Sunday 3rd August 2008: Inverary

Compared with going out on to the Munros which is often a solitary activity, today was one of shorter walks and getting little snatches of other people’s lives.
I drove down to Inverary and walked through the castle grounds (the castle being one of the first buildings to get electricity in Scotland in 1890) to find the way up to the watchtower on Dun na Cuaiche: a really beautiful walk over pastures and through deciduous woods. First I met a woman with a spaniel who until her health took a turn for the worse, had trained Labradors – including those belonging to the Duke of Athol. We spoke at length about Labradors for some reason. She loved black labs especially and had owned 12 of them over the years – and two golden and one chocolate. She said of all the labs she had come across the chocolates were sadly lacking between the ears. [Don’t listen to this, Holly]. Despite her success with black and golden labs she was never able to train chocolate ones! I related a story about Holly being as good as gold in the class but not able to put into practice what she learned when she came out into the real world. She said she rested her case!
When I arrived at the watchtower I was asked to take a group photo. Some people were up there to scatter a loved one’s ashes. They particularly wanted the view of Inverary in the photo and the urn was in pride of place.
On the way home from Inverary I parked near a monument (in the middle of nowhere) which had previously caught my attention. The driver of another car already parked there asked if I knew what / who the cairn was for. I said I was off to investigate: Neil Munro journalist and author and Inverary born was the answer. The car driver was originally from Aberdeen, his wife from Skelmorlie. They loved their caravan and he was enjoying driving while he still could as he was terminally ill with cancer: his condition kept under control with two shots of morphine a day. A very positive man.