Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
which have the courtesy to tell you exactly how high you are, though not in a druggy way,
obviously), I dutifully reset it. Apart from that it's of no earthly use to man nor beast, but
it still looks kind of cool. I did once take it on the flight from Barra to Glasgow - wee
daft plane, unpressurised - and was able to confirm that when the captain said we were
cruising at an altitude of 4000 feet - we really were! Handy, or what?
In the afternoon we head into deepest Speyside, via some fun little back roads and the
primly quaint but very pleasant town of Grantown-on-Spey, its grey granite buildings
positively sparkling in the sunlight. We have to refuel, and Les expresses some horror at
how quickly this comes around in the M5.
'I'm getting 22 miles to the gallon!' I protest (Les and I are both of an age where we
still think in terms of mpg rather than km per litre). 'For a five-litre engine, that's bloody
good. Actually it probably means I'm not driving the car hard enough. I've been known
to get 350 miles out of a full tank on a long run. In an M5 that's probably some sort of
record.'
'Yeah, but our A6 gets 800 miles between refills,' Les says.
'It's a
diesel
!' I screech. Not unreasonably, I think.
'Yeah. So?'
Dear Enzo preserve us true petrol-heads from the smugness of oil burners. Les likes
fast cars as much as I do but I can see he's on the cusp of being turned by that damn five-
cylinder diesel. The sooner we get him behind the wheel of the M5 the better.
'Well, anyway,' I splutter. 'I mean, it's just not fair to compare … hold on. Wait a
minute. Where's Aileen?'
'Uh-oh. I think I saw a sweet shop back there.'
G-on-S has a great sweet shop called the Candy Box; one of those time warp places
where they measure boiled sweets out of big jars and sell stuff you thought they'd stopped
making years ago, as well as having lots of intriguing-looking modern sweets and some
terribly tempting Belgian chocolates. Aileen beelines for shops like this the way I go
straight to outdoor outlets.
Astoundingly, we don't bump into anybody who knows Les the whole time we're in
Grantown. This is genuinely remarkable. I've never known anybody more prone to meet-
ing people he knows where all concerned least expect it. Usually this happens abroad in
the middle of nowhere, and I speculate that maybe we're just too close to home. Then Les
reminds me that actually he did bump into another Lochaber High School teacher while
we were at the top of the funicular.
We eventually drag Aileen out of the sweet shop before she can do a deal on buying
the whole stock for less than trade and sweep off along a wee road through the woods to-
wards Glenfarclas distillery, though only after promising her there are bound to be things
like whisky-flavoured fudge and similar goodies to be had in the distillery shop.
