The world is truly a wonderful place. I have just had four entirely separate and quite different but altogether fabulous experiences over the past week. I did go out on my bike and enjoyed some exercise but none of these is related to the forthcoming journey.
On which subject, I should now make clear that we have secured accommodation in Torridon. The Torridon Inn has rooms available, and I've nabbed a twin room there. And it looks like being the best of the lot. The menu in both the bar and restaurant look ample and the wine, beer and whisky list in the bar is impressive.
I feel I have a strange relationship with alcohol. My parents were strict on the subject but not teetotal, and there was always wine at the table and, at Christmas, whisky and other spirits. My dad always toyed raffishly with what appeared to be good malt but was in fact Schweppes ginger ale with ice in it. Beer was never kept at home, apart from the odd can of stout which was used medicinally to deal with anaemia. As a result, I grew up slightly confused about alcohol. Anyone brought up in a Hebridean household will know something of this. Alcohol has been the curse of the generations on the islands and my mum once told me that when I and my twin brother were lying in our cot as newborns her prayer for us was that we wouldn't "get involved with alcohol". This prayer lacked specification, in my view, since we were never expected to be teetotal and indeed a hot toddy was prescribed as a universal panacea from an early age, a legacy which continues to this day in our house. (A hot toddy, in my view, is a simple mixture of Famous Grouse blended whisky - never a malt - some honey and a top up of boiling water. My father-in-law once made me a toddy in a large coffee mug, which included not only whisky and hot water but fresh orange juice and lemonade. I respect my father-in-law very highly but that was revolting and set my fever back some weeks. Indeed it left me wanting it all to end very soon).
For years I maintained what I now consider to be a prudish and sentimental abstinence from alcohol other than the odd glass of wine. No discernible principle ruled this practice other than the need to feel superior to others who drank. This now seems unforgivable, not because temperance is wrong but self-righteousness of that stripe is beyond the pale.
Simply put, I'm no longer bothered about it. I thoroughly enjoy a beer now and then, and one of my great pleasures in life is a good malt whisky, especially while watching late night Ashes cricket from Australia. I'm no connoisseur but I particularly like Highland Park and Balvenie, and avoid the peaty and smoky island malts on account of a taste memory which calls to mind a fire we had in our first flat. I need to be no more than 10 paces from my bed when I drink it, though, as it completely knocks me out.
Anyway, at the end of a long day's cycle the prospect of a nice malt after a good meal is very enticing, and so the Torridon Inn appears to be a good bet.
The first of the experiences was my trip to Lord's with friends from Stirling on Friday and Saturday. It began poorly when I went to check in at 6 on Friday morning and was informed by a blank faced bureaucrat that I had booked for the right flight but the day before. There was a detectable relish about the way she sent me to the booking desk to buy my ticket, but at least there was space on the flight. At the desk there was a very pretty blonde woman who was, as all these women are, beautifully turned out and calm, providing rather a telling contrast to my normal thrown-together red-faced unappealing unsightliness. In trying to explain myself, I did what all self-respecting middle aged male does in the face of attractive efficiency. I gabbled. If it made any impression on her it didn't show. Not as bad as the time I got to Tel Aviv Airport and discovered my return ticket to Edinburgh had ripped in two, and had to face Israeli security, but not far off.
Once on the way, all went to plan. Friday was a wonderful day's cricket, with England recovering from 22 for 3 to 342 for 6 at the close, with the miraculous Alastair Cook amazing the crowd firstly by playing so completely for 96 and then again by getting out before reaching his hundred. Cook now never fails to make a hundred when it's in sight. He rectified it in the second innings. We saw him last year and he was all at sea against Pakistan and looked a certainty to miss the boat to Australia; now he's our Hobbs.
Saturday was very hot and after Prior made a swift and richly entertaining hundred the Sri Lankans set about chasing 486. I like Dilshan, the skipper, but not as a batsman - he's a hacker, and not a high class Sehwag hacker, but an agricultural hitter who whirls away at anything outside off. Still, 193 at Lord's is better than anything I ever managed.
The second experience was that I finished Great Expectations, Charles Dickens's most famous novel outside the Christmas one, and one that I had never read before. I read it on my new Kindle - about which more in a moment - and it was thrilling and moving, full of twists and plot explosions. Great storytelling, rich and vivid on a huge canvas. I love Dickens. I have now read A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickelby, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield (which I finished by reading overnight waiting for Tom to be born), Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations and, my favourite of the lot, The Pickwick Papers, possibly my desert island book.
Reading it on the Kindle was very interesting. The font is the same for everything I read, whether modern or classic. Easy and light to hold with a clear, bright screen, I wondered how it could bear the weight of a Dickens. No problem. The Kindle simply delivers the words. Nothing mediates between the reader and the story. No cover design or typeset or paper quality influence one's approach to the book. It is a remarkably old-fashioned reading experience on 21st century technology.
Third, I went to see X Men: First Class at the cinema on Monday night. I quite liked the first X Men movie but didn't trouble to see the others. I liked the idea of an origin story and the cast looked good. Director and writer were the same as in Kick Ass, a film I hated so much I walked out of it, but not before I had found a lot to admire in its fresh, bold attitude and clear direction. I loved it. For the second time in a month I came away from a superhero movie having thoroughly enjoyed myself and, just as importantly, not embarrassed by the script. Spectacularly good, and McAvoy and Fassbender really distinguished themselves, though the latter's Irish and German accents rather got in each other's way.
Fourthly, I had the day off with the boys yesterday and while Tom was at a friend's for the day, Charlie and I, at his suggestion, climbed Arthur's Seat. Or, to put it more accurately, I walked up and Charlie ran. To compare him to a mountain goat would flatter the mobility of that cliched creature, and ignore the constant commentary he provided all the way up and all the way back down. He was incessant. It begins to dawn on me what it must have been like for my family as I grew up.
Family, I'm sorry.
