A Day of Inverness
and
A Day of Rest
(except it wasn't quite in Inverness)
riginally, I thought I was going to get up at
6:00 to leave for Thurso. I thought that right up until I
arrived at the Clansman the previous night. Then, it
occurred to me that so far, I'd been running my vacation
pretty much the same way I've been running my life
lately: A flurry of activity, getting to all the places I
need to get to, and entirely missing the content. This
definitely called for a re-evaluation of what my vacation
was to be about.
Well, that was a bunch of horseshit. Well, it really wasn't a bunch of horseshit., but it wasn't the real reason why I decided to stay at the Clansman for another day. The real reason was that I was so tired, it was a real struggle for me to get up in time for 9:00 breakfast. In fact, I didn't get up for 9:00 breakfast until 9:30.
Breakfast, in the United Kingdom, is fantastic. This is probably because every other meal, and all other aspects of UK cuisine is, at best, execrable (which, as we recall, was one major reason for this trip in the first place). Just two suggestions:
Never ask what "black pudding" is; just eat it.
Don't bother with the sausage. (If the waiter comes up and asks you "Banger?" it's not an invitation.)
Ok, two more suggestions:
Eat hearty.
Don't bother with any of the other meals, unless you're particularly fond of Haggis.
In any event, it is a
pretty nice way to start the day. And what better place
to start a day than at the Clansman Hotel?
I found the Clansman to be a rather delightful place to stay, regardless of its possessing a name that wouldn't make it too popular in the US. Well, when Scots talk about "Clans," they're talking about men wearing skirts with purses, and when we talk about "Clans," we're talking about men wearing bedsheets at night and fatigues during the day. Happily, I saw none of the American style of Clans around this place.
What I did find was an incredibly friendly staff. Maybe too friendly, since one of the primary goals for the vacation was to avoid as much human contact as possible. The Innkeeper, an otherwise delightful person with her children constantly in tow offered, several times, to drive me to the neighboring town, Drumnadrochit, so I could see the museum and castles. She just didn't know that I detest museums, and have little desire to see any castles, although the car ride did sound quite nice. She wondered why I'd come all the way out there, just to miss all the sights. I didn't have an adequate answer for her. So, I spent the post-prandial portion of my morning explaining why I didn't want to go to Drumnadrochit.
Drumnadrochit.
In reality, we were really a lot closer to Drumnadrochit than we were to Inverness. I don't know much about Drumnadrochit, except for two basic facts:
It's really fun to say
It's also an entertaining way to clear one's throat. In fact, really enthusiastic diction when applied to this town name is good to bring up at least one really satisfying loogie.
I retreated to the outside world, where I had the opportunity to take a few pictures.
As it turns out, the
Clansman Hotel distinguishes itself as being right across
the street from Loch Ness. This meant that everyone had a
fighting chance of seeing "Nessie" from their
own hotel room window. I must say that the view from my
window was pretty nice, although I must confess that I
haven't yet got around to pencilling in a picture of a
monster in my pictures yet.
Going outside is a bigger treat, because I could see the Loch, unobstructed by bug splats. Since the hotel faces south, everything was implicitly backlit during the (exceedingly short) day.
Staring at the lake, I could see a couple of sailboats moored at what must
have been the Hotel's pier. I wondered exactly how many
people would be crazy
enough to go sailing on that lake in the middle of winter.
I suddenly remembered that they probably wouldn't be that
different from me.
Looking up and down the road, I saw that I'd managed to situate myself far enough out into the boonies that I had three basic choices of what to do:
Go on a day trip to Inverness (gee, and I thought I'd already done that!)
Go on a day trip to Drumnadrochit (better just to say it)
Go back to bed
A rather fanciful picture of the Clansman Hotel, as depicted in their brochure.
Naturally, the Innkeeper was curious as to which I was going to choose. I excused myself, told her that I had to go have a bit of a lie down, and disappeared back into my room. I woke up again at about 6:30, in time for dinner.
I am happy to report that the British and Scottish war on
vegetables is still going, albeit losing some steam
(pun intended). On the one hand, anything served as a
"vegetable soup" is so heavily cooked, smashed,
and strained as to lose any resemblance to vegetables. On
the other hand, what was on the plate was quite
identifiable, if still a bit overcooked.
That's a shame. I was really looking forward to some seriously overcooked, pulpy... stuff. Didn't get it.
The rest of the food was quite good, although I found myself eating beef for the second day in a row. This is strange for two reasons:
I don't normally like eating big slabs of beef
There is that small matter of "mad cow disease," or "BSE" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) as those of us who've had introductory courses in neuro-anatomy would like to call it.
This is definitely something that calls for review. I got a chance to review it just a little more later, when I heard on the news that some butcher somewhere in Scotland had just killed off a significant population with some tainted beef carrying some exciting new strain of E.Coli.
What also called for a bit of review was British Television which, as always, was truly awful. I will now offer my proof that British Television is on the whole worse than American Television. It's rather simple and goes like this:
Most of what's on TV in the UK is either the worst of American TV, or crass imitations of the worst of American TV (ref: Jamaican ER), or if you're really, and I mean really lucky, soap operas.
This time, it was even worse. I turned the TV on to be greeted by shouts and obscenities emanating from a British rebroadcast of the Riki Lake talk show, freshly imported from the US. And I thought, "gee, this really isn't how I want my country's artistic output represented overseas."
Then, I scanned around the FOUR channels (so intent on presenting the distillate of the world's worst television, the brits can only find enough material to populate four channels of television, and even then, there's the occasional slip -- a watchable show). After seeing what was on two of the other three channels, I thought "well, maybe Riki Lake represents how the UK wants to see the US." More thinking, and "well, maybe this is just the sort of crap that the people in the UK want to watch."
Then, I turned to the day's parliamentary coverage on one of the BBC channels, and after watching for a few moments, realized that it was entirely interchangeable with the Riki Lake talk show. Both shows had incredibly stupid people, saying incredibly stupid and insulting things to each other, over the shouts of equally stupid spectators, more intent on flinging obscenity than listening to what anyone had to say. And, oh yeah, both were presided over by a fat lady.
Taken in this context, Riki Lake seems a lot less embarrassing. At least for us, it's just entertainment, and not a form of government. And sadly, both this show and the parliamentary coverage were of far higher quality than anything else I found on TV that night. Well, at least they weren't pre-emptying everything for the latest snooker tournament updates, which is what they were doing the last time I was in Inverness.
So, to review the day, 1:
Slept a lot
Saw nothing
Did nothing
Ate beef in a country where doing so can be hazardous to one's health
All in all, not a bad day. The only thing that could have made it any better would have been to have a steaming plate of haggis to get sick over. Well, the vacation was still young.
Next: Back on the rails to Thurso
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