Hassells in the Highlands

  Durness.  It is a small but picturesque town on the west coast in Northern Scotland. Mike made a trip there when he was here for a week in March. And he brought back pictures of fabulous hot chocolate and a very cool cave. So, it being a weekend with no other plans, and wanting to take advantage of the time we have here, we decided to make a road trip.  It is 71 miles from Thurso to Durness. It took 2 hours to drive it. Here is why. Two lanes about half the way to Durness. Then one lane, with no road markings at all, but with "passing places" the rest of the way. ("Passing places" are a little wider area on the side of the road- sometimes hardly noticeable without the sign telling you so).  Now, granted, there were "passing places" quite often on the road. But the thing is, the road is windy - there are curves the whole way. Every once in a while, you can get up some speed (50 mph) but you quickly have to slow down either because ...

This country is full of small things. SMALL ROADS. I think we've touched on that one already. Our apartment, surprisingly, is not so small. Our rooms are decently sized. The second floor is an open plan - kitchen, living room, dining room with adjoining sitting room with a view of the river. It was renovated to be this way. Apparently, the apartment next door is divided up into separate rooms. Probably with doors into each room.  That would make the same space feel very small. So, let's start with the fridge.  Do you recognize it? This is the refrigerator we all bought for our kids to use in their dorm rooms at college. But even those often had a freezer built in. This one does not.  But we, apparently, are lucky, because the expat who lived here before us said that one tiny fridge just would not do, and she asked the landlord for a second fridge. And he bought one. That one sits on top of the counter.  So, I guess it really is a blessing tha...

Inverness. It's a large city. To get to Thurso, we had to fly into Inverness and then drive the rest of the way. There are other options: train or bus. It is only 119 miles away, but it took us 3 hours to drive it. That seems like a lot of time, you say. Well,...the roads. They are mostly 2 lanes (one each direction) with no shoulders. And I am sure the lanes are smaller than what they are in the US. Mike actually is driving 60 mph most of the way. But I guess there is something about all those curves. Not quite "The Road to Hana," but curvy. And, I have to admit, we found a nice little coffee shop that offers all kinds of homemade baked goods to go along with their wonderful coffee, which just happens to be at a public parking lot. So, we made a 20 minute stop. (Actually, we discovered it on the way up last week, so we sort of planned to stop on the way down). We needed to drive to Inverness this weekend for a couple of reasons. 1. We needed to return the rental ...