I thought we were good, but I was wrong

So here's a picture of Inverness, taken yesterday. Thought you might like to see the castle. Not that it's a real castle, you understand, but still, it makes a brave stab.

A long time ago, I confided to this blog that Inverness and I had an unhappy history, mainly because Inverness had it In For Me in a Big Way, and whenever I crossed into its sphere of influence something horrible happened.

 

Later on, I went to a Conference in Inverness where I won an award and I was confident that the curse was broken and that Inverness and I were now pals. It seems I may have been a bit previous with this judgement.

 

There was nothing wrong with the course I went on, although somebody there who I have known almost as long as I have been a UHI post graduate student was a bit off with me I thought, but that may have been just my imagination, or  her having a bad day. I always try to remember that just because someone doesn't seem delighted to see me it doesn't necessarily mean that they find me tedious or annoying, it might just be that they have other things on their minds. It's a laudable aim, but I rarely manage to achieve it. I always think it Must Be Me.

 

Also the reception staff at UHI Executive Office didn't seem terribly on the ball. They never do to be honest.  It seems like they put all their effort into making sure you sign in and out in their little book, and that they give you a shiny little badge (which has to be clipped to your clothing, something which isn't always the easiest of things to do if you're not wearing a 3 piece suit with an appropriate lapel buttonhole) and then they have no energy left over for knowing what is going on and helping you be in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. Although they do have the energy to chat to all the other admin people who happen to stroll down the stairs or across the lobby and to investigate why one of them might be leaving and where they might be going and why they weren't the first to know, but had to hear it from Kelly in Accounts etc. It has to be said that I take a dim view of this. On occasions when I am in the  position of needing to keep people informed about what's going on where and when and with whom I hold myself to very high standards, and I do think that if your job is as a receptionist in somewhere like that then it is your business to know all this every day and be able to help those who turn up for any of it.

 

So anyway, the course went well, although as I may just have mentioned it was a long way to go for four hours which actually turned into three and a half. But the tutor was really good and said lots of helpful and useful things; -  although can I just mention here that I hate doing things in groups? Let me stand or fall by my own efforts,  I'd rather get 3/3 wrong working stuff out for myself,  than 2/3 right when the wrong one is the result of my giving in to someone else's persuasion that my answer is wrong and theirs is right.

 

No it was all fine and I had a morning shopping in Inverness. I have as a result primed the OH to correct me the next time I say 'I'm just going to Inverness overnight, I will only need the backpack'. This turned out to be so untrue it wasn't even funny.

 

Anyway at the appropriate time I presented myself at Inverness bus station complete with backpack now stuffed to overflowing, and a large and well filled carrier bag from Waterstones and wearing the anorak, despite it having turned into a blazingly hot day, because I could not carry it and my handbag and the backpack and the carrier bag from Waterstones all at once. (See how I took on board the tutor's assertion that you can use 'and' over and over again in  a sentence and it can be OK? )

 

There was a little bit of people panic when we got on board the bus because the X99, which is timetabled to go from Stand 1 actually pulled up at Stand 4, a nasty habit which I know of old, although to most of the waiting punters it came as a complete and unwelcome surprise. If the bus could be relied upon to park itself at Stand 4 all the time that would be one thing, but 8 times out of 10 it does actually come to Stand 1. It is the uncertainty of where it will turn up that makes for a nervous wait, especially since we are talking about a service which is designed to connect to ferries and which therefore you cannot afford to miss.

 

We all settled down for the journey though and all went well until we got to Dunbeath (Birthplace, as it announces itself on every sign leading into the place, of Neil Gunn. Which is fine if you know who he was, although I suspect a lot of people pass through Dunbeath without the faintest idea.) 

 

Now passengers who are aiming for Thurso and then Scrabster on the North Coast to connect with the North Link ferry get nothing out of Dunbeath but a short detour and a quick look at the War Memorial. For those wanting to get to Wick, and then perhaps carry on past John O'Groats to the ferry terminal at Gills Bay (like me),  Dunbeath is where you get off the X99 and get onto the X97. Which is always waiting at the bus stop, by the war memorial, quite often with its driver standing outside it, making a great show of consulting his watch as the X99 draws up. Unless he's busy having a quick fag of course. Only yesterday the X97 wasn't there.

 

Our driver was understandably worried as he had half a bus full of passengers who were expecting to get off his bus and onto another one, and unless the other one was currently at Dunbeath and muffled in a cloak of invisibility, (which it wasn't) this wasn't happening. Cue a worrying 30 minutes or so, not helped by the loud complaint of a female passenger in fur lined boots who was only too happy to tell anyone who would listen that this particular bus company was shocking/ the worst in Scotland/ the worst bus company there  had ever been north of the border,  and that their buses were always late/breaking down/ going on fire.

 

Well in the end I did get  my ferry connection, courtesy of some very fast driving in another bus which rattled and made very peculiar noises and which I am not 100% convinced was not the one which had broken down and thereby failed to rendezvous with its twin from Inverness and which was originally not going to be able to pick us up, since it was languishing in pieces somewhere between Dunbeath and Lybster. I made no enquiry and was careful not to check the speedometer either. I was just too pleased to catch the ferry, just, despite the delay, and get back to Orkney.

 

That may of course not be the Curse of Inverness re-establishing itself at all. It may have had nothing to do with Inverness. In which case the question has to be - what did I ever do to Dunbeath?