneys...but the man's crazy. He's an idiot. In the nicest possible way. A man after my own heart. One helluva decent bloke with a wicked sense of humour. I could get on well with this fella.
Charlie had to come and virtually prise us apart so as to get back in to town to meet the girls.
(During our conversation Stevie told me that there are only fifteen dairy farms still extant on Mainland Orkney...there's just no money in it anymore.)

But Stevie had given me an important contact name and number in Kirkwall; a fella who can supply brand new 35X body panels. Imagine that...a Kiwi comes to Orkney, (of all places,) meets a fella who knows a fella, who can supply impossible to source obsolete tractor parts manufactured in Belgium, (of all places,) and can ship them to me.
Home | Electrical Suppliers | Kirkwall | Derek Ryrie UK
Of all the improbable scenarios; this one takes the biscuit.
Jane and James were very patient with me while I found Derek Ryrie's place of work and ordered the parts I need...thanks people; much appreciated!

O frabjous day, calloo callay...one very happy Kiwi kid went back to the hotel.

Wednesday 25th May.

Charlie and Christine have a car load with the dog taking up all the space behind the back seat, so we've been travelling with Jane and James. Today's our last day in Orkney, so around 10:00 we departed the hotel, headed for a last look at Kirkwell, for the girls to do a last bit of window shopping. Backfired a bit; I found some cheap Dark Island beer at a 'Closing Down Retirement Sale', so bought their entire stock at less than two quid a bottle...three bottles for five quid.

Headed for Sturmness and the ferry, and saw the first lot so far of paddock grazing dairys, a herd of about 180 mainly fresian with some jersey cross...good looking well conditioned animals too.

Lunch at the Ferry Inn, and a wander around the town, the headed for the ferry, departing Hamnavoe at 5:00. Heading out of the harbour I noted more defensive positions both sides of the entrance, on Mainland Orkney and Graemsay Island. They would've (obviously) been there on our arrival but I hadn't realised then what they were.

Arrived Scrabster 6:15, and headed for the Melvich Hotel at Portskerra 6:15.

Civilisation! (Sort of!) There was room to walk down both sides of the bed, which was itself a proper King-size, not two singles pushed together with a trough where the two mattresses met, the lighting was adequate, (not great...but adequate,) and there was room to get dressed in the shower/toilet area without knocking things off shelves or into the basin.

And the meal was alright too.
All good.

Thursday 26th May.

Departure again about 10:00, Charlie turned off a few miles back up the road from Port Skerra, and headed to Helmsdale across a road reminiscent of our Gentle Annie (Taihape to Napier,) fifty years ago, Single lane pretty well all the way, no fences to the sides, with the occasional fence at right angles to the road , going for miles in each direction and a cattle stop (grid) in the road itself. Even the terrain was of a similar nature; with high ranges towering over the valleys.

Arrived Helmsdale and it was time for morning tea...3/4 of an hour before we got mobile again.

Followed the east coast down for several miles, (a reversal of our trip up to Orkney,) to Inverness.

And went looking for a 'Nessie' (the Loch Ness Monster) tee shirt for bathy's boy Ross. What a bloody Mission! Round and round in circles looking for a park, eventually succeeded, then had to walk up and down bloody hills to get back to the shops!
And then had to search the shops. Found a couple eventually, and bought them for him...Crikey Gary, if Ross doesn't like these bloody shirts I'm gonna rip his arm off and beat him over the head with the wet end!
(Just jokin' mate; just jokin'. Don't scare the poor wee bugger!) But we drove out two hours after entering the place.

Headed out of Inverness looking for a munchy by now; so Charlie stopped at the first place out of town: The Dairy at Daviot. So lunch was at 3:30 today.
Quite a flash place; with a large playground with swings, slides, trampoline, moon-hoppers etc for kids to entertain themselves, while the ground was covered with large machine-masticated chunks of rubber chip.
Left here about 4:30 and headed for the Ailean Chraggan Hotel at Aberfeldy for the night.

Arriving about 6:30.

Lots of wide open empty country out there on that first leg to Helmsdale; bet'cha it's good for sky watching on a clear night.

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Originally Posted by Rrumbler

Lots of wide open empty country out there on that first leg to Helmsdale; bet'cha it's good for sky watching on a clear night.

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Yep; I'd say you'd be right.
With 'clear night' being the operative words; they're pretty few and far between it seems
And you'd have to get to the top of the hills to do it; and that in itself could turn in to a bit of a mission. The hills and valleys here were formed by glacial action in the last ice age and are therefore pretty (understatement) steep and unstable, with screes of loose metal that would be as unstable as a box of frogs.
But the view from the top would be magnificent when you got there; with an absolute minimum of light pollution.

Friday 27th May.

Departed Aileen Chraggan Hotel around 9:30 and headed for the 'Scottish Antiques and Arts Centre at Doune', a rather large complex between Doune and Collander. Not really my cup of soup, nor Rosie's. On a scale of 1 to 10 antiques would be about 2.5 - 3 for both of us. And Art?...it would hardly make the scale at all.
Never mind...just 'cos we're interested in the old stuff as is up in the Orkneys doesn't mean we're interested in old stuff from 1910. Them's the breaks.
Morning tea here; but not for me...just a cuppa will do thanks.

Then on to Workhouse Kitchen Station at Stirling, arriving about 2:15 for lunch. Okay, I'm a bit peckish now; I'll have a bowl of soup (carrot and orange; surprisingly tasty,) and a couple of slices of toast.
While the others were eating I wandered about and bought myself a few beers from the 'Fallen Brewing Co.' called 'First Class Rendezvous Porter'.

Finally arrived at Charlie and Christine's at Ruh at around 4:15.

Repacked cars, transferring all of our gear into Jane and James' car, and set out for their place at Killbride, arriving about 6:00.

They've been gradually renovating their house over the last few years and have done a magnificent job; hardly recognisable as the Head Groom's quarters they started with.
Well done indeed.

Saturday 28th May.

James is looking at building a retaining wall alongside a couple of banks he excavated during renovations. I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to tell him what to do; but I could (and did,) relate our experiences with building retaining walls, and what traps there were for the unwary.
He's okay for backfill; he'd thought ahead and stockpiled all the fill he'd excavated, the man's no fool...he knew he'd need it again.
He also mentioned that he's got a lot of used bricks that are going to require a lot of work cleaning to remove old mortar.

"Ummm...no. They're not a lot of work; there's an easy way. Put your bricks in a plastic 60 litre fish-bin, fill with water, and pour in a half a cup or less of nitric acid. It's relatively cheap, and readily available from hydroponic gardening supply stores. Leave for three or four days, remove the bricks, and the mortar will just about fall off. Replace them with another load of bricks, and replenish the acid when it stops working.
Easy as. Just be careful not to splash even the diluted acid, and wear gloves; this stuff itches like an armpit full of fleas if you get it on your skin."
It's still not a fast job; but it's a helluva lot faster and easier than chipping away with a hammer and chisel.

He also told me that due to regulations he must build a ramp for wheelchair-bound people to gain access to the house before the alterations will be signed off.
And we thought our regulations were petty and preposterous...sheesh!
I took a walk over there ranch, at tops it would be about three acres total; but there's a lot of potential here to transform it into something really outstanding...and they're well on their way to doing just that.
There's been a lot of thought gone into this place already.

She cooked her famous corn and cheese chowder for lunch, (it went down well,) and got nearly three weeks worth of washing done.

A day off touring; just played catchup.

All good.

Ruh where Charlie and Christine live is that an abbreviation for town or village as I can't find it on goggle earth Johnboy ? I have managed to find most places you have mentioned and am really enjoying your story telling etc.

Ruh is an area within a suburb.
Just as Ava or Randwick are areas (perhaps 'villages' would be a better term,) in Petone, which is a suburb of Lower Hutt, which is, in turn, lumped in to the greater Wellington area; so Ruh is an area in the suburb of Helensborough, which is part of the greater Glasgow area.

Just a dot on the map.

Sunday 29th May.

Bank Holiday Weekend.
Scotland is closed...the entire UK is closed.

Went and sussed out timetables etcetera for a ferry trip to Arran to-morrow.

Today is Jane's birthday, and Friday was their neighbour Ian's, both of them turning fifty.
So a celebratory party was in order.
These Scotties don't muck around with beer at their parties; it's straight in to the Scotch Whiskey. I was the only beer drinker there...and I reckon I was the most sober out of the lot of them too...even Granny downed a few bucket sized glasses of Pims.

A great evening's entertainment.

Monday 30th May.

Decided there wasn't much point in heading across the water to Arran; everything (apart from the tourist traps,) would be closed for Bank Holiday. So spent most of the morning on the pooter working out (with a lot of input from both Jane and James) our next step into the Lakes District and how to best organise our run to Maison Goose.

Okay: rental car is organised and paid for, (that had to be done through their agency at Glasgow Airport, the only agency that was open,) railway tickets from York to Kings Cross (returning the car at York Railway Stn.,) are booked and paid for, (through the interweb; never spoke to a human,) arriving Tuesday 7th June around 2:00 pm, then tube to St Pancras, change to Green District Line to Paddington, getting off at Southfields.
With a taxi from there to Goose's place.
And our first night's accommodation at Travelodge Carlisle M6 (CA 40 NT) is booked and paid for too.

So that part is pretty well organised...until some bastard throws a spanner in the works. (I've found it pays to always look on the bright side.)

I also got on to https://uk.yahoo.com/ and found some of the major attractions in the area that had appeal for us...there's an awful lot out there (and this is just in the immediate Lakes District,) to see!
So hopefully we're pretty well organised for the next few days.

Late arvo we decided to take a bit of a break, and a last look around the area; so we all headed in to Ardrossen for a drink and an ice-cream down by the port.

"What's your darkest beer?"
He tried to give me a cider...yeah right!
"No; darkest beer," speaking slowly so that he could understand proper English properly pronounced and enunciated.
He indicated a tap beer.
"Okay; I'll have a half pint."
It was bloody horrible...an IPA, too sweet and too light.
But I drank it.
One whiskey, (with water,) two diet Cokes, one half-pint IPA beer, and four ice-cream sundaes cost me nearly fifty quid. Around NZ$100...and I wasn't going to waste that!

All in all not a bad day.

Tuesday 31st May.

Our last day at Kilbride with Jane and James. We're going to miss these two buggers; they're both great company.

Jane had to work, so we went with James to Ayr to pick up the rental car we'd organised yesterday...and found we'd been upgraded to a 2014 Vauxhall Zafira Courier CDTI people mover. But...it has no GPS; and I'm not going anywhere without one of those puppies.
The car wasn't quite ready, so in the interim we shot around to an electrics store and bought ourselves a Tom-tom.
Back to the rental car people, (Enterprise,) plugged the GPS in, James said he'd lead us through the first few roundabouts to ensure we at least started in the right direction; then he'd leave us to it.
Thanks mate! Your blood's worth bottling!

Got to the first roundabout, indicated a right turn...and the bloody windscreen wipers started flapping at full steam across the screen in front of me!
I'm trying to turn them off on one side, indicators on on the other side, steer the car, keep aware of other traffic and the lane I'm in...
Crikey!
The only other vehicle I've met with indicators left, wipers right, was a Russian Lada!
But we made it around safely.
James pulled off, we carried on, (thanks for that mate!) heading for Eastriggs.

Stopped for a munchy around 1:00 at a wee place called Carsphairn, where the local store, take-away, and Post Office was temporarily working out of the local village hall.
But they still managed to rustle up a great feed for both of us at a very reasonable price.
(My auto spell-check is having a field day with these Scottish names!)
On again, getting closer to Eastriggs, and we both spotted a wee cemetery on the right.
"That's it!"
U turn, parked up...and yes; it was.
We started at the back, where the older graves are, and worked our way forward, She on one side, me on the other. As it turned out we should've done it the other way round and started at the front; because they were fifth row in from the front on the right, on the left of that row, and at the very far end.

Rosie's Grand-parents.

Eventually left, and headed for Travelodge at Carlisle on the M6 CA40NT.
We did find it...but with not much help from Tom-tom.
Booked in...and who knows what to-morrow may bring?

It's all good.

June 1st? still got your calendar set to NZ?

Oops!
Mea culpa!
You are exactly right.
At the bottom r/h side of my screen the date reads 1/06/2016.
I've got to consciously remember it's a day ahead.
Tonight?
Brain fart...remedied now.

Thanks jerry!

Wednesday 1st June.

Left Travelodge heading for a Rum Museum at Whitehaven. Lucy. the gps, played silly games for a while by refusing to recognise anywhere we plugged in; instead just showing the position of the car at the moment. We finished up pulling off the road entirely and going through the rigmarole right from square one about three time before the message finally sank in.

I noticed that the local farmers are busy harvesting their spring surplus growth as silage, whereas the cockies in the Orkneys are only now shifting their cows outside. These fella's season must be six to ten weeks ahead of Orkney.
Got to Whitehaven eventually...and then spent about half an hour driving around and around the place looking for somewhere to park...every time I saw one the car two or three in front of me pulled into it.

Bugger this for a game of soldiers; we'll wipe this one off the list and head for the Beatrix Potter Centre.

Lucy was behaving now; so off we went. About five miles along the road and we saw a sign saying 'Museum of Mining', thought: "That sounds interesting", so swung off the road to investigate, and almost immediately passed a hotel boasting a Coffee Shop. That sounds even more interesting as it's about time for tucker, so did a U turn and headed back.
Came over the top of a slight rise, there was one helluva BANG, the car did a wobble...we'd had a blow-out.
Thankfully it was a quiet rural road and at about 25-30 mph.
These are 'drive-flat' tyres (I know; 'cos I'd queried the lack of a spare when we picked the car up,) so limped back to the hotel car park...about 100 yards.
The nice lady at the hotel rang the car hire people, they told her to ring AA Breakdown, which she did, and they said they'd have a man there in about half an hour.
Yeah right!
Hour and a half more like.
But on the bright side we'd had a very good lunch by then...bacon, chicken, and cheese in a toasted roll...bloody gorgeous.
The AA man eventually showed; they have various discs with various stud patterns drilled through them,; but all have protruding studs to suit their (AA's) spare tyre.
But...such was the offset on their rim it jammed into the disc-pad mounts...didn't fit.
So he tried it on a rear tyre...nah...same thing.
So nothing for it but to mount the car on a dolly and tow it back to civilisation.
Which was Kendal; over an hour's drive away...where it was all fixed (at no cost to us,) and we were back on the road by 4:30...in a strange town we knew nothing about...looking for reasonably priced accommodation for two for the night...during rush hour.
Sheesh!
It got a bit fraught. (Understatement.)
But we found one...the County Hotel Kendal.
Sixty-five quid a night including brekky...but no wifi.
Ah well; beggars can't be choosers...we took it.
Saw a lot of countryside but no 'sights' and yet the whole day was filled.

I'd prefer to carry a spare tyre myself; and save myself from this sort of hassle/aggravation/irritation...I'd have been back on the road inside twenty minutes tops...

Bah humbug!