Ppl I met on vacation..? 16 10 1 (8) 25 1 23


When I went to Scotland this last month I was full of foreboding, afraid I wasn't going to be able to get up another new 3000 foot hill...another Munro hill!?

As I progress into old age and leave the shelter of the somewhat isolated town in which I live I have become increasingly prone to sickness, for a full account of which I refer the new reader of my blog to the one entitled: "Returning home from holiday" dated 16 6 18...

So on this my last trip I tried to take certain precautions to avoid a repeat of these earlier experiences. First I was only going to stay 10 days and second I hired a car to be able to choose my area of physical activity without a lot of hauling of equipment. And third throughout my stay I took cold showers as a substitute for my daily dips in the sea in an attempt to retain the effect of the practice of daily revving up one’s immune system.

As I arrived to Edinburgh Airport at 19 40 ahead of schedule by 20 minutes I took the airport bus into the town centre where I then headed for the Backpackers’  hostel in the old town High Street where I had booked accommodation and by delaying a visit to see it was able to visit the Tavern Pub just across the street for an evening meal of Venison Pie cooked in Guinness with green beans and boiled potatoes, placing my order at 20 55 with just minutes to spare as I knew they stop taking orders at 9 pm. Washing it down with a small measure of a Shiraz S. African palatable red wine, before going to bed by 10 30 pm still essentially on my time back 2 hours adrift from GMT.

Next morning around the hostel breakfast table where I usually like to sit, see above pic, I was soon to be joined by a young German girl of maybe 18 - 22 y somewhat unprepared for what was to follow as I attempted to strike up a conversation, my once upon a time visiting Germany quite often for reasons to do with my business career... But soon she was joined by second similar young person which had the effect of stalling my attempts at polite breakfast conversations and if it didn't stop altogether there and then when a third girl appeared followed by successively by 3 young men I at last understood my dining table had been hijacked from under my very nose…hahaha     
                                                                                                                                             

Thereafter I picked up my hire car and headed out west for Glencoe an area I had researched to be less likely to have the rain precipitation of other parts where I had unclimbed hills to climb. There the scene was completely different: upon my arrival the bunkhouse accommodation of an 8-bed dormitory into which I had booked by phone a little while earlier was occupied by a most friendly single young lady of perhaps 28 – 32 y a French lady so it later was to transpire who was near the end of her long distance walk, The West Highland Way, who by profession was a Medical Doctor who had specialized in Cardiology I would also learn later.

Then round the kitchen table I met another young German girl this time from Munich who was joined a little later by a second 25 y old, the first, Louise’s, older sister. These two girls couldn’t have been more communicative about how they too had arrived to Edinburgh picked up a hire car and driven here via Loch Lomond where they had climbed a small hill to where there were more hills and mountains to climb on every side…

Not long afterwards two more German ladies appeared fresh from climbing a hill in nearby Ballachulish overlooking the Loch Leven and as these ladies had like me a hill earmarked to be climbed the next day it would transpire we should enjoy the pleasure of each other’s conversation and gaiety for a second evening and breakfast round the same dining table. The younger of these two ladies later I would learn was called Violetta whilst the older lady, her mother I would hear is called Lyudmila.

Later still another Munroist a man of maybe 30 y would arrive but too late for me to meet that evening because I needed an early start for my hill next morning and so I repaired to bed around 9 pm to chat further with my French dormitory companion as we both prepared for an early start to the morrow…  

 So there you have an introduction to my meeting Violetta and Others and Anna? Well if you like my introduction I shall write you a sequel and perhaps get so far with it that I can tell you something about Anna who sat to my left on one of my flights home at the end of my brief sojourn..? Have a good day everyone.                                                                                                                                                                                      


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No blogs without their bloggers..? 18 1 19 (16) 25 2 18

Which query came to mind just the other day as I started re-reading some old blogs from 5 to 10 years ago from the time I used to post my blogs on MySpaces..? And then with my elder grandson, A, this past month, during the time he has had this equipment to scan old transparencies, he has been engaged in scanning some of mine from the 60s, 70s and 80's during my days of film cameras, I got to reviewing the best part of my collection of old pics, and in the process ran across slides of my wedding day to A-E, my wife of 50 +years, and far better than the ones we had done in a studio on the morning of the day of the ceremony...Then one slide box containing pics of all my old girl-friends, not an enormous collection and not all pics of girls I was very serious about... So then I got to reviewing my memories of these events and situations to be impressed yet again how one's perceptions change about who we were and what we did during our lives, and because I happen to have a...
Read more

Or Fillings 16 9 14 (8) 25 1 21

Image
We have all heard this expression and I expect those of us with a good imagination can conjure up in our minds what it must be like. But I do not fall myself into this category of person but instead in order to imagine what it must be like I have to experience something similar which is the subject of this particular blog... You see I have just returned from the dentist and her technician when at the beginning of the week I felt something akin to the condemned man on death row with his imminent demise rapidly approaching: in a very small way it has to be said but, nonetheless... And growing old is in a bigger way rather like the condemned man waiting it out on death row as little by little all the things dear to him and his belongings are stripped away... Not that I am complaining you understand but only reflecting on what it is like. Like before in these blogs I have quoted from the bard William Shakespeare: “...sans teeth sans everything.” Powerful words indeed and ...
Read more

When I last visited a Rotary Club Meeting...25 3 18

I was just 20 yrs of age plus maybe 7 months. It was subsequent to the 17th July since that was the day I first stepped onto Finnish soil. 10th of August to 30th of September to be precise, the time I was employed by Kymene Ab or Kymin Oy, the one Swedish the second its Finnish name. So some time between these two dates after Engeneer Örnhjelm, the Manager of one of the two Production Plants, one for Wood Pulp Production the other for Paper Production, invited me to accompany him to their next meeting and tell something about my background. What I told them was that I had worked at a Paper Mill, New Bury Paper Mills Ltd., belonging to the Wiggins Teape Group, for 5 years since leaving school in July 1955. A Paper Company that used Kymi's Bond Special grade of Bleached Sulphite Pulp. That I had studied Chemistry via the O.N.C. and first year H.N.C. part-time day release courses, the former the Ordinary National Certificate: in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics in the first year; ...
Read more