Shopping in Dornoch - Go directly to Jail...

If you've read the last few posts you already know that while staying at the little Caravan Club site at Grummore we'd driven through the empty hills of Sutherland and enjoyed an excellent lunch at the Dornoch Castle Hotel. With lunch over we stepped out, full stomached and smiling into the late spring sunshine.

As we ambled along the pavement towards our first shop, a little antique store right at the end of the street, the air was ripped by the wailing roar of jet engines as two Tornado GR4s of the RAF tore across the skyline, either en-route to the bombing range just down the coast, or heading back to their base at RAF Lossiemouth. This set the scene for the rest of the afternoon, as more Tornadoes and a brace of Typhoon FG4s went through their paces in the distance. I mention this partly because I'm a plane geek and partly because these awesome machines are a real feature of this stretch of Scotland's East coast, and a great contrast with the peace and tranquillity which is the default setting for the Highlands. I always find the contrast refreshing.

It wasn't a day for plane spotting though. We browsed the antiques for a while, buying a rather lovely little bud vase that we couldn't resist and then made our way to the rather brilliant Jail*, an establishment which is too grand and eclectic to be considered a mere shop and must at the very least be worthy of the title emporium. Housed, rather unsurprisingly in the old prison building Jail is in many ways a strange mix. 

 

 As you walk through the door you are greeted by a selection of ceramics. Not the workaday tableware sort, but the decorative arty kind. To the left of the door is a narrow corridor leading to what were clearly at one point the actual cells. Each cell caters to a different style of merchandise - one is full of designer soap, another books and CDs with a Highland theme, another crammed to the very gills with posh toys for children. If none of that floats your boat, walk straight on through the ceramics section and you enter a world of handbags before emerging, blinking and awestruck into a magic kingdom of tweed outdoor wear and really nice shoes.

Jail is, in essence, a little bit of Kensington dropped into the North East Highlands and it is, quite frankly glorious because it's clever. You see Dornoch attracts some seriously well heeled people - people who think spending four hundred quid on a handbag is economising - but it also attracts people like us. Jail caters to both sets of clientele and makes everyone they serve feel like a million dollars. If you want to spend four hundred quid on a handbag you can - and a damn fine handbag it will be - but you can also spend one pound ninety nine on a felt flower brooch and the person behind the counter will make you feel every bit as special. We love the place, and their formula of mixing quirky and high quality goods with friendly service is clearly a winner because they've actually expanded recently and opened an interior design department in the old post office on the other side of the street.

Around the corner though, sits what is for us the shopping highlight not just of Dornoch, but of the whole of the north East Highlands - the very, very wonderful Dornoch Bookshop. Much has been said in recent years about how Amazon is destroying independent bookshops, but the Dornoch Bookshop, like Fred Holdsworth's in Ambleside, shows why good independent booksellers will always survive.

It's a tiny little place, cramming an awful lot of great things into a small area, and using every centimetre of space to maximum effect. Eye catching window displays draw the wood be reader in, often by showcasing the kinds of books that Amazon would never know you wanted. Over the years I've picked up the autobiography of traditional Scottish musician and Gaelic speaking legend Norman Maclean - I man I would never even have heard of had his book The Leper's Bell not been shown off to such good effect in the bookshop's window - and a novel based on the true story of the construction of Orkney's famous Italian Chapel. I've never seen either of these books anywhere else, and they were both fantastic reads.

A good bookshop, to my way of thinking, doesn't just sell you the things you think you want, the best sellers and latest "must reads" - although you'll find these things at the Dornoch Bookshop if you want them - but also the things you don't know you want because you've never heard of them. That's what this place does so well, and that's why we love it.

But you're not reading this to find out about bookshops. No, you're reading this to find out about Dornoch Cathedral because in the last post I promised to finish the story about the siege of Dornoch and what happened when the forces of Caithness attacked the townspeople who had taken refuge in the cathedral tower. (Nip back and read the previous post if you missed it - don't worry, we'll wait for you. OK? Good. All ready? Right, here we go...)

So. When we left this exciting story the town had been sacked by the forces of Caithness and Mackay and the people of the town were sheltering in the Cathedral - all hope seemed lost. but then - and I promise that I'm not making up any of what follows  - the invaders went too far.

When St Gilbert founded the cathedral in 1214 he laid down a terrible curse, calling on the "wrath and indignation of Almighty God" to cast into eternal damnation anyone who would "distract and injure" this place of worship. Given that the Cathedral had now been burned, and William Sutherland had desecrated the tomb of the Saint, I think we can agree that a good deal of distraction and injury had been done.

The actions of William Sutherland, and their consequences were described by Sir Robert Gordon - and I'm quoting directly here from information picked up at the castle:

"He opened Gilbert his grave, burst St Gilbert his coffin with his foot, and threw the ashes of that holy man with the kind which enormitie the Almighty God did most justlie punish; for that same foot that burst St Gilbert his coffin did afterwards rot away and consume, to the great terror of all beholders, whereby, this William Sutherland grew so lothsum that no man was able to come neir with him, and so he died miserable."

Allegedly, when Sutherland finally died, the devil himself came to collect him and dragged him down to hell - which actually made me wonder why Old Nick would care so much that a Saint had been offended, but that's by the by.

As for the people of Dornoch, well, their suffering wasn't quite over. As part of the peace settlement between the victorious Caithness and Mackay clans the people of the town were instructed to send three Murrays as hostages to ensure good behaviour. these hostages were promptly beheaded by the Earl of Duffus in an act of savagery "against all humanitie and the laws of nations duelie observed amongst the greatest infidels".

The Earl then seems to have been struck down by an unnamed sickness and "never rose againe out of his bed". The young master of Caithness, who had led the sacrilegious attack on the Cathedral was punished by his father the Earl, who apparently threw him into a dungeon where he languished for seven years before succumbing to "famine and vermine". Finally, the Mackay of Strathnaver also died "partlie through grief and... the torment... of his concience".

This demonstrates a couple of things. First of all, don't mess with thirteenth century saints. When they laid a curse, they really really didn't muck about. It also tells us that Sir Robert Gordon - my major source for all of this - couldn't spell and had a real flair for the dramatic. It also tells us that we should be careful to take such histories with a small pinch of salt - it is worth pointing out that Sir Robert Gordon wasn't actually born until seven years after the events he has chronicled.

Whatever the veracity of Gordon's retelling of events, it is true to say that the Cathedral is certainly a much more tranquil place in modern times. After the destruction of 1570 - which left nothing much beyond a cluster of stone pillars, the tower and the quire - it took nearly fifty years before some restoration was undertaken. Sir Robert Gordon (yes, him again) organised the restoration of the quire and transepts, but then bricked off the ruins of the nave to create a T shaped church. It stood in that unusual configuration until 1835, when Elizabeth, Duchess of Sutherland - wife of the Duke responsible for the Strathnaver Clearances and popular hate figure in some circles - paid to have the nave rebuilt.

The result is the fine building which now stands as the heart of this little town. In many ways it puts me in mind of the little iron church at Syre, just on a larger scale - in spite the age of its foundations this is not some gothic pile that presents you with a grand spectacle, but instead exudes an unpretentious air of contemplative peace.

There is an awful lot more to do in Dornoch - there are some fantastic beaches on this stretch of coast for a start. Mention should also be made of the wonderful Historylinks Museum which features some excellent displays telling the story of the history of this part of the world. We didn't stop for a look on this particular visit, but we do heartily recommend it. This part of the world seems to do small museums particularly well - I would also point you at the direction of the Timespan Museum in Helmsdale too, although I'll leave that for another time.

*I believe I made my feelings about this kind of slapdash American spelling in the last post. The British spelling is "gaol", but, as is so often the case they didn't ask me when they ordered the sign...

Lunch in Dornoch, Seals and a Castle.

We learned some time ago that if you're approaching Dornoch from the north it pays you to approach a little obliquely by taking a narrow little left turn off the A9 a few miles north of the town and following the banks of Loch Fleet towards Skelbo Castle - especially if you happen to be visiting when the tide is low. On this visit the tide was just coming in, but we took the detour anyway and were rewarded with a fine view of the large colony of Harbour Seals*that calls the loch home.

They really are endlessly entertaining. Some loll like corpulent Roman dignitaries on exposed sandbanks, some swim and play in the shallow water - water shallow and clear enough, incidentally, to make it possible to make them out as they swim beneath the surface - some leap in and out of the water doing a passable impersonation of a dolphin while others rest on submerged sand banks, assuming what I've always thought of as the "banana position", bending their bodies so that their heads and tail flippers protrude above the waves. It looks most uncomfortable, but the seals seem to like it.

Seal watching is clearly a popular pass time here. The road is predictably single track, but there are a few capacious laybys to allow you to stop and stare to your heart's content. There are even benches to sit on and display boards to tell you what you're looking at - because there is an awful lot more here than just seals, entertaining as they are. Depending on the height of the tide, the season and the weather, you can see all manner of wildfowl and wading birds here too. We've spent hours here over the years - but as you may recall from the previous post we'd been driving for some time, it was lunchtime and we were hungry so we moved on after a mere quarter of an hour or so, scooting along the little single track road which leads you directly into Dornoch's main street.

I call it the main street, because "Town Square" is a bit of a strong word for it, but in fact I mean the open paved area at one end of the main street. Here can be found several parking spaces (although when it's busy there's an excellent pay and display car park on the next street over),the main bus stop,  the town notice board, a few shops - about which more later - the town hall and the Dornoch Castle Hotel.

In all our years of visiting this fantastic little town we have only eaten in two establishments. On our first visit we were with Mrs Snail's parents and we had lunch at the Royal Dornoch Golf Club. This was years ago, and I remember almost nothing about it save for a faint memory of being impressed. Every visit since we've either had a picnic, not been there at lunchtime, or made a beeline for the Dornoch Castle Hotel. It's a little forbidding from the outside perhaps, but once you learn a little about its history you begin to understand why.

The origins of Dornoch Castle are shrouded in the mists of time. It is believed that the current building stands on the site of the original Bishop's Palace, built for St Gilbert - who also founded the Cathedral - at some point in the thirteenth century. At what point the oldest of the current buildings was constructed is open to question - but look at it, it looks pretty old...

We do know that the place left ecclesiastical hands in 1557 when Bishop Robert Stewart gave it to his Brother in Law, the Earl of Sutherland. It remained in Sutherland hands until the family sold it in 1922. In those three hundred and sixty five years the building served as a palatial residence, court house and  gaol**. In 1570 it withstood a vicious siege when the Murrays of Dornoch rescued the young Earl Alexander of Sutherland from Dunrobin Castle (just up the road - I'll tell you about it someday) where he was being held by the Earl of Caithness.

The young Earl of Sutherland, it seems, was under the guardianship of the Earl of Caithness, who had married him off to one of his daughters - twice the young man's age - and proceeded to rule both Caithness and Sutherland with the proverbial iron fist. Clan Murray were opposed to the dominance of Caithness and the Clan Mackay (the clan who ruled the area around Strathnaver) and so snuck into Dunrobin and spirited the youngster away.

Naturally the Clans of Caithness and Mackay, and the Sutherlands of Skelbo, weren't going to take this lying down and gave chase. There were days of bitter and intense fighting but the people of Dornoch were outnumbered and the town was sacked. The townspeople held out for a further week in the towers of the castle and adjacent cathedral. The invaders were determined to force the people out though - and that's when things in the history get a little weird, involving a thirteenth century curse, a furious - if dead - saint and the Devil himself. I'll probably come back to that when we visit the cathedral later...

After all those adventures a large part of the castle complex became a hotel in 1947, and it manages to walk the very tricky tightrope between the opposing challenges of remaining true to its heritage as a stronghold and stately home and being a comfortable place where tourists can relax and enjoy a good meal. Indeed, it walks that tightrope very well. The walls of the lounge/bar/reception area are of the same split get stone that the exterior walls are constructed from, and I suppose that this could make the place seem a little cold and forbidding.

It doesn't though, partly because of the huge fireplace dominating the wall on the left hand side, which is so large you could use it to garage a fleet of small cars, and which on damp rainy days is guaranteed to make even the soggiest of visitors feel warm and welcome.

 The decor also helps. There must be a terrible temptation when you own a castle to fill the place up with stags heads, suits of armour and heavy red drapes. As regular readers may recall me and Mrs Snail like a good castle and we've seen many places that have fallen into this trap and consequently look as though they're being used as a set for a medieval B movie. The Dornoch Castle Hotel has deftly sidestepped that particular design faux par, and instead has light modern looking wooden table and chairs down the outside wall - If I'd paid more attention to Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen programmes in the nineties I cold probably tell you what kind of wood they are - it certainly looked too classy for pine - but frankly I have no idea and it isn't actually relevant so I'm not going to worry about it. The fireplace is surrounded by deep and comfortable looking leather sofas - well, they look like leather at least, I confess I didn't actually check, and the bar itself, tucked away in the far corner, is also resplenant in light polished wood - with not a horse brass or shield mounted claymore in sight.

We grabbed a table by a little window looking out onto the street. A tall young woman with dark bobbed hair and a dazzling smile brought us menus and confirmed that yes, they did offer free WIFI. She handed me a slip of paper bearing the WIFI access code and left us to choose our lunch. My choice was, of course, very easy. I already knew I was having the burger - I knew from happy experience that the burgers at the Castle Hotel are awesome, and to be honest the lunch menu isn't all that extensive - so I directed my attention to downloading the recent Monaco Grand Prix from the BBC i-Player.

Myself and Mrs Snail are massive fans of Formula One but we'd travelled from Killin to Grummore on the Sunday of the race and while one of the things we like about Grummore is its lack of TV signal and internet provision, that does make it difficult to keep up with events in other countries. Of course, it also makes it easy to avoid finding out the result of a race that had taken place days earlier, so with the race downloaded we were looking forward to some motor racing action when we got back to the 'van.

 The waitress with the dazzling smile reappeared briefly to take our orders, and to apologise that they were all out of Beef Burgers and, although burgers were still on the menu, all they had was venison. I was slightly amused that she presented this to me as though it might be a problem - personally I couldn't have been happier, I have no issue whatsoever with eating Bambi and vastly prefer venison to beef.  After a little ummin and ahing Mrs Snail opted for a tuna and red onion sandwich.

I was not in any way disappointed. The venison patty was beautifully rich and well seasoned with a tangy tomato relish which cut through the richness of the meat. There was, I confess, some salad, but since I was on holiday I paid it no mind. Far more worthy on notice were the chips (none of your "fries" nonsense here, thank you very much) which were thick and crisp and golden. Indeed, about the only issue I was presented with during the whole course of the meal was the fact that the chips were so crispy the salt kept bouncing off.

Yes, I know, it is such a hard life isn't it?

Mrs Snail declared her sandwich to be "very nice", but was clearly not totally blown away. It looked good, but was a little light on the red onion front.

Overall, well, we definitely still love the Dornoch Castle hotel. The food is good, if perhaps a little limited - and I have to say I'd rather it was limited and excellent than fancy and poor, so that's not much of a criticism - and the service is brilliant. The staff are attentive enough that you're never waiting long for anything you might want, but discrete enough that you don't ever feel as though you have somebody hovering on your shoulder.

With lunch over it was time to move on and have a bit of a wander around one of Sutherland's prettiest little towns - join me next tme for a little light shopping...

*They're also known as "Common Seals" but I just can't bring myself to refer to these extraordinary aquatic mammals as "common".

**Or "Jail" if you prefer. But I'm British, and can spell, so "gaol" it is.

The long narrow road to Dornoch.

I said in an earlier posting that the Altnaharra Caravan Club Site, by the shores of Loch Naver below the clearance village of Grummore was in the middle of nowhere. And so it is. This means that if you want to have a day of shopping you have to be prepared for a bit of a drive. This is, however, not a bad thing because while you will have a long way to go, the landscape you will be driving through is so gorgeous you won't want it to stop.

So it was that when we set out for a day in the coastal town of Dornoch we chose not to take the "quick" route through Lairg and Bonar Bridge, but the "scenic" route via Syre and Helmsdale. You might want to grab a coffee. This will be a longer than usual post, because it is rather a long way...

We left the site and turned right, away from Altnaharra and head in a roughly northerly direction towards the little settlement of Syre. At first the road follows the lochside, and then from the end of the loch it runs along the western bank of the River Naver as it flows relentlessly towards Bettyhill, the north coast, and the sea. As you drive you will pass first the clearance village of Grumbeg - which is also the site of a neolithic chambered cairn - and then the memorial to Donald Macleod, a resident of the cleared village of Rossall, on the opposite side of the river.

In 1857, some years after the clearance, he wrote his experiences up in a series for the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle. Under the title "Gloomy Memories" these reminiscences were later collected into a book which remains one of the primary sources on the clearances. You can't actually see Rossall from the memorial as it is now obscured by commercial forestry, but we'll come back to it, and to Macleod later.

At around about this point there's also a sign informing motorists that this is now an experimental road surface for timber lorries, and thanking us for our cooperation. Now, we've been driving around this area on and off for more than five years. The sign has always been here, as have the massive timber lorries which hurtle along the narrow roads with careless abandon. In all of that time we've never been able to discern anything experimental about the bog standard tarmac road surface, or managed to work out exactly what it is we've been cooperating with.

After about six miles or so you arrive in the little settlement - I'm going to suggest it's too small to be accurately described as a village - of Syre. There's a little car parking area on your right here, and it's worth pausing for a while to take a look at the church. This neat and tidy little black and white corrugated iron building was constructed in 1901. It was essentially a pre-fab flat pack designed by Spiers and Co. of Glasgow and still hosts services on the second, fourth and fifth Sunday's of the month.

For ourselves myself and Mrs Snail are not church goers, but that doesn't prevent us from appreciating a good church. This little building exudes a sense of calm and tranquillity - a sense that is heightened as you venture inside. The walls are wood lined and white painted, the ceiling a soft sky blue and the pews simple stripped pine. It's surprisingly quiet considering you're sitting inside what is basically a big metal box - although I confess I've never been in there during a hail storm. It's a wonderful little nugget of peace, and I commend it to you.

At the start of the twentieth century people were beginning to move back into Strathnaver after the clearances seventy five years earlier- hence the need for a new church. New crofts were established, but the new settlers hardly had a chance to establish themselves before their young men - so vital on a working croft - were taken by the carnage of Ypre, Paschendale and the Somme, a second tragedy for the valley attested to by the war memorial which stands outside the church.

Behind the church is the house built by Patrick Sellar -who you may remember from the last post as the one time Factor for the Duke of Sutherland and overseer of the Strathnaver clearances, although according to the guidebooks it's been extended and renovated to a point where the man himself wouldn't recognise it.

We need to move on though - turning right just past the church, across the bridge over the River Naver.  If you've set off early and have plenty of time, you might want to turn right again as soon as you hit the opposite shore and take a little detour down the Forestry Commission track. This does mean you're going back on yourself, but if you've developed an interest in the valley - and trust me, you will - there are a couple of things down here that you'll want to see. There's a car park about half a mile down the track, and you'll be on foot from here. Trust me - take a deep breath and stride out into the forest gloom.

You're actually only going to be walking a shade over a mile, but I'm afraid because of your surroundings it will feel like more. don't get me wrong - I really like trees. There are few things I like more than wandering through a forest, the sun streaming through the canopy; dappled shed an fresh, chlorophyll green light. But this isn't that kind of forest. This is a Forestry Commission commercial forest, which means regimented lines of close planted dark green conifers, all standing straighter than a Buckingham Palace guard reaching ever upwards towards an invisible sky. You can't see anything to the side of the track, and you can't see beyond the next bend.

It's like being stuck inside a dark green bubble and you'll be relieved when you get to the little sign that directs you to the left, off the track, and into the lost village of Rossall. You are now more or less opposite the Donald Macleod memorial we passed earlier, although obviously you can't see it because of the trees.

Because of Macleod's book Rossall is probably the most well known of Strathnaver's cleared settlements, and the Forestry Commission has done an excellent job of preserving what's left and providing clear, comprehensive information about what you're actually looking at as you walk through the ruins.

There are the remains of forty seven buildings here, longhouses, outbuildings and kilns for the drying of corn. The settlement is spread across a small hillock, at the summit of which is yet more evidence that human occupation of this valley extends back into more ancient times. The Bronze Age burial mound which sits atop the hill isn't immediately obvious, and I confess I might well have missed it had we not been in possession of the excellent little book "What to see in Strathnaver: A guide to local history and Archaeology" by Kevin O'Reilly and Ashley Crockford which we picked up from the information centre in Bettyhill a couple of years ago.

Rather more obvious evidence of ancient occupation can be found if you leave Rossall, return to the Forestry Commission track and head about a mile and a half further on down. Be warned - it will feel very much like walking through a painting by MC Esher, the track does seem endless beneath the miserable conifer canopy where the sun does not shine and the birds seem not to sing, but you will be rewarded at the end of it with Clach an Righ, a small circle of standing stones.

In common with so many of the standing stone monuments in the north of Scotland, there is a refreshing lack of barriers here. If you've ever been to Stonehenge on Sailsbury Plain you'll know that you can't get within twenty feet of the stones. Now, while I confess that Clach an Righ is a lot less spectacular than Stonehenge, there is nothing stopping you getting up close and personal with the monument and feeling the history which radiates from the rock.

The legend is that this circle - about twenty two feet across - it's slender stones protruding snaggle toothed from the scrubby ground was raised to commemorate the Battle of Dalharrold, between Scots and Norsemen at the tail end of the Twelfth Century. Given that people of that time were not given to arranging rocks in circles such an explanation is clearly nonsense, and indeed the archaeology suggests that the stones are significantly older.

How old is a matter of some speculation, but it could easily date back to 2000BC*, meaning that this little circle of stones could pre-date the Broch mentioned in the last post by as much as two thousand years, and suggest that there have been people in the Strath for four millennia. The purpose of these circles is unknown, although the presence of a small cairn within the ring points to the possibility of a burial here.

If you've walked all this way though, you'll realise as we did that however fascinating is is to commune with the ancients, time will be getting on, it's a long walk back to the car and you'd better get a shift on if you're going to get to Dornoch by lunchtime. For the sake of brevity, and because it's a hideous walk I choose not to think too much about, I'll omit any description of the two and a half mile trudge back to the car and instead leap forward to skimming across an almost deserted landscape along the single track road** which will lead us eventually to the eastern coast of Scotland.

You're a few miles down the road before you come to the first landmark, the The Garvault Hotel, which claims - with some justification - to be the most remote hotel in mainland Britain. We've never visited, what with hotels not being our thing, but I can confirm that it is truly in the middle of nowhere, and that it is set in the middle of an empty and dramatic landscape. Indeed, it's gone the extra mile in terms of isolation by being set at least half a mile back from the road. The place has always appeared deserted, but then I guess that's the point.

A few miles further on you start tom come across isolated farms and the landscape begins to change subtley. The orange and russets of moorland begin to give way to greener, grassier, more rolling hills - particularly once you take a hard right hand turn onto the A897 at the little village of Kinbrace. (A left hand turn here will take you to the wonderful Forsinard Flows, about which more at some time in the future.) You'll notice more trees, of a more deciduous nature and for the most part you find yourself at a much lower altitude, no longer looking down on the river at the bottom of the valley but driving at more or less the same level as the fly fishermen standing up to their waists in their quest to land the biggest salmon.

You have to drive with a little extra caution around here. It's easy to get used to the wide open spaces where you can see for miles ahead and - even on these single track roads - you can belt along at a pretty fair old clip. As you get closer to the East Coast the proliferation of trees makes it much harder to see what's coming. While it's true that there aren't all that many cars on the road, there are some, and besides cars aren't the only thing you might meet on the road.

Red Deer are remarkably prolific in this neck of the woods and for some reason up on the moors where you can see them easily they stay well away from the road but as soon as you get a lot of trees to obscure your view they come right up to the road. Maybe they're all car spotters, I dunno. Still, a bit of cautious driving means you stand an excellent chance of getting a really close up view, while being profligate with your speed makes it rather likely you'll hit one - and you wouldn't want to do that. Really, you'd feel bad about it. Besides, have you seen them? Adult Red Deer are huge! Hit one in anything smaller than a tank and you're definitely going to write off your car.

Finally you drive over the Kildonan Beck, where there is a helpful display of information about the gold rush of 1869. Everything here is green and peaceful now, but back in the latter half of the nineteenth century this section of the Helmsdale valley was occupied by a dense little shanty town known as "Baile an Or" in Gaelic - "Village of the Gold" in English. There still is gold in these thar hills, and you can still pan for it. (There are rules though, so a little research is required before you start.) You're unlikely to get rich, but there is a heart warming story in the Timespan Museum in Helmsdale about a bloke who panned the stream for years until he had enough gold to make a wedding ring.

Then, suddenly, you're in Helmsdale. The town just seems to suddenly appear - the single track road broadens out to the more standard two lane arrangement and ordinary suburban houses on either side of the road. After such a long drive through such emptiness Helmsdale feels like a major conurbation, although it really is - by Southern standards at least - quite tiny. It's a pleasant little place, but one I won't describe now because we'll be back in the not too distant future.

From here we pointed the car south on the A9 - one of the few A roads in this neck of the woods which isn't single track, and consequently feels a bit like a motorway - through the towns of Brora and Golspie towards Dornoch and much more importantly, lunch.

About which, more soon.

*Or BCE is you prefer more PC dating.

**Not that the road being single track is remarkable in any way - all the roads are single track around here.