For Foof

You are in control of your own happiness if you choose to be - no matter what. I’m reading a self help book. Not because I was looking for one, but because it came into my hands and is written by a Lochaber man. He is telling me the same kind of stuff my mum used to - ‘energy breeds energy’ for one. A particular favourite of my mums was “if you want something done, ask a busy person”.
There is no doubt I’ve got lazier and lazier as I’ve got older. I also spend a lot of time saying ‘I’m not really an artist” despite going to Art School, and “I’m not really a runner” despite running in 14 Ben Nevis races. Which is kind of true as I have never consisterly trained (or painted). And as a result neither of those activities have ever been built into my routines.
In the book, he would say to write down your values and what you want to be. The White Witch of the East has been saying that to me for years. In fact she painted it in my shed many years ago….

But I still don’t say it. So today, having not run anywhere since 4th of January, I told everyone that I encountered that I was going home to run for 30 minutes no matter what the weather. Taking off warm clothes to put on less warm ones, to go outside into the cold just isn’t right. I told Foof - Ironwoman extraordinaire and beautiful person to boot, and she said I had to blog it. Would I be going with Running Girl? No. She was half way up Ben Nevis with the fit girls and had dumped me on the running front. Well, that’s not quite true. But she has given up on the persuasive front as that gets quite draining for a pal. Yesterday she took me and the dogs out for a walk. I’m not as unreliable as the dogs and I’m always first back In the van after the walk. So I’m still fine there.

Loch Lochy and Ted

Curtain of hailstones

However - she did issue a stark warning. “If you don’t start running this week, you wont be ready for the Ben Nevis race” (early September) She’s done 21 of them. She’s a past Scottish Hill Running Champion. She knows.
So - I put it out there to most of the people that I met whilst visiting the No Fuss IntroEnduro at Nevis Range. I’m hoping I didn’t come over too needy.
Once I’d gone to all the bother of putting less clothes on, I’d settled for an hour of running.

A Mink ran across my path, got a fright and dived back into the canal. The ducks got an even bigger fright.

There was light at the end of the tunnel. Once through here I turn and head for home. Just as Heron Valley’s ‘Home’ came onto my playlist.

If this doesn’t make you feel happy to be live in Scotland and lift your feet up to run a 9minute mile instead of the first 3 sluggish 12 minute ones, then maybe the power of music doesn’t do it for you.

So, Foof. I managed a very happy 5miles. Running Girl may take some of the credit, with her tough love approach. And maybe the self help book. And you Foof, because you told me to blog it. That often works.

Spa Break

Running Girl was looking a wee bit peaky last week. Clarabelle and I analysed the situation and decided she needed a break. She has worked and worked without a holiday for a long time now. I’d just had a month in NZ in the sunshine and Clarabelle is partial to weekends away in her campervan with a city break in a hotel thrown in now and again.
Breaks are not breaks if they’re not the right kind so we hatched a plan that suited our subject……….something that could be fitted in between jobs…..Weather- irrelevant

Something that we could tailor make to her requirements……

She clearly needed pampering and relaxation - at a ‘get away from it all’ destination. Yet one that wasn’t far from home.
Somewhere comfortable but not too comfortable.

Like a cave. Well - an actual cave.

Afternoon tea was 1st on the agenda once we’d got the heating on. And found somewhere to hang our clothes which were dripping from the walk in.

Pampering began in earnest - she only wanted one nail done so that didn’t take too long. I’d opted for something to ease the baggy old eyes.

I was also keen to find a cure to thinning hair which can come with getting older when I find that some of the hair on my head has relocated to my chin.

Apply for as long as you can bear and without being overcome by the worry of creepy wee beasties slipping down your simmit (vest)

As nightfall began creeping in we got the lights turned on.

And had a bite to eat before the next treatment.

We took some time to dry out some items that had got wet on the journey.

This is not as brutal as it looks. It was just to get it dry as it was my hot water bottle.

Clarabelle had brought along something to take 10 years off us…

I thought gravity wasn’t helping so I lay down for my treatment, in the hope that I might look better than them…

Ah - a bit deathly looking.

With us all looking so shocking, we thought the main good point was that should there be any visitors to the cave, they’d be more frightened than us. In fact, if we enacted a quick sacrifice, it would definitely see off intruders.

No teddy bear was harmed on this trip

We sipped some Jamieson Special Cask whisky to while away the mask time.

Stunning!! An almost Nun-like quality.

Fire gazing was the last item on the agenda before tuck in.

Oh - and supper.

And story telling.

Night night

7.15am. Rise and shine.

Yoga time.

Arm-flapping stance

Spa pool was next on the agenda….

Some consideration was given to the matter. Wind chill was tested, and a wee dauner chosen instead.

Time to head home - after a spa break that had left us smelling like kippers and smiling like cavewomen.

What on earth????

Bye bye to the bay

There’s only one boggy area that takes a bit of care…..

Otherwise you can end up quite literally up to your groin in it. One leg completely submerged and the other helplessly stuck at an angle. One friend (a very useful paramedic) able to help (through the giggles) while one makes time to take a photo. I did try to help but ended up in the bog myself. It was a shocker!! What looked solid but damp was a seemingly bottomless pit.

Our girl is made of tough stuff and once she’d recovered from hysterical laughing, we made a safe return to the car.

I’m not sure why their eyes are shut. Is it an ‘ohmnnn’ moment or are they exhausted and relieved?

Christchurch/Auckland

Last dinner with Meg and last in Wanaka. Last breakfast with Meg and last in Wanaka. It was very sad to say goodbye to our girl until we see her in October. And most likely that we won’t come back to Wanaka.
The drizzling rain as we departed matched our mood but as we climbed (very slowly in the Lucky van which at least was consistently still going forward) up through the Lindis Pass, the weather lifted enough to make it a great road trip across the High McKenzie Country. Meanwhile, way out west, the drizzle was more of an unrelenting rain, causing landslips in Milford Sound, trapping around 400 people on the inaccessible side, kick starting a national emergency. And the Routeburn track which Meg and Spook had walked a couple of weeks before, suffered a landslip that damaged one of the huts and hurt a couple of people. The track is likely to be closed for months now.

We were oblivious.

5 hour drive to Christchurch

I took over the driving to come down Burke’s Pass and onto the Canterbury Plains - eventually. There were strong cross winds which stopped us from operating the vans air conditioning system (opening the windows). It got hotter and hotter and between the wind, the heat and my natural heating system, I was welded To the steering wheel by the time we arrived at Hugh and Donna’s house in Rollerston, outside Christchurch. It was 37 degrees Celsius.
Hugh was happy to rehydrate us with whisky and beer. He’s from Spean Bridge and was not going to waste the opportunity for a ceilidh. As the whisky flowed he got his accordion out and phoned Duncan McLeod in Nairn. Duncan sat shell shocked on his sofa first thing Sunday morning whilst being regaled by a fond Hugh on the other side of the world - I thought the FaceTime screen had frozen but it was just Duncan caught in the headlights. I presume Spook started singing at some point but Donna and I had not waited to hear it and took refuge in our beds.

Next morning we flew to Auckland to be cared for (tenderly) by Maggie and Mike.
The temperature was lower but the humidity higher. Maggie has wanted to take me to her beloved Piha beach since we first met, so we went there to cool off.

Now. This is more like it. Lifeguards watching close to the shore and more of them higher up with a wider view of things and a set of binoculars and radios. To be protected by the lifeguards we were to swim between the flags as they monitored rip currents and possibly sharks (for my sake). You got a wee blow on the whistle and some frantic waving of arms presumably to let you know you’d strayed and not that a shark attack was imminent. Once I’d established this reasoning it was fantastic to let big waves wash over us and splash about like kids. Magical.

Maggie felt we needed to recover in calmer waters. (Surf was way bigger than it looks.)

18 degrees in the sun warmed pool

Magnificent views over Auckland to Sky City

More beer and bbq of excellence.
We had been wined and dined up and down the Land of the Long White Cloud and it was hard to say goodbye to people who are such long distance friends and so warm and welcoming all these years later. But Scotland beckoned and that’s where we belong.

Here. Exactly as it looked as Storm Ciara approaches - no filter

Dunedin

Back in 2009, Horizontal and I went to the rugby at Carisbrook in Dunedin to watch our first ever International game - All Blacks against the French. Unfortunately the All Blacks lost and there’s an extra animosity towards the French on account of The Rainbow Warrior. They do not forget - understandably - so the atmosphere was tense. I remember driving around Dunedin in the dark which is set around a lit up harbour and surrounded by twinkly lights on hillsides overlooking it. I didn’t really remember what it looked like in daylight, or the landscape around the coast very close by.

The harbour and hillside areas are pretty. The coastline is stunning.

At this point we had a domestic because we were lost and due at Pete and Jills NOW!!

We got over the domestic as the views got better and better

We finally got to Mossgiel in the very Scottish Southland and enjoyed amazing hospitality with Spooks ex boss and family, and Dave and Nicky who had come up from Invercargill. Over breakfast the next day we watched the clock tick down to Brexit. The Kiwis hadn’t being paying much attention to it until then.

And then it was a 3hour drive back to Wanaka where I was desperate for a longer catch-up with Mary. While Spook and Meg got a few things organised ahead of our last dinner together in Wanaka, I drank 2 glasses of Mary’s delicious family wine and blethered shite. I was so happy to be back in Mary’s company that I had clearly slipped into some kind of broad Scots vernacular and between her Kiwi vowel sounds and mine (and the wine?) she mostly hadn’t a clue what I was saying nor me, her. Her partner, Mick, acted as interpreter. I must have adapted my accent a little when I lived here before - or stuck to one glass of wine.

Ah - must have adjusted my accent. This photo is from a night out with Mary and Sarsha over 10 years ago and I wouldnt normally look this happy to be arrested. More than one glass of wine, clearly.

Haast

Before I left Spook behind in NZ for 3 months alone in 2009 he took me up to Haast. I wanted to do that road trip again.

A 2 hour trip, it’s well worth the effort.

With the shark attack report down at Oreti Beach in Invercargill, I was a wee bit shy of the surf. Beach combing was enough for me and the things with teeth that had their heads removed presumably by something with bigger teeth, acted as a warning shot across the bows…

An Albatross???

A few dead fish, birds and trees. No rubbish and plastic. On a huge beach. And some nippy wee sand flies!

Deluxe Homes

Meg has been living in a beautiful house since arriving in Wanaka last year and has a month between beautiful houses as the new one isn’t available until 2nd March. However her hosts have lent her their deluxe caravan for the time in between so she’s sound.

A touch of the Father Teds

She provided her own bling.

Hamish had brought his own accommodation for the 3 night visit.

It’s many years since I’ve had a chance to take the kids to the park and it was nice to revisit those days….

Hamish and Meg on the bouncy thing in the kids play park

No one could be quite sure who she was the most pleased to see. But it did seem to be the dogs.

Yip. If she could sneak that dog into her hand luggage, she’d be a very happy woman.

Family

We were excited that Hamish and Roddy could manage 3 nights between jobs in the wilds of Southland. We spent their last Christmas together in Scotland about 17 years ago. And we spent our 1st Christmas in NZ with them 10 years ago. We have managed to meet up over the years despite the different hemispheres and it’s like they live next door.

Buddies since birth

My blog app has stopped letting me post photos for now. So rest assured it was fantastic to eat Hamish’s personally sourced venison cooked beautifully by Roddy, to talk for hours, race each other down the hill on carts at Cardrona and go watch a film at the iconic Cinema Paradiso. Each time we say goodbye we are never sure when we will see each other again, but we always do.

Rugby Corner

Laundry and beach day was followed by an epic ascent of Corner Peak up above Hawea. I was let off as I had some camp management to do. I’m very good at these kind of excuses. I also could have a meal ready for when they came back - this was the winning one.

Not too far from the top Meg suddenly decided she’d had enough and sat down in protest. At this very moment she received a message from Shannon saying that she and Steve had bought us tickets for the rugby at 6pm. That was all it took. Straight onto her feet and demanding her dad get a move on so that we could make the rugby.

It was a 7.5hr day out on the hill but we made the rugby in time (after I’d got them fed) to see the local Otago team Highlanders come on to a bagpipe sound track against the Crusaders who I think are from Christchurch. This is Our Horizontals home pitch from when he played for junior boys Upper Clutha.

That’s him centre of pic

Getting into the engine room

John Timu was the coach of the young Upper Clutha team and each week there was 1,2&3 points awarded plus a Snicker bar for an overall effort. One week Horizontal got points for “working hard in the engine room”.
These guys were a bit bigger.

There were 7000 tickets sold and the place was full of families sitting around the edge of the pitch. So when they kicked the ball out, it was either duck or catch. I think my favourite moment (Highlanders unfortunately lost to Crusaders) was the pitch invasion at the end…

The teams are at the far left corner. Every child that was able or allowed flooded across the pitch to get to their heroes.

Families could apply to host a player overnight and many kids had spent the day playing In The lake with their heroes.

Ben Lomond

With one day of rest after Routeburn, Meg was ready for the next thing on her Kiwi Bucket List. Ben Lomond without assistance from the local mountain rescue team. There was no driver required therefore no excuses for me. It’s a bit bigger then Ben Nevis at 1748m compared to Nevis’s 1345m. We didn’t start at sea level as you do at Ben Nevis, though we were not allowed to take a lift on the Gondola which she said would render the walk void.

Before the saddle

From the saddle

From the saddle to the summit

No big black Ravens at the top. Just this cheeky Kea. A woman dug her handbag out of her rucksack and sat it aside. The Kea grabbed it but she got it back before takeoff. Then it grabbed a mans pack of wraps and tried to fly with them. It looked like the man was going to run off the cliff rather than lose his lunch.
Lunch, life and limb all saved, thankfully.

Factor 50 is the protection of choice but I was very pleased with the lovely tan I’d accrued on my legs nevertheless……until I took my socks and shoes off.

The sand fly bites continue to taunt us with the itch you mustn’t scratch. There are no sand flies in Wanaka so I’d forgotten about their unique approach to lengthy torture. Meg and I have made good use of the Shakti mat to distract us.

Misty Magic

Up early again for the 2hr drive to catch first boat out of Milford Sound. I’d not particularly wanted to do it before as you hear how busy it is and such a loooooong drive. But no matter how much they complain about the huge influx of tourists and the terrible driving, they have clearly not experienced the A82 in summer and the whole of the Highlands. I can understand that it’s a shock to the empty vastness of The South Island, but it makes you realise how tiny our Highlands are, and the impact from tourism is far greater at home - I think.
There is a 1km tunnel under a big mountain to drive through - rough hewan by any European standard I’ve seen and a little unnerving. And very drippy when it’s raining, apparently. When you arrive at the harbour area, it’s off putting as it’s so busy with us tourists. Without the tourists though, only anyone in a boat would ever see it.

The start of the tunnel on the way out of Milford

The minute that boat leaves harbour, the other boats become very small and the landscape takes over everything. To stand at the bow and let it all unfold was worth the effort

The Fur Seals were a wee bit like otters and made a great sound

This is the 2nd rarest penguin in the world. We saw one float by but I did nt get a photo. It wasn’t wearing a strippy shirt

Spook and I live in a world of film soundtracks……

And all things being equal…..

Routeburn

When Meg sets her sight at something she’s fairly determined. But I had 5 hours drive to get to the other end of the route (which is crazy when it’s 32km to Milford from where they started) and plenty of time to worry about twisted ankles. And my daughters capacity to chew up her father and spit him out if things got tense……..

No twisted ankles, no hissy-fits. A perfect father/daughter bonding and a peaceful 5 hours toad trip for mamma. 8hrs 20 mins journey for them including 40mins stopping time.
Milford Sound boat trip planned for next day and Ben Lomond for day after that. Last time Meg and I did Ben Lomond on race day, she was injured, stretchered off and she and I made it home at 3.15am. Hoping for a better result on the Kiwi Ben Lomond at the back of Queenstown.

Dawn Raid

Spook and I prepared for Megs next days off by spending most of the day watching the world pass by on the shores of Lake Wanaka. Spook managed a run and I managed some chapters in my book.

After Meg finished work, we drove at least 2.5hrs to reach Glenorchy and the start of the Routeburn track.
32km and for some reason folk seem to take 2/3 days to traverse it through to Milford Sound in Fjordland. Spook has always wanted to get over in one day and Meg was up for the challenge. We camped in the Department of Conservation (DOC) basic amenity (long drop toilet and running water) camp. $15 each a night, in an envelope and popped in the box.
There’s no room in our luxury van for Meg so she’s brought her own sleeping accommodation.

They wanted a 7am start so we did a ‘Granny and Papa’ and pre loaded the coffee pot, cups, cereal bowls ready for slick moves in the morning.

Beauty out west in NZ does not come alone - like the west of Scotland. The only slick moves were to toss everything into a basin, bang the doors shut with us inside and get the hell out. Sand flies in their masses. No coffee, no breakfast - just 32km of jungle and mountain track.

Feeding Time

Blue Cod and chups on Oreti Beach in the deluxe camper - a treat from David and Nicky.

Happy Spook

Nicky, David, Patrice, Brayton

Nothing was going to keep Spook and I out of that surf for an apres dinner splash. Sun setting on the waves, the soundtrack of Grease playing in our heads…….

Earlier in the day we’d checked out the bottom of the settled Southern Hemisphere (Bluff) and the aluminium factory equivalent of the Fort William smelter.

The Smelter

Over breakfast the next morning, headline in the Southland Times was an article about a 13 year old girl who was bitten by a shark whilst surfing off Oreti Beach at 8.30 on Thursday night. That was a few hours after our first dip and roughly the same hour as our dip the next night. You could have run a train through my gaping jaw when I read the story.
I was telling a friend in Wanaka about this and she said “8.30pm? That’s well known to be feeding time.”
I’ve changed my ‘nothing can stop me going into that surf’ opinion.

Modern Baler Twine

Invervegas - or Invercargill to give it its proper name. I’d never been before but it’s home of Friends we met through No Fuss Events as well as home of Burt Munro of The Worlds Fastest Indian. Spook brought his parents here as a matter of great interest as we’ve always been convinced that there has to be a family connection.
But first I wanted to get to the Pacific Ocean that reaches across to Antartica. Chances are it was still going to be warmer than Lake Wanaka.

Oreti Beach

So much fun.
David and Nicky came over to take part in 10undertheben in 2007 and were great advocates of No Fuss. It was while back in NZ in early 2008, taking part in The Moonshine race with them that David’s mate invited Spook to come and work in NZ. Enjoying their hospitality feels like a wee piece of home - they make us feel so welcome.
Obviously Burts bike was on the agenda…..

I like to think that Burt would be very impressed with Spooks repair of the windscreen wiper. In days gone by it would have been baler twine that finished off the job - now we have the modern equivalent. Cable ties.

Soon as we get home, I’m having Spook DNA tested.

Turbo

Day 2 of Megs days off and she booked me a bike with an engine from her work place at Cardrona Corner. She and her dad were heading off to Sticky Woods and I was heading off to find Mary - my Boss and Chief Counsel 2008-2009. I worked for Mary and when my mum took a massive stroke the week after our arrival in NZ and my Dad blew our family out the water I needed counsel. She didn’t know it but she was standing in for long standing friendships on the other side of the world and went from 0-60 in 60 seconds from day 1.
she also knew to bring me coffee as close to 10.30am as possible in order to get the most work out of me. We were the same age with daughters at the same school and had many parallels.
I found her up at the retirement village where she’s Head Gardner. 10 years disappeared in a flash as we sat over coffee trying to catch up in 20 mins. We made a plan for a longer catch up and she said she’d give me a job if I wanted to come back. It’s nice to be here and not to be sad.
I picked up my bike with its engine and cruised down memory lane, before meeting Meg and Spook for lunch in Albert Town. But I had to work a bit harder after lunch.

Not that I’m complaining. It’s phenomenally beautiful. Very hot. But engines are brilliant. It doesn’t mean you do t have to do any work. Getting a big bike around windy paths and berms wasn’t easy and I had to keep it at a pace that was controllable so that I didnt end up shooting off a cliff into the Clutha. But it keeps spirits strong when stamina is less so and I’m really impressed with the e-bike. Especially on Turbo when I was ready for home.

The Clutha

Somewhere in amongst the confusion of hemispheres, I remembered when it was Monday morning. Running Girl and I have gone for an early dip in the loch every Monday for well over 2 years. So I couldn’t let her down.

It may be summer but there’s still snow in them hills and the water is glacial. Spook is a water baby and he confirmed - it was bloody cold! Running Girl goes into the loch in her cozzy all year round. No idea how she does it.

Spook had to take a wee look at HIS old workplace. The reason we came out in the first place. We arrived at the same time as the current worker there who’s only been in the job 4 months. He was really chuffed to see Spook and asked him to come in and explain a few things to him. They are struggling to find a good person to work alongside him and have offered him a Finders fee iof $1000 if he can come up with the right person. He tried to persuade Spook to come back. Spook did love those plains above Wanaka…..

Age Concession

Meg has gone back to work so Spook and I have a day off to be old - get the laundry done, drink coffee, wine, stay in camp. Recover….

It’s not steep. You’ll be fine, Mum

Red helmeted me

Looking over towards Queenstown

Clearly feeling a bit more confident

After a few runs and a healthy dose of fear I snuggled up outside the cafe with a covering of sunblock cream (provided beside the water cups) and a blanket as we were higher than Ben Nevis. Meg and Spook headed off to to the Peak to Pub track.

Peak behind her. Pub in front. Shuttle bus to take them back up after a pint.

Aragon wasn’t in today

That’s why we don’t really worry about the broken windscreen wipers

Cinema Paradiso was next on our list. Created by Calum McLeod of Carrbridge, he’s now the Mayor of Wanaka. Message to Curly - it may not be the same as it used to be when it was in a shed, but he’s done a good job of keeping it quirky.
We ordered our tickets, a beer, and a wine. The lovely Chinese guy serving us sat out the drinks and then said hesitantly - “I’m so sorry, I can’t really be sure - are you over 60 or under?”
In my stunned confusion I thought you couldnt buy alcohol if you were under 60. Then I realised we could get a ticket concession if over 60. I’d blurted out “55” before I’d remembered the deceptive days of pretending I was under 14 for a cheap bus ticket, over 18 for an alcoholic beveridge and now it’s about pretending I’m over 60 to get an old age concession. Dearie me.

Kiwi as, is how to describe The campsite at Twizel. I had my 45th birthday up there in the Kiwi late autumn. We constructed the tent and lined our picnic seats in a row (the family) and sat watching the stars all night. You feel pretty close to them up there which is presumably why they have an Observatory. So I wanted to spend our first night there. The van limped into the site with one windscreen wiper hanging off. It’s summer. We won’t need it.

It wasn’t long before Spook had gone native.

The distances may be big, but they are not boring.

We came to the village of Tarras quicker than I’d expected - you take a right turn here and the views are all about beautiful Wanaka. It’s a few kilometres to go but it unfolds before you. So I started crying again. I wasn’t sure why but it was heartfelt.
We had time to look around the town before our Meg finished work so we booked into a campsite and went to Wastebusters to buy more cutlery and a tool for the wiper. The only appropriate tool had been artfully fashioned into a sculpture!

We bought our cutlery from Megs friend from Fort William - Rachael. I’d last seen her at the 3 Wise Monkeys climbing wall in The Fort. I was telling her how emotional it was to be back in Wanaka and burst into tears again.
when we eventually met up with our beautiful daughter I’d got over my tears which did not impress her at all.

She got over it quite quickly though.
It was amazing to be back in Wanaka with her and to see her so happy, as if she’d never left.
I had, however, forgotten how exhausting it is trying to keep up with her. As soon as she had a day off, it was biking up the mountain at Cardrona. All uplifts and a very solid Enduro bike, and no amount of excuses was getting me out of it.

This was not part of my plan - I don’t do scary downhilly stuff. A nice flat canal is more my kind of thing. And I really don’t need this helmet squooshing my cheeks and mouth together.

Breathe

After many hours flight and as we neared NZ, Spook sneezed. Then I heard him sniffling a bit. He was wearing his headphones and couldn’t hear me so I pointed to his nose and made sympathetic signs indicating that I was sorry to see he was getting a cold. He yelled indignantly “have you smelt your OWN breath”

There followed a look of black affronted horror on my face and a 20 minute boose that no amount of apology could erase until I’d recovered from the humiliation.

When we stepped through customs and into the Christchurch airport foyer I became overwhelmed by tearful emotion. This had nothing to do with accusations of bad breath and everything to do with an unexpected sense of loss and connection.
We were picked up promptly by our Lucky Campervan company which turned out to be the luckiest thing about them. We’d gone budget to give us more spending money on the trip but it turned out that we were lucky they gave us one at all and we’ll be lucky if we can get it to drive all the way around the island and back to their yard again. We were lucky they gave us one pillow (misnomer) and one fork and knife even though it was to be fitted out for 2 people. We were lucky it made it up Burke’s Pass to the High McKenzie Country and the tail back behind me was lucky I was willing to pull in every 5 mins to let them pass.
We delved into our inner Granny and Papa Munro and understood that nothing stands in the way of a good adventure. As long as we could brew up a coffee by the side of the road and Spook knew how to access the engine, then the one fork and knife and perhaps a Kirby grip, would be all that was required to get us to where we needed to go.
To get to our daughter.

Shackt’d Up

Spook and I have been together for 29 years and married for almost 24. So why would I decide to get shackt’d up this Christmas?
Because we are chronically bad sleepers, is why. Horizontal suggested it. He was fed up hearing us moaning about how little sleep we get each night.

“Do something about it,” he declared

So I ordered a couple of shakti mats for our Christmas. Something, I assured Spook, that we could do in bed together, for about 20 mins, that would help us sleep. This piqued his interest - until……
matching mats arrived in time for Christmas, covered in about 6000 little sharp spikes on plastic discs attached to a slightly padded mat. This is an acupressure mat and is based on the ‘bed of nails’ concept. I lay it out on my side of the bed and with bare back and gritted teeth slowly lowered myself onto it. What a shocker! Once on, I couldn’t move as any slight side ways or up and down movement resulted in an injury - like an attack by a Wildcat, leaving angry raised red lines on my skin. At first it was breathtakingly sharp pain, but quite quickly a raging heat developed all over my back. I’d set the alarm for the recommended 20mins and tried to deep breath into the mat. I was aware that my heart rate seemed to have increased. I ignored the fact that Spook had declined to join me the first 2 nights though he looked on in horror. Apparently he hadn’t noticed there were 2 mats and was politely allowing me extra time before it was his shot.
Very kind of him but by the 3rd night I was on to him and insisted he joined me. His face was a picture as he hit the mat. It is credit to his willingness to try new things that he managed about 5 nights of this. The first night he even fell asleep towards the last 5 mins of the session. Our backs were a mass of tiny pricks on bright sunburned looking skin.
Now to sleep well.
Nope. Not remotely well. We continue to be chronically bad sleepers with a sense of foreboding when we approach our bed for the night. I am on night 9 and Spook is wavering about whether to continue or not. Bizarrely, my body is getting used to the pain and it is much less intense than at the start. I’m not sure how long to keep going without the desired results but it does come with a 60 day money back guarantee.
Spook said “you’re not taking that to NZ with you!!” But I have a guarantee to work through. We leave tomorrow night on the Glasgow bound bus and there’s plenty room in his bag. Unfortunately for him there isn’t going to be plenty of room in our campervan and if I lay the mat across the way we can share!
We are going to visit our daughter, Princess Meg, who left for a 6 week holiday in November 2018 and still hasn’t quite found the time to come back. When I said to her, after 6 months of sharing the house with her apres university, that I didnt think we could live together, she said “yes I know - I’m so sorry” then went off for 6 weeks and has thus far stayed away for about 60 weeks.
I now have less than a month to convince her that perhaps we could at least be neighbours as NZ is a bit further awaythan I’d envisaged.

Back of Steall with Moanin' Mo

Instead of some kind of punishing excercise, Spook suggested a wee Sunday stroll. He suggested going to the head of Glen Nevis and taking the alternative route to Old Steall. I checked first that this didn’t entail clinging to the lower slopes around the back of Ben Nevis and his closed eyes and slow expiration of breath suggested I was being unnecessarily jittery and really really annoying.

T’was a good day for a walk, and Lochaberites were out and about in celebration.

I take the signage very seriously. But we were only coming back by this track, and were skimming up the hill a bit and through a bealach/coll that led us to skirt around the hill and into the upper reaches of the glen at Old Steall.

That is to the left of the photo and through the low point up there. Seemed straight forward enough but it was a sharp start, I’m not fit and once we got to the start of the snow level it was slidey and crossing a slope is often harder than climbing straight up. I was a bit moany and was using my Andrew Stick to keep me upright. Spook had his hands in his pockets most of the time.

But I did take time to stop and exclaim at the view which changes so quickly with a little height.

I’ve never seen Steall from this angle before.

It was hard to reconcile the image I’d had of a wee walk up to the pass, with the foreshortening that goes on in a view and the amount of hillside that is hidden from the road. You’d think I’d know………

There’s nothing particularly romantic about walking with Spook. He’s naturally very fit and this allows him to keep a safe distance from the complainant.

I did recover my equilibrium by the time we got to the bealach as the sun had come out, I’d warmed up my imagination and was thinking of White Walkers or Native Americans doing that old trick when your stuck in the gorge with no way out. However, the bealach was tiny and we were through to the other side quickly with only deep snow to booby trap us.

Andrew’s stick was the measure of it.

And my guide seemed to know where he was going.

This was the point where a bit of an effort for what I’d thought was a stroll, became a magnificent walk.

The summit of Ben Nevis (so I was right - I was hanging about on the nether regions of the The Ben)

For the most part, we were walking across a bog, but the snow protected us from much of that. This was a plateau above Old Steall so we had a steep track to get down into the Glen.

Parallel worlds 30 minutes apart. (15 minutes apart if you’re Spook!)

Steall Bothy

Familiar territory, coming back out of Steall by the traditional route.

Last of The Mohicans tree.

This is a fantastic way to walk around Steall - it’s not a stroll, but is worth every effort. Ideally, you don’t want to go with me. There’s a reason why I do a lot of things by myself.