[Play] Just What The Doctor Ordered {Cut}
After the strange intensity of Friday - watching four packers whirl through the house in a matter of house to leave me with a mere couple of suitcases and the view of receding view Maersk container containing all my worldy possessions - a weekend away from everything in Inverness was a marvellous plan
I spent a few hours wandered through an empty flat is a slightly dazed state before meeting euphuistica on the train and experiencing the weirdness that is domestic air travel: it's like international air travel but more haphazard and relaxed. Anyway, the flight was an opportunity to chat and whitter and we soon touched down and checked into a little hotel with a turret that was our base for the weekend
Fuelled by muesli, fresh fruit juice and cooked breakfast we embarked on a fairly action-packed Saturday, though the execution there of was at a sedate pace. Strolling into the city centre we Oohed and Aahed at the city's suprisingly discrete architecture - though how a solidly-built salmon pink castle can be discrete I'm not sure - and venturing into the Inverness Museum, to be disturbed and entranced in equal measure by the seemingly endless parade of stuffed animals and rocks (though I was impressed with the signs that read "Please Touch")
After a brief tea fuelling stop - and obligatory Irn Bru on my part - we decided to embark on the Jacobite Inspiration cruise - an hour's cruise on Loch Ness, including some views of Urquhart Castle - just missing one trip because of some suprising confusion with the taxi driver granted us further tea and cakes and a short wander along the shores of Loch Ness itself. Cruising out the tour was very low key and we were able to enjoy the dark mystery of the loch without too much interruption; only the dancing naiads for company
Made it back to Inverness just as it started to rain, so took shelter in the Hootananny Ceilidh Bar and savoured a pint of local beer and some rather fine folk music before discovering a sublime little restaurant called The Mustard Seed. We both had the fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef in a whiskey sauce: it was some of the best beef I have tasted - perhaps second only to the Argentinian place that aca and rjw1 took me too some time back
Struck gold for a second time discovering The Market Bar (the upstairs bar, with live music, rather than the downstairs bar, with formica) and settled in for an evening of whisky and rock. Whisky came in the form of a goodly selection of single malts, some on the rocks, and rock came in the form of Flagg and The Touches - both local bands with a hint of Oasis about them. Impressed by Flagg, they could play somewhere like the Underworld and hold it; less impressed by The Touches, but I suspect they could be okay once they finish school; and in turns amused and impressed in the eclectic collection of souls in the bar - a healthy mix of rockabillies, spooky kids, a goth, some rockers, some townies (possibly neds?) and a couple of working men. Stayed until we were chucked out, having had a quite fabulous evening
With Saturday so throughly behind us and a mid-afternoon check-in at the airport ahead, we spent most of Sunday wandering the city and the banks of the River Ness, taking in the sights of St Andrews Cathedral and some of the other older churches before an intriguing lunch at Delice de France - I had a croque banane, which is basically a croque monsieur with banana and creme fraiche and paprika - and then interrogating the taxi driver abot the Moray Firth on the way to the airport. Oh, and bouncing bridges. And shortbread
Exhausted by such a relaxing weekend, I think I was asleep by eight-thirty or nine and stayed that way for a good ten hours
I spent a few hours wandered through an empty flat is a slightly dazed state before meeting euphuistica on the train and experiencing the weirdness that is domestic air travel: it's like international air travel but more haphazard and relaxed. Anyway, the flight was an opportunity to chat and whitter and we soon touched down and checked into a little hotel with a turret that was our base for the weekend
Fuelled by muesli, fresh fruit juice and cooked breakfast we embarked on a fairly action-packed Saturday, though the execution there of was at a sedate pace. Strolling into the city centre we Oohed and Aahed at the city's suprisingly discrete architecture - though how a solidly-built salmon pink castle can be discrete I'm not sure - and venturing into the Inverness Museum, to be disturbed and entranced in equal measure by the seemingly endless parade of stuffed animals and rocks (though I was impressed with the signs that read "Please Touch")
After a brief tea fuelling stop - and obligatory Irn Bru on my part - we decided to embark on the Jacobite Inspiration cruise - an hour's cruise on Loch Ness, including some views of Urquhart Castle - just missing one trip because of some suprising confusion with the taxi driver granted us further tea and cakes and a short wander along the shores of Loch Ness itself. Cruising out the tour was very low key and we were able to enjoy the dark mystery of the loch without too much interruption; only the dancing naiads for company
Made it back to Inverness just as it started to rain, so took shelter in the Hootananny Ceilidh Bar and savoured a pint of local beer and some rather fine folk music before discovering a sublime little restaurant called The Mustard Seed. We both had the fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef in a whiskey sauce: it was some of the best beef I have tasted - perhaps second only to the Argentinian place that aca and rjw1 took me too some time back
Struck gold for a second time discovering The Market Bar (the upstairs bar, with live music, rather than the downstairs bar, with formica) and settled in for an evening of whisky and rock. Whisky came in the form of a goodly selection of single malts, some on the rocks, and rock came in the form of Flagg and The Touches - both local bands with a hint of Oasis about them. Impressed by Flagg, they could play somewhere like the Underworld and hold it; less impressed by The Touches, but I suspect they could be okay once they finish school; and in turns amused and impressed in the eclectic collection of souls in the bar - a healthy mix of rockabillies, spooky kids, a goth, some rockers, some townies (possibly neds?) and a couple of working men. Stayed until we were chucked out, having had a quite fabulous evening
With Saturday so throughly behind us and a mid-afternoon check-in at the airport ahead, we spent most of Sunday wandering the city and the banks of the River Ness, taking in the sights of St Andrews Cathedral and some of the other older churches before an intriguing lunch at Delice de France - I had a croque banane, which is basically a croque monsieur with banana and creme fraiche and paprika - and then interrogating the taxi driver abot the Moray Firth on the way to the airport. Oh, and bouncing bridges. And shortbread
Exhausted by such a relaxing weekend, I think I was asleep by eight-thirty or nine and stayed that way for a good ten hours