Monday 19th -- driving Lagg to Linlithgow

Ah the Lagg Hotel. So pleasant, so peaceful. So many good breakfasts...

After fruit, cereal, porridge, eggs, black pudding, toast, marmalade, jam, tea and coffee... we pack up, pay, leave.

It's an easy drive along the "lower" middle road. Lagg to Sliddery, Brodick via Lamlash via Ross. Narrow road, hardly any traffic, beautiful scenery. Still no sign of the deer and red squirrel that are supposed to be on this island.

We reach the ferry terminal by quarter past ten, way too early for our 12:30 ferry booking. I have a Plan A and a Plan B... Plan A is to park near the ferry and fill in time nearby. I search out a ferry employee and we quickly shift to Plan B:

The ferryman takes our ticket, scans it, waves us into Lane 3... to wait for the next ferry. As I suspected we are booked for "today" rather than "today at 12:30". We have time for a leisurely stroll round the ferry terminal, a very nice, quite new building. Then it's back to the car...

We sit in the car. The ferry arrives, it reverses into its dock. The ramp is lowered, cars and other vehicles drive off. Pedestrians walk off via an aerobridge. Cars and campervans and cars towing vans and trucks and several really large trucks -- drive on. As we drive on I think, It would be faster if we drove on in two lanes. Of course one of those lanes would drive off the one-lane ramp into the sea.

We drive on board. Switch off. Get out of the car and climb up onto the lounge deck.

The ferry starts moving, we have barely sat down. It is so smooth we can hardly tell it is moving. It's too early for lunch, I buy coffees and a lemon cake for sharing. I even manage to carry it upstairs to Deb in the lounge. Then I wander round a bit.

The ferry seems only half full, plenty of spare seats. There are quite a few dogs on board. (I wonder if they need tickets?) One great dane is sitting on a seat with his front paws on the deck.

I decide that this car ferry is at least as big as the boat that took us to Antarctica.

A 55 minute trip and we reach Ardrossan. Unloading is as fast and efficient as loading. The only excitement is that some cars have had their alarms set off, possibly by people pushing past to get to their own cars.

There's a little red light blinking in the car, we have no idea what it means. Deb says that hire cars should come with instructions. Good idea... 

I still have no idea how to control the inside temperature. There are two knobs which adjust two degree-C displays but do they affect the temperature? The intermittent windscreen wiper turns on -- or not -- regardless of how I set it. If it is detecting rain, it's not very good at it. The headlights and sidelights turn on and off as they see fit, I have yet to find any controls. We once turned on the radio and took five difficult minutes to turn it off again... And so on :-(

It's an easy car for basic driving. As long as you don't mind the engine turning off when we're not moving and the occasional stall when we drive too slowly. And if we park, get out to remove something from the back seat, we often find that the back door has locked itself... It's a car which thinks for itself, thinks differently to the way I think, won't adjust its thinking to suit the driver... as far as I can tell.

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Off the ferry we make two stops: at the hospital where my elder brother was born and at the house where our parents then lived.

The hospital is large, several buildings. I take a photo of a building that looks old enough. For the house I have two choices, the same number and street, different suburbs. I find one, take a photo. Near enough :-)

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We drive on, towards Linlithgow. I would like to stay on smaller roads, just for the interesting driving. Deb wants to avoid motorways, she's worried about heavy & slow traffic. The gps wants to take us via motorways and Glasgow.

I take a few random turns. Turn into a random place for lunch: Adamton House, a sort of country club. The restaurant is closed but the man at reception is happy to organise sandwiches and tea. Very nice, too.

Judging by the mansion style of the gardens and the main building, I am expecting something very posh. But... white sliced bread! Which tells me (right or wrong) that this is a cut-price hotel. (Brittania chain, if I remember correctly?) Very nice ham on the sandwiches, though.

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Then we follow the gps to Linlithgow. Via motorways, via Glasgow. All very easy, all quite fast. I spend a lot of time on 50mph, even when the limit is 70.

Despite the earlier ferry it's almost 4 o'clock when we reach our accommodation. It's The Court, a converted old court building. And wow! we've gone even further upmarket!

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There's no dinner (and no cooked breakfast) here so we go out for dinner. To the Four Marys, a nearby pub. Food is not fancy, it's delicious, it may be the cheapest dinner we've had so far.

We walk a bit, up and down High Street. Then back to our room -- our "suite" -- and that's it for today.

====    Dr Nick Lethbridge  /  Consulting Dexitroboper
             Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"I would like to think it's possible to construct a society where our orders don't involve slaughtering our own people." ...Gen. Khiruev via Yoon Ha Lee

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dying for you to read my blog: notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au :-)
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