Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen

This is your captain speaking. Unfortunately I am afraid to report that our service today has been hijacked by the Scottish Tourist Board who have taken command of this blog armed with a spring of heather and a very pointy thistle and have removed all of our pointy sticks, leaving us utterly at their mercy.

They assure me that their intentions are peaceable and that if you all just sit still nicely and look at some pretty pictures of Scotland, all will be well; no stitches will be dropped, no needles will be broken and there will be no unnecessary frogging.

They are accompanied by a strange wee beastie with two legs shorter than the other (ideally adapted for standing on the side of hills I should think) so I'm not inclined to mess with them.

The UK is know for many things but ski resorts don't come very high on that list. However, the Nevis Ranges above Fort William is a genuine, real snow, ski resort; so we had to go and have a look:



You can walk up the mountain; or you can just take the cable car! It's an amazing ride up; it starts off on quite a gentle incline and then suddenly hits a corner and you start to soar upwards (while secretly keeping one eye on the cable connection above you, because really it is only held there by will power and prayer, particularly when you go over a join)


The cable car takes you about half way up the mountain and the first thing you see is snow! It is entirely possibly that the writer, in her eagerness to touch the snow, headed directly up the hill by means of a concealed puddle of melty mud that may have left a permanent impression on her shoes, but we shall gloss over that.

Given that it was the middle of March at the time, this is pretty much the end of the season and most of the lower ski runs were just grass and slush but you could still see the higher runs up the hill and there were a good few people out with snowboards.


There are two 'official' viewpoints a short hike away, the first went towards the mountain we'd all been waiting for; Ben Nevis (or rather, the north shoulder of Ben Nevis) - highest mountain in the UK and awe-inspiringly beautiful.


We could also look down on Loch Linnie and Fort William far far below.



We had the viewpoint to ourselves and took the opportunity to dabble in a little 'flying'



Here the cameraman located approximately on my feet records me soaring up the valley behind Ben Nevis;


While H dives down for a look into the valley below!

The second viewpoint looks out to the the great unexplored (by us) North

And the creatively named Loch Lochy


Someday we'll have to go back when there's more snow; the family went up at Christmas and went tobogganing which must have been brilliant.

I have been knitting, when not dreaming of moving to Scotland and becoming a self-sufficient ice-cream and yarn farmer, and our regular schedule of mishaps and miracles will resume soon!