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15 September 2009
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Tuesday 15 September 2009--We're on our way to the Black Isle today. Stop at the Gordon & MacPhail shop in Elgin to pick out a new road bottle, the Old Pulteney having given its last. We browse for some time without inspiration when I spot a bottle of Milford, from New Zealand, at a very reasonable price. How antipodean.

Errands in Inverness: We're flying to Shetland tomorrow, on a small plane with relatively strict luggage weight restrictions. We are therefore sending a bag (full of heavy whisky bottles) ahead to Plockton by courier. We spend rather too much time wandering around an industrial estate looking for the courier's office. Then we tromp all over downtown Inverness in search of a car-ready battery charger to replace the one I've been using for the past couple of years--it's been misbehaving the past two days. Vital equipment, for camera, hand-held GPS, and a couple of other things. We are about to give up when we stumble into Jessop's camera shop and find exactly what is needed.

We approach Fortrose in a roundabout way, stopping for a late-afternoon pint at the Plough Inn in Rosemarkie, and a walk on the beach there. Rosemarkie was amalgamated with Fortrose in 1455, but doesn't quite yet seem to have fully accepted the union. The Plough is a fine local, and our pints are augmented by a typically silly Ealing Studios comedy, The Titfield Thunderbolt, on the telly.

[Here is Wikipedia's take on Ealing: In the post-war period, the company embarked on a series of celebrated comedies which became the studio's hallmark. These were often lightly satirical, and were seen to reflect aspects of British character and society. The first was Hue and Cry in 1947, and the last Barnacle Bill in 1956. However, the best remembered Ealing films were produced between 1948 and 1955: Whisky Galore! (1949), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955) are now seen as classics of British cinema.]

We check in at the Anderson and have dinner and a couple of pints. We're both really tired. I normally try to schedule three nights in Craigellachie, and at least two here, but I've had to squeeze the itinerary to get the full week in Shetland. We seem to be paying the price for that. Ron heads off to bed early, and I expect to do the same, but as so often happens, I end up in conversation at the bar, and am the last out at closing.

Next



Elgin


Elgin


Inverness


The Plough Inn, Rosemarkie


The Plough Inn


The Plough Inn


"Until Death Do We Drink"


Ron Getting Ploughed


The Plough Inn


Rosemarkie


Rosemarkie


Anderson App

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