[Photos] UK 19 - Inverness Part 1

We drove up from Falkirk to Inverness. All in all, it was about 5 hours of driving, with plenty of roadworks. Even though we're very used to driving such long distances, the fact that the roads were new and the roadworks with plentiful meant that the trip was still exhausting. (I was the navigator). But, it was also beautiful. The roads from England to Scotland are breathtaking, but I don't really feel you get to really see a more true 'Scottish' landscape until you start heading more North. I could be wrong, of course, this is just how I felt from my experiences.

So the drive, while tiring, was also breathtaking. And I have a whole bevy of photos just from what I saw while looking out of the window. But they'll come later. For now, Inverness!

Inverness is lovely, though less of a city and more of a village. It is beautiful and well maintained, everyone we met was tremendously friendly. Our host for Airbnb came over when we arrived to make sure everything was okay, and we chatted for some time. When we walked along the River Ness (which despite my tiredness was easy enough to do, because it was literally across the road from our house), dog walkers happily let me annoy their dogs (I always asked first) and chatted.

One woman with a saluki x (so beautiful, she just leaned against my leg the entire time as I chatted to the woman) talked about how she came over from Ireland and: 'Don't tell my family, but I like it here more than I ever did Ireland' and talked about how many friends she'd made at the local dog friendly pub, and how beautiful and clean the air was. I mean Ireland is also meant to be beautiful and I think it's all much of a muchness, but the people of Inverness are proud of Inverness, and rightfully so.

The buildings - while I didn't get any photos of these - are all made of the locally quarried redstone (it's pink), and this includes also the aggregate plasters and more, so everything kind of has this pinkish, reddish hue, from the council house, to the tenement blocks, to even the free-standing house where we stayed.

I spent a lot of time at Inverness - when not travelling - in bed. This was where I had to cut most of the items off our itinerary, as I was just too sick to do much at all, until I'd had enough rest to manage to go to Eilean Donan castle and the Isle of Skye (which was an impulse). But of all the places to be sick and mostly bedridden, this was a lovely place for it, and I would go back to Inverness in a heartbeat.


The River Ness



( Mostly shots of the River Ness, as I walked along it. )

[Photos] UK 20 - Inverness Part 2

So today I had my follow up MRI for my neck tumours. It was the first time I haven't needed Temazepam for an MRI in like three years, and given I've had like 6 MRIs in that period, it's pretty awesome. The radiologist/radiographer remembered me from last time and the time before, and I told him I was risking not taking a Temazepam and he was like 'well fingers crossed' and then afterwards he was really great and excited about it and said he was proud and how awesome it was, and then we talked about how cool MRI machines are.

But I'm feeling pleased, because my claustrophobia in MRI machines has come so far. My veins didn't play entirely nicely with the gadolinium contrast, but they got it in eventually. Results, hopefully, on Friday. Probably the tumours have done nothing at all. We hope.





( And more Inverness )