The Green Isle of the Great Deep

A right of passage

2009-07-05T21:24:00.001Z

A right of passage, originally uploaded by ccgd.

One from the roof of the Harbour Masters shed - the ultimate in any Cromarty 14 year olds pier jumping history.

Neil Munro's

2009-06-30T19:41:00.001Z

Neil Munro's, originally uploaded by ccgd.

A window sill in our house, with my collection of early and first editions of Neil Munro's books.

www.neilmunro.co.uk/biog.htm

Neil Munro is/was Hugh Foulis - the author of Para Handy. Not a bad place to start, for gentle west coast humour.

But Munro himself thought that his Foulis persona was for lightweight newspaper stuff, and reserved his serious writing about the Highlands for his own name. My own favs are John Splendid (or the Little wars of Lorne) about Montrose's Highland Campaigns of the 1640's, or the Daft Days, about small town life in the west Highlands at the turn of the last century.

For an Invernessians introduction to Neil Munro (and he was an Argyll man remember) try "The New Road" - a 1750's thriller/whodunit where the main action takes place around Inverness and Beauly..........

And as someone who spent his student years at the Art School in Glasgow I return again and to his book (or collection of newspaper articles) "The Brave Days", a book about the Dear Green Place back in the 1880's and 1890's.

Drumochter

2009-06-26T18:16:00.001Z

Drumochter, originally uploaded by ccgd.

December 2006 - A' Mharconaich and Geal Charn, from an A9 layby. Freezing windscreens meant frequent stops to clear the frost and crud....

Which strangely enough leads me on to part three of my ambulance saga.

"Twenty five years forward or back – you choose.

I was in an Ambulance that one other time. It was shite.

I hated it, and I was miserable. No fun whatsoever, just survival, just getting through the next few minutes, and the next few, and the few after that until I hoped that a hospital bed, some powerful drugs and a surgeons needle would go some small way to sorting my immediate problems.

And the promise of the company of Ruth, back in Inverness, that’s what kept me going.

I wasn’t looking any further than that. I didn’t think I was going to die, but I wasn’t looking forward to the X Rays.

Blood, pain, ripped flesh, some very worrying vision problems. Chest pain and head pain – lots of head pain. This was way worse than any hangover. Different league to anything I’d ever had before, and I was a long way from anywhere.

The story?

Well - the A9 in December, the major trunk road that links the Highlands with the Central belt. The middle of nowhere, the highest point of any A road in the UK.

Bad bad weather, an RTA, and me.

Or to put it another way, the Drumochter pass, snow, ice, serious sub zero temperatures, glowering mountains, a wrecked car.

A story familiar to regular travellers, and listeners to Radio Scotland’s travel bulletins in winter. Me – with what turned out to be fairly serious head injuries. (I was actually reported as dead on a Glasgow Radio station, causing a few friends what they said was a difficult 24 hours before they found out that reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated).

So a long ambulance ride back to Inverness, and the previously mentioned Raigmore Hospital. This was just before Choppers were introduced exactly for just this kind of event, and of course I’d managed to get injured in about as remote a spot as possible on a Major road in the UK. It took the ambulance at least an hour to get there, from a local depot, as I sat miserable and suffering in the back of a Police Car. Even the Bobbies took thirty mins to get there from the nearest town after answering the 999.

I remember the event clearly, the crash, the aftermath, the policemen, but not the physical details of the ambulance man. I do remember his kindly manner, (I’m pretty sure he was alone – a common practice in the Highlands in the Mid 80’s), his professional checking of my physical self, and a quick confident confab with the Bobbies just before we set of back North.

I’ve no idea what his van looked like, or whether he was milkman or a star wars pilot. Or even a melange of the two.

Head injuries do that to you, you know. (Yes I know you know, but you know what I mean……….)

It was an hour and half back to Inverness. An hour and a half of broken blood vessels bleeding into my sinuses, nostrils blocked with crusted blood, just endless bleeding throughout my whole nose and throat system. The kind of bleeding that pours down the back of your throat no matter how you sit or lie. Misery, head injuries, shock, lots of pain, nausea, you get the picture.

But I was young, and trying very hard to be brave, and when the gauze I had been given to stanche the blood flow quickly gave up the very soggy ghost, I just sniffed and swallowed.

Blood. Lots of it.

I was far too polite to ask for a new hanky, and far too polite to spit blood on the floor of the nice man’s ambulance. So the inevitable happened, just as we pulled of the main A9, on the last half mile to the A&E doors.

A serious Technicolor yawn. Explosive vomiting. I brought up what seemed to the contents of a butcher shop’s worth of German blood sausages. I comprehensively proved the point that a little blood goes a long way. Or in my case a lot of blood, goes a long long way.

After a horrified glance over his shoulder my man drove the last 500 yards at a speed that even I thought was a little bit excessive, (and remember that one thing in the world I wanted was to get out of this rolling, smelly, uncomfortable ambulance and into a nice cool hospital bed, hopefully with some seriously good painkillers, where I could sleep all this pain and trauma away, and wake up and it all have never happened.)

So we pulled up at the A&E, and he ran back to open the doors. He picked me up, ( I was at the hopeless, drooling, blood covered stage, almost past it) checked me out, as the nurses and doctors came out with the trolley, and I saw three quite different emotions cross his eyes in quick succession.

Firstly,

“Shit, he’s vomiting blood, mmmmm not serious though - I think “

And then,

“I’m glad we are at A&E now, if there is a problem, he’s their problem.”

And to his eternal credit, this was third and last thing that I saw in his eyes.

“Oh and F**k – he’s just puked blood all over my ambulance.”

Pete and his Chopper

2009-06-25T18:13:00.001Z

Pete and his Chopper, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Two score and five years on.

The last time I was in an Ambulance?

Fun? You bet!
Probably the second most exiting thing I’ve ever done with my clothes on.

You see I’d blagged a shot in the Air Ambulance, and I got to ride with my pal Pete the Pilot, (as he is known in the small Highland town where we both live. Highland folk do “literal” in a big way). He needed to do some training type things, and asked if I would like a little trip.

Is the pontiff of the catholic persuasion?

Pete’s a neighbour and a pal, and the victim to whom K helped sing Happy Birthday at his recent 50th Birthday bash. He also knows that I like to fly (I fly a lot in my day job, but the smaller the aircraft the better, IMHO).

So I said yes.

And we buzzed around the Black Isle, I snapped photos of our house, my wife’s school, oil rigs, old forts just above our town, and then Pete did a blind instrument approach to Inverness Airport .
When I say blind I mean blind – he put on special glasses that only allowed him to see the instruments. Now I’ve drunk and partied with Pete for years – he is a seriously fun guy much given to practical jokes - so when he asked me to scan the skies for aircraft on a collision course with us, I though he was taking the piss. It very quickly became clear that he was quite serious, and I never knew that my neck was so supple as I scanned the skies franticly mentally rehearsing “Bandits 12 O Clock High”.

Luckily it was all clear, and I relaxed until he then cut the engine at 4,000 feet for a practise “autorotation”, ie an emergency landing where you have no engine.

Think sycamore seed falling from a tree.

Just a lot lot quicker.

My stomach hit my heart so fast………

I think he enjoyed that bit.

Now the Scottish Ambulance services fleet of air ambulances are as far away from family holiday vehicles as you are likely to get. Bright Yellow, fast, fully equipped for their job, and able to get anywhere in the Highlands in ninety mins or so. So a sick baby in Thurso these days is straight on the nearest chopper, and is down in Inverness in 30 mins max – including take off and landing.

I see them all from my office window, as it sit’s under the flight path for Raigmore Hospital. The Yellow Air Ambulance Squirrels, the RAF Sea Kings, the white Coast Guard mega choppers from Stornoway and Sumburgh, and the very occasional Navy Aircraft from the far South West of Scotland. All flying sick and injured people to the very best medical attention that a pretty good Hospital such as Raigmore can provide.

And when it can’t?

Well they just stick them back in the Chopper – or a fast fixed wing - and fly them to a big big city, with specialist wards. Head Trauma, chest injury, sick kids, you name it, Scotland’s got it. And the great thing is most people get better, and then go home. And that’s what is supposed to happen. Progress is a great thing.

And my pal Pete, and his crew, looking like a Star wars V wing pilot in his flight suit and helmet, oozing professionalism and cool, even though I know all about his weakness for wearing tights and tutu skirts at Cromarty’s fancy dress ceildh’s, sorts it for sick and hurt people.

At face value a long way from a Milkman driving a camper van.
Nahhh – it’s still all about trust. And I trust Pete – at least when he’s flying the chopper. But as Pete stresses he’s only the driver - the real folk, the important folk, the paramedics – they sit quietly in the back, listening to the pilots banter. At least until their skills are needed. Then the roles are reversed. A bad RTA, a lost climber with exposure, sick babies, heart attacks, strokes….

They save lives. Pete just gets them to Hospital just as quickly as he can.

Split screen - a hardcore VW

2009-06-24T19:51:00.001Z

Split screen - a hardcore VW, originally uploaded by ccgd.

A couple of months ago I was to be a guest blogger – for a pal who was about to disappear overseas for a few weeks.

I was of course delighted and honoured, as the pal was K – an old friend, and erstwhile babysitter to our boys over the years. K is now a Paramedic in Embra, and much more importantly a brilliant blogger and not bad photographer.

Trust me – his writing is brilliant, if you want to know what being a paramedic in busy city is all about check out what he thinks is his best here.

So you will see why I was delighted to blog on his chosen subject – My first time in an ambulance – copy below………………

(read on and you will see why I've illustrated this prose with a photo of a VW Camper on Cromarty links - honest!)

“My first time in an ambulance?

No memory of the event all. I’ve been told that I was there physically, by totally reliable witnesses, but I’ve a very good reason for a total lack of recollection.

Honestly.

I was very young at the time, very young indeed.

Just 48 Hours old.

You see I was born just a fortnight short of fifty years ago in the back bedroom of a wonderful three hundred year old house high above the beach in the Highland town of Thurso. A house with a dramatic view across the surf of the beach, to the Atlantic Ocean and the southern isles of Orkney.

A surfer’s paradise these days, if you have a full body wetsuit.

Obviously I was a wee bit young to enjoy the view, or indeed surf, as I was a very sick little baby boy. Bright yellow – newborn Jaundice, apparently a severe case – showing no signs of getting better, and we were a long way from a hospital that could give me a blood transfusion. A hundred miles to be exact.

A hundred miles to Inverness, and in 1959 a hundred miles was a long long way on single track roads. Through mountains, along the shores of sea lochs, past cliffs, along the main streets of small Highland towns, over bridges. A long way. (for non Highland readers a single track road is exactly that – one carriage way that is shared by all traffic, with passing places to let opposing cars and lorries pass. You’d be staggered how many roads in the Highlands are still single track in 2009).

So on day three of my life an ambulance was summonsed to our house in Durness Street, for a very yellow little baby with a liver that refused to work as intended, and my poor Mum and I were taken on the five hour trip to Inverness, and deposited in Raigmore - the Highlands main hospital then and now.

Where of course my liver kicked in, I immediately became better, so then the whole journey had to be reversed.

In writing this I was curious about two things, firstly to see what an ambulance in 1959 looked like, so on googling I was delighted to discover that 50’s Scottish ambulances were simply Bedford Camper Vans without the fancy roof. The concept of an ambulance as a very slightly modified version of a family holiday vehicle is one that I think has fallen out of favour in the half century of my life (with good reason, I suspect).

For most non UK readers, and anyone under forty, a Bedford Camper Van is the seriously sad cousin of the VW Camper van. You know the camper van that always got picked last at Camper Van sports days? That was the Bedford.

It was the clumsy, chubby, awkward Camper Van of the 50’s and 60’s. All the cool kids were split windscreen VW’s.

Secondly what did an ambulance man in 1959 wear? Google again, and unfortunately he would have looked like a Milkman. A British Milkman. Peaked cap, serge trousers and brown jacket, minus the milk bottles.

So - would you trust your wife and very ill new born son to a Milkman driving a seriously un-cool Camper Van? Well my Dad did, standing at the door of our house, holding the hands of my two older sisters, waving us off. Of course he did. He just knew that he’d put two very precious family members in the hands of people he could trust.

An ambulance crew.

Now that’s something that’s not changed in 50 years.”

1/4000 of a second

2009-06-20T11:59:00.001Z

1/4000 of a second, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Flying Inverness Stornoway a few months ago, trying out the fastest shutter speed on the camera.......

Nice calm flight, unlike a February morning about 10 years ago when O was on a very windy flight to Stornoway.

When I say windy I mean windy - we were all over the place.

On landing, a gust caught a wingtip, and in a few seconds we veered of the runway and ended nose down in the grass (I distinctly heard the pilot say "Bugger" as we came to a very sudden stop).

There was a very strange quiet on the plane, and then I glanced out the window to see fire trucks screaming down the runway towards us, blue lights flashing. All sorts of things run through your mind - do I sit and wait, do I make a dash for the exits - when the Stewardess picked up the mike and said - her voice dripping with irony...

"Welcome to Stornoway Airport"

The whole plane just cracked up.

Home.......................................

2009-06-14T21:20:00.001Z

Sons and girlfriends, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Home – what is home, and what does home mean to you?

An interesting and intriguing question, posed by those good folk at the Scottish Refugee council who asked me to blog about Home, as part of the run up to Refugee Week Scotland Scottish Refugee week, which starts tomorrow – the 15th.

So what is home. Physical? Virtual? (I’ve just put down a Wiliam Gibson novel where the heroine notes that “the on-line forum is a way, now, of being at home …… one of the most consistent places in her life……”)

Societal? All and none I guess, but that does not answer the question. Home is personal, home is about you, and who you are, and who you want to be.

Or what you want, or need to be.

Lets explore that a little bit more. For example I’m not a home just now. I’m in Glasgow, on a Sunday night, in a hotel, when all I want to be is at home.

But Ministerial meetings at 9:00 in the morning on a Monday mean I have to away from home – grudgingly, and those of you who read my blog know that Monday morning meetings in Glasgow are a pet hate.

But…….

I’m away from home a lot, so I’m typing this from the 18th floor of the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. As I said I’m away a lot, so the Hilton has become, in a small sense, a home from home (and before you get all grumpy about expenses and extravagance, my company gets such a great B&B corporate rate from the Hilton it would be wasting money to stay anywhere else). Corporate hotels are good at that – they remember you (especially if you sign up to their membership programmes) – they flatter you, they do their dammnest to make you feel at home, so you’ll come back.

And that works – at least for me. Conversely B&B’s and guest houses do not work for me. Now this is just not snobbery, as I’ve stayed in many fine, comfortable, homely and welcoming establishments throughout the Highlands and Islands over the years.
But a B&B may be homely, but its not my home, its someone else’s home. I’m intruding, I’m there on sufferance, I’m not comfortable.

Now that’s not a universal view, far from it. I know many people, friends, family and colleagues, who love B&B’s (they make you feel so at home) hate Hotels (they are so bland and anonymous). But the question on what does home mean is about me, not them.

So lets try and answer it.

Home is ancestral, I was born in Thurso, family is from Caithness and Sutherland, so I’ll always be from the North Coast – even though I’ve never lived there since I was three. (but we have always had a wee croft house in Sutherland – a home from home, and interestingly where I’ve always felt very much at home)

But more importantly home is physical – its Albion House, Cromarty, where I’ve lived for the past 25 years and never intend to leave. Its only the second house that Ruth and I have ever owned, and one rented flat before that.

But even more importantly home is a people, is quite simply my Family, Ruth and the boys. That’s why the picture I’ve chosen to represent home is us, Ruth, sons and girlfriends, home in front of the stove, at New Year - home and hearth.

Home and hearth - a sentiment as old as the hills, and one that needs no repeating, because it means all sorts of things to all sorts of people, but what it what it means to me is comfort, and happiness, and pleasure in being where you are, and the people whose company you are in.

And for Scottish Refugee week, and for those good folk at the Scottish Refugee council, if it means that one – just one – poor soul finds some comfort, some happiness, some pleasure in calling somewhere in Scotland home, and finding some company in people, despite being far far away in a physical, political or a temporal sense from their ancestral home, its been a good week.

Schools out - for ever

2009-06-13T15:21:00.001Z

Schools out - for ever, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Wednesday night was Fortrose Academies Awards Ceremony, and our Magnus received a special sporting award for his success with the Scottish Cycling National Squad.

Fortrose Academy are great for that sort of thing, for recognising effort and achievement in all areas of school and life, music, sports, competitions, business, enterprise - you name it - they will recognise it.

Over the years we have been back and fore to the June awards ceremonies - Charlie and Hamish were pretty good at School Business competitions, and Mags with his cycling, but just as we drove after this one it struck me that this was the last. Magnus goes to Uni in the autumn, so our connections to Cromarty and Fortrose schools, indeed the Scottish Education system is now at an end.

After 18 years.

That’s a wee bit spooky.

A certain absence of stock

2009-06-04T18:59:00.001Z

A certain absence of stock, originally uploaded by ccgd.

An empty sheep pen at Coldbackie, reflecting how the Highlands are rapidly becoming a stock free area.

Sheep numbers (and Cattle) are in steep decline. Its very noticeable in North Sutherland, and has been over the past few years. Walking over the common grazing and expecting a lawn like swath of close cropped grass is a fools errant. It's long rough grass, bracken and - quite unexpectedly - baby alders and rowan trees almost everywhere.

Now this is of course what I suspect a more balanced ecosystem would look like. The transition is a bit rough though, and one does wonder what future Crofting holds without stock.

An Orange Kyle

2009-06-01T14:39:00.001Z

An Orange Kyle, originally uploaded by ccgd.

"So have you stood out on Coldbackie
At the time the sun goes down
Or up on the king of campsites
In the hills about Brae Tongue
That's when music filled your evenings
It's all so different now, this world
For you were the summer walkers
And the fishers of the pearl."

Runrig - The Summer Walkers

Ben Loyal

2009-05-29T06:47:00.001Z

Ben Loyal, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Just about to head up to Sutherland for the weekend - been working flat out and not blogging as much as I'd hoped.

I suspect a weekend of just Ruth and Me, photography, and sun (the forecast is great) may just be the ticket.

Across the road

2009-05-23T14:59:00.001Z

Across the road, originally uploaded by ccgd.

From our front gate - in HDR

Harry's house - St Annes.

The prow of the Peddie Lass

2009-05-19T06:28:00.001Z

The prow of the Peddie Lass, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Caught in the few short hours of sun over the Weekend.

Corgarff Castle

2009-05-16T20:03:00.001Z

Corgarff Castle, originally uploaded by ccgd.

A snatched shot as I drove past last week, on a work trip to Stonehaven.

Summer Sun

2009-05-13T07:06:00.001Z

Summer Sun, originally uploaded by ccgd.

On the wall of our sitting room

A summer evening

2009-05-11T21:27:00.001Z

A summer evening, originally uploaded by ccgd.

The emigration stone masks the summer evening sun on Cromarty Links

Night fall

2009-05-08T06:40:00.001Z

Night fall, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Over the lighthouse, Cromarty

Hyde Park

2009-05-03T10:25:00.001Z

Hyde Park, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Just after lunchtime in London's Hyde Park - I was using it as a shortcut from one meeting to another.

The deck-chair's were looked after by a ferocious little parkie, who was on you like a flash if you got within a couple of feet of a chair.

Very British.

St Paul's colours

2009-05-01T09:07:00.001Z

st pauls colours, originally uploaded by ccgd.

I’m sitting on a train heading back up to Inverness, after a wee UK tour this week, Glasgow, London and Edinburgh. I took this shot of St Paul’s on a glorious spring day in the city.

I’ve been using the time on a nice quiet Scotrail train to catch up on e-mails, paperwork and trying to get some strategy down on paper. But I’m still chuckling about something I read in the diary section of the Times yesterday, sitting in the Lounge at Heathrow’s T5, waiting for the shuttle to Edinburgh.

A rather portly young man was had been spotted wearing a t-shit emblazoned with the slogan:-

Sex, drugs and sausage rolls………..

HMS Belfast sunset

2009-04-28T21:28:00.001Z

HMS Belfast sunset, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Back in London for a couple of days - I almost feel that I've never been home since I passed through Heathrow's T5 last week on route from Washington.

This shot is of sunset over the Thames a couple of years ago, but tonight London is misty, chilly and noisy. Very noisy, but I suspect that just my hotel room.

I'm in a Hilton in the West end, overlooking Kensington Palace. Very nice, I hear you say, but what I did not realise when checking in tonight, and hearing the words - Oh we have upgraded you Mr Davidson to a deluxe King room with a wonderful view - also meant - and you will hear taxis, bus's and trucks all night, as well as every single group of exited European exchange student's leaving the Tube station DIRECTLY UNDER YOUR WINDOW!!!!!!!!

OK - I've got it off my chest, but living in Ross-shire also means that you forget how busy, noisy and 24 hour big cities actually are.

When I was a kid in the mid 60's Dad's job took us to Glasgow for a few years, before we moved back north to Inverness.

To this day I remember on our very first night in the new house in Bearsden standing at the bay window looking down to Bearsden Cross, just listening to the sound of traffic, watching the headlights, and marvelling at the lightness of darkness, whilst Kai slept peacefully behind me. i must have sat their for hours, just watching and listening, not sure what to make of it.

A long way from a crofting township on the outskirts of Lerwick.

Cities are OK to visit, but I like the quietness of home.

Robert O Mayhew

2009-04-24T20:08:00.001Z

Robert O Mayhew, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Khe Sanh - 1968

“The other marine was white, and if I’d seen him first from the back I’d have said he was eleven years old. The Marines must have a height requirement; whatever it is, I don’t see how he made it. Age is one thing, but how do you lie about your height?

His name was Mayhew, it was written out in enormous letters across the front of his helmet: MAYHEW – You’d better believe it!

He was young, nineteen he later told me, and he was trying to grow a moustache. His only luck with it so far was a few sparse bond clumps set at odd intervals across his upper lip, and you could not see that unless the light was right.

That night, probably sleeping, I heard the sound of automatic-weapons fire outside. I had no sense waking, only of seeing cigarettes glowing in dark without any memory of them being lighted.

Mayhew was grinning. “Listen to that fucker, listen to that, that fucker’s gonna burn out the barrel for sure.”

It was an M-60 Machine Gun and it was not firing in bursts, but in a mad sustained manner. The gunner must have seen something. “Lets go see,” Mayhew said, grabbing his rifle. We walked in the dark, figures appearing and disappearing in the mist around us, odd floating presences; it seemed like a long walk, and then Mayhew bumped helmets with someone.

“You wanna watch where the fuck you’re going?” he said.

“That’s, You wanna watch where the fuck you’re going, Sir” It was a lieutenant, and he was laughing.

“Sorry Sir.”

“Mayhew?”

“Yes, Sir”

We then heard what sounded at first like a little girl crying, a subdued, delicate wailing, and as we listened it became louder and more intense, taking on pain as it grew until it was a full piercing shriek. It was terrible, absorbing every other sound coming from the darkness.

A Marine brushed past us. He had a moustache and a piece of camouflaged parachute silk fastened bandana style around his throat, and on his hip he wore a holster which held an M-79 grenade launcher. For a second I’d thought I’d hallucinated him.

“Wait,” he said “I’ll fix that fucker.”

He paced the M-79 over his forearm and aimed a second before firing. There was an enormous flash on the wire 200 meters away, a spray of ornage sparks, and everything was still except for the sound of some bombs exploding kilometres away.

Nothing changed on the Marines face, nothing, and he moved back into the darkness.

“Get some,” Mayhew said quietly “Man did you see that?”

I poked his arm and we went back to bunker for some more of that sleep.”

Postscript: China Beach 1969

“They were from 26 Marines, Hotel Company, and they told me about what had happened to the outfit since April. I couldn’t remember the name of the one grunt I most wanted to hear about, and I was probably afraid of what they’d say, but I described him. He was a little cat with blond hair, and he was trying to grow a moustache.

They looked at each other, and I was sorry I asked.

“I know the guy you mean,” one of them said. “Yeah I know. He got killed, Took a fucking RPG round right in chest. God damn, I’ll think of his name.

But I already remembered it now.”

Michael Herr, Dispatches, London 1977

Vietnam War memorial - Washington April 2009

Reflected Rig

2009-04-22T21:54:00.001Z

Reflected Rig, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Well I've been home a few days, and am just about over the Jet Lag.

I'm also delighted to find that this picture of an Oil Rig - the Transocean Wildcat - cold-stacked in the Cromarty Firth - is my first sale on Getty Images, the worlds largest photo stock library.

It will not make me a millionaire, but its nice to get the recognition.

A very vertical element in the landscape - and a kite

2009-04-19T15:57:00.001Z

A very vertical element in the landscape - and a kite, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Just packing up to head out to the airport and home. My hotel is on the corner of Dupont circle, of which one half is lots of local shops, diners, bars and that ilk - the other half is corporate America. The bar here in the Hilton is a disappointment, small and catering to that days business travelers. I tried it for one beer, with my book, and was immediately challenged by a Norm (from Cheers) type, who boomed - how can you read in a busy bar like this, with all these distractions......

Thinking - and trying - by ignoring you, you prat - did not work, nor was the conversation helped when he commented on my "strange accent" and when I told him I was from Scotland, he asked which part of England that was...........

My reply - so which part of Canada does the USA fit into? - did not go down well. The guy lived in London for three years for goodness sake.

So I found this great little Bar/Dinner round the corner on 16th, long wooden bar, ex hippy barmen, cool local clientele, great steaks and burgers, and tragically closing down on the 1st June. Been sold to "Frat boys and creeps from up the hill" and will become part of a bar chain. The customers/locals only learnt yesterday, and the there was a sombre - almost funereal - mood in the bar.

But not enough for them to include me in their conversations about great surfer movies of all time (Point Break) and recommend the brie with my rare burger and mushrooms - with Brown sauce - and wish me a very nice day.

I do like America.

In this temple

2009-04-18T22:36:00.001Z

In this temple, originally uploaded by ccgd.

Work over, I went out early this morning for a tour of the Washington sites. When I say early I mean early - I've been trying to keep my body clock on Scottish time, so I was walking down past the White-house at 7:00 in the morning local time, just as the sun was rising.

I was the only one there - well apart from two local bobbies who bid me a polite "Good Morning Sir". I'd popped down the previous afternoon for a walk between meetings and calls, and was staggered by the crowds.

So it was just me, and two bobbies.

Then I learnt that America does tourism in a big way - and early. I walked around to the Lincoln Memorial, and visited the WW2 memorial on the way. At 7:30 on the dot six coaches pulled up and disgorged huge numbers of people.

Leaving them at the fountains I nipped down to steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and took this zoom shot of the great man's statue, with the first of the days tourists - and local bobbies - chatting.

Washington is impressive, and I took shed loads of photos, and saw what too me is the holy grail of the modern world - the Apollo 11 Command Module.

The fact that is was surrounded by most the inhabitants of the continental US states did not detract one little bit.

The fact that most had no idea at all what they were seeing did.

I'm getting old. Apollo was 40 years ago this year.

Tourists

2009-04-18T10:20:00.001Z

tourists, originally uploaded by ccgd.

1600 Pennsylvania The most famous address in the USA/World, take your pick.

Strange mixture of tourists and protesters in the Spring sunshine, and serious looking people in very expensive suits walking to and fro..