Wednesday, June 7, 2000
The Plan:
Whim Day
Reality:
SUNNY!
0700 wake up
0800 toast, fried egg, sausage, bacon, tea
0850 walk to internet cafe
0900 check email
0940 post office
1000 visitor centre, check what's happening
bus for Loch Ness cruise left 15 minutes
ago
decide on Peter Forbes bus tour and cruise
1015 meet bus driver Kenny
1016 show driver picture of me in kilt on laptop
driver says, "You must have toured with
my partner Peter, that's his kilt"
1030 tour begins
1045 James Pringle woolen mill and tourist trap
1115 leave with only a plush, mooing cow for Joshua
1130 stop by Loch Ness, have recursive photo taken
1145 board boat for 1/2 hour cruise to Urquhart Castle
1215 Urquhart Castle, ignore castle, film remains of Trebuchet,
buy lilt at concession stand
1245 leave for close encounter of the mooing kind
1250 two young highland cattle amuse us for a few minutes
1255 The official Loch Ness Visitor Centre, no one wants to pay
to go in
1256 gift shop, buy a Gordon tartan baseball cap for dad (a.k.a.
Gordon)
1257 cafeteria: lilt and crisps
1325 strawberry ice cream treat £1.00
1330 return towards Inverness, stop for playing piper lochside
1340 Kenny takes pipes and plays them well
1350 return to Inverness
1430 tour ends: Jacobites, Culoden, Stinky Willie
1445 walk to station and reserve seats (3&4) on tomorrow's
train to Edinburgh
1500 visit Hector Russell, kiltmaker - no trousers fit, clerk
recommends
Chisholm's
1515 return to room
1520 walk to nearest golf course
1600 wait for sailboat to cross road
mom says, "I'll wait here"
1605 complete walk to golf course
1606 entrance smells of impatience*
1607 bar maid says, "We don't have a pro shop"
1615 rejoin Mom, walk back to centre of town via the river
the river Ness is six miles long and two
feet deep.
the two miles most upstream are dotted
with islands and bridges which connect them
you can cross the river via three islands
and four foot bridges
1645 mom says, "I'll wait here" at the foot of Castle Hill
I climb Castle Hill and locate Chisholm's
1650 try on golf-suitable trousers (boy am I getting fat (or at
least finally realizing it))
1655 buy said trousers (Black Watch tartan) the Black Watch were
the moral equivalent of the Russians in Afganistan,
but their trousers fit me so so much for
principle.
1705 return to room and read
1850 realize the Dickens Restaurant opens at 1730 by reading last
year's report
1900 Dickens Restaurant: see Aug
15 1999
1950 call work: tom, monika, scott, brian, bill don't answer
2000 return to room
* Read "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas
Adams
for details
