Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MONDAY. WE'RE BOUND
for Speyside, booked into a hotel just outside the village of Dul-
nain, near Grantown-on-Spey. Aileen takes first go at driving the M5.
Aileen is Les's younger and fitter wife. We know this because it was reported as such
in the
Lochaber News
following the incident when the boat drifted off from one of the
sand beaches far down on the south-west shore of the loch and Les had to swim after it
(long story).
Aileen's a popular PE teacher who seems very happy in her job but she should, I'm
convinced, have been an agent. Or some sort of negotiator. I've never met anybody better
at striking a bargain, making a deal, haggling for a discount - or getting various bits of
kit thrown in for free - who wasn't a professional. And I've met a few professionals who
lacked her natural gift. Aileen's skills in this area are, amongst those who know her, le-
gendary. No matter how hard-nosed a sales person might think they are, Aileen will find
a way round them. She's negotiated deals where I would never have imagined it was re-
motely possible, like the time when she and Eilidh were in London and Aileen somehow
persuaded the people who ran the open-top bus and river-boat trips that they should have
a reduced rate for people doing both. Housewife from the sticks gets one over on cynical
big bad city tourist operation … nope, still beggars belief.
One of her more remarkable deals was, fittingly enough, with the Ben Nevis distillery,
just outside Fort William, when she was trying to attract sponsorship for the Glenfinnan
Volleyball Team. A friendly chat with the very pleasant and helpful people at the distillery
and she walked out with a crate of whisky for the team, plus a load of miniatures. The
distillery didn't even want its names on the team T-shirts or anything; they were happy
with a mention in the programme.
In 1995, on a very hot, still, magnificently sunny day, a bunch of us were running the
ice-cream tent at the Glenfinnan Games. I'm implying that we all helped out; in fact, I'm
ashamed to admit, the reality was that - without us really intending this to happen, honest
- the women folk ended up doing the actual serving and taking the money while we guys
- and supposedly New Men - stayed at the back of the tent in the shade, sitting on the
coolboxes, fanning ourselves with games programmes and guzzling the cold beers which
had somehow found their way into the coolboxes along with the more commercially rel-
evant tubs of ice cream.
