I arrived at Prestwick as scheduled and got to Irvine easily – for free, too, as there was no one to take my money either at the station or on the train. Anyway. Stopped off for lunch (and my first pint of cider) before locating the B&B. There were still hours to go before the others were likely to turn up, so I headed down to the harbour to breathe the sea air. Mmm.
Finally, the others arrived. Well, when I say the others, I mean Martin, of course. Not that I wasn’t glad to see the rest of them, too. I’d just been contemplating finding a pub to wait for them in, and having company is always nice, but I can’t claim that I would have been devastated if they’d decided to stay with the boat another week – there was really only one person I was anxious to see. So they arrived.
*insert (mostly) quiet jubilation and lots of lovey-dovey stuff here according to your own taste and/or imaginatory capabilities*
We had drinks in The Keys and then food (haggis!) in a pretty nice pub called The Ship Inn, before retiring to our respective beds.
In the morning the others were off before we even got up, so Martin and I had a nice leisurely breakfast (to the soundtrack of – appropriately – “Take My Breath Away” sung by the host in the kitchen, he had a good voice, too), and then made our way back to Prestwick to pick up the hire car. We were lucky in that they didn’t have the car we’d booked (a class b) so they gave us a class f instead for the same price. A Ford summat-or-other (well, what do you expect? It was grey, anyway), much roomier than the one we should have had. No complaints there.
Martin’s never driven on the left before, so that was interesting. Also, the car was larger than any he’s driven before, so figuring out exactly where the corners were in relation to the rest of the world took a little while. No sweat, though, he’s an excellent driver (I don’t even think that’s a biased view, but you never know), and we were able to hand the car back three days later without any accidents (or even near-accidents, which is more than can be said for the car we had at the festival – when he was no longer driving – but more of that later).
We managed, after a little confusion in Ayr, to find the correct roads to take us to Wigtown. It is a well-known fact that all roads lead to Rome, what is less well known is that the other end, all these roads lead to Ayr. At least that’s what it seemed like. Anyway, as I said, we found Wigtown, and immediately set about cleaning out all the bookshops (or at least all the ones that were open on a Sunday afternoon). We had another excellent haggis dinner at The Ploughman and then stumbled back to the B&B where we attempted to have a nightcap to sample some of the whisky Martin had picked up during the sailing trip, but fell asleep in the middle of it.
We woke to a wet and chilly Monday morning, but both of us were all smiles in any case. After a couple of more bookshops (any that opened early enough) our first stop that day was Bladnoch distillery. They were busy cleaning up after the night’s downpour, so they sent us off on a tour on our own, which we didn’t mind at all. Both of us have had enough tours of distilleries to know the process off by heart and I was round Bladnoch in July in any case. The only pity was not getting to see inside the warehouse, but this was compensated for by the entertaining company of a black cat – a better tour guide than some I’ve had at other distilleries. At least he didn’t talk nonsense but let us get on with peeping inside the washbacks and stills (they were not in production, so the vessels were all empty, don’t worry, I don’t think they’d have let us round on our own if they were actually distilling…).
In the shop I aquired my first bottle of whisky on this trip – a Signatory bottling of Bladnoch distilled in 1974. It’s the first bottle I’ve bought that was distilled the year I was born – it does make the bottles just that bit more interesting, I must admit.
One more bookshop (and 10 more books – anyone say “hopeless”?) and then we set off for Edinburgh, which we reached, eventually, in the late afternoon. We’d located a street with lots of B&Bs with the help of a guidebook in the breakfast room at Craigenlee, so we stopped at one near the city centre end which had “Vacancies” in the window and got ourselves a room.
No time to sit down and be lazy when there’s all of Scotland to explore, so off we go again, walking into town and managing to locate the Royal Mile and Royal Mile Whiskies at first try. Not a cheap experience, that. Not that I expected it to be, but I came out of the shop with the most expensive bottle of whisky I’ve ever purchased – a Gordon McPhail bottling of 1974 (that year again) Ardbeg. Irrestistible. At 100 pounds it was way over my previous “limit” of 50ish pounds a bottle. Oh well, I’ve tried it now and it was worth every penny – luckily. GMcPh can be a bit of a pot luck kind of buy. Very happy to find it was all right this time…
We had a bit of a wander down Prince’s Street after that and then went to meet Lyn for dinner. Dinner – at Howie’s – was very good indeed, and the company was even better, so I fell asleep a very happy Robin. I woke up in pretty much the same state – it’s wonderful what a difference having Martin around can make to how pleasant it is to wake up in the morning.
Anyway, we’d decided Pitlochry held more attractions than Edinburgh for us that day, so we set off pretty much immediately after breakfast. On the way north we realised we’d be passing Aberfeldy distillery, so we stopped off there. Though the main focus there was on Dewars’ World of Whisky – i.e. their blend – it was still very interesting and we did get a tour of the distillery. Not to mention a bottle each of the Flora & Fauna cask strength Aberfeldy…
Arriving in Pitlochry Martin decided to be lazy rather than thirsty, so we used the car to get to Edradour, Scotland’s smallest working distillery (seriously, the stills are itsy). We were very relieved to find that the coach party arriving at the same time as us required a translator, as they all spoke German, so we did not have to join the tour with them but got our own guide. After an interesting tour and a trip to the shop (and, yes, you guessed it, another bottle of whisky – a cask strength Edradour in a decanter bottle) – where we got to talk to Ian Henderson, yay! – we set off to find our third distillery of the day: Blair Athol. Yet another interesting tour and yet another bottle of whisky – this time a standard Flora & Fauna Mortlach, just because it was so cheap. Then, finally, we got around to looking for a B&B and found one immediately run by a nice little lady who was delighted to discover that we both wanted mushrooms with our breakfast (I hadn’t the heart to tell her I’d rather not have the sausage and tomato after her joyous: “Finally someone who wants the full breakfast!”).
Finding a place to eat proved quite tricky, as Pitlochry is a town geared towards the coach tourist trade and so was full of tea rooms but rather lacked pubs, but we persevered and found The Mill House which served food. Then we glanced at the whiskies behind the bar and decided that food was of secondary importance anyway, other than as cushoning. To mention but a few, we tried a Talisker cask strength which on the bottle said £6 a dram but which the barmaid could only find on the computer at £2.50 so that’s what she charged (the single was immediately turned into a double) – and we finished the evening off with a 21 year old Ardbeg at £15 a dram, a dram for savouring, indeed.
On Wednesday the main goal was to get the car to Aberdeen airport before noon so as not to have to pay a penalty charge for handing it back late. We almost made it – luckily Hertz did not insist on charging us. Having considered our luggage I suggested we change the plan – which had been to get the bus into town – and find a taxi. I’m not quite sure how we would have managed otherwise… Anyway, we found a taxi and then a B&B, and set off to explore Aberdeen – or at least its pubs.
Much of Thursday was spent browsing the various shops selling highland dress of all sorts, admiring kilts and sporrans galore, but not shopping much, except we managed to get hold of a pair of highland dancing shoes each, which should come in handy on Monday nights. While at lunch (in The Prince of Wales) we had a message from Per (the festival excursion organiser) to say he was able to pick us (and, more importantly, all our luggage) up – so off we went. After Morten, the fourth participant had arrived at the airport and we were all well stowed in the hire car, we set off for Dufftown.
Hm. Following Martin’s excellent example, I’m going to call that part 1 and see about telling you what happened in Dufftown later. Maybe. If I can remember anything.