A small travel

My trip to Inverness on Tuesday took me up the A9, the main route north - not always an easy road as there are only occasional stretches of dual carriageway where you tend to put the foot down to get past the vast amount of lorries, campervans, caravans, and general slow drivers that have been holding you up on the two-way sections. It is a very frustrating road to drive and I think it is little wonder there are so many accidents on it. It's high time they did something about making it dual carriageway the whole way to Inverness. This time, thankfully, I didn't encounter any problems and reached Ralia information centre in good time, stopping to have a drink and a sandwich in the cafe.
The first snows of the winter have fallen on the northern hills providing great opportunities for photos.

As Janet was still at work and my other friends were otherwise engaged I took a drive along the Fort William road once I reached Inverness.

For those of you who didn't know it, the word means the mouth of the river Ness, Inver being a Gaelic word, anglified, for the mouth or estuary of a river. The Ness flows from Loch Ness, probably most famous for - you guessed it -its monster! Nessie has been making periodical appearances since the 600s A.D, though not many people have actually seen her (or her descendants). Despite being ridiculed, I still say that I believe I have seen her! I was probably in my early teens one particular visit I made with my parents to the lochside. Dad and I got out of the car and went to look at the loch, leaving mother and my sister in the car. In those days people believed that Nessie was a huge long worm-like creature, which appeared like a long neck and several loop-like humps, but what dad and I saw that day was exactly as they now believe the monster to look like. What we saw, looking down on the water from a high bit of the old road, was the body like an upturned rowing boat moving through the water leaving a wake behind it. No long neck or head - just a body! Dad asked me did I think that was the monster? Well upturned boats don't move leaving a wake! Whatever, I believe I saw Nessie that day!
Anyway she wasn't to be seen on Tuesday at all, and the only monsters I saw were the models at the smaller of the two Nessie exhibitions at Drumnadrochit.


Now there's a name! It's from the Gaelic language too. Drum is the anglified "back or ridge"; na means "of the", and drochit (Scottish ch as in loch, not as in church) is an anglified "bridge" So the village name came from the back of the bridge!

Not far from the Drum (short for the village's name) is Urquhart Castle, standing very impressively on a promontary in the loch. The QUH is pronounced as K so URkart is about the right pronunciation.

The castle is a ruin today but was once quite a sizeable castle, dating from the 12th century I think, though they say there would have been fortifications there from about the 7th century. Maybe the first sighting of Nessie was from this promontary!!!!!




Having photographed the loch from a tiny beach of eroded banking, and the castle from the visitor centre carpark, I returned to Inverness for a walk around the town.





The sun was shining; the sky was blue and the city skyline ( officially a city these days!) looked quite attractive from the river bank, dominated by the 19th century castle - not old at all - and several church spires.




To be honest it's not the greatest place on earth! There are some attractive old buildings, like the town house....



.....or the even older Abertarff House,










but most are more modern, from the 18th to 21st centuries. I did a bit of window shopping, looking into the Eastgate Centre, a fairly recent addition to the retail sector! Love its Celtic knotwork logo!


I remembered its Noah's Ark clock from a good few years ago when the centre was new.... and smaller...., one of those automated ones that moves characters round and round or up and down, and doors open and close, on the hour and half hour at least!


Then I got lost in one of the mall's many walkways, and found mysel exit-ing at another door! I kind of knew where I was though, so confidently set off in the direction of the river once again. How the centre of Inverness has changed over the last thirty forty years. I liked it better in the old days!!! Is that a sign of age? If so, don't tell me! I don't want to know!

Eventually I crossed the Ness by the bouncy pedestrian suspension bridge - quite a peculiar sensation, as it bounces quite a lot as everyone walks over it - came back to the car and drove the short distance to Janet's, where I got a big welcome from her and hubby Ray..... and yes, Janet, you ARE in the blog!

As I took photos of herself and Pickle, she commented that she'd probably end up on the blog, and of course she was right! I think these are great pics! Pickly Pussycat loves to be brushed - just as well, as she is such a fluffy cat!
Later, I got Janet to have her photo taken with Ray. Hey Ray, two of my work colleagues thought you looked like Clive James!!! There IS a resemblance!

We all went out for a meal in the evening and were joined by one of Ray's workmates from Edinburgh who was working with him for a few days. It was a fun evening. I'm getting worried about my memory! I can't even remember the guy's name, but he said he was often down in Peebles on his bike at weekends so he might drop into the shop to say hello! And before any of you start getting ideas, he's happily married with family and is too young as well!!! Derek! He's called Derek!

I have lots of autumn colour photos from the next day to show you but I think they can wait for the next installment, or I might make a scrapbook page!

Talk again soon.