pecunium

Yep, that's the flying I did from Friday morning to Sunday evening.

The was reason in it, but little rhyme. The only solace to be found is that I have no jet lag (as I flew a mere 1,000 miles east, when all was said and done) and I was able to upgrade from Dulles to Frankfort. The latter meant I could actually sleep for about four hours, rather than merely doze in 40 minutes sessions.

Highlights of the Scotland trip.

Hiking the hills of Aviemore in the blustery rain. It was as one expects the heath to be. Later; hiking around Wyvie Lodge in the scattered clouds. It was all one who had already gotten to walk windswept crags could want.

I did try haggis. It was ok. I can see where it would be pretty good were it done very well. It's not a horror, but done ill it coul be a trifle off-putting. I forewent in the mess.

I bought a pair of 200ml bottles of cask-stregnth. A Caol-ila, and a Laphroaig. Caol-ila is the only Islay I've not had yet (there are only six distilleries on Islay, generally getting peatier/more seaweedy as one moves clockwise to Laphroaig. Caol-ila is a bit toward 2 o'clock, as I recall the map).

Stevenson, in Kidnapped, did a masterful job of capturing what the Highlands are like. It was all familiar in my eye. The heather was the right hight, the gorse was the right color, the look of it in the sun, and the smell of it in the rain were all as if I had known them of old. I see why Maia likes Scotland. She said I would like Edinburgh, but I didn't go (as I said, it was six hours of bus riding, and having to meet timings, and why would I want to have to play at the most annoyying aspects of soldiering on my specified holiday?), which means I missed the slight chance (had I gone to Edinburgh Castle with the right trio, to have Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of England and the first, of that name in Scotland, walk past me. I'll have to settle for shaking the hand of a Duke, and drinking with a guy who ordered his troops to assault the top of a fucking great hill in the Falklands with fixed bayonets. On balance, the latter was more worth it. Edinburgh Castle will be there next time I go, the hours of sleep I got, and ease I took could never be regained).

I did get a few hours in London. Fewer than I might because the driver who was to get us was doubly inept. He was waiting at the kerb for about an hour before he managed to come in to find us. I didn't see him when I went that way. Then he spent the best part of an hour not finding RAF Uxbridge (some 15 minnutes from Heathrow). Which means that, when all the the sorting was done I'd lost about four ours I might have spent in Town.(Uxbridge didn't know we were coming and the apology the Sergeant of the Guard gave me was beautiful. I had no choice but to absolve him completely, as he was completey without fault and had nothing for which to apologise).

Which meant I got not a moment in the National Portrait Gallery. I did make the pilgrimage to 84 Charing Cross Road. The shame of it is horrible. A fast food establishment stands where wonderful books were one sold. I did, however, break down and buy a decent book (though there were several wonderful books, and I almost broke down for an octavo on Drake, in carboard and leather, for £3.50, but somehow I refrained. I think that, were I to give in to more than one book, I should have ended up in Marshalsea for debt) at Quito, 48a Charing Cross Road.

I then had fish and chips at the Porcupine, where I was served a nice piece of fish, decently breaded, a side, I think, of some freshwater whitefish, with the skin still on, some chips; done to a turn, some mushy peas, a dollop of tartar sauce (just about perfect, not soft and runny, not clogged with pickle bits, but sticky, a slight sheen of oily, and a bit of bite; possessing sweet undertones, it made a pleasant counterpoint to the vinegar I liberally applied to the fish). On the side I had a pine of "Spitfire" a cask ale, wish was pulled, and came out from the pressure of the piston. Almost still, served at room temperature, all one might want in an ale.

I also got insight on mushy peas; the ones I wa served were actually a form of pease pudding/porridge. They were dried peas, which had been boiled in just enough water to make them soft enough to mash. If one overcooks canned peas they have something of the same texture, though become far too sweet.

I am now going to hie myself to dinner somewhere here in Kiev, where the sun goes down before it does in Inverness.