The walking ladies (Minus One) are currently on tour in Scotland. We met at Godalming station at 8.45am and 11 hours later we stepped off the train and were in a taxi to the Glencore activity centre near Aviemore. As far as train journeys go, this was my longest ever. Husband wouldn’t understand how, but we chatted non stop for 11 hours. We also drank copious amounts of tea and coffee, had sandwiches for lunch and tea (very good quality – salmon and cheese), sent snapchats to Minus One of our Wensleydale sandwich and gin and tonics/prosecco, almost finished the Everyman crossword and got our step counts up through numerous trips to use the facilities (ok maybe that was just me and I don’t even have a fitbit). There were a few interesting fellow passengers including one couple who joined us in Edinburgh and didn’t speak to each other for the whole journey to Aviemore. They both seemed to be deeply engaged in their crosswords but weren’t sharing clues. Where’s the fun with that? We also had the archetypal lads-playing-cards-drinking-beer for the whole journey with constant banter, ending up with them complaining that the bar had run out of beer. They were good natured if a bit blokey. We played ‘I wonder if she is going to Glencore to do the course with us’ but wrongly identified one woman who looked like a candidate but got off at Berwick.
I was set to share a room with a stranger here at the lodge. I did a similar thing a few years ago when I shared a tent with someone who I hardly knew. That time, we were climbing Kilimanjaro and while sharing a tent is much more intense in terms of lack of personal space, it didn’t worry me at all. It was fantastic and my tent fellow is now a good mate and a very strong bond (we survived) was formed.
This time, though, it seems a bit different. When I got to the room, there were signs of my room mate’s existence- the bed cover neatly set at a jaunty angle and sleepwear tucked on the pillow, a suitcase and a rucksack. Those people that have shared rooms (Minus One, Husband) or tents will know I am not the quietest sleeper or the tidiest person. I worried for this stranger’s sleep pattern – although she had taken the bed by the window leaving me the one nearest the loo – bonus points for that. I worried that my inability to keep my clothes in neat piles would upset her clear sense of order and so I took the decision to check out the possibility of not ruining her week in the Cairngorms and am now safely ensconced in another room in glorious solitude. Clothes strewn everywhere and the light still blaring while I write this blog. Tomorrow we start our course on map reading and navigational skills. Family, beware, mum’s short-cuts maybe a thing of the past – they might start being actual short-cuts!!!
Snoo's kitchen 