smatterings

Yesterday was a bad day for shortcuts. Driving back from Portsmouth I took the road I shouldn't have. I suppose you could say it was, much to my chagrin, the road more travelled. My parents snoozed away, exhausted from their holiday, and unaware of my navigation errors. Mom woke up in time to give me another shortcut, which turned out to be nothing of the sort. Thrown by this I made an equally bad decision and the final 5 miles home took 30 minutes.

This morning I untied a knot that had been tied for 12 years and found some pics from last summer that I like but had never posted. They're from Mull - I was there for a wedding. I posted only one pic then, the first pic I'd ever posted on this blog. Anyway, I found these while doing a bit of a photo clear up. The top and the bottom are from Craignure in the South and the cow (love the cow) is on the single-track road from Craignure to Tobermory (lovely village, rubbish whisky). She was just chillin' and chewin' as we drove past, not a fence in sight. Brilliant.

I want to jump in the car and shoot back up north in great haste, doing 105 on the M6 Toll Road and breaking only for the fantastic Westmorland Farm Shop at Tebay Services. Fuelled by their amazing pies I'd stop to make the required hellos in Linlithgow, St Andrews and Balmorino and then north. I was brought up in cities and I'm comfortable in London but comfortable is dangerous and not necessarily belonging. Out north and west to Mull and Skye and Raasay, north and east to Tain and Brora, then slowly south through the middle, stopping at Kinloch Rannoch to skip their perfect pebbles on their glass loch.

This afternoon I'll be writing and cursing the weather for tempting me. Next time I'll finish the book while the weather's still shite and the summer will be my reward. The Belfry is hot in the summer, sort of like a greenhouse with no plants and more bugs. Even the birds are too hot to chirp.


PS Crushed and disappointed that Cars has opened in the States and not here. Here we must wait until 28/7. Bummer.