I so enjoy reading Cesar's little diatribes of his travels and being unable to catch up with the hundreds of backlogged emails from the PDML, that I am inspired to present a series of letters in the same vein, from bonny wee Scotland...
Day 1 At 5 am in the Campanile Hotel, just a few hundred yards from Mike Wilson's house (which was chock-full of Wilson's and Oksne's), the fire alarm went off and blasted us out of bed! Lights on, jeans on, child roused, spouse roused, kit bag and PowerBook over the shoulders, open the door - and the alarm stops. I look up and down the corridor and see several other faces looking out from their doors with the same expression as mine: 'Is it a fire or not?' The alarm stays off and I can smell nothing. Stupidly I go on the assumption that if it is a real fire alarm it would stay on. Fortunately it was a bug walking across a roof-space smoke detector: a spider building a web, we later learn. Not a good start to the day. Breakfast at Mike's where we had met he and his wife Cath the night before for a kindly laid-on late dinner after travelling north from Oxford. Jostein and Vera and three hobbits had arrived off the ferry from Norway previously and were well ensconced. Stefan snapped Jostein, Mike and me with the D60 and I will post a URL next week - I can access email on the road but uploading web pages at 9.6 Kbps seems daft. We said our good-byes to Mike and Cath and started heading north. Leaving at 11 am, we would not reach our booked holiday chalet until 8pm. The drive was half dual-carriageway (motorway/freeway/expressway) and half fast country road. It was pretty stunning scenery and watching it change as the miles fell away was heartening for the whole party. Ominous rain clouds gave way to brighter spells and shafts of light played along the pine forests on the mountainsides - Jostein and I were inspired to jack it all in there and then, get the gear out and just go get some great landscapes. The rest of the party put paid to that, and by default we carried on, beaming with thoughts of vistas yet to come. Bathroom stops, a lunch stop, and a provisions stop all added up to a couple of hours lost but when travelling with a large group - there were eight of us in two cars - especially with young children, you simply cannot hurry things. You all go at the pace of the slowest, and that's fine. It's a holiday for the children just as much as for the adults, and with that on board we all had no problems. At the provisions stop, most went into the supermarket. I volunteered to hold the three young lads at bay in the car park. After ten minutes of watching them sling handfuls of dirt at each other, I launched our own small breakaway expedition into the store. This was a mistake, and startled shoppers flew in all directions as the onslaught of male progeny claimed its right to roam at some speed about the aisles. After a few dirty looks from staff, I figured that the way to deal with this situation was going to be the way I deal with most situations I have no control over: throw money at it. I suggested they could have a magazine each, and they converged on the magazine racks like a tornado, eager to claim their prizes. Amazingly, with 2 Gameboy mags and a PS2 bible under their arms, we marched outside and they sat quietly for the better part of half an hour. I tipped my hat forward to dim the light, and leaned back on the bench like one of the dusters waiting at the station for Harmonica to arrive in Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. (..."at the station there were three dusters. In the dusters there were three men. In the men there were three bullets......" Great film.) Finally arriving at the rented house, we crawled out of our steeds (Galaxy and Discovery) and explored a big 5 bedroomed chalet over two floors built on the side of a hill, surrounded by pine forest and other chalets. It was getting dark, and we had decided to share cooking chores alternately night by night, starting with me. With kids getting tired, I soon rustled up mashed potato and beans for them :-) and then I could start on the grown-ups. A bottle of Macon-Villages found its way into my hands and Alison Krauss onto the CD player. Jostein was sampling the Fiddler's Elbow and on his laptop dealing with irate PUGsters ;-) Within an hour, half the bottle of Macon-Villages was gone, and the Tacos on the table. Eating late is more than a pleasure in my book: it is a right! Lights went out and heads hit the pillows faster than a sporran sliding in the snow - a long day and although little photographically to show for it (a few grabs of kids and mayhem), the travelling was over for now and we can look forward to some good times ahead. And I forgot to toast the PDML! If Gianfranco makes it here tomorrow night (no word from him yet), I'm sure those glasses will be raised ;-) Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| www.macads.co.uk/snaps _____________________________ Free UK Mac Ads www.macads.co.uk
