Knackered

I got home yesterday from the deathmarch in Strathfarrar a mere shadow of the man I used to be.

That could be unfitness, or the fact I was at the tail end of a bug, or even that I was walking with super-fit and experienced hillwalkers. Or it could have been that we did three hefty Munros in ferocious wind.

Either way, it really ought to be illegal to do that much exercise in a day.

Recovery involved hot water with honey and cider vinegar, a nice hot bath, and a good night’s sleep. A few aches and pains to show for yesterday’s exersions, plus a couple of photos.

Betwixt and between

Having realised I’ve not blogged since Monday, and even then that was a somewhat spurious post, I feel I ought to write something.

It’s been a busy week.  I’ve “done” Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee for work this week, which included catchng up with various personalities in the Granite City.  Yet another week of long days and early mornings has left me shattered, and so I’m grateful for a quiet Friday night consisting of home-made curry and Rollcage.

No rest for the wicked, however, as the militant wing of the St Silas hillwalking group (aka the Deathmarchers) are in town this weekend, and I am out with them tomorrow for a day of Goretex pugilism.

Wish me luck.

10 facts about Montenegro

1. Montenegro is home to 7% of the world’s species of butterfly.
2. If you stretched out the coastline of Montenegro into a straight line, there would be enough leather to make scarves for the entire Indian Army.
3. The para-farthing, a penny-farthing with a built-in parachute, was designed and patented in Montenegro in 1845.
4. The music for the Swedish national anthem was actually written by a Montenegrin baker.
5. “Montenegro” is an anagram of “No! No! Megret!”
6. The Montenegrin city of Podgorica has the highest number of ice cream parlours per head of population out of all European capitals.
7. In the Montenegrin dialect of Serbian, the words for “putsch”, “excitedly” and “space-hopper” are pronounced exactly the same (although spelt subtly differently).
8. There are enough mountains in Montenegro to allocate one to each man, woman and child, which is done at birth. To achieve this, Montenegro is unique in the world in having a combined land and births registry.
9. In Montenegro, it is illegal to play golf alone.
10. The Montenegrin coastal resort of Budva is home to the largest Flemish basket-weaving festival outside Belgium.

It’s a funny old web

I had a nice catch-up with Niall last night.

Among the numerous deep and meaningful conversations we had, Niall mentioned that his blog seems to be attracting huge numbers of people who search for Brazil on the internet.  Indeed, if you Google “ten facts about brazil“, this is among the top results.

It got me thinking, because something similar has been happening to me in the past few weeks: according to my blog’s stats page, up to twenty or thirty visitors a day get here because they are searching for Montenegro.  Which is strange, because I’ve only mentioned Montenegro once on my blog.

Well, twice now.

I feel that if numerous people around the world are depending on me for their information about the small Balkan nation, then I really ought to have more for them.

So my next post is going to be “10 facts about Montenegro”.  I suspect that not all of them will be entirely true.

Oh, before I forget, Niall and I were out last night and as we departed the pub, Craig Brewster walked past.  He didn’t recognise us, though.

Not that he let on, anyway.

Le weekend

It’s the end of a busy but enjoyable week. Busy due to lots of work travels, enjoyable due to the great weather.

Last night I was in Hootananny watching an awesome gig by the Morayshire band AroarA.

A fusion of traditional Scottish music and heavy metal, their sound was unique - electric bagpipe, electric fiddle and whistle combined with grungey, crashing guitars and thumping, brilliant drumming.

Energetic, loud, skillful and refreshingly original, their latest album is well worth a listen on their MySpace and a bargain on Scotloads.

Talking of loud music, one of the week’s highlights was hearing from a friend that Mogwai are playing at the Ironworks next month. I’ve seen them once in Glasgow and can’t wait to see them again. I bought tickets yesterday.

Tonight I am catching up with Niall, who is back in civilisation after his Brazillian hell.

And that’s the news from Saturday.

Wonderful weather

The brilliant sunshine has continued today and I had the most beautiful drive to Skye and back for work.

I’d loved to have stopped to take photos of the sunkissed yet also snow-topped mountains all along the way, but sadly didn’t really have time.  I did take a few in between meetings, however.

Here’s hoping the weather holds out.  At times like this, I am really glad I live in this part of the world.

Stornoway

I was in Stornoway on the isle of Lewis yesterday for work.

It was a really nice day and a gorgeous flight out - although annoyingly I was on a seat over the wing so couldn’t take that many clear photos of the highlands.

It’s a grand journey out of Inverness, past the Moray and Cromarty Firths, and then over the spectacular mountains of the west highlands.

If you ever get the chance, it is particularly lovely going out in the middle of the winter when the sun is still low, and the rich purple sunrise over the jagged, dramatic west coast as you head out over the Minch is quite something.

Stornoway itself was looking nice - as most places do on a bright sunny day - and I was thinking that over the years it has spruced itself up, and the harbour front looks quite pretty now with a lot of the buildings painted in bright colours.

I am sure I should write something more, but it’s late and I have an early start.  Here’s a few photos from yesterday to leave you with.

Out exploring

I’m just back from a fun day out “oop north” with a couple of friends.

We did a wee road trip to Ullapool to get a bite to eat and wander about the surrounding hills. Wester Ross is perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of the country, with a dramatic coastline. It was a nice day, and it was good to get out and about into the fresh air - though it did rain a little.

I took some photos. Personal favourites include the one above, this one and this one, although the achievement of the day was a record five sluice valve signs in a row. My personal best.

Although I must confess that when uploading the photos I did get somewhat bored writing the descriptions and adding the tags, so apologies if some of them are less than helpful or accurate.

This week sees me back to the whirlwind of travel - Monday is Stornoway, Wednesday Skye, Thursday Cupar and Friday Perth.

Wave if you see me.

Joe Public

Thanks to this article in BBC News, I have discovered that there is a football team in Trinidad and Tobago called Joe Public.

A quite magnificent name, I am sure you will agree. I for one feel significantly richer for this factoid.

Can you think of a more off-beat name for a football team?

Apple store

Kicking my heels around Glasgow city centre on Tuesday afternoon, I decided to pop into the Apple store on Buchanan Street on impulse.

As I have mentioned before, I have been interested in buying a Mac at some point in the future, probably when my current laptop dies.

I love my iPod and iTunes, and I have (mostly) found friends’ Macs that I’ve played with to be sleek, intuitive and reliable.

However, I wanted to explore things a little bit more, and so went in to ask a few questions. And boy, was I glad I did. Talk about customer service.

This was a million miles away from what I’ve experienced in electronics shops in the past - where staff assistants are either pushy, aggressive and focused on selling… or alternatively monosyllabic, ignorant and unhelpful.

But in the Apple store I spent a total of an hour with two members of staff, finding out exactly what I wanted, and helping get answers to the main issues I have with “defecting” to the Apple side.

The assistants did not once question or resent my explanation that I was purely enquiring and was probably at least a couple of years off ever making a purchase. They answered all my questions clearly, patiently and comprehensively. They showed me around a Mac and let me just play with it at my own pace.

Importantly, they talked about Macs not in the general sense of how wonderful they might be, but matched the conversation precisely to my needs - the applications I currently use, what I do in terms of web publishing and photographs, and how Macs might help me do this. In essence the conversation was about me rather than the product.

Customer service is something I really feel passionately about, and am delighted to have experienced a good example of it.

I am now more or less entirely convinced that I’ll be buying a Mac if and when this laptop gives up.

Perhaps even sooner.