The journey to Stirling was eventless. The car is poorly so I took the van to Lairg, taking the precaution on Saturday of removing all the baling twine which was holding the exhaust on and wiring it up good and proper. It was - ooooh - nearly half a mile before CLANG SCRRRRRRRRAPE and I had to stop and crawl under the van and take the exhaust off completely and chuck it in the back.
The train journey to Inverness was enlivened by an increasingly drunken oilman who used to work at Dounreay telling me about his experiences of the official secrets act and men in suits coming to his house reminding him that he'd signed it after he attended a consultation event about the future of Dounreay and said a little too much. What it is to live in a free society eh?
Anyway - three tales of Stirling
1 The keys
I was tired by the time I dragged myself into the Golden Lion hotel in Stirling. My head was still somewhere around Aviemore and I was still hearing the percussion of the rail tracks as I checked in and was handed the keys to room 357, on a clearly marked orange fob: '357'. The lift up to the third floor was, erm, somewhat 'quaint' but it got me there and I dragged myself and heavy bag (full of lots and lots of paper) to the room. The key didn't fit the lock. In my fuzzy state I was convinced it was just me being stupid, so I tried and tried. I knelt on the floor before the door and tried to ram the key home. No chance.
So I dragged me and my bags back down to reception again, again marvelling at the 'quaint' lift. The receptionist clearly thought I was a moron but found someone to go back and open the door for me. He took a spare key in the highly unlikely event that it was the key and not me. The lift even managed to lift me and bag and hotel boy.
The spare key worked. He checked the original key - "Nah - this is the wrong key. I tell you it what it is mate - we had a really busy weekend and quite of few keys came of their fobs so we just put 'em all back on as we found 'em, random like."
Great!
2. Golden Lion showers
On Tuesday morning I was sitting in reception and a be-suited woman came to reception to check out. As the receptionist was tapping his keyboard she said in a helpful non-complaining voice: "You know the shower in my room didn't work at all, I really think you should get someone to look at it."
The receptionist looked up:
"Is this stay being billed straight to the company?"
3 Cafe Culture
The weather in Stirling was fantastic. Having spent most of my time there (when not eating curries) couped up in an office the hour or so I had to wait for the train home was very welcome. I found myself a nice cafe with seats on the pavement and settled myself to a pot of tea and a good big piece of people watching. When it was time to leave I went inside to the counter. There was a woman in front of me clearly in need of refreshment. "Please could I have a large black coffee with milk."
It's good to be back home amongst the civilised where black is black and white is white.
2 comments:
I've been known to order something similar. If you don't want a big bucket of steamed milk with a shot of expresso in it you have to ask for a coffee with cold milk. I usually just ask for a coffee and when they ask if it's black or white and they've got one of those big steamy milk things, I ask for cold milk, in a jug, on the side. 'Black coffee with milk' expresses it perfectly.
Pah! Not quite as succinctly as "americano" though - but it's true that if you ask for an americano round here you'd likely be asked to leave the premises
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