Rocking up to Roybridge

It’s been a few weeks of birthdays for our grandchildren – we’ve seen Ruby for her 1st, Lily for her 10th (along with her sister, Brooklyn) and we’re just back from a fleeting visit to the Highlands for Isabella’s 7th.

We were up at 6.30am on Friday to get a flying start to the 6 hour drive up to Roybridge. Whilst Alison took Ralf for his morning walk, I set about making breakfast, but was interrupted by the door bell ringing at 7.15am. Now, someone coming to the door that early in the morning usually spells trouble, but on this occasion, it was a dishwasher engineer who had the wrong house number in his schedule. He was very apologetic (and relieved that he hadn’t got me out of bed) and grateful when I pointed him in the direction of our near neighbours.

We were away by 8am on a gloriously sunny day. The drive up was a breeze and even though the traffic was fairly busy around Glasgow we got to Loch Lomond for a brief stop by 11.40.

We set off again, aiming for our usual destination to give Ralf a run off the lead and to eat our picnic lunch. The Bridge of Orchy is a beautiful place, made all the more interesting by the presence of a small film crew who had their cameras trained on a chap cycling in a recumbent with a rack full of what looked like growing herbs. It looked very odd indeed.

We both enjoy this route, but Alison in particular loves the drive through Glencoe, and this trip through was as spectacular and atmospheric as ever.

We stopped in Fort William for diesel (174.99 per litre) and arrived at Jodie and Simon’s house in Inverroy before Issy was home from school. She was so excited to see us when she got off the school bus – she didn’t know we were coming, so it was a complete surprise for her that we were there.

As always, she was so happy to see her Fun-time Granny and the two of them were joined at the hip for the rest of the day.

After some games and a walk for Ralf, we all drove to the Old Station Inn in nearby Spean Bridge for our tea before settling down back at Westroy for a good chat and a few glasses of red.

This was a very short visit, so after bacon butties on Saturday morning, Issy opened her presents from us and we said our goodbyes. I was hoping to be home by 5.15pm to watch Middlesbrough play Chelsea in the FA Cup, but part of me regrets not staying a bit longer, although Isabella was having a Sponge Bob themed party in the village hall on Sunday so it was probably best to let them get on with it without us. 😉

The drive home was every bit as beautiful as the one up. We even threw in a fix for Mrs B’s Golden Arches addiction by stopping at Annandale Water and grabbing a couple of Big Macs to eat after Ralf’s walk to the lake.

We were home for 4.45am in time for me to watch the match. We lost 0-2 but weren’t disgraced and we can now try to get back into the play offs. 🤞🏻

Back now to house prepping ahead of putting it up for sale, although we’ve got a trip to Ardnamurchan in April to look forward to and we’d better think about opening up the Static. Busy, busy as always…