Moon Boot

A few weeks ago, on the 28th June to be precise, I decided to go for a walk. I’ve been on plenty of those before of course and not many of them are worth blogging about. Had this one gone to plan I may well have had an interesting tale to tell about discovering 77 year old aircraft wreckage but unfortunately it didn’t go to plan at all. In the Ayrshire countryside there are the remains of quite a number of crashed aircraft from the 1940s and 50s. Nowadays air crashes are thankfully few and far between and investigators endeavour to collect any bits of wreckage that remain to try and piece together the events that led up to the accident. Back in the war, and the years following it, there were not the resources to do that and as such wreckage remains in the more remote locations to this day. One such wreck is that of a Hawker Hurricane which crashed to the south of Loch Doon on 24th March 1944. Sadly, the pilot, FO Roswell Murray MacTavish of the Royal Canadian Air Force lost his life in the crash. He was 24 years old. A bit of internet searching revealed that a small amount of wreckage including the Merlin engine, along with a recently built stone cairn memorial, is in forestry commission land near Loch Doon. So it was on that Monday back in June that I decided I’d go and find it. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. If I ever do I’ll write another blog about it.

Loch Doon. A lovely if rather remote place to go for a walk.

There was one thing different about this walk. I was going to do it solo. Normally I have Elaine as a walking companion as it is decidedly more fun walking with someone. On this occasion, however, as she was working I thought I’d set off by myself on the eight mile round trip from the car park by Loch Doon Castle. It was a nice day with broken sunshine, pleasantly mild temperatures and I had packed an extra Mars Bar so was all set. The route is nearly all on gravel forest tracks with gentle inclines but nothing challenging. The views of the loch are fantastic and whilst it was a there and back walk rather than the preferred circular, I was quite enjoying myself. Once past the southern limit of the loch I didn’t see another soul and I dare say I was actually appreciating the solitude of the place. Eventually you have to leave the gravel road and traverse an area of felled woodland. There is a rough track to follow which I did. This should have quickly led me to the wreckage but in hindsight I must have walked straight past it without realising. The trail split. I followed one of the forks. I had to negotiate some small burns and piles of forest debris before the trail ran out. I turned around to retrace my steps, leapt over a small burn, caught my right foot in some of the forest debris and went over on my left foot, twisting the ankle in the process. I swore a great deal in the hope that it would help but it didn’t. After the intense pain had subsided a bit I took stock. I tentatively got up and discovered my right leg was good. Putting some weight on the left foot, however, proved much trickier. I could do it though, just about. I hobbled forward a few steps. Not easy but doable. A hundred thoughts went through my head, one of which was to call for help. I looked at my phone. No signal. Could I wait until someone else pitched up and hope they could help in some way? It could have been a few days before anyone else ventured out that way and I only had one spare Mars Bar. No, I was going to have to try and hobble back to the car some four miles away.

The wreckage is, apparently, visible in this photo. I somehow walked past it and ended up near those unfelled trees on the right which is where the fall happened.

Not ideal terrain for walking with a broken ankle.

I am, of course, an idiot of the highest order. I still hadn’t found the wreckage and even with my damaged ankle I felt it would be a shame to not see it now. I hobbled back to that fork in the tracks and went up the other one. In my catalogue of foolish things I’ve done, this decision has to be up near the top. It was painful, the path was dangerous to walk on and it was taking me away from where I really needed to be. What’s more, it proved fruitless. I’d already unknowingly passed the wreckage before the fall. I admitted defeat, which if I’m honest was almost as upsetting as knackering my ankle, and did my best to negotiate the horrible forest trails back to the road, obliviously passing the wreckage once again. Once on the gravel road I hoped the going would be a bit easier. It was, but only a bit. Every second step was a sheepish one, every bit of loose gravel was to be avoided and there was plenty of that. Had a forestry commission chap driven past in his pick up I would have flagged him down and asked for a pick up. Not a soul came by or near me. I made it back to the car, hugely relieved. It had taken a while, time for me to reflect on all the what could have beens. It was actually quite scary. Still, I’d made it back to the car and thanks to it being an automatic, I could drive it home with a redundant left foot. It was a fifty minute drive and by the time I arrived the ankle had swollen up so much I could barely get out of the car. Eventually I settled down with my leg up, ice on the ankle and a dose of ibuprofen to quell the inflamation. Yes, my tendons and ligaments were nobbled but they would get better over time.

The bruise developed slowly. The photo on the left was taken once I’d got home. The one on the right was taken three days later.

Things are never that simple. Sharing my cautionary tale with the world led to calls for me to go and get it seen at A&E. I resisted at first as it was ‘only’ a sprained ankle but the clamouring got to such a level that the following day I reluctantly phoned 111. Come and see us at 2pm they said so I drove out to Ayr Hospital to be assessed. A quick prod and an x-ray later I was given the diagnosis. I had broken my ankle. To be precise it was the distal fibula which is the bottom of one of the two bones that make up your lower leg. Thankfully, this was not a weight bearing bone. Had it been I’d probably still be on the hillside right now. It did, however, need to be fixed. To be precise, it needed to be protected so it fixed itself which meant no ibuprofen – I didn’t even get that bit right – and the wearing of a contraption called a Moon Boot. It’s probably got another more clinical name but Moon Boot makes people smile so I’ll stick with it. It is designed to restrict movement and redistribute weight on the offending bone allowing it to heal quicker. It also helps prevent any strained ligaments from further damage so all in all it’s a good idea. A pair of crutches were also provided to help me walk. I wasn’t particularly happy receiving these NHS freebies and it took a while to get used to being an invalid. You don’t have to wear the boot all the time – it’s not exactly practical to sleep or shower in it – and I didn’t wear it about the house very much. This was probably a mistake but hey. A week later I had to attend the fracture clinic where doctor sent me off for another x-ray and confirmed the diagnosis made as A&E. The bone was indeed fractured and that I needed to wear the boot for six weeks. Oh great I thought. I did make the assumption that one week had already passed so set the boot free day some five weeks hence.

Free from the NHS! To be honest, they are not worth breaking your ankle for.

Ironically, following months of Covid restrictions, things had started to open up and I had things to do. A number of those were walks which were right out but I was buggered if I was going to let a damaged ankle get in the way of others. Eleven days after the accident I flew down to London – my first trip on a commercial airliner for seventeen months – to go to a cricket match at Lords. So many things had happened that suggested this trip might not happen, a broken ankle being just one of them, but I wasn’t going to be denied something I’d been looking forward to for many months. By then I’d ditched one of the crutches as it only complicated the walking process. I’d got used to walking in the boot. It had taken a few days to get used to it but once I’d begun to trust it, it became relatively straight forward. The single crutch was useful occasionally but was actually more use in clearing a path and showing everyone else that there is a cripple in the vicinity so mind how you go. At the cricket it proved useful to get me, and my sister Jill who I’d met up with down there, to push in to the front of queues. After a delay due to the English summer weather the cricket started and it was just wonderful to be at an event again, even if my left leg was getting in other people’s way. A few days later I went to another cricket match. This was at Old Trafford and I was accompanied by Jill again. By then I wasn’t even using one crutch. One of the stewards still took pity on me and led us to the front of the queue which was good. Not so good as I’d break my ankle again on purpose but good nevertheless.

EasyJet doesn’t have the greatest legroom in the world but you can just about squeeze in a moon boot.

That game was a prelude to a five night holiday I had planned with Jill and our mother. That was down in Dorset and off we set the following day. A word about my mum. She’s getting on a bit and is not the most mobile of people. As such we took both her walking frame and wheelchair. As a result both tourists and locals alike were most amused to see a man in a moon boot pushing a lady in a wheelchair along the promenade at Weymouth every day. One evening I swear we were the cabaret act in a Weatherspoons pub we’d popped in to for a gentle half pint. Despite mum’s protestations at being propelled around Dorset by someone with a dodgy ankle, we made the most of the time there, riding on boats and trains, visiting military museums – I somewow managed to get inside a tank which was probably a daft thing to do – taking in National Trust properties and even reliving the French Lieutenant’s Woman in Lyme Regis. The boot put in some hard miles and despite it starting to shed bits and pieces, stood up to the challenge well.

Me, my mum and a tank. Only one of us managed to make it inside.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman would, I think, have been improved had Meryl Streep been wearing a moon boot.

By the five week mark I was back at home. I must admit that I wore it little, if at all, in the seven days prior to Boot Freedom Day. To be fair I didn’t do much. We had the decorator in and the Olympics was on the telly so no major journeys were planned. On the day itself it was unceremoniously chucked in the bin as it was of no great use to anyone any more and it now presumably resides in the local landfill site. The crutches were returned to the physio department at Ayr Hospital, much to their surprise as most people tend to keep them, and I faced a future without medical aid of any kind. Most of the time it feels ok as long as I don’t try and flex it too much. I’ve been on a few local walks, building the distance up each time. At the moment, some eight weeks after the event, I can comfortably cover five miles on an even surface before the ankle starts to suggest that it has had quite enough exercise for the time being, thank you very much. I hope to increase both distance and severity of the terrain over the coming weeks. Who knows, by my birthday in October I might be hiking up Munros once more, though realistically that is more likely to be a 2022 pastime. If it is, I won’t be doing it solo.

After six weeks I think I’d probably got as much use out of it as I could.

Olympiad

It’s been getting on for eight months since I last wrote something for the blogging site and even that was just a silly observation about a song lyric. That’s the problem when there’s only one thing anyone is talking about, something that has put countless lives on hold for the past seventeen months. I could blog about that but I suspect those of you who read these little missives are as sick to death (not literally I hope) of it as much as I am. However, the world is slowly seeing sense and returning to some semblance of normality, albeit at snail’s pace, and Doing Things is itself a thing once more. Ironically, the subject of this first blog in an age is the Olympic Games, a Thing that everyone could Do by watching the telly which would have been possible even in the dark depths of a severe lockdown. That the Games’ ending ending coincided with the “Nearly But Not Quite ‘Cos We Don’t Really Trust You Freedom Day” in Scotland is purely coincidental of course but at least I don’t now have the tricky decision to make as to whether I watch the dancing dressage horses or head to an all-night rave at the local discotheque.

I happen to like the Olympics. Not everyone does. I’ve had it explained to me that I never show the remotest bit of interest in the aforementioned Dressage in the four (or five) years between Summer Olympiads. Nor do ever even acknowledge the existence of competitive canoeing whilst I actually go out of my way to avoid boxing. Even athletics, which for many people is the only sport that really counts at the Olympics, provides only a passing interest to me in non-Olympic years. This is true, guilty as charged. Far from this being a reason to not like the Olympics, however, it makes it all the more interesting as far as I’m concerned. Who knew horses could dance? Well, I did as I’ve been watching Olympic Games since 1968 when I was six (I was two in the summer of 1964 so memories of the first Tokyo games are somewhat unreliable) but four years is a long enough time to forget about piaffe pirouettes so it’s like a voyage of discovery every time. Not only is it interesting seeing some other sports for a change, it is a chance to be patriotic and whilst Team Great Britain And Northern Ireland (Team GB for short, apologies to my NI pals) is still a thing I’m damn well going to be cheering them on. So what if our thirteen year old skateboarder is actually from Japan, if she’s wearing a Team GB uniform and the Union Flag is raised at the medal ceremony, I’m delighted both for her and my country.

As mentioned in the above paragraph, my first Olympic memories came from the 1968 games in Mexico. I can distinctly remember David Hemery winning the 400m hurdles for GB. It was one of five Gold Medals won by Great Britain which, along with five Silver and three Bronze put GB tenth in the medal table that year. Those of you who can’t really remember further back than London 2012 might feel that five golds and tenth place overall was a rather paltry return for a fine, sporting nation like GB. You’d be right of course but we were nothing if not consistent. In the seven Olympic Games to take place between 1968 and Barcelona 1992 GB finished between 9th and 13th in the medal table achieving five Gold Medals in five of those tournaments, four in one and just three in another. 1996 proved to be a low point with just the one Gold Medal and 36th in the medal table. Since then, thanks in part to the use of National Lottery funding, things have improved with eleven Golds on 2000 and nine in 2004, tenth place in the medal table on both occasions. In 2008 though things really got better with nineteen Golds and fourth in the table. Then, in 1012 with the Olympics on home soil, GB won a remarkable twenty-nine Gold Medals, finishing third in the table. Hosting the tournament obviously had an effect but GB went one place better in 2016. Despite winning two fewer Golds – twenty-seven – only USA finished above GB in the medal table and the overall medal count was two higher than in London at sixty-seven. Second place above China, who’d have predicted that?

I have memories from all those games starting with that David Hemery 400m Hurdles Gold in 1968. Mary Peters winning the Pentathlon at Munich 72, “And it’s WILKIE” shouted by Alan Weeks four years later in Montreal. The Ovett/Coe battles in Moscow 80 and another rivalry between Tessa Sanderson and Fatima Whitbread in Los Angeles 84. In Seoul 88 it’s Barry Davies’s immortal line “Where, oh where were the Germans. And frankly, who cares”. Barcelona 92 gave us Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell and Atlanta 96 gave us Steve Redgrave’s fourth Gold Medal on the trot, though very little else. From Sydney 2000 onwards it is hard to choose. Redgrave’s fifth and final Gold Medal sticks out though, not bad for a diabetic. “You’ve won Kelly, You’ve won” – Kelly Holmes double Gold was the big story in Athens 2004, Rebecca Addlington achieving the same feat in the pool at Beijing 2008. What to choose from London 2012 though? With so many golden moments, I’ve got to plump for Super Saturday with three athletic Golds in one session, made all the more memorable by the fact I’d applied for tickets for that session in the ticket lottery the previous year. I was unsuccessful. Allow me another golden moment though, GB’s utter dominance of the Track Cycling events. Take a bow Chris Hoy. As for Rio, Hollie Webb’s winning penalty in the Women’s Hockey Final is my favourite of many good memories though Max Whitlock’s two gymnastic Golds, secured within a few minutes of each other, comes close.

And so to Tokyo 2020. There was much to dislike about it. It took place a year late for a start. The global pandemic had caused that but was still on hand to taint the event once it started. The stadia were devoid of spectators, the joy of medal ceremonies was tainted by the masks the medallists were forced to wear, competitors had to fly home once their events had ended rather than being able to cheer on their compatriots in other sports. There were other, non-covid issues too such as Russian athletes competing under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee and the murky waters of biological men competing in women’s competitions. With Tokyo eight hours ahead of the UK, much of the day’s action had taken place by the time I woke up and was all over shortly after lunchtime, not ideal for viewers in Europe and worse I suspect for those in North America. There was little build up to it and I was also away on holiday when it started so it rather crept up on me. And yet… I rather enjoyed it.

Going into the games GB’s aspirations were tempered somewhat by the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Also, the generation that had benefitted from lottery funding and done so magnificently over the previous three games were getting on a bit. They were leaving some very big shoes to fill. As it turned out, some old favourites proved they weren’t past it whilst there were indeed others coming through the ranks. GB won sixty-five* medals, the same number as in London nine years earlier and only two less than Rio although it is only fair to add that there were more medals on offer this time round. ‘Only’ twenty-two of those medals were Gold, however, which pushed GB down to fourth in the medal table behind USA, China and Japan who took full advantage of the host effect just like GB had done in London. Cycling again produced the most golds but GB’s dominance in the velodrome was much less than in the previous three games. Three of the six Golds won by British cyclers were in the fresh air – two in the women’s BMX competition and one in the men’s Mountain Bike, all the more impressive as those disciplines receive just a fraction of the funding that the track cyclists get. Rowing, always good for a gold or two in the previous few games, had a bad games with just a Silver and Bronze whilst Athletics failed to produce a Gold for the first time since the dark days of 1996, though the squad had some rotten luck with injuries to a number of their top rated athletes. Thankfully swimming, something of an underachieving sport over the years, picked up the baton winning four Golds out of a total of eight medals, the best return from the pool since the days of woollen swimming trunks. One of those Golds (and no less than three Silvers) was won by Duncan Scott who learnt to swim at Troon Pool so I’m expecting a gold post box in the town soon. Sailing has done well for GB over the years and delivered once again with three Golds whilst the equestrian set contributed two to the total, including one for Huddersfield lad Oliver Townend which particularly delighted me. Two Golds too for Modern Pentathlon, a curious mix of sports, including taming disobedient horses, where Kate French and Joe Choong won the women and men’s events respectively. Max Whitlock’s outstanding performance on the Pommel Horse was great drama seeing that he was the first to go and we had to watch seven others try, and hopefully fail, to perform to his level. There was a Gold apiece for the Men’s and Women’s boxing which saw me saw me shouting “Knock his/her block off” at the telly on more than one occasion. And let’s not forget the 27 year old Tom Daly, who seems to have been around in his minuscule trunks for decades, finally getting an Olympic Gold with partner Matty Lee by managing to cram many twists, turns and rolls in the 1.5 seconds between jumping off the platform and hitting the water. So plenty of memorable moments, all fresh in the memory as they only happened a couple of weeks ago. If I’m going to pick one, however, it has to be in the velodrome. The Madison race is, to the uninitiated observer, just a load of cyclists going round the track, some slow, some fast. Thankfully, in the women’s race Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald know how it works and absolutely annihilated the rest of the field. At least that’s what the commentator said and who am I to suggest otherwise? This was Laura Kenny, formerly Laura Trott’s fifth Gold Medal. Her husband Jason Kenny would later win his seventh in the Keirin event on the same track. That’s some amount of metalwork in the Kenny household. It’s surely has to be Sir Jason and Dame Laura in the New Year’s Honours List.

Albie is not going to be short of things to take to Show and Tell, is he? (Not my picture unfortunately)

One advantage of the 2020 games being delayed is that it’s only three years until the next one. It’s in Paris which is a lot handier than Tokyo and who knows, the world might have learned to live with Covid by then. I’ve decided I’m going to go. I decided I was going to go to London in 2012 and that didn’t exactly go to plan but Paris, I’ll be there. Maybe.

*GB’s medal tally of sixty-five is likely to be reduced to sixty-four following a positive drugs test on a member of the Silver Medal winning 4x100m relay team. Chijindu Ujah had traces of S-23 and Enobasarm in his sample. I’ve no idea what those substances do but if confirmed, Chijindu, you utter dope.

Cecilia

As Covid continues on its grim path, finding subjects to blog about is becoming increasingly hard. I might be dredging the bottom of the barrel with this one, coming as it does on the back of an ear worm that lodged itself in my brain the other day. Unlike other ear worms, which can be really annoying and impossible to cast from one’s mind, this one got me thinking. I first encountered the song in the mid-seventies where my teenage self wasn’t really much of a music buff. One of the first LPs I owned was hardly the sort of thing the cool kids were listening to. Neither was it prog rock which was waiting for me just over the horizon, right about the time it became the sort of thing that cool kids were no longer listening to either. No, this was Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits album. The last track on that compilation was Cecilia, originally released in 1970 on the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, just before the New York folk-rock duo split up for the first but by no means the last time. At a little over two and a half minutes, it doesn’t take up much of your time to get acquainted with it though I suspect nearly everyone will know the song anyway. I suspect it might have become an ear worm in some of you after you read the title of the blog. If not, have a look at this You Tube video:

All very well and good but what is so significant about it that it gets a blog of its own? It’s the lyrics. They trouble me. Sung in the first person, is it safe to assume that these are the words of the songwriter Paul Simon? If so I applaud Simon’s forgiving nature. The song starts with the chorus:

Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily,

Woah Cecilia, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please to come home,

Come on home.

This has established that Simon is missing Cecilia and would really like her back, despite her destroying both his heart and confidence. We’ve all been there. Not necessarily with Cecilia of course although looking at the rest of the lyrics I suspect she’s broken a few hearts over the years. There’s only two verses, the first of which recalls the fateful afternoon where Cecilia gave a good shake to, amongst other things, Simon’s confidence. Here’s my thoughts:

Making love in the afternoon, with Cecilia up in my bedroom,

No problem with this bit. Cecilia is quite a catch it would appear. Why waste time waiting until bedtime to make love when the afternoon is free. And when it comes to the location for said rumpy pumpy, where better than your bedroom?

I got up to wash my face,

Erm, ok, just what type of carnal activity are Simon and Cecilia indulging in that he need to take a mid-coital break to give himself a face wash? But hey, it was the height of the hippy era, a time for experiment though not necessarily one for cleanliness it has to be said. I’ll let it pass as it pales into insignificance as to what comes next:

When I come back to bed someone’s taken my place.

What??? In the minute or so Simon is washing God knows what off his visage, some other bloke has snuck in to the room and he and Cecilia are at it like rabbits. We then get another rendition of the chorus which seems to suggest that despite the freshly broken heart and violently shaken confidence, Simon is so obsessed with Cecilia he is not only willing to forgive this indiscretion, he is desperate for her to ‘come on home’, which ignores the fact she never actually left. This is where I put myself in Simon’s shoes, well, maybe not his shoes as he is unlikely to have been wearing them at the time. I am now in Simon’s metaphorical shoes. I’m obviously having a really good afternoon with Cecilia, perhaps the best afternoon ever. At an appropriate point in the proceedings I nip to the bathroom for a quick freshen up and return to the bedroom. Not only is Cecilia now doing it with someone else, they are DOING IT IN MY BED. Not acceptable! Straight Red Card! Burn the bed sheets! Yes, my heart might be broken and my confidence shaken but I can’t imagine I’d be down on my knees begging any time soon.

However, it’s Simon’s song, not mine. The second and final verse suggests that his forgiving nature has paid dividends:

Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall on the floor and I’m laughing,

Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall on the floor and I’m laughing,

Woah woah woah woah….

So Cecilia is back, Simon is happy, if a little too manic for my liking, and I’m sure they both live happily ever after. I’m also sure that Simon checked the wardrobes for any ‘someones’ and washed his face prior to any afternoon shagging sessions with Cecilia in his, or for that matter, anyone else’s bedroom. Even someone as obsessed as him is likely to harbour suspicions.

Simon and Garfunkel. I wonder if Garfunkel was ‘someone’?

Troon’s Lost Railways

I’ve walked a lot this year as regular readers of these blogs will know. Through necessity, many miles have been logged around the streets near to where I live and I’ve got to know Troon more intimately than I’d ever managed in the 37 odd years I’ve lived here. Troon is a small town on the Ayrshire coast, some thirty miles southwest of Glasgow. It is famous for golf with The Open Championship taking place at Royal Troon every nine years or so. Golf aside, however, Troon serves as a dormitory town for nearby large towns and the metropolis of Glasgow forty minutes away by train. Whilst a small amount of industry remains, it is hard to comprehend that the town used to be a busy place with factories, busy docks and shipbuilding being the major drivers of the local economy. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, The Duke of Portland, the major landowner in this part of Ayrshire, commissioned a ‘plateway’ to run from Kilmarnock to Troon. (A brief history of the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway coming up – feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you wish.) Bentinck’s intention was for the railway to be used to carry coal from the many mines he owned in the area to Troon Harbour for onward shipment. Ireland was the primary destination for the coal. Whilst railroads were not new to Scotland – there is evidence of railways serving mines going back at least half a century earlier – the Kilmarnock and Troon railway would be different in that it crossed land, rivers and turnpike roads that were not under the Bentinck’s ownership. An act of parliament was required and in 1808 the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway was incorporated , the first railway line in Scotland to be so. The line was opened in 1812, possibly with wooden rails, but if so these were changed for iron rails just a few years later. Being a ‘plateway’ the guiding flange was on the L-shaped rail itself rather than the wheels of the wagons. The gauge was four feet and all wagons were horse-drawn. As part of its construction, a viaduct was built over the River Irvine near the village of Gatehead. The Laigh Milton Viaduct lays claims to be the first railway viaduct in Scotland, if not the world. In 1813 a regular passenger service was started, another Scottish first for the line. In 1837 the line was upgraded to allow the use of steam locomotives, an earlier attempt to utilise steam power having been unsuccessful. In 1846 the line was leased to the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway. Their line from Glasgow to Ayr ran just to the east of the town, crossing the KTR at Barassie. In 1899 ownership of the line passed to the Glasgow and South Western Railway, the successor to the GPKAR. The line still remains today, under the ownership of Network Rail. Passenger services between Kilmarnock, Ayr and Stranraer still ply the line along with goods traffic.

Thanks to the railways, by the end of the 19th century Troon was a busy place. The main line from Glasgow to Ayr now ran through the town with the original Ayr line acting as an ‘avoidance’ line. The section of the original Kilmarnock and Troon Railway continued to service the harbour along with a link from south of the new Troon Station. The harbour itself was a mass of sidings serving the port and other industries in that area. In addition, Barassie Works was a sizeable manufacturer and maintenance provider of railway wagons and coaches. The town itself grew and was shaped partly by the railways that had fuelled its expansion. In the early 1960s, however, the infamous Dr Beeching’s axe closed many railways and Troon was not immune. The curve to the harbour from the south was first to go in 1966 with the lines from Barassie to the harbour closing in 1973. Barassie Works closed at the same time. The Troon avoidance line closed in 1982, though some of the track remains for use as sidings. The Glasgow-Ayr line was electrified in 1985 and remains an important rail link for Ayrshire. The old rails have long since been removed and much of the track bed, once alive with the sound of steam and pistons, has been built over. Industrial heritage swept beneath the asphalt of human progress.

Whilst it’s hardly as exciting as shinning up Ben Lomond, one of our walking routes takes us along a cycle path that runs north to south to the east of the town centre. This runs for two miles alongside and then on the old Troon avoidance line. The fact that a railway used to run along there is quite obvious but it definitely piqued my interest in Troon’s old railways. I’ve got a couple of books about the railways of Ayrshire and discovered a website called Railscot full of interesting information. In addition to this there is a fascinating resource provided by the National Library of Scotland. On their Map Image website they have a side-by-side viewer that allows the user to have one of dozens of old maps on the left hand side and a modern satellite image on the right. Hover your pointer over one of the maps and a curser appears on the the over in the equivalent place. This works for all of the UK, not just Scotland. The maps go back to the late 19th century and provide history buffs with many hours of entertainment. For railway history buffs in particular, it is an invaluable tool for searching out long lost railway lines and infrastructure. I decided that I’d use the maps to search out Troon’s other lost railways. The old map I used was the OS 1:1250/1:1500 1944-1969. This was the most detailed and covered the time when the railways were at their most extensive. I started with the easy one.

Troon Avoidance Line

The Troon Avoidance Line was never really lost but the maps revealed things about it that I’d been unaware of. As mentioned above, this was the main line to Ayr until 1892 when the loop through the town was completed. It remained as a bypass for freight traffic and the occasional express passenger service. The line ran from Barassie Junction, past Troon’s municipal golf courses and Marr College. To the west of the line were extensive sidings and Barassie Works. Troon’s original station as situated just before the line passed under Dundonald Road with the station buildings, still in use as private dwellings, staggered. This closed to passengers in 1892 when the current station opened following the completion of the loop through the town. The old station continued as a goods yard. South of Dundonald Road the line continued between the municipal golf courses and the houses of Fullarton Crescent. Passing underneath Craigend Road the track rejoined the main line at Lochgreen Junction by Royal Troon’s Portland course. Closed in 1982, the track from Barassie Junction to Marr College remained as a siding along with some of the old Barassie Works sidings. Much of the Barassie Works site has been redeveloped for housing but a large area of abandoned sidings remains between the avoidance and main lines. Three or four sidings are still in occasional use. A small section of the avoidance line’s track bed by Marr College has the houses of Old Station Wynd on it whilst immediately south of Dundonald Road the track bed is overgrown as it passes the cemetery. After the line passes Willockston Road, once the site of a level crossing, the track bed has been tarmaced and is now part of a local cycle path which continues all the way to the former Lochgreen Junction.

Barassie Junction looking north. The old Kilmarnock and Troon Railway branches off to the right, the main line to Glasgow to the left.

Barassie Junction looking south. Main line to the right, the Troon Avoidance Line to the left, now sidings.

Troon avoidance line, now sidings. The site of the Barassie Works behind.

Troon’s original station on the Glasgow-Ayr line.

The bridge that carried Dundonald Road over the line. One of two road bridges over the line. There was a footbridge at Marr College too but that is long gone.

Site of former Willockston Road level crossing.

Cycle path on the original track bed behind Fullarton Crescent.

Troon Harbour Branch

Troon Harbour Branch 3 – multiple sidings to service the harbour and allied industries.

The branch to Troon Harbour followed the route of the original Kilmarnock and Troon Railway south from Barassie Junction. Running alongside the ‘new’ main line for half a mile, the track began to diverge behind the houses on North Shore Road. It curved westwards along what is now North Shore Lane, past the northwest corner of Portland Park football ground and through land now occupied by new sheltered housing and a Scottish Water facility. A bridge took it over Barassie Street and along an embankment where Troon Pool and Morrisons car park now stand. Here, the line split into multiple tracks, joining the curve from Troon Junction at Templehill Junction. The line then split further into a multitude of sidings connecting all parts of the harbour. Little evidence remains of this branch. For a number of years after I first arrived in Troon in 1983, one of the pillars of the bridge over Barassie Street remained alongside the old gas tower that sat next to the track. There has been much development since then and there is little to suggest Scotland’s first incorporated railway used to run there.

Mainline between Barassie and Troon. The branch to the harbour peeled off to the right here.

North Shore Lane follows the alignment of the branch line embankment.

Scottish Water building, site of the bridge over Barassie Street.

Troon Pool, the branch ran here on an embankment.

Dukes Road, built on the site of Templehill Junction.

Scotts car park. The branch split into many sidings here.

McCallums Restaurant and Wee Hurrie chip shop at Troon Harbour. This building used to be the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway’s powerhouse.

Troon-Templehill Curve

Whilst I knew of the Troon Avoidance Line and was aware that the harbour was served by a branch that had historical significance, the line from Troon Junction, just south of Troon’s ‘new’ station, to Templehill Junction, site of the current Dukes Road, was a complete surprise to me. The curve ran for two thirds of a mile along an embankment, crossing three roads on bridges, through what is now more or less the town centre. Being elevated above the roads and houses, this length of track must have held a commanding presence in the town. Once it was closed in the mid sixties, not only was the track lifted but the embankment and bridges were cleared too. Troon Junction was situated next to Cavendish Place with the embankment peeling off to the northwest. A bridge carried the line across Victoria Drive, the line continuing to the west of the ramp up to Troon Station and the Scout Hall along the line of what is now Dallas Court. Another bridge took it over St Meddans Street along the site of what is now Academy Court old people’s home. There was no bridge over Academy Street, the road coming to an abrupt end at the base of the embankment, which continued across the ground where the town centre car park now sits. Another bridge carried the line above Portland Street and the embankment curved to the left where the doctor’s surgery and the industrial units of Dukes Road now stand. Here it joined the harbour branch line with Templehill Junction being situated where the aptly named Branchline Industrial Estate now stands. The alignment of buildings, some roads and a few walls are the only clue as to where this railway used to be.

Site of Troon Junction from the Yorke Road bridge. The line to Templehill branched off to the left from just north of here.

The houses stand where the embankment once stood.

Academy Court stands where the curve ran and give an impression of the shape of the embankment cross section.

The site of this unremarkable car park once vibrated to the sound of passing goods trains.

The wall between the car park and Portland Street. I suspect it used to be part of the support for the bridge over the road and a retaining wall for the embankment.

*Union Street Lane. Part of the embankment at Templehill Junction. This and the previous photo is the only physical evidence of the Troon-Templehill curve that I could find.*

Troon might be a small place but it has four or five miles of old railway if only you know where to look. Even if you do you might not find much but it’s quite fascinating to think that steam engines were too-ing and fro-ing along where familiar roads and landmarks now stand. At least it is to me, anyway.

If you are remotely interested in railway history in Ayrshire I recommend the following books:

Railways of Ayrshire by Gordon Thomson published by The Crowood Press.

Ayrshire’s Forgotten Railways A Walkers Guide by Alisdair Wham, published by The Oakwood Press.

Ben Lomond

Just under a year go Elaine and I walked up The Merrick, the highest hill in Scotland’s Southern Uplands. You can read about it here in a blog I made about the joys of hillwalking. This was our first real hill walk which obviously made me an expert on the subject. Whilst the blog was really to share some nice pictures, I did conclude it by stating that whilst we were unlikely to become serious hill walkers like some of my former colleagues, we would definitely include a few hills in our walking repertoire. It only took the best part of a year for us to tackle another hill, though to be fair Covid did rather put the mockers on our best intentions for many of the previous eleven months. At the beginning of last week we noted that the weather forecast for Friday 25th was good and we had a free day so we could procrastinate no longer. We booked the ferry tickets and made our plans. The sharp-eyed amongst you will now be saying “ferry, to Ben Lomond?” and you would be quite correct in questioning me about it. The plan was, however, to climb Goat Fell on Arran, a hill that has been a frequent companion of us on our lockdown walks, albeit at a more than healthy social distance across the Firth of Clyde. We’d been meaning to climb it for years and Friday was going to be the day. Two days prior to the event the ferry was cancelled due to ‘operational reasons’, something to do with the port at Ardrossan rather than the boat itself. This led to some hasty rearranging of plans. Instead of Goat Fell we would scale the mighty Ben Lomond instead.

Whilst Goat Fell would have risen us 100 ft nearer the heavens than The Merrick had done, Ben Lomond is 430 ft higher at 3196 ft, or 974 m if you prefer the new fangled metric measurements. This pushes it into a category of mountains called ‘The Munros’. These are Scottish mountains above 3000 ft in height and would you believe there’s 282 of the buggers. Not only that there are another 227 Munro Tops, peaks above 3000 ft in height but lower than a nearby primary mountain summit. It appears that defining what is and isn’t a mountain isn’t exactly straightforward. Such matters are, however, beyond the scope of those of us who simply want a nice walk up a hill. Ben Lomond is the most southerly of the Munros, situated on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond and less than an hour away from the metropolis of Glasgow. It is also considered to be one of the most straight forward to climb, if not the easiest. These two factors make it very popular and around 30,000 people will reach the top each year. It will suffice to say that if you fancy dipping your toes in the turbulent water that is Munro Bagging, Ben Lomond is a good one to start with. It would be our first but would it be our last?

The practice run up Arthur’s Seat a few days earlier.

Earlier that week we had visited Edinburgh and climbed up Arthur’s Seat. Whilst this volcanic prominence towers impressively above Scotland’s capital, it is ‘only’ 823 ft high. It does involve a bit of scrambling up rocks and some steep sections so it was a good taster of what was to come. As previously mentioned, Ben Lomond is popular and the day we climbed it happened to be a local holiday in Glasgow. It made sense to set off early in an attempt to beat the hoards to the hill. As such our alarm went off at some unearthly hour and we piled into my car along with all the accoutrements required for a fair weather hill walk. Crampons and an ice axe were not required. Had they been then we would not have gone. It took us an hour and a half to get to the car park in Rowardenan at the foot of the hill. By the time we had got our shoes on, repacked our rucksacks, worked out where the path started from, waited for the portaloos to open, used said portaloos, ate half our picnic for breakfast and generally faffed about as you do, it was 08:10 when we set off. There are three paths up Ben Lomond. One is approached from the east and isn’t really a path at all. We will leave that to the more serious hill walkers. The second is the Ptarmigan Path, named after the Ptarmigan Ridge along which it runs. We were tempted to utilise this for our descent but it is known to be quite tricky so let’s not bite off more than we can chew, shall we? It was, therefore, the main tourist path for us in both directions. This path, which is under the care of the National Trust for Scotland, is clearly defined and well maintained. Not many Munros have the benefit of a path like it. Having said that, it is still a hill path so there is plenty potential for a twisted ankle or inglorious fall thanks to loose stones and gravel covered steps. It paid to be careful, at least for novices like us. There were others we passed who bounced both up and down the path like mountain goats, and three blokes were even carrying bicycles up to the summit with the intention of cycling down. Good for them, the mad fools. Initially the path led off into woodlands. It rose quite steeply at first and included a brief scramble up some rocks. There was a break in the trees where we caught our first glimpse of the summit, illuminated orange by the early morning sunlight. It seemed quite a long way away. We emerged from the forest onto moorland and saw the path weaving its way skywards. Whilst it didn’t look too intimidating, it was a while before the gradient eased. We stopped for drinks every so often which allowed us to take in the scenery. Whilst unchanging, it only seemed to get better with altitude. The central section of the path, whilst not quite a plateau, was gently inclined and so kinder on our bodies. The summit, which had been out a view for a while, finally popped over a ridge and we got a clear view of what awaited us. The ascent to the summit was quite hard work. The path zig-zags up the side and just as the top appears to be within grasp there is another rocky section to negotiate. Once through this you capture a glimpse of the trig point on the summit and it is a short walk to get there.

Goat Fell, 44 miles away. Future challenge.

It had taken us two and a quarter hours to get to the top. It was a perfect day to do it. The sun was shining all the way up yet it was not too powerful. The path had taken us up the southern face and with the wind from the north, the hill itself sheltered us from its chilling effect. That wasn’t the case on the summit of course where there was nowhere to hide from the stiff breeze. Stiff breeze? Who am I trying to kid? It was blowing a hoolie up there which meant we couldn’t stay any longer than it took to give the trig point a hug and take some photos. That doesn’t matter though. We’d made it to the top without mishap and had our first Munro under our belts. Go us! As with any hill that is only half the story. We had to get back down again. Arguments will rage as to which is the hardest, going up or coming back down. Going up you are fighting gravity’s desire to pull you to the centre of the earth. It takes a lot of calories to overcome that. Coming down, that very same gravity should do all the work yet it is still trying to pull you towards the centre of the earth at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. Left unchecked you would make very painful and likely fatal descent down the hill so you still need to burn calories fighting gravity’s unerring pull. Maybe not as many calories but you will be utilising muscles that normally have quite an easy life. It took us two hours walking time to get down. In reality it took us longer than that due to a stop for a lunch with a view, other stops for drinks and snacks, waiting to allow the aforementioned hoards on their way up pass us, the occasional chats with some of the other walkers and the patting of dogs. Quite a few of the walkers took their dogs up the hill. One of those dogs was a Chihuahua for whom Ben Lomond must seem like Everest. Whilst you’ve got to keep a careful watch for your footing you do get to appreciate the scenery a bit more on the way down. It was absolutely stunning. Visibility was virtually unlimited. 44 miles away was Goat Fell, the mountain we had planned on being on. We could also clearly see The Merrick, scene of our first real hill walk eleven months ago. It was 72 miles away. The full 360 degree vista was never anything other than wonderful views. You can see why people like this sort of thing. Once we’d reached the bottom we wandered to the shore of Loch Lomond to see the Loch Lomond National Park Memorial sculpture. Since 1995 the area around Ben Lomond has been designated as a war memorial to those who had lost their lives in two world wars and the sculpture, by Doug Cocker, has stood there since 1997. We then discovered a nearby improvised trapeze hanging from a tree and felt we deserved a go. For no reason whatsoever, it seemed a fitting way to conclude our walk.

The conquered summit now behind us, we head down.

We never thought to take our bikes for some reason.

Will it be another eleven months before we tackle our next hill? I hope not. All walks are pretty good but there was a definite sense of achievement walking to the top of a hill so large it claims to be a mountain. What about attempting more Munros? Well yes, of course. It would be easier if they were just a bit closer to home but that’s not really an excuse not to try. What about bagging all 282? Not a bloody chance! There are few where you require mountaineering experience for a start and I’m not planning on becoming a Mallory any time soon, not least because he died on a hill, albeit one a bit higher than Ben Lomomd. There are, however, several Munros that are reasonably accessible and described as not too demanding. Maybe the next time a perfect day of weather is forecast, Elaine isn’t working and we’ve got nothing else on, we will bag Munro Number Two. Expect a new blog next summer…

Premier Inn

The British Institution was a 19th century organisation formed to exhibit artworks. We are, of course, not remotely interested in that. The phrase ‘A British Institution’, however, has come into popular parlance to mean anything uniquely British that is generally well loved. Anything means anything. Red telephone boxes, fish and chips, primary school nativity plays, Bobbys with boob-shaped helmets and so on. There is no definitive list but if you are British you will understand what they are. I’m about to add something else to this non-existent list: The Premier Inn. Back in 1987 the brewing company Whitbread opened up a hotel next to its Beefeater pub and restaurant in Basildon, Essex. It named it Travel Inn. Over the next few years Travel Inns started popping up all over the country. Unlike traditional hotels, Travel Inn sold rooms at a fixed, low price with breakfast and other meals having to be paid for separately. For around £30 per night you could get a room with a double bed and also a bed settee meaning a family of four could squeeze into one for the same price as single occupancy. Most of these hotels were newly built and situated on the edge of towns and cities and had plenty of parking space. Motels had been popular in North America for decades but it took until the early nineties for the concept to catch on in the UK. Not that Travel Inn was a copy of the American Motel. Like that first one in Basildon they were built next to existing Whitbread pubs or, where necessary, new pubs were built alongside the Travel Inns. These family friendly hostelries, often under the brand name of Brewer’s Fayre, became popular with locals as well as the hotel patrons. Throughout the nineties Travel Inns began to appear in city centres including in London, frequently repurposing existing buildings. The jewel in Travel Inn’s crown was, and possibly still is, the one contained in the old London County Council building next to the London Eye. Fixed room pricing was unsurprisingly abandoned and a room in a London Travel Inn might set you back £100.

In 2004 Whitbread acquired a competing hotel chain, Premier Lodge. Merging the companies, Premier Travel Inn was formed which three years later became Premier Inn. There are now over 800 of them. Apart from a few in the Middle East, Germany and Ireland, all the Premier Inns are in the UK. Whitbread sold its brewing interest in 2001 to concentrate on its hotel and restaurant business and Premier Inn, the largest hotel brand in the UK, makes up 70% of their earnings. The success of Premier Inn did not go unnoticed and rivals sprung up. The largest of those is Travelodge whose first hotel actually predates that first Travel Inn in Basildon. Whilst successful, Travelodge, with 570 locations, has not expanded as much as Premier Inn and it is fair to say has a reputation as a somewhat downmarket hotel chain. Most Brits love the Premier Inn, whether they admit it or not. Not many speak of Travelodge with much affection.

It’s August 2020 and Covid-19 is really taking the piss. Lockdown restrictions may have eased but foreign travel is still nigh on impossible and anyone who fancies a holiday is urged to take a ‘staycation’, whilst constantly being reminded that they are about to die (or kill someone else) if they simply forget to keep their mouth covered with a bit of cloth.

“Let’s go away for a few days, we need a change of scenery.”

“How about a few days in a Premier Inn somewhere?”

“Erm, OK…”

Your Premier Inn room. Just like the last one, just like the next.

I recently had six nights away from home. Where I went is of no relevance here. Neither is the fact I stayed in three different Premier Inns as, frankly, there was virtually no difference between them. The restaurant in one of them was closed except for breakfast but that is down to a pandemic rather than design and in ‘normal’ times the experience in each of them would have been identical. That is the thing about Premier Inns. You are pretty much know what you are going to get. As most of the visitors to my blog are British it is likely that you will know too. However, for the benefit of those not native to this land and those who are but have been living in isolation for the last thirty years, here goes. First of all, programme your satnav to find the place and park your car in the carpark. This might be free or there might be a slightly annoying charge. Then get used to the colour purple. It is the corporate colours of Premier Inn. It is distinctive without being garish, at least in my opinion. There is likely to be a small reception area and if you are lucky there might be someone manning the desk. Premier Inn employees tend to be friendly but of course I haven’t had the chance to try them all out and test them on their amiability potential. You will have booked online so it’s a simple process of giving them your name and them giving you a key card for your room. In some locations you can use a machine to check yourself in and collect a key card. You are likely to need this to get through corridor doors on the way to your room. That room will likely be very familiar to you, even if you haven’t stayed at that particular Premier Inn before as it is the same as all the others you’ve stayed in. The only real differences are if you’ve chosen a family or accessible room. We will consider the normal double room. Through the door there will be a minimal amount of wardrobe space on one side and the bathroom on the other. Beyond the wardrobe is a worktable and chair. There will be sockets and perhaps USBs along the back of the table for charging your devices, British plugs only. That most British of hotel accessories, the tea tray is sat on the table. Above the table is a telly with a lot of freeview channels. On the other side is the bed. Premier Inn make a big play of their beds being of such quality that a good night’s sleep is guaranteed. That’s a bold claim but they are in my experience usually comfortable. In pre-covid times they even had a pillow menu to help you achieve optimum sleeping potential and even now you can request extra pillows if you wish. At the window end of the room there is an armchair or maybe the settee/pull out bed if you happen to have been billeted in a family room. Back to the bathroom, a bath with a shower over it (some locations have a shower only) and a sink is it. A big and a little towel per occupant is provided. Toiletries are limited to two wall mounted liquid soap dispensers rather than the usual small individual bottles, which saves the planet from plastic waste and no doubt saves Whitbread thousands of pounds. The room has an individual heating control but air conditioning is likely to be limited to opening the window. That is your room for the night or the next few days. It is nothing special yet it is somehow quite a comforting place to return to after a hard day’s doing whatever it is that takes you there in the first place. The wifi is free or you can pay to get a faster connection. I’ve never needed to do that but I guess if you want to watch Netflix on your ipad rather than freeview it might be worth the fee.

A good night’s sleep guaranteed apparently. It worked for me.

Bathroom. Don’t be fooled by the mirror, there’s only two soap dispensers.

Plenty of room to hang up your clothes as long as you haven’t brought many..

The tea tray. It’s the most important thing in a Brit’s hotel room, even more than the bed.

The other aspect of hotel staying is the catering. As previously mentioned your Premier Inn will either have an integral bar/restaurant or be next door to a pub which serves the same purpose. It is usual pub grub for dinner though the menus may differ. Breakfast is, however, standard across the range. For £8.99 you can attack the all you can eat buffet breakfast. The Full English (or Scottish, Welsh, Irish) is a British institution in itself and whilst other countries have seen their hotels go down the breakfast buffet line, none do it as well as in Britain. When a British person is away from home it is perfectly natural for him/her to expect to start the day with a huge plate full of highly calorific food as after all, it could be all of four hours until lunch. Whilst a bowl of cornflakes may well suffice at home, an unlimited supply of bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, beans, black pudding, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, toast, butter, jam, tea, coffee AND a bowl of cornflakes as an aperitif is the minimum we expect when we are staying in a hotel. At the moment a buffet breakfast is not really ‘covid secure’ so it’s table service but you can still have as much as you dare ask the server for before embarrassing yourself. It’s pretty good value for £8.99, though if there’s a Morrisons across the road, as was the case in one of the places I was staying recently, you might be able to stuff your face with assorted piggy products and the accompaniments for less than that.

The Full English. A British Institution within a British Institution.

That is, in a nutshell, your Premier Inn experience. No need to check out, just drop your key card in the box and bugger off. Compared with other hotels, staying in a Premier Inn may seem a very mediocre experience. That belies the fact that you will (usually) have a comfortable stay for (usually) not a lot of money which thereby allows you to get away more than you would otherwise do. Not to mention the fact it’s better than Travelodge. Whitbread hit the jackpot when they decided to go into the hotel business. I doubt even they realised just how much ‘a couple of nights in a Premier Inn’ would become a British Institution.

Walk

The bloody Proclaimers have a lot to answer for. Once the bespectacled brothers from Leith recorded a song about walking five hundred miles, and then five hundred more no less, anyone who admits to walking said distances was going to be called a ‘Proclaimer’. And frankly, I’d rather not be one as I can’t stand those speccy twonks. Such a label is, however, a small price to pay for walking five hundred miles and then five hundred more, especially when such an activity has been the one thing that has kept me sane through lockdown. Country Walking magazine and an associated Facebook group have set a challenge for readers and followers to walk 1000 miles in a calendar year. Last year Elaine decided to do it and completed the challenge by the middle of August. Whilst I accompanied her on many of the walks I didn’t do the challenge myself as I was training for a half marathon. This year she decided to go for it again and despite me having signed up for another half marathon, since cancelled of course, I thought I’d go for it too. You can make up your own rules for this challenge. Some people count all their steps. Others only count ‘boots on’ walks in the country. Our own rules were to count the miles we covered on walks and any others where we might have walked somewhere rather than go in the car, such as the local Morrisons which is a handy four miles to add to the total. I wasn’t counting my running miles. We started the challenge with Walk Number One on New Year’s Day when we walked from Glengarnock to Lochwinnoch and back along an old railway. Once completed, we only had 990 miles left to go. It was a good start.

Walking is, perhaps, the most convenient form of exercise for able bodied people. Just put on some shoes and off you go. You can go as far as your fitness will allow and if you do it regularly you will quickly build up the distance you can cover. It helps if you’ve got a nice environment to walk in. Whilst simply walking on its own is not without merit, having something nice to look at whilst you do it certainly helps to maintain your enthusiasm. That usually means countryside and luckily for us there is plenty of that around here. Country Walking magazine is forever upping the benefits of a walk in the country, no surprise there of course, the clue is in the title. Not only does it help your physical fitness, it aides your mental wellbeing too. Certainly a lot of the contributors to the Facebook group relate stories of how walking has helped them deal with depression and sad episodes in their lives. Whilst I’d enjoyed walking up until this year, I’d never considered its therapeutic effect on my mental health as, quite frankly, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my mental health. I’m still not convinced there is, though others might not agree! I will admit, however, from feeling quite low on occasions recently. When lockdown started I saw my plans for this year’s trips and events quickly get cancelled one by one. Not only that, the instruction was to stay home for everything other than what was considered essential. I was well aware that I was in a better place than many to sit out lockdown. I’m retired so I had no job to worry about. The house was plenty big enough with just the two of us and it has a decent garden to sit in. It quickly became clear just how much our lives were going to change though and I soon started to feel trapped. Whether I was depressed or not I have no idea. Those poor souls who suffer from clinical depression don’t need a major change in their lives to start feeling down (though I’ve no doubt something like this can trigger it or make it worse) whereas my little episode was definitely caused by the situation. Whatever, for the first week or so of lockdown, and on one or two occasions since, I was not the happy, cheerful chappie that I normally am. Those who know me, stop tittering. I am generally quite a happy person, it’s just my face fails to convey the fact.

Just a couple of days before lockdown we walked to Irvine and back.

The government’s restrictions on our freedom were understandable. In the long term they may prove to have been essential or maybe not, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. They left us just one concession. We could go outside for exercise, initially just once a day. From the very start we went out for a daily walk. We tended to go in the evening and whilst we were limited in where we could go, the chance of being outside the home for just an hour gave us something to look forward to during the long day. Whilst we would have gone had it been wet we were lucky to be blessed with the finest, driest spring on record. These walks might not have been much in the grand scheme of things but to me they was everything. Most of the walks were ‘pavement pounding’ round Troon with some a bit further afield into the surrounding country. Most of the miles we walked were pretty familiar to us but even we, who have lived here for 34 years, discovered part of our small town that we hadn’t ventured through before or even been aware of. We passed through Fullerton Woods on numerous occasions, the budding trees gradually bursting into leaf as the days passed, the bluebells first blooming and then fading whilst being serenaded by birdsong, unmasked by traffic noise as the rest of the world stayed home. We’ve got two beaches to walk on or alongside with magnificent views across the water on a clear day of the Isle of Arran, Scotland in miniature, behind which the sun would gloriously set. We walked across land reserved in normal times for golfers and just as enthusiastically through oddly quiet housing estates, windows adorned with rainbows for NHS and other key workers, hopscotch squares chalked on the pavement by school-starved children. At first the roads were virtually empty apart from the occasional police patrol. Meanwhile the empty trains that rattled along the tracks as though nothing had changed were the only thing shattering the strange, tranquil peace of the place. Troon is not the busiest place in the best of times but now it had become a ghost town. We got into the habit of counting the other people who were out. Ten, twelve, nine, thirteen? Busy night that last one. Most were dog walkers with a few, like us, out on their ‘Boris’ walk. Or ‘Nicola’ stroll if you prefer. We’d generally do five or six miles. There was theoretically no limit as to how much exercise you could take as long as it was only once per day but people tended to get a bit sniffy at folk who were out for more than an hour or so. Those five or six miles would take upwards of an hour and a half and we did go further sometimes on our ventures into the country. We felt quite rebellious when we did. Yet our paths only rarely crossed that of others which was the important thing, surely? There are downsides to walking round built up areas such as litter – postmen’s elastic bands, discarded bags of dog shit and more recently disposable face masks are all too much in evidence – but we were walking outside in the fresh air which was the most important thing.

We were treated to many glorious sunsets…

Why can’t the postie just stick them in his pocket?

Eventually restrictions eased. We could go out as many times as we liked and for as long as we liked. As we were limited to the local area, however, the walks didn’t change much. With more people venturing out, the town wasn’t quite a ghostlike and we did some of the walking during the day rather than the evening. We even managed an ice cream or two as local businesses slowly reopened. We still tended to pound the same pavements though. Whilst glad of the chance to get out there were times when I started to feel trapped again. Not, as at the start of lockdown, so much within the four walls of my house, but within this small part of Ayrshire. For weeks I hadn’t been further north than Irvine, further south than Prestwick, was hemmed in by the natural barrier of the sea to the west and there was little scope to venture out east. Despite this we walked. It didn’t ‘cure’ me but it helped. We went a bit further and took advantage of the new rules on visiting family to have a walk round Glasgow. It was interesting to see how social distancing, quite easy to observe around Troon, was almost impossible in the big city. Although we did few walks of any great distance, our daily constitutionals meant the miles were mounting up.

At the beginning of lockdown we had already recorded over 300 miles in our 1000 mile challenge. That was not a bad total for the first two and a half months of the year, especially when you consider just how rubbish the weather had been. Elaine had managed a few more miles than me and I had to clear that deficit with a some extra lockdown walks. Many of those 300 miles were the same local pavement pounding we would be restricted to for the subsequent three or four months but some were what we would consider ‘proper’ walks – following a predetermined route round a part of the country like Walk Number One on New Year’s Day. We even managed a few miles in London on the Capital Ring when we were there for a weekend away at the end of January. A weekend away? Do you remember those? Trips away aside, there are plenty of places to go for a walk within an hour’s drive of here. I suspect when we decided to take the 1000 mile challenge we had hoped that most of those miles would be accrued on that type of walk. Events rather put the mockers on that but by mid July all our Troon pavement pounding meant we were closing in on the target. As restrictions eased once more we finally managed to venture out further and had a walk up Glen Ness, a delightful hidden valley up near Loch Doon, which pushed us into the 990s. By July 15th we had just 3.1 miles to do. I measured out a circular route from our front door of exactly that length. It was, perhaps, the most boring walk of the lot but meant we crossed the finishing line exactly as we entered our driveway. It was a whole month earlier than Elaine’s solo effort last year but the situation had been so unlike 2019 it seemed like a completely different challenge.

We had been very lucky with the weather. Spring’s outstanding weather would have helped us through the long days of lockdown had we been walking or not. The solstice saw things change and so far the summer weather has been as poor as it was good in spring. We still managed to walk though. Finding a gap in the summer rain or simply walking through it meant we achieved our target 197 days after we’d started, an average of 5.08 miles per day or just over six miles per walk if you exclude the 31 days we didn’t record any milage. These figures pale into insignificance compared with some on the Facebook group who announced they had reached the 1000 mile total before the end of February. Others in the group are only just reporting that they have done 500 miles to become a bloody Proclaimer. That’s the point though, it is not a race. It is purely a personal challenge and the pace at which you complete it is of no concern to anyone else. Now the challenge has been completed, is it time to hang up my boots? No. For a start I don’t have any boots to hang, just walking shoes and trainers, but we don’t intend to give up walking. Our focus might change though. We no longer feel compelled to go out every day. Whilst there are still restrictions on life, lockdown is more or less over for most of us and hopefully will remain so. A walk round Troon when it is pissing down, or even when it isn’t is not as appealing or indeed necessary as it once was. We can now go for walks away from the local area and have done so. The emphasis now is on quality rather than quantity. Not that quantity was ever the most important thing. No, I walked to help me keep active, to have a shared goal and spend quality time with Elaine and above all, to stop my mind heading off to all those dark places that I was surprised to find existing in my head. I might not like being called a Proclaimer but I’m happy to proclaim the benefits of walking.

Freed of the shackles of reaching a target and the local area, we have since hit Glentrool…

…and, after picking up a walking partner…

Fjords

Until recent events put the mockers on it, going on a cruise was seen by some as the ultimate holiday experience. Unlimited quantities of good food, plenty drink, sunshine, entertainment, interesting destinations and the chance to pretend you are doing something quite posh for a couple of weeks. What is there not to like? Apart from the smallish cabins, the seething mass of humanity contained within a limited space, mal de mare, views of container ports and of course from now on the thought of imminent death from Covid-19. That’s the thing about cruises, they are a bit of a Marmite holiday. You either love ’em or you hate ’em. I’m probably a bit odd in that I take the view that I’ve liked all four that I’ve taken but am in no great hurry to book another. I’m a bit like that about Marmite too as it happens. Two of the cruises I’ve been on have been round the eastern Mediterranean whilst the other two have concentrated on more northerly latitudes. One was from Vancouver which sailed up the Alaska Inside Passage. The other, which was the first cruise I ever did and I will be reviewing in this blog, was a two-week trip from Southampton that followed the Norwegian coast up to Europe’s most northerly point, North Cape. These two cruises are not for the sunseeker. No, these are sightseeing cruises and if I were to go on a cruise in the future, are the sort of sailings I would be looking for.

MS Sundream up a fjord. I doubt one of the super cruise ships of today would fit.

Back in 2000, Elaine’s mum was wanting to take her children and their families on holiday. I’m not quite sure the reason we chose a Norwegian cruise for this trip but plans were made and a holiday was booked. So it was that towards the end of July nine of us congregated at Southampton’s QE2 Terminal to board the good ship Sundream. Sundream was operated by Sun Cruises, part of the Airtours travel group. If this blog tempts you to try out cruising, you will not be able to experience the delights of the Sundream or even Sun Cruises. Airtours got out of the cruise business in 2004 whilst the Sundream passed through several owners before being reduced to scrap in 2014. Built for Royal Caribbean in 1970, and having been acquired by Sun Cruises in 1996, by the millennium she was showing her age. Compared to the mega-cruise ships of today she was positively archaic. She wasn’t very big either, just 1000 passengers and 500 crew. The largest ships today carry six times that number of folk. There are small ships today but they tend to be the preserve of more exclusive cruise lines. Sun Cruises was certainly not exclusive, catering as it did for the ‘value’ end of the cruising spectrum. Facilities on board were certainly a bit limited compared with other ships. Our accommodation was an internal family cabin on one of the lower decks and a bit of a squeeze for the four of us. I might not be painting a rosy picture of the Sundream here but we grew rather fond of the vessel. Unlike the floating office blocks of today, Sundream looked like a ship, well proportioned with a distinct pointed end and an equally obvious blunt end. Yes, the engines caused it to vibrate and it wasn’t immune to rolling in the Atlantic swell (more of which later) but as the first cruise ship we had ever been on we were happy.

The first of several thousand official photos.

Of course, the ship is only part of the cruise experience. Of the 500 staff on board, not all are concerned with making it go and steering it and stuff. The rest are there purely to make your time on board a fun and happy one. Feeding the 1000 passengers is perhaps the most important thing and even on a ‘value’ cruise like this there was an endless supply of the stuff. Drink too was important with several bars complimenting the table service. From what I remember drinks were not included in the price and paid for with an onboard charge card, the bill of which you had to settle at the end of the cruise before they’d let you off. Entertainment was provided throughout the day including a show in the ship’s theatre every evening. The ship’s own cast were complimented by visiting acts, one of whom was, I kid you not, The Krankies. Fandabedozee. Poolside games, kids clubs, a small casino, an onboard cinema, dance classes, bingo and occasional talks by experts in a variety of subjects were all part and parcel of the cruising experience. All of which sounds, well, a bit Butlins and in a way it was but somehow being on the ocean wave made it just a bit different. Much of the time there was no need for onboard activities. The reason you go on a Norwegian cruise is to admire the scenery. It was absolutely stunning. No amount of bingo or talks on the shopping possibilities of Bergen can ever be as good as observing the lovely crinkly edges of Norway (some of you will get the Slartibartfast reference, for the others I apologise). Of course not every day is spent weaving your way up narrow fjords. The ship stopped at several ports on its journey north and others on the way back down. There were numerous excursions that could be taken, at extra cost of course, at each of the ports of call. They are worth taking too as staying on board whilst the ship is in port is not the most exciting thing to do unless you really, really like the bingo.

Martin, Caroline, Charlotte and Justine’s cabin with the two upper bunks stored. Ours was exactly the same, only without Martin and Caroline in it.

So, what was the itinerary? The boarding process was a bit of a lengthy one but eventually you were sent along to the gangplank where the photographer was waiting. I’m not sure if it is the same now in this age of cameraphones but back then the ship’s photographer was the busiest person on board. You were snapped getting on at every port, getting off at every port, at any event on board, when going for dinner in your glad rags or even when you were simply sat minding your own business. Every evening the day’s photos were pinned up on a board for you to browse and, if required, buy. On boarding the ship a member of staff showed you to your cabin. Suitcases were delivered to your cabin a bit later. As mentioned, our cabin was small but it did manage to squeeze in an en-suite. As it was only a place to sleep and wash, the cabin’s lack of space wasn’t really a problem though I think I’d pay a bit of a premium to have something more spacious nowadays. Another thing I’d pay extra for is to have an outside cabin. A window or, better still, a balcony is definitely worth the extra cost if you have to spend any time at all in the cabin as happened to us on a subsequent cruise when Elaine was quarantined for a day with a tummy bug. Your cabin is tended to by one of an army of cabin attendants who are particularly adept at folding your towels into interesting shapes. Setting sail was something of an occasion with a band playing onshore and people on deck waving to the poor land lubbers left behind. One of the first things of a cruise is the lifeboat drill. On the signal, everyone has to retrieve their lifejacket from their cabin and head to their muster station on deck. A member of staff does the appropriate headcount and everyone is good to go should the ship hit any rogue icebergs. We had a day to get used to the cruising life as Sundream chugged at a sedate 17kts up the North Sea to its first destination. This was a good time to iron out those awkward moments you have when you sample something new. Take dinner for example. The main dining room ran two sittings. The nine of us were allocated to a table of ten. The tenth seat was taken by a solo traveller, an old chap who had last been up to the north of Norway on a merchant navy convoy at the end of WW2. I’m sure he was delighted to be sharing a table with four kids. Ferdinand and Marvin, our waiters, attended to our dining needs throughout the entire cruise. Like many other members of the ship’s crew, these two fine chaps from the Phillipines and were not averse to bursting in to song whilst we enjoyed our five course dinners. You’ll Never Walk Alone was a particular favourite I seem to remember. The wine waiter was Julia from Estonia. Both Martin (Elaine’s brother) and I were highly impressed with, erm, her knowledge of grapes. She didn’t sing. She didn’t have to. People tended to dress up for dinner in the main lounge. On some nights it was supposedly compulsory though they didn’t turn you away if you ‘forgot’ your tie.

Marvin and Ferdinand serenade our tablemate. Martin and I were kept more entertained by Julia.

Having departed on a Saturday afternoon, it took until Monday morning to reach Norway where we cruised around Herdangerfjord. On Tuesday morning we arrived at our first stop, Alesund. Here a city tour was undertaken which included a visit to a house with a lawn on the roof just to get us into the Scandinavian way of things. We’d have probably been just as well walking round the town and saving a few quid but we were new to this game. Another two days cruising followed. This was no hardship due to the glorious view of fjords, glaciers and the Lofoten Islands, crossing the Arctic Circle on the way. On the Friday we reached Tromso, the northerly most city in Norway. The excursion we took here was to visit a Husky kennel. Whilst there were plenty of nice puppies to see, the dogs did rather pong a bit which made you wonder about the desirability of heading off on an arctic expedition being hauled by a pack of them. On the Saturday we reached Honningsvag. Here, along with virtually the entire ship’s compliment, we piled on to shuttle buses which whisked us to North Cape, described as the most northern point of Europe. In reality it isn’t – the island of Svalbard is way more north than North Cape, but it is the most northerly point that is reasonably accessible. Here, 1000ft high cliffs give way to the Barents sea to the east and Atlantic Ocean to the west. There’s a visitor’s centre and a post office for that all important Nordkapp franking on your postcards. It is definitely worth going to if only to say ‘I was there’. It is also prime Midnight Sun territory but we were there just a little late in the year. That evening the ship headed north to try and catch it but at the midnight hour cloud on the horizon thwarted any chance of seeing the sun.

Trollsfjord. It was a bit of a squeeze, even for a small ship like Sundream.

Rebecca refuses to conform to the red jacket dress code.

Rebecca, Charlotte and Justine admire the husky puppies despite the smell.

Sunbathing in Honningsvag never happens apparently.

Ulrika from the kids club keeps our kids entertained at 71 degrees, 47 minutes 04 seconds North

The trip back south was paused on the Sunday when we docked in Hammerfest. This lays claim to the the world’s most northern town, another debatable point, but it was a pleasant enough place to wander round as long as you were careful to avoid the copious quantities of reindeer excrement on the pavement. The next day was full steam ahead as we left the shelter of the costal islands on the long journey back to southern Norway. This was not without its problems. The Atlantic swell induced sea sickness in half the passengers including several members of our group. We were confined to the cabin for much of the day but on the plus side we had a perfect excuse to avoid The Krankies’ second show of the cruise. I was ok until I saw the water sloshing about in the pool. For some reason that turned my stomach and whilst I suffered no further ill effects I was in no mood to party, with or without the Krankies. By the Tuesday we had reached Trondheim. I don’t remember doing much there, we certainly didn’t take a tour. We probably just wandered round the shops or maybe had a Burger King just to make a change from the ship’s food. Wednesday saw us cruise up Geiranger Fjord. This was a highlight of the cruise. This 10 mile long by 1 mile wide fjord is magnificent and precisely the sort of thing we had wanted to see when we booked this cruise. At Geiranger village we went on a walking tour up a rather steep hiking trail which ultimately saw us walking behind a waterfall. The following day was spent in Bergen, Norway’s second city. There I took a floatplane sightseeing trip whilst everyone else wandered round the town. There’s an impressive funicular railway up Mount Floyen which is worth taking a ride on with some good views from the top. And so ended Norway. Friday was spent cruising back down the North Sea with end of cruise parties and all sorts of other events taking place. On Saturday morning we docked in Southampton and that was that.

I know this looks dodgy but I slipped on the way back down.

Bergen with Norwegian folk stuff happening.

Kids club pirate show. I was made to walk the plank.

Justine and Rebecca in the end of cruise kids club show. It had some aquatic theme.

The cruise definitely got a thumbs up from us. So much so that a few years later we all went again a few years later, this time to Alaska. It was a more modern ship which carried twice the number of passengers and belonged to NCL, a mid-range cruise company. Slightly bigger cabins and more onboard facilities were nice but the cruise itself wasn’t any better than that we had experienced with Sun Cruises. Our other cruising holidays have been in the Mediterranean with Royal Caribbean and Thomson. The former sounds as though it should be a grand affair but in reality it is a similar level of cruising as NCL. It now operates some of the meg-ships that dwarf the likes of the Sundream. The Thomson Cruises are, like the now defunct Sun Cruises, specifically aimed at the British market. As I said earlier, I’m in no hurry to go again though I wouldn’t say no either. It would have to be somewhere scenic or interesting though. The two great cruising destinations of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean hold little appeal. Central America and the Panama Canal perhaps? That’s if any cruise lines survive 2020 of course.

Sundream at Southampton the day the cruise ended.

Solstice

At 22:43 BST on the June 20 2020 the sun reached the northernmost point in its annual journey north and south across the earth and immediately head back the way it came. This was completely imperceptible to the naked eye of course as it takes six months to travel from one extreme to the other, a distance on the earth’s surface of 3237 miles which is about three quarters of a mile per hour. For a brief moment the sun will, however, appear stationary which is where we get the word solstice from. In Latin, sol means ‘sun’ and sistere, ‘to stand still’. At 13:31 on December 21 it will stand still again when it reaches the southern most point of its journey and then heads north. The sun of course is not really moving up and down the earth. It’s the earth’s rotational axis that tilts at 23.44 degrees to the orbital plane that gives the earthbound observer the illusion of the sun being higher or lower in the sky depending on the time of year. With the sun reaching the highest point in the northern hemisphere sky we have our longest day, or, to be precise, most hours of sunlight per day, in June. It marks the start of summer. I always found it unusual that the warmest weather tended to come after the solstice. The higher in the sky the sun is, the greater its heating effect so you may have thought that warm weather would be distributed equally around the solstice. Seasonal lag though means the higher temperatures tend to come some time after the summer solstice (and coolest temperatures some time after the winter solstice) and this can vary from a few days to a couple of months. The reason is down to the oceans. Water takes longer to heat up and cool down than land and we’ve got an awful lot of the stuff covering the surface of the earth. In effect these oceans act as storage heaters and your best bet for warm weather is sometime after the solstice.

If that’s the case this year then we are likely to be in for a bit of a roasting. Weather-wise, spring has been outstanding in this small part of southwest Scotland, and possibly everywhere else in the British Isles. After a particularly wet winter we’ve had day upon day of sunshine and, until recently at any rate, hardly any rain. This is just as well as in all other respects spring 2020 has been utterly dreadful. Covid-19 has seen to that. A typical Scottish spring would have seen me go crazy in lockdown. The one concession the government made to keeping us sane was to allow ‘exercise’, initially once a day but subsequently as much as you fancied, on the understanding that you keep it local. We have gone for walks on all bar a couple of days since lockdown began some ninety or so days ago. That’s an entire spring of pavement pounding around Troon with the occasional excursion into the surrounding countryside, over 500 miles in total. Most of those walks have been in the evening and thanks to the outstanding weather we have been blessed with we have been able to plot the sun’s slow but steady progress north as it set, initially over Arran and latterly somewhere up towards Largs. Those sunsets have been glorious. With the sun low in the sky the light passes through more air which scatters the blue light away leaving red and yellow light to illuminate any clouds to stunning effect. Much as I love the science involved, I can’t help but marvel just at the beauty of it all, especially with the backdrop of Goat Fell on Arran.

With the sun about to commence its journey southwards the days will get shorter. Seasonal lag should, however, mean there’s plenty of relatively warm days ahead though this being Scotland the wind and rain can trump warm temperatures any time of the year. That they didn’t in spring is almost without precedent. With lockdown restrictions easing just a bit those evening walks may well become less important. Who knows, in a few weeks we may even have the privilege of observing sunsets somewhere else in the world again. We can but hope. In the meantime, I think I’m going to celebrate the summer solstice with a bottle of something mildly alcoholic, raising a toast to the season just ended, both the worst and best spring ever, whilst telling Covid-19 in no uncertain terms to fuck right off.

Solstice sunset, 20 June, 22:04. Not as good as the other two I’m afraid. The actual solstice happened 39 minutes later.

Malta

Time for another retrospective travel blog. As it happens the journey I’m focusing on this time took place just a couple of weeks after the trip to Chernobyl that I talked about in my previous blog. Other than that there is little that connects the trips. One was to a desolate, abandoned and contaminated part of the former Soviet Union, the other to a sun-baked rock in the middle of the Mediterranean. My travel companion on the latter trip was Elaine. One of the reasons we decided to visit Malta was that you could fly there from Prestwick. The thought of a ten minute journey to the airport rather than the usual 45 minutes or more to Glasgow or Edinburgh didn’t exactly clinch the deal but it made it a whole lot more appealing. What else tempted us to the EU’s smallest nation? Thinking back I’m not overly sure. We had booked a week there so we must have hoped that something interesting awaited us. There was going to be sunshine of course which we like but it was never the sole factor in choosing where to go. It turned out that a week was just about right to discover a country with an interesting past.

Malta is not a country ashamed of its colonial past.

First of all some basics. As mentioned, Malta is the smallest country of the European Union. It’s 122 Sq Miles of land is home to almost half a million people and welcomes 1.5 million visitors every year, or at least it did in less troubled times. As you might have gathered from those statistics, it is densely populated, especially in the southern half of the island. It’s situation in the middle of the Mediterranean, mid way between Italy and North Africa has made given it strategic value to its rulers over the centuries. It was a British colony from 1814 to 1964 and the effects of this can be seen to this day. They drive on the left and nearly everyone speaks fluent English, though that last point may be down to the fact that no one else in the world has the first clue as to what they are saying when they converse in Maltese, a curious mix of Italian and Arabic with a little English thrown in for good measure. Tourism accounts for 15% of the country’s GDP with the UK tourists topping the list of visitors to the island, well ahead of Italy and Germany. It’s mild in the winter, hot in the summer and if you don’t see any sunshine when you are there you will be particularly unlucky. The combination of sun, sea and sand would make it a perfect holiday destination were it not for the fact there isn’t much in the way of sand at all. Beaches tend to be rocky and not overly inviting but sun-worshipers can get their fix by the side of the pools of the numerous holiday hotels that sit around much of the island’s shoreline.

We, being rather contrary folk, plumped for a hotel slap bang in the middle of the island in a place called Attard. It was one of the few places on the island where you couldn’t actually see the sea. It made up for this breach of tourist hotel etiquette by being a rather nice hotel. The Corinthia Palace Hotel is part of the Corinthia group and we’d stayed at their property, the Budapest Grand, the previous year. They had another hotel in Malta (they are a Maltese company) by the sea but for whatever reason (probably the price) we plumped for this one which happened to be across the road from the Maltese Presidential Palace. The presidential motorcade went past our room on several occasions. The Presidential Palace has some nice, colourful gardens too which are free to walk around which made up for the lack of a nearby rocky beach. Whilst the hotel was a hit, its location did throw up some logistical problems but being the hard-nosed travellers (hard-nosed travellers that were staying at a five star hotel mind you) that we are, they were nothing we couldn’t overcome once we has access to the Maltese Bus timetable. A twenty minute ride on a slightly disappointingly modern bus got us to the main bus station in the nation’s capital Valletta where the rest of the island was your oyster with very reasonable fares. I say disappointingly – only a handful of years earlier the buses were all ancient British Bedfords that had been criss-crossing the island since the pre-independence days. It would have been nice to experience these but I suspect the novelty would have worn off by the end of the first day. Being a fairly swanky hotel it had its own taxi rank but we only took the rather nice black Mercedes twice, one of which was back to the airport at the end of the week, as not only are we hard-nosed travellers, we can be tight-arsed travellers too.

Sedan Chair in Casa Rocco Piccola. It was a bit pricey so we took the bus instead.

So, apart from sunshine and the presidential pansies, what else did Malta have to offer? Quite a bit to be fair. Valetta is a nice city to wander around. The main bit has the one shopping street and a number of narrow lanes and is a popular place for tourists to go. The harbour is scenic and there are old battlements and forts to discover. There was the Maltese equivalent of a National Trust property which attracted Elaine like a magnet. The Casa Rocco Piccola was indeed a grand place and well worth a visit if only to realise it’s not just the Brits who do grand houses. Malta played a heroic part in the second world war, resisting attacks from the Axis forces at a terrible human cost and there is much in Valletta, and indeed the rest of the island, to remember the conflict. Malta was awarded the George Cross for its resistance and contribution to the overall war effort. The War Rooms in Valletta tell the tale of the conflict and should be on every visitor’s to do list, if only to get an idea of the sacrifices made by the island’s population and a handful of British service personnel in the three years the island was basically under siege. Just across the harbour are the Three Cities. Vitoriossa, Senglea and Bromla are make up just some of the Valletta urban area and here operates Rolling Geeks, a rather unique self-driving tour of the area. You basically hire a golf buggy which is fitted with an ipad which acts as your guide and satnav system. It also keeps you in touch with the head office of the company who where you are tracked to make sure you are following the correct route. At the time we had an uneasy relationship with satellite navigation systems and by the end of it it was under further strain. On several occasions we got the call telling us we’d gone wrong, despite us following the ipad instructions to the letter, including one time when we were required to reverse out of someone’s garden. Eventually we managed to break it and had to wait for someone to come from head office and reboot it. Strange as it may seem it was a lot of fun and I can highly recommend it. The area is interesting, less touristy than other parts of Valletta and it is a way to sightsee that you are not likely to find elsewhere.

Valletta Harbour complete with resting seaman.

They like a balcony in Valletta, even McDonalds has one.

To commemorate the awarding of the GC and by George, they deserved it.

Valletta old town as seen from the Three Cities.

We decided to discover the south of the island on the Sunday morning. We were told that there was an open-air market in Marsaxlokk, a twenty five ride in the aforementioned Mercedes tax away. It is the only one on the island apparently. Being Brits abroad, we felt it was our duty to visit it which is odd as open-air markets across the entire continent of Europe are full of crap goods and interesting looking food displayed in less than sanitary conditions. As we weren’t in the market for food anyway it was a rather pointless visit for us. The market being a rarity in Malta, it was absolutely rammed with British tourists getting their holiday market fix. It seemed particularly popular with Geordies for some reason. Maybe you can’t get this quality of tat in Newcastle? We quickly decided that we should leave and walked the mile or so around a headland to Brizebbuga. This was a small town situated on Pretty Bay, an area of coastline that was presumably named before they built Malta’s premier container port on the other side. It was, however, nice to find a genuine Maltese town with a beach that only the locals use. Nearby were the caves of Ghar Dalam. I like a good cave system. I’ve spent many a happy subterranean hour wandering round limestone caverns in a number of countries of the world. Naturally, we had to try the Ghar Dalam cave out. I have to say it will not be going in my list of top ten caves of the world as you can only enter the first fifty yards or so but the accompanying museum and it’s collection of dwarf elephant and hippopotamus bones is testament to the prehistoric occupancy of the caves by the hunter gatherers of over 7000 years ago. Ghar Dalam is worth a visit if you are passing but I wouldn’t plan a trip to the island based solely it.

Marsaxlokk Market. Unless you are eager for red fish I’d give it a miss.

Pretty Bay. Before the container port was built presumably.

Ghar Dalam cave. This is about the sum total of it.

One of the ways to get to Ghar Dalam from the tourist areas of the island is to take the open top bus tour. It does our hard-nosed traveller credentials no good whatsoever to say that we did just that one day. There are two to choose from, north and south. Having seen some of the south already we plumped for the north. It turned out to be a reasonable way to see a bit of the island we may have missed but one of the things that appeals about this type of tour is its hop on and hop off potential. With a circuit of the north of the island taking three hours we were limited in the amount of hopping on and off we could do before boarding the last bus of the day that could get us back to the hotel, which thanks to its location next to the Presidential Palace was on the route of the tour. We did manage a stop in the town of Mosta, a busy place which contained the Mosta Rotunda, an impressively domed church. That dome was once the third largest unsupported dome in the world, something the Maltese are quite proud of, but nearly came to grief in 1942 when a Luftwaffe bomb pierced it, landed on the floor of the church and failed to explode, much to the relief of the three hundred locals gathered there for evening mass. Being a Catholic Church this was naturally elevated to the status of a miracle and they have a replica of said ordnance on display in what must be a bit of a first for a place of worship. The rest of the bus trip offered little in the way of interesting stops but it did give us a brief look at the less well populated part of the island. There’s not much of Malta that isn’t urbanised to some degree but what little agriculture they have takes place in the north and west of the island.

Mosta Rotunda. Even the Germans couldn’t destroy it.

If you look carefully you can see where the Luftwaffe bomb pierced the dome.

Not many churches have a WW2 bomb on display.

Malta is a densely populated island but there are bits of countryside left.

Back on a conventional bus we made the short journey to Mdina, the Silent City. Situated in the centre of the island, Mdina is a fortified city that was the ancient capital of Malta. Motor vehicles are banned within its walls, hence the nickname the Silent City, and the place is much the better for it. It is popular with tourists who fancy a day away from the seaside so there are the usual tourist shops but overall it is quite a lovely place to wander around. Norman and Baroque architecture dominates the place (I didn’t know that, I had to look it up) and the grand houses and palaces now serve as private residences and the occasional convent or other religious building. I spent a most pleasant hour or so taking photographs of knockers. Door knockers before you ask. They really are quite proud of their knockers in Mdina. You could even see a splendid pair of knockers at the convent. On the way back from Mdina, we naturally had to pop in to the Malta Aviation Museum. Situated on the site of a former RAF airfield, Ta Qali, the one the Luftwaffe were trying to bomb when they punctured the dome of the Mosta Rotunda, this museum isn’t particularly big but packs in a fair bit of stuff in telling the 100 year history of Maltese aviation. Avgeeks and military history buffs should go there and give it some support.

Mdina from the inside, all Romeo and Juliette like.

A slightly eerie Mdina gargoyle. He’s probably looking at all the knockers.

Along with Mdina, there is one trip away from your tourist hotel that most visitors will endeavour to take. The Republic of Malta is actually made up of three inhabited islands. Malta itself is the biggest of course but to the north lies Gozo, a 25 minute ferry trip away. A fifth the size of the island of Malta, it is home to around 30,000 of the nearly half a million residents of the Republic. Between these two islands lies the tiny island of Comino which, according to Wiki, has a permanent population of three. Whilst Gozo came highly recommended, there was the challenge of getting there to overcome. To retain our hard-nosed travellers credentials what we should have done was get the bus into Valletta, another bus to Kirkewwa at the northern tip of Malta, take the ferry to Mgaar on Gozo and then hire bikes to discover just what this island had to offer. What actually happened was we booked ourselves on a tourist trip which meant we were picked up at the hotel, taken to the jetty in Valletta Harbour, plonked on a boat with a load of other tourists, given wine and beer served in thimbles, and subject to the sort of music that one normally hears in the local discotheque. After about twenty thimbles of beer I stopped regretting the decision to entrust our Gozo travel plans to Supreme Cruises and started to enjoy the trip up the East coast of Malta to Gozo. In Gozo a tour bus awaited us and whisked us off to the Azure Window, an impressive natural arch as you will see by the photograph. What you will not be able to do is go there and see it for yourself. Less than a year after we got the inevitable selfie, the arch collapsed in a winter storm and all traces of the pillar and top of the arch lie below the waves. According to Google Maps the area is now called the Blue Hole, a name that is less likely to attract the day tripper, but it remains a mecca for divers who are the only people who now get to see the rocks that used to be the Azure Window. The bus then took us to Victoria, Gozo’s largest town, for an hour’s wander and a spot of lunch. After that it was back to the harbour and on to the boat for a trip to Comino. There isn’t much on Comino. The island wraps around a bay called the Blue Lagoon which is very pretty when no one else is there. Unfortunately, many tourist cruises stop there for a couple of hours on the way back to Valletta from Gozo and ours was no exception. What nearly everyone does is head to the Blue Lagoon and pay quite a lot of Euros to hire a deck chair and parasol before finding a square foot of beach to sit on. A line of mobile vendors selling everything from burgers to bucket and spades tend to their needs before it is time to return to the boat. You can get away from this by going for a walk in the hot sunshine but there isn’t much to see other than a Blue Lagoon turned pink by hundreds of sweaty torsos crammed on to a rare stretch of sand. We found a rock to sit on in the shadow of a burger van. It was a long two hours. We are in no hurry to visit Comino again. One plus of this tour was I had a chance to go for a speedboat ride. It was an optional extra but was good fun even if the force in which the boat pancaked onto the sea from time to time quite possibly compressed my spine by a couple of inches. The overall verdict of the Gozo trip was that we should have probably stuck with the idea of getting the public bus, the ferry and hiring bikes but at least we can say we have seen the Azure Window which most of you reading this never will.

See Gozo the easy way. See Comino if you have to.

The Azure Window selfie, something you won’t be able to do before you die.

The Blue Lagoon on Comino. Looks more idyllic than it actually is.

Speedboat. Not recommended for pregnant ladies, people with bad backs and pregnant ladies with bad backs.

And that was pretty much our week in Malta. We did a bit of the sunseeker stuff too but there is only so much sitting round the pool we can take. I could also mention the food but that tended to be pizza/pasta from a place near the hotel though one day we did find what was supposed to be a traditional Maltese restaurant. I had a rabbit casserole. The Maltese like a bit of rabbit. I can’t say I did, especially when presented with the bunny’s ribcage. So, what was the verdict? We had a very pleasant week in Malta but it isn’t a place we are desperate to go back to. Whilst the weather was great it isn’t the prettiest of islands. For a start it is densely populated but even the more rural areas aren’t particularly scenic. The brief glimpse of Gozo we had suggested it was a nicer looking place than its big neighbour. Having said that there are interesting things to see, some nice towns to wander around and it’s all within easy reach no matter where you are staying. The costal fringes are, of course, very touristy but as a tourist yourself you can hardly complain about this. If sunbathing during the day and partying at night is your thing then it will serve you just as well as other Mediterranean islands, the lack of sandy beaches aside, and it’s colonial past means that it is particularly suited to a British clientele. If you like history it is worth a visit too. The island has passed through numerous rulers including the Knights Hospitaller, assorted Greeks and Turks before first the French and then the British took control. So yes, it is a place I’d recommend you go and visit, if just the once. Assuming of course we will be allowed to visit anywhere in the future.