{"id":1654,"date":"2012-08-05T10:07:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-05T10:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2012-08-05T10:07:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-05T10:07:30","slug":"downtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=1654","title":{"rendered":"Downtime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul & I recently managed to synch our calendars so that we had a long weekend together.\u00a0 First stop was Perth, where we were introduced to Miss Alexandra Carmichael by proud mum Annelie.\u00a0 Dad Craig was not too well, hopefully better now and we’ll see him next time. \u00a0 Alan Alpenfelt was also there; thanks are due to Reid’s staff who catered for the varied eating requirements plus staggered arrival times.\u00a0 After this it was time for some tootling up the road (haven’t tootled in ages) and despite some enforced delays on the A9 around BA we made it to Invergarry in time for dinner.\u00a0\u00a0 I have never stopped here before, it was always a way-marker on the long haul north to Plockton (did you really think we were going anywhere else!),\u00a0 but the grounds of the Glengarry Castle Hote<\/a>l offered beautiful walks along Loch Oich, which is part of the Great Glen chain of lochs and canals.\u00a0 I could have spent the entire weekend in library of the hotel, another time.<\/p>\n

Next day we moved on northwards, forgetting to buy Avon Skin So Soft<\/em> Dry Oil Spray, hereinafter referred to as SSS.\u00a0 I think the price in the catalogue is \u00a32.50.\u00a0 It was \u00a33.20 in the Glengarry.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a favoured midge deterrent, much beloved of anglers and anyone who lives on the west coast.\u00a0\u00a0 Once on our way we began to see signs for the Glenelg ferry<\/a>, so we took the chance to go to Skye.\u00a0\u00a0 The crossing on this manually operated turntable ferry takes about five minutes, at the end of which Isabelle of the crew pointed out a basking shark.\u00a0 I’ve never seen one in Scotland before.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally we arrived in Plockton <\/a>by way of the Skye Bridge and Kyle of Lochalsh.<\/p>\n

We spent a charming two days, walking around, going out for a sail on the Sula Mhor <\/a>from which we saw loads of seals, gulls, arctic terns, guillemots and cormorants.\u00a0 I slathered on a lot of SSS borrowed from our next door neighbours in the hotel cottage, and finally bought some in Plockton Shores for \u00a35.20.\u00a0 Does it work?\u00a0 Well, the only time I was bitten was when I forgot to put it on, and we stopped at Wolf Trax Loch Laggan for an out door fly cup.\u00a0 Anyway, we did not want to leave at all, I had wondered if it would still be the same if we went minus our usual chums, and of course we missed them dearly, but the sun shone, the scenery was breathtaking, while a cat and a gull tried to menace Paul into sharing his haggis supper (they failed) .\u00a0 I bought some new earrings, so all in all a very successful trip.\u00a0 Some of over 300 photos below.<\/p>\n\n

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Paul & I recently managed to synch our calendars so that we had a long weekend together.\u00a0 First stop was Perth, where we were introduced to Miss Alexandra Carmichael by proud mum Annelie.\u00a0 Dad Craig was not too well, hopefully better now and we’ll see him next time. \u00a0 Alan Alpenfelt was also there; thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-wildlife","category-family","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}