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tardis-sapphics · 5 years

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so @doctorthasmin sent me a soft!prompt

@doctorthasmin: Okay, here’s the softest prompt I’ve got, proper detailed little head massage for the Doctor after a little whump. I want the description to give me a ASMR contact high it’s so tingly cute!

so, here, here’s a troubled navy ship crew from ~1700s and a well-deserved head massage, in ‘i wish you lived like you’re made of glass’ . the title is taken from 5am by amber run, which you might want to listen to whilst reading this piece. i’d personally suggest listening to hounds by ry x.

tw: mention of period-specific racism, period-specific sexism

Moments of violence are self-absorbed.

The present has no desire to listen to the quieter moments, unless they are already brimming with a horrible anticipation. Attention paid to these reminders of being alive become in some way detrimental to the very existence of them. Those reminders are refused agency, no longer allowed to exist as themselves. Everything must become a correlation, if not a cause, to the terrible tension; failing that, the present must attribute it to pathetic fallacy. Little things are no longer allowed to be themselves, but a whisper of what is to come. A warning, not in its intention, but prescribed to it, forbidden to anything else.

All of the quiet things, the little things: the creak of wood, fine wood from the docks of Liverpool but still pressured by the intensity of the sea. It forgot dryness as soon as it set off from land. The cough of a soldier, hurrying up to the imminent end of the moment; a hurrying up of the soldier’s moment. These are fake menances, ascribed by the desperation hanging in salty air as thick as the fog that stalks them.

Raindrops, in most other moments, arrive tender. Cool grace on cheeks; the splash perfectly round, perfectly crowned, in self-same puddles. The sound of it a sigh, a blessing on Mother Nature’s children. The clouds hum to them: we give you life. They have turned their backs on moderation, now, and their deluge is immovable and frightening. All fires blow out, all burning sensation eliminated – except for the one the moment needs. That terrible anticipation.

But then, all moments of violence are self-absorbed that way.

Cruelty thrives in atmospheres tended to by the cold of heart. Drowned by rain they no longer know the meaning of it, their uniforms ratty and falling apart, they have deserted human kindness for its inability to turn up. Decorum has been long hammered out of these men – but for the fear drilled into them by their officers, they would mutiny. All that exists to them now is the destination, to be reached across miles and miles of heavy emptiness.

Seagulls cry. Rats squeal in corridors and bite on gangrenous toes. Light stays elusive. Trapped in the roar of the storm, the exotic lands of tomorrow seems to never arrive. A dream faded, life narrows down to maintaining the functions of the ship; the groan and creak of every man and his job; the paltry, soggy food; and the persistent smell of dead shipmates. Every man is sick to death of sailing. Every man is sick to death of men. Every man is sick to death, eventually. For some, it cannot come quick enough.

The intrusion is welcome at first. Four people, arriving in the middle of a storm! Two men, one old – and sure to die quick – and one sturdy young black man. A good servant to the Captain, perhaps, and a boost of energy for the soldiers. But the bigger surprise – two women! An exotic delight, the headstrong nature of the woman untamed; and a strange, eccentric lady – a devil to catch. The challenge breathes new life into the boys, tired of themselves and each other; some of the soldiers thank God for the appearance of these beautiful creatures.

The runaways are strange, from distant lands with improper clothes yet recognisably English; out of place and out of time, and decidedly out of manners. Whatever their reason for boarding so impossibly, they are not at all what the Navy soldiers require.

Novelty wears off easily, like drying paint caught out in the rain. Obscure explanations and fiery tempers unbefitting to custom strike matches in the minds of despairing men plagued by tedium. Neither transience nor return are an option, not in such stormy waters – at least, by the strangers’ directive. On a strange ship in stormy seas, there is nowhere to go but down.

The last strike that ignites the bonfire is the devil-woman’s trespass into the Captain’s quarters. Charm and mystery are not enough to save her. Fire spreads in the hearts of angry men. These are traitors to the Crown, with the audacity to steal from the British Navy’s finest ships.

A standard punishment for a runaway thief would be too slow. But the men have not had fun in so long. What are a few kicks to a woman sentenced to die? Power soothes and satisfies more than the sharp lick of alcohol; it dizzies a man more soundly too. The others, to be afterwards put to work, must watch their friend plunge to the freezing below.

The rain soaks their foreign clothes to a limpness, rubbing at the rusty shackles clamped over their wrists. Their captors cough over the strangers’ shoulders – mouths open, rattling in rib cages where hearts once warmed their chests. The weak hacking becomes a drumbeat for the execution. No peace is given to the silence.

Everything devoured by a greedy anticipation. Hearts in throats, they watch on in terror – refusing to acknowledge finality. At the same time, they are scared of it. They are alive, but at what cost? Desperation and fear swirl in the wet fog, the lock of eyes wide, pleading with God not to murder the Doctor like this – not by the hand of heartless soldiers no better than pirates.

She goes under.

Too many moments later, the pulsing manifestation of the TARDIS around them. Soldiers scream witchcraft and desert their captives in order to escape, their footprints landing alternately on metal floor and sodden wooden planks. Safe in their world, they must watch on as the TARDIS retreats to the safety of the Time Vortex.

Horror and rage subside like calm waters at the sight of the Doctor propped up at the console, her sonic screwdriver in one hand and the treasure in another. She is beaten, a patchwork of blood colours, dripping wet – but faithfully alive.

She has preserved the last of her energy only to free them of their shackles. Then consciousness abandons her. She is taken to bed in Yaz’s arms.

Rain returns to itself, on planets far away, and the deep breaths of quiet moments do not tremble with the knowledge of inevitability. In amongst the knick-knacks of the Doctor’s bedroom, her coat hung up to dry on the back of the door, Yaz has situated herself at the foot of the bed. She is the sole overseer, having been the first to shower and warm up. Now she sits alone, watching the Doctor rest.

Her sight makes journeys on the Doctor’s physicality, coming back to the same cuts and bruises scattered along her body to see the tender skin lighter, stronger. The healing process happening in real time, right before Yaz’s eyes. With so much work happening, peaceful sleep must be an illusion. Yet the drama of the day is not marked by restlessness, either. It manifests in the image of her; and in the slight creases between the brows.

Yaz has moved closer to the Doctor’s head. Her palms have rested on the curve of her face for so long she has forgotten time itself. Her fingers have deigned to smooth the frown lines away, without success. But it doesn’t matter. The Doctor is here. Alive and healing and successful.

She wonders what they’re going to do with the alien quad-photon fuse-reactor.

An hour more, and the Doctor wakes. She looks gaunt; still, she has vastly improved. But for the yellow and deep pinks smattered across the canvas of her body, there would be no other evidence of their near-miss. It does not seep through in her countenance, though in Yaz’s it does; the hug she gives the Doctor is rushed into, and deep – but not tight.

‘We thought you’d drowned!’ Yaz gasps.

The Doctor chuckles. ‘Me? Nah, never.’

The moment manifests. A suppressed yawn and a reluctance to let go entirely are the first clues. Then there is the hum of air around them, no longer only itself. Breaths amplify themselves. Soft cotton moves against itself and hints its depths, warmed by the sleeping Doctor.

‘I should get the others,’ Yaz murmurs.

The Doctor keeps a grip on Yaz’s arm. The moment is a sweet comfort. ‘Not yet,’ she pleads. ‘Just for now, Yaz. It’s – it’s nice to have you alone.’

‘Okay,’ Yaz says, because it is nice to be alone with her.

The moment has manifested as a them moment, a time they glimpse only in snatches, and its prolonging brings their gravities to fold onto another, to situate and settle. The conversation starts calmly, and drifts between currents with no landing in mind. The air is warm and the flying slow. They wrap themselves up in it, the soaring known to them after their first conversation, the first tumble out of the nest. How smooth it sails now, on the streams of familiarity.

Mentions of the fuse-reactor are interspersed throughout, but never examined, never prodded. It is contentment enough to breathe the same spaces, occupy few worries. They can come later. They always come later.

Wrapped up in it, Yaz barely notices her arms move, doesn’t register the decision. But they move, despite no expressed permission. All she goes on is the imprint of a feeling, a possibility of existence formed in the same way a footprint is pressed into sand.

Words continue. Yaz’s fingers thread through fine blonde strands falling away from the back of the Doctor’s skull. Reaching further, where she knows blonde will fade into brown at the roots, they push forward until the soft round ends of her fingertips bump into solid scalp. A low sound emanates from somewhere in the Doctor’s throat. An amalgamation of instinctive emotions.

Yaz never once falters in the point she is trying to articulate out loud, even as she continues comforting the Doctor, slowly, slowly, with the head massage. Her fingertips are soft and flat on the Doctor’s head as they stretch out. The spaces between them widen, curling around the ears, then traverse to the dip of her slender neck. A shiver. Heat trapped amongst hair strands dissipates as her fingertips push forward, leaving trails of cool comfort in their wake.

Up close to the top of the Doctor’s skull, Yaz’s fingers bend in on themselves, scratching lightly in lieu of massaging. The Doctor hums again, and her head lolls back. She is melting under it, the remnant tension easing out of lightly bruised shoulders. Yaz smiles.

Her hands move round, reaching the temples and massaging there. If she looks close enough, she can see the minute hairs on the back of the Doctor’s neck stand up to attention. In synchronised circles, she brings her hands to the middle and round, working the same pattern, to the back of her head. They trail down to the slope of her neck once more, and the Doctor breaks out into a shiver again.

Yaz wants to laugh at that, but sound got lost in the descended quiet. She believes it best to leave it there. Her hands slide down from the back of the Doctor’s neck to her shoulders, then down again until they are close enough to her own body to return.

Deprived of touch, the Doctor mewls. But she is half-asleep already, her eyes closed, and still healing. So she settles back down onto her pillows, pulling the duvet up to her chin. Without thought, she grabs onto Yaz’s hand. In slumber, she slackens, and tender pink skin lashed on her cheek lightens into cream.

Yaz watches her, and thinks of sunbeams amongst thick clouds. Neither holy nor a sign, just beautiful in themselves.

And she is absorbed by it.

#thasmin #thasmin prompts #fic: more of the universe #doctor who #doctor who fanfiction #thasmin fanfiction #thirteenth doctor #yasmin khan #team tardis #ryan sinclair #graham o'brien #thasmin fanfic #whump #whumptober2019

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whatiswildness · 7 years

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Trapped Alone Underground

A true story of spelunking (caving) in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, Idaho, USA.

Some believe Wind Cave and Ice Cave a mile away are connected deep inside the mountain explaining the channelling of air through the narrow entrance. I entered the cave alone after strapping up with foam and duct tape to protect my knees and donning my old military waterproof, more to smooth my passage against sharp rocks than to keep off drops. I endeavoured to find out for myself where the wind came from.

The Tetons

View from the ridge

Entrance to the cave

I was hurrying; excited, exhilarated. Adrenaline was coursing through me and I hardly noticed the sharpness of asthma as I drew thin, cold air at almost 9,000 feet. I slithered through to the point I had reached on my recce a week before. I was well beyond earshot of the entrance now, beyond earshot of anyone or anything. Then I continued into the unknown. After an hour, I reached a large cavern. The burbling sounds of underground rivers filled the space and I saw beneath me a significant drop of 18 feet or so. Someone had attached two ropes, one with knots.

‘Great’, I thought, I can rappel down and continue without losing too much time. A local had spoken of a need to wade through a pool after rappelling down, and further in, of an “impossible cliff”, at which point they said in no uncertain terms I would have to turn back. I wanted to make the most of my torch battery and reach the cliff with time to spare so that I might at least attempt it.

I found a flooded passage soon after rappelling down and began to ‘wade’ – this must have been what the local meant although it was only knee deep. I then searched each corner of the low, non-linear cavern beyond. Sediment formed a silt-sand substrate interspersed with rocky patches. Apart from one, very low and half-silted hole, I found no way through. I turned back, through the flooded passageway. The water sucked and popped at its overhung edges as I made wake. I passed the large cavern with the drop and made a painstaking search of a second low, silty cavern. Again, no way out, nothing except for a conspicuous shoe print which may have been there months since the last meltwater flood. As I compartmentalised later, these became forks ‘1′ and ‘2′.

I returned to the pothole with the drop and scaled the opposite rockface with the aid of a third knotted rope. I was sure this must be the way – what other reason could there be for the rope? Deeper still, ‘fork 3’ split into an upper and lower passage with a collapsed ceiling separating them. The upper passage was precarious. The crumbling stack of rock had collapsed more or less intact and become wedged with large gaps remaining each side opening into the lower passage 20 feet below. I followed the upper passage first and found only a tiny, child-size, aperture among rockfall at the end. The lower passage was yet more precipitous as it sloped downwards. Rocks fell beneath my feet and the hole seemed like an abyss. I made it to the bottom but only to find several more ominous descents with at least one leading towards a raging subterranean torrent of water. I could have carried on but was beginning to doubt myself. Could I find a route through?

It was all starting to seem a little unfeasible. I could no longer feel the wind and couldn’t bring myself to descend yet further; it seemed counter-intuitive as an exit strategy. As well-traversed as the cave system seemed – the footprint, the ropes - it dawned on me that it might still be possible to get lost. I had three conflicting pieces of evidence: The pond of ‘fork 1’ bore a resemblance to the local’s ‘wading’ route description; the footprint found in ‘fork 2’ indicated someone had been there since it last flooded; and the old rope leading to ‘fork 3’ ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ supported the third possible route. I opted to turn back and call it a day. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t found the other cave entrance or the source of the wind. I was elated by the whole experience.

I arrived back to the large pothole with the drop. The rope I had used to rappel down was hanging helpfully where I had left it. I confidently ‘backwards rappelled’ up the rock face; knot by knot, stride by stride – my torch between my teeth where it had been much of the time. I felt strong, grasping for the final knot and planning my ‘caterpillar shuffle’ onto the level top from whence I had come.

But I missed the final knot.

The smooth, wet rope slithered between my palm and fingers at an accelerating pace. The next knot arrived and jolted through my burning hands, then the next and the next until I was in near free-fall towards the jagged rock floor. I stumbled, turned my left ankle over and fell hard onto my back.

“Damn, how did that happen?!”

I tried again, planning my hand and foot placement more carefully but I just couldn’t get foot purchase on the slippery rock or the thin nylon rope. My arms didn’t have the strength to do the job alone. After a second hard landing, I noticed that the ropes were hanging limply a foot and a half from the rock face at head level. I was battling an overhang.

Over the next hour or so I tried everything I could think of. My attempts became less and less successful as the cold and the muscle ache began to bite. Some routes, to the left of the rope, may have been possible, just, if I was fresh and the rock warm and dry, but my fingers were cold and cramped – unused to climbing. I crossed-off route after route and fell several times, the pain would only be felt later. Attempts to loop the rope to provide a rest stop at a higher level ended with my slipping through the noose and hanging upside down by one knee. Eventually wriggling out, I left the wall and searched lower ‘fork 3’ again, but again lost confidence during the decent and returned. Surely, where there was a will there was a way?

The time was 4.17pm.

Nothing was working and at that moment my torch gave out. I still had my phone but the battery was at 32%. I used it for one final search of ‘fork 3’, and to record a short video diary.

Short video diary

youtube

The phone was only useful for climbing upwards or downwards, not traversing as I could only carry it edge-ways in my teeth. I didn’t dare strap it on letting it out of my grip – I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my only light down a dark hole. I figured I’d save my remaining battery for a later, more desperate, stage. Perhaps in the ‘morning’ I’d be so cold and hungry that it would be worth my while trying to squeeze through the back of ‘fork 2’ or upper ‘fork 3’ in search of an escape.

It was some time before I found that the torch had regained a few seconds of power having been warmed in my pocket. Further attempts at the problem rock face required these precious seconds of torchlight. Between attempts I jogged lightly on the spot and swung my arms vigorously in the bitter air, singing and talking to myself in the pitch black.

With the strain of each rushed attempt at the rock wall, my front teeth were beginning to chip on the steel torch. I began to wedge some dirty knee foam in first. My mouth tasted of the fine mineral sediment. I was, by this time, using the second rope hanging near to the knotted rope as a safety line. I made a small rock pile to one side and stood on it, tying the safety rope under my arms. Each stage of this process required long, frustrating periods of torch and finger warming. The added height of the rock pile, and thus shortness of the safety rope, allowed me to fall more safely from the rock face without hitting the ground. It reduced the risk considerably and allowed me to take more chances, but to no avail.

After 8 hours underground, the torch was totally dead and no amount of warming would resurrect it. I gave up trying to climb out.

I was in total darkness.

Sometimes I would doze, rousing myself regularly to jog on the spot for warmth or call for help which, although futile, helped me feel like I was doing everything I could.

The trickling echo of the stream below began to sound so much like the chatter of women and children that I couldn’t help but shout out and remove my hood in anticipation of a distant response. A slab was pivoting back and forth rhythmically somewhere deep beneath me as water rushed over it sounding for all the world like the deliberate movements of a person. My mind began to create images, grainy at first, but becoming progressively more detailed as the hours passed. I saw the cave around me, every detail of the rock. The effect was of dim starlight and I began, against all the odds, to feel at peace. I knew the images were wildly inaccurate but they felt real, and strangely comforting. I began to move around and even climb without light, not the impossible face, just to and from my perch at the entrance to ‘fork 3’ where I could avoid the water seeping through the roof of the main cavern. It became easy, a routine effort to stay warm. My hope for scaling the rock face fizzled out with the torch but the space was nonetheless becoming my own.

I was determined not to use the phone light and battery until I became hypothermic and starving – a scenario which crossed my mind in which I’d need to take more desperate measures. I settled into another routine minus the efforts to escape – this was the waiting game. I climbed to keep warm, I jogged, I talked to myself, I sang, I dozed, and I thought. All without the interruption of light or life of any kind. The darkness became so normal that it didn’t elicit fear at all.

The only fear which lingered was of falling asleep in the freezing temperatures.

Dan (who ‘might’ have called in a rescue the next day)

I had told a friend where I was going that day. I felt the probability of ‘Dan’ reporting my disappearance and a rescue mission being mounted in the morning at the latest was strong. I came to believe it absolutely. It became doctrine and I forced myself to block out any doubt. I knew I could survive the night at least. Besides, I was glad to be safe from the grizzly bears outside. There was no way any large carnivore could squeeze into my private chamber. I ran through the plan for the morning. If no rescue arrived by 9.30am, I would leave notes at regular intervals – and try to squeeze through the ‘fork 2’ or lower or upper ‘fork 3’ openings and hope they offered a way out. I would search for air movement with my lighter as I went.

Then a miracle happened. I heard an unusual knock. I dozed on, having learnt to curb my enthusiasm at such noises hours previously. A minute later I began to hear low voices in stark contrast to the chatter of women and children down by the stream. Almost at the same moment I saw a glimmer of light across the pothole and up the passage beyond the impossible rock face. Finally, mountain rescue had arrived, I thought. I shouted out with an enormous sense of relief.

Three white lights approached.

But something was off, I couldn’t understand why my rescuers were so unsure of themselves. Surely, they had expected to find me here and had a plan ready to execute. They should be responding to my garbled words of thanks and pronouncements that I wasn’t injured. They should be readying harnesses to haul me up the rock face. Where were the calm reassurances and the witty jibes I had imagined all mountain rescuers provide in such circumstances?

I asked whether Dan had alerted them and somewhere behind the torches a voice hesitantly replied, “Nah”.

It was getting a little awkward.

Then it dawned on me that this was all a complete coincidence. Three young guys from a town thirty miles away had just decided that evening to hike up into the Tetons at midnight, crawl half a mile back into a cave and there they were, wondering whether they should run or hide from this strange creature peering out of the darkness. One was wearing shorts, none had gloves. The youngest, eighteen, had a handgun on his hip but no equipment. As the eldest asked cautiously whether I was trying to get out and if I needed help, I was struck dumb by the serendipity of it all.

I learnt later that they had almost given up and turned back twice but for some spirit of adventure which willed them deeper into the mountain. Perhaps they were searching for the same, strange, dark, wilderness that had led me there.

I rappelled down the opposite rock face and tied the safety rope under my arms. I threw every last ounce of strength into hauling myself up the knotted rope which had become my nemesis. The three heroes did the rest and pulled me over the overhang without much fuss. I hugged the nearest dark space beneath a head torch and we beat a hasty retreat, shuffling on our stomachs and crabbing where space permitted. By the time we emerged under a crisp starry sky, I had been underground for almost 12 hours.

The three-mile trip down to the track was cheerful and I fetched them a bag of road beers from the river chiller back at camp. After a brief chat with Dan – who had been asleep and generally rather less concerned than I’d hoped – I wolfed down a can of kidney beans in the back of my SUV and curled up, bruised and reeking, on my 2-inch foam mattress. It felt remarkably thin as I began to notice each cut, bruise and sprain.

The ‘river chiller’

The SUV

I was both stupid and lucky. I could have become pretty chilly waiting for a rescue, I could have knocked myself out trying to scale the rock face, or maybe if I’d made it over and out, and hiked down in the dark, I would have tripped and fallen, or surprised a grizzly bear. In retrospect, however, I have been in much worse mental states of panic worrying about work, school or those I love. I was stuck deep underground, alone, shivering in the dark, but deep down I felt… fine. More than that it felt wild, a rare and unlikely satisfaction.

#wild #caving #spelunking #tetons #wildness #trapped #adventure

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adventuresineurope2017 · 7 years

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The land of bonnie wee Charles

On touching down in Edinburgh we were greeted by gray skies and temperatures in the mid teens. This was the weather for the next few days interspersed with showers and the occasional wee break in the clouds as the sun popped through. However it never ever felt cold and a jacket was only needed to keep you dry.

For the first time in ages we encountered friendly officials at immigration where a lady conversed with us asked us about our forthcoming trip and welcomed us with a smile. At the car rental place we were served by a young African from Zimbabwe. Of course we had to tell him we were also from there and the connection was made. He upgraded our car to include a GPS for a minimal amount and went out of his way to supply us with information and maps. When we mentioned our first stop was Uphall, the chap serving in the next cubicle told us he was also from there and was sure that my dad must have attended the same school as him. He even invited us to visit him. We both felt that we had arrived home.

We were soon on our way, and reveling in the act of driving on the left-hand side of the road, reading traffic signs in English, and enjoying the wide green spaces. Since our recent blogs have featured our accommodation conditions, we have to report a most favorable change in circumstances. After settling in we had time to explore the local area which happened to include the Forth bridge, the site of a visit to Scotland by Nicky with her father when she was 14. We just had to buy fish and chips from the local shop and ate this in our car, overlooking the sea with rain dripping on our roof and on a bunch of locals who seemed oblivious to the wet while also watching the view and eating their fish and chips.

While at our first stop on the west coast - the peaceful fishing port of Oban, we spent a day driving to Glencoe. This is arguably one of Scotland's most beautiful scenic drives. The weather for the most part of the day was pretty heavy rain but we managed to get a short forest walk in for the time that the sun made a brief appearance. This was a rain forest and so of course was full of moss, so much so that most of the trees had "green trunk socks". Despite the weather we were lucky to view many great sights. The mountains here certainly give those in Montenegro some competition, they are massive. Some of them are lined with forests of pine trees with wispy clouds suspended on the tree tops. Other mountains had a green smooth carpet appearance with white lines of varying width (waterfalls) interspersed in the crevices and flowing down the full face. All along our route were rushing streams cascading over rocks and precipices. We were taken by the peacefulness and quiet wherever we were with few tourists and the constant sound of rushing water. It was a revelation to discover the extent of water in Scotland. A photographer's paradise -big brooding mountains with shafts of light between dark clouds and mist.

Oban

Although our route had a general plan, none of our journeys would be complete without numerous side trips down interesting byways. In Scotland these comprise single-track lanes, usually lined with hedges, stone walls or steep precipices. Sometimes they are green tunnels of fir, oak, elm or birch. To ease the problem of oncoming traffic they construct passing zones every 100 meters or so, so you can make way. On these side trips we were treated to expanses of water backlit with rolling green mountains blanketed with dark fluffy clouds hovering over the top, an isolated haunting view of a castle on a tiny island, and even a group of red deer which have furry antlers much like a reindeer.

Moving further north to a place called Dingwall revealed more waterways and mountains which were reflected in the water. We stopped off in two places where there were locks, and watched the movement of boats through them. It always fascinates me watching this process. At one of the spots we had tea using our newly purchased flask and cooler box 😎. And we finally made some purchases of real clotted cream fudge.

We spent the next two days touring the north west highlands in the car. In amongst rolling hills, lochs and streams, we felt like we were on top of the world yet within minutes we found ourselves in a deep valley surrounded by towering mountains. Unlike further south most mountains here are devoid of vegetation and one can imagine that the conditions in mid winter must be incredibly harsh and only the hardiest of scots would ever survive here. How on earth they managed to develop a little tartan skirt for wearing outdoors is beyond us - I guess it helps that they are made of wool.

We visited a gorgeous coastal town at the end of a loch, called Ullapool. Our quest to find warm scones and cream for tea was fruitless and we left empty handed. Tony was wishing he had his fishing rod as he was positive a large fish was lurking in the deep waters waiting to grace our dinner plate. Our quest for scones found us at a morning market at the side of the road. Although we found an assortment of hand knitted beanies, some pewter jewelry and a collection of wartime magazines written by Churchill, there was not a single baked item on display. This was to form a pattern for the day: on our 150 mile journey through numerous villages and hamlets we did not encounter a single freshly baked scone. Next day our solution was to buy scones at Tesco's, plus a tub of Cornish clotted cream, and had a grand tea overlooking a stunning view down a glacial valley toward a distant loch.

Back in Dingwall at the end of the day, we stumbled on something we rarely see at home these days - a large and comprehensively stocked second hand bookshop, full of fascinating volumes and managed by an amusing man who we were sure would know every one of the thousands of titles in his store. An old world place of magic and fascination!

We exited Scotland today via Gretna Green - pretty much a commercialised wedding venue without any sense of what the original was like in days gone by, and are overnighting near Hadrian’s Wall on our way to the Lake District.

Scotland has probably been our favourite place, and we will be back soon! It's one of those places that seem to defy adequate description and words fail us. Next time, join us to experience the wonder and explore more of this part of the world with us! Start saving!

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