More Scottish Tourists..? 19 6 19 (8) 2025 2 4

At the beginning of this year's vacation in Scotland we stayed as usual at the World Heritage site in New Lanark for what has become our customary walk along the upper reaches of the River Clyde with its sign-posted nature trail. It can also be argued that this is the place where the education of children of working class people in Britain began at the start of the 19th century, by a Welshman and philanthropist by the name of Robert Owen, in conjunction with his thriving textile factory also built there. Then for the second of our 2 night-stay in the area we had to move to nearby Motherwell where A-E had the good fortune to get us an even less expensive en suite hotel room at the Bentley for the knock-down price of £40 B and B, by researching places on-line. 

Thereafter we collected a couple of friends from Finland who had asked to join us for a short stay of the following 3 nights when we felt obliged to stay in more expensive accommodation, at least for the second and third night's stay because A-E couldn't imagine them "roughing it" as we were accustomed to do, and so staying at hotels where we had to pay upwards of say £70 a night per 2 people. I mention this only to draw attention to the fact that the only people one engaged in conversation with in these establishments was the hired help, usually from Poland, Bulgaria or Romania, that is EU mobile workers, or reception staff one of whom, a very friendly young lady, came from Lithuania. Whereas once they left us we began to meet far more interesting people, as fellow guests in terms of the people one engaged in conversation with, as described in my last blog for example.

Returning to the Backpackers' hotel in the week following A-E's departure for home I also met an extended family of Motor-bikers from the Netherlands, comprising parents, sons and daughters or alternatively daughters- and sons-in-law, who one got to engage during meal-times, across the one large dining table, the centre piece of furniture in the spacious dining-cum-sitting room, which had in addition several smaller sets of coffee tables and arm chairs, or sofas, plus a small-sized Billiard or Pool Table at the far end of the room. 

They too climbed the hill, or a good part of it, just to the north of the town Beinn Vrackie, and it was on the summit of this hill that I met one of the more interesting people of the whole trip in this guy who opened up the conversation by asking me to let him know if he was standing in the way of my getting good pics of the views of the surrounding hills, when I thought he would add a bit of colour to my foreground..? Whatever the event we quickly struck up a conversation related to my business-life engaged in paper and allied cellophane packaging materials, industries, etc., when he said how infinitely preferable these clearly were, compared to oil-based plastics with their enormous environmental burden these posed for the planet, and its people, animals and fish life, all of which rather suggested cellulose, in one form or another may well be on its way back into fashion, sustainable raw material that it represents?

With Dave as the guy was called we continued our chat when he told of his very interesting career which at present had become an assessor of noise levels associated with new road works, like the addition of dual carriageways to sections of larger roads. This on the lower slopes of the hill when we again crossed each other's paths, and when it transpired that we each engaged in writing blogs, his he claimed to be the first when “Where is Dave” is Googled on the Internet, and which probably dates back to the time he cycled twice round the USA some years ago, a most engaging guy! 

If these later blogs get to draw any interest from a once avid audience perhaps I’ll be encouraged next time to describe my meeting with an active Triathlon athlete who upon parting left me his e-mail address with a view to his possibly joining me for what he described as my "challenge" in concluding my round of all Scotland’s 3000 footers..???