Note: Apologies for the radio silence but it has been an odd couple of weeks. I have been keeping notes; I just haven’t got around to adding them to the blog. To help me keep track I will be back-dating the posts, so the next several posts will catch me up to date.
The reason for the lack of posts: a couple of weeks ago my cousin texted me to say that my uncle Ian was really not doing well and she was up from England staying at his place while he was in hospital. I asked if she wanted company, and she said yes, her daughter was just heading back home to Kent and company would be great. Well, unlike when my parents were aging and ailing and I could easily boot home to my sister’s in London (Ontario), living on an island precludes the whole “I’ll throw a couple of things in a bag and see you in two hours” process. I shifted into overdrive and booked the ferry trips (got a spot on the 9am for the next day), filled the tank with gas (no petrol stations between Thurso and Brora), made lunch for the road with the last of the perishable food in the fridge, and did three sets of packing: one bag for the dog, one bag for a 5-day driving-plus-visit trip, and one bag in case there was to be a funeral and I couldn’t get home for proper clothes ☹ (that one stayed in the back of my car whilst in Carluke, unmentioned by me to my cousin). Cancelled a couple of social commitments (yes, I now have a social life) and first thing the next morning we headed off.
It was an absolutely beautiful day. The sea was calm and the view spectacular (see below). What a great day for a drive, I thought. Oops, hang on there – the things you don’t think about. This was a southbound drive, in the north of Scotland, less than a month before the winter solstice. The sun hangs very low in the sky this time of year, which meant it was in my eyes from 9am until 4pm. Splendid. So glad I left my sunglasses at home; I’d hate for them to fade in the sunlight. Relief came just as I was about an hour from Carluke, or so I thought. The sun set, but then the skies opened up, and now I was driving in a rainstorm, in the dark, in Scotland. Argh!!!!
I’ve said before I have a pretty good sense of direction and I know the route well, including that last leg from Stirling to Glasgow to Carluke: M9 south, M80 west, M74 south, then a bunch of country roads, to Ian’s house. But I’m not an idiot, so ‘sense of direction’ notwithstanding, I had both my TomTom and Waze giving me directions for the last hour. All of a sudden (or so it felt to me), both Sat Navs told me to leave the M80 westbound and get on the M8 eastbound. Really? Well, that’s what they said. Next thing I know, in the dark, in the rain, I can see signs telling me I am going east to Edinburgh. WTF? Even my spidey-sense is saying this feels wrong. But what am I to do? I am doing 100kmh on a multi-lane highway (my fellow travellers were all doing at least 113kmh, the actual speed limit), so I just keep going. And going. The Sat Nav is still insisting on sending me back to Edinburgh. Finally, just as panic was setting in, it tells me to take an exit into a town I’ve never heard of. Then it sends me miles through the countryside, before finally landing in a town I actually knew, and then to Carluke to Ian’s. Bless my cousin Viv, she had wine chilling in the fridge, so after a calming cup of tea, we moved on to the more restorative Pinot Grigio. (Let us not belabour the fact that on that first night we drank one bottle of wine, the next night two, and the night after that we polished off three bottles between us. Best left forgotten.)
Back to the car trip – I survived, but I do not want to experience that level of stress again any time soon.
