Inverness and Back - With a Small Diversion

So it was up at the crack of dawn on Sunday for the early morning ferry. I don't usually know why we catch this one because it disagrees with me big time and I always suffer for hours afterwards, but on this occasion we had to be in Inverness for 4.30 and we had built a meeting with a friend on the way into the schedule. Sadly the meeting had to be called off at the last minute but the ferry was booked so  there we were, in no choice land.  

The reason for the trip was LVE OPERA! for the first time sine January. OK it was two singers, two string players and a narrator on the back of a truck in the theatre car park with a cut down version of Don Giovanni, but it was nevertheless real life singing and we needed some of that in our lives so we went to see it. 

Due to the aforementioned meeting cancellation we also managed to go to M & S and get the OH two new pairs of jeans. The Cat Lorenzo, nowhere near as agile as he was in his youth, now takes two jumps rather than one to get up on to the OH's desk and the intermediate step requires the use of claws in the OH's leg. He does not object to the small scabs and the pain, but it does make a mess of his trousers. The hope is that denim will be rather more resistant to cat claws than wool is. 

Anyway, here is the truck, before the performance started

and here it is again with personnel! The photos are rubbish because the truck had been parked with its back to the sun - great for the performers, not so good for the audience, or indeed for taking photos. 

They are  just to remind myself we went really. It was sooooo good to hear the human voice singing Mozart again, and I'm aware of how pretentious that sounds, but facts is facts and we had missed it. 

So yesterday, booked as we were  on the lunchtime  ferry to get back we had loads of time and I suggested a short detour to a small town called Portmahonack. We are always saying 'We must go' when we pass the sign for the turn off from the A9 and yesterday was the day we finally went. 

I was curious about it as it was for  long time, and for all I know still is, the home of the crime writer Anne Perry and I had often wondered what on earth made a very successful writer like her bury herself in the back of beyond. I had envisaged it as a small village, maybe five cottages and a post box, in the middle of a swathe of Forestry Commission pine, but in fact I couldn't have been more wrong. It's a sizeable village on the Moray Firth with a beautiful blue flag beach. And, improbably, an Italian Restaurant. 

We took a short walk to and on the beach 

and promised ourselves that we would come back another day when we had more time. 

In the event, a road closure and a very slow drive up the A9 courtesy of two baler lorries, a camper van and a driver in a small car unwilling to try to overtake any of them meant that we only just made it to the ferry check in, and I was so exhausted by all the excitement I took to my bed and slept for three hours. Felt better when I woke up though.