Life on the Road – Part 2

This follows on from, wait you’ve guessed it, Life on the Road Part 1 and if you haven’t read that already then you should – not because I’m on some kind of click-hunting quest here but because this isn’t going to give the intended meaning without the context of that. It will just be an unbalanced view of my experience, which is exactly what I’m trying to avoid giving.

So then, following the weird and unsettled feeling of the day before, the story starts with me waking up in Oban at about 7am, well before I need to be gone before the parking restrictions kick in. I have time to wake up, brush my teeth and have a fairly gentle start to the morning. I also seem to have slept well which is always a bonus rather than an expectation.

Determined not to repeat my mistakes of the day before (and frankly feeling I needed one) I decide my first quest will be to resolve the shower situation. So off I head to the leisure centre and after a slightly stressful one-way detour through some very narrow and hilly residential streets we finally emerge on a wide road close to the leisure centre and just at the end there’s one spot left with no parking restrictions at all. This is a great find, as I can leave Travis here all day if I like with no need to move and neither blocking anything nor annoying anyone.

For £4.20 I can buy a session in the gym so I do that. I love going to the gym which, as with many such activities in life, others either get or think is mad depending upon whether they feel the same way. I don’t mind whatever you think, we’re all different and there’s no right or wrong activity for all of us but it’s great if you can find one that works for you. The guy at reception gives me directions and tells me that the lockers require a pound coin. I don’t have one so he gives me one from the till and says to just drop it back on my way out.

I do my workout in the surprisingly well-equipped gym. I have a nice hot shower. I remember to return the pound on my way out and thank them for being so kind. I feel better already. Now I want coffee so I grab my laptop and head to Costa, where I recall I have a free drink to claim so I do and settle down with my laptop to get some work done. And I do, and that goes well. Co-incidentally I receive a couple of work email queries whilst I’m there which I’m able to deal with immediately. It’s going to be important to show that I can still do a good job and deliver a good service whilst I’m meandering about.

I get lunch of freshly caught breaded haddock (I detail that in case my fish-sustainability expert friend is watching) which is delicious, I make a firm decision to forget going to Mull for now and head north on the mainland to my next intended destination of Glencoe. We have a plan, and buoyed by the success of the day so far we stop off at a few shops and buy a new waterproof jacket that will hopefully do a better job than my current one, some insect repellent as I seemed to have been nibbled a bit at Loch Lomond, and some natural non-polluting soap in case a future shower shortage forces me to wash outdoors at some point. Then we buy some fuel and head off to Glencoe.

We don’t get there. At least not that day. About halfway there I see a layby that looks nice so I pull over for a look. It’s early in the afternoon by now. The layby is on the shore of Loch Linnhe and there’s a beach and some boats and the usual stunning background. So I jump out to have a look around and take some pictures Walking along the beach I find a load of jellyfish, a shore crab and some nice shells. I take some pictures, notice that the layby is next to a cycle path so decide to get the bike out for a bit and ride towards the nearest settlement, Appin.

So it is that by complete chance I cycle past Castle Stalker which looks absolutely stunning! It’s a picture-perfect setting of a really good-looking building on it’s own little island surrounded by clear blue water with the sun sparkling on the surface. The sky is blue with just enough cloud to look interesting and there’s the usual epic green hills as a backdrop. It looks amazing and for a long time I just sit and then walk about a bit to see it all from different angles. I meet a nice Scottish lady and her visitors from Italy and chat to them for a while. Then eventually I ride on into the village and return on a different route which enables me to see it again from an entirely different perspective.

Upon retuning to Travis I cycle off in the other direction into a forest and collect some dead wood for a fire at some future point. Then I return, get my guitar out and restring it sat on the side of the loch which turns out to be tidal as the beach is now underwater. This is something I should have remembered. I play my guitar for a bit, think about a song I’m trying to write, eat and watch the sun go down.

It was a day where everything was as I imagined and as I hoped this life would be like. It was awesome and I went to sleep so happy and contented. And yet the previous day I had felt so lost. I haven’t been doing this long enough to know what the ratio of these types of day typically is. But I think there are ways of mitigating days like the one before as I get more experienced. I think it’s important to have a plan. It doesn’t matter if you get distracted on the way and end up doing something entirely different, that’s all part of the joy of it. And it’s important to do the necessary things to make yourself feel good. Being directionless and not achieving anything isn’t a good way to feel wherever you are.

And of course some of this is just me being me and you can’t escape yourself. As Derren Brown says in his book ‘Happy’. ‘Wherever you go – there you are’.

For better or worse.