Long Envisaged Journey of Graham

A short day , so a short blog, ( there’s no logical reason for a short day and ditto blog).

I will endeavour to put more than 1 photo in the offering , so the less I have written the less will be lost when inserting pictures wrecks the article.

So , the page 3 article.

Perth to Bridge of Cally ( and its fine hotel) was intended to be a bit of a cruise, the A93 notwithstanding. I ambled out of Perth about 19-ish, and found the A93 alternative very pleasant, quiet with good views. Having rejoined the A93 it was a fast steady run all the way way to Blairgowrie. A new experience for my legs-about 10 miles with no breaks. So I was a bit tired. Whilst pretty much everybody in vehicles respected my space , on the way in to Blairgowrie a 4×4 attempted to get past with a delivery van Coming the other way. He squeezed past then blow me tried to turn left right across me into a supermarket. What a doughnut. As he backed off from wiping me out he gave a wan sort of ‘go ahead’ wave. Where do we find these muppets? Ah well, in Blairgowrie a lovely piece of fruit cake proved to be invigorating-I wonder if Radox realise that fruitcake is a potential threat to their business model ?

As the journey to Bridge of Cally was only 6 miles and it wasn’t yet 2pm I decided to take an interesting looking lane which made the same journey. This meant going off the map ,and off the plan which also meant those pesky ^ symbols could not be located. And of course there were a few , which I discovered when I logged in to OS Maps in the hotel. I wonder why Hannah Reynolds decided not to use this route-right up her ‘Climb every mountain’ mantra. However , it was useful to me in that I got up the longish climb in good (ish) shape for what is to come.

Venison tonight, and I hope they serve decent wines by the glass. Being offered cheap pinot grigio or cheap Merlot or cheap Chenin blanc or cheap Sauvignon blanc as the only ‘by the glass’ wines is tedious. Still, much to be thankful for. A Dutch couple even added to my tin this morning-it helps bring willing to chat to just about anybody! I gave a ‘tramp’ a bar of chocolate last night, and when he learnt what I was doing- the fabulous bright cycling top courtesy of Celeste always extracts some reaction- he tried to give it back. He deserves to be in a better place.

The pictures are in inverted chronological order. 1st is the old bridge over the Tay in Perth.

2nd is the ‘restaurant’ where I had lunch in the stunning road to Dunning.

3rd is South Queensferry, near Tim’s home.

And I discovered, wandering into Perth station for a look yesterday ( how a sad is that ? My U3A railway group members would say ‘Not at all. Perfectly normal.’ Everybody else , well …) that the service from Inverness to Edinburgh I shall get does NOT go over the Forth Bridge, so I will still never have been over it.

Final thought. What tense in English is ‘will still never have been’ ?

Aperitif time!