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- In Perth, we had dinner at the Hightower Hotel with my long-lost, DNA-found cousin Jim McGugan.
- In Sutherland, we visited Dunrobin Castle, the most politically incorrect edifice in Britain.
- In Helmsdale, by about an hour, we missed coincidentally encountering our Orcadian pal, historian Tom Muir . . . and so failed to meet his new wife!
- We almost got killed when, on a narrow two-lane road, with a rock wall on our side, the driver of an oncoming camper-van decided to pass a group of cyclists and swung out into our lane. I managed to slow just enough . . . .
- At a bank machine in Stornoway, while withdrawing funds, we encountered Toronto writer Heather Birrell, who is sojourning on the Isle of Lewis.
- While staying at Fort William, we made our way to the top of a mountain in the Nevis Range. All right, all right: we rode a gondola.
- At Waterstone’s Books in Oban, in a section called
Recommended Reading, we came upon five copies of Fatal Passage. This was after we found two copies at a
bookstore in Portree. Hats off to Bantam Books for keeping the work alive
after fifteen years -- and to my agent, Beverley Slopen, for bringing that team aboard.
- In Helensburgh, we visited a National Trust property, Carisbrooke House, and got inside an addition created by William Fraser, Sheena’s architect grandfather.
- Along the way, somehow, we amassed an unconscionable pile of obscure books.
- As to how it all fits together, well, that will emerge in due course.
3 comments:
Heather Birrell taught me short fiction at U of T years ago. And I'm super glad you didn't die.
Glad you survived all of that Ken...plus all that scotch.
Denis
Amazing that we just missed you on this trip - although you traveled far wider and longer than we did!
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