Nothing beats a weekend away in the countryside. We went with the B&S Hillwalking club to Newtonmore for the weekend. About 3 hours north of Glasgow, Newtonmore is a little village that has about 5 munros in the area. Michelle went on the ‘crazy’ walk on Saturday – they left at 9am and returned at 7pm, exhausted and wet through, but they managed to “bag” 3 munro’s in one day… so after a bath, a nap and a bit of stretching there were about 7 very proud walkers hobbling about the dining room!

I didn’t fancy that kind of day, nor did I feel like walking 18 miles, which was the alternative, so I set off to walk to the next village of Kingussie instead. A little over 3 miles passed pastures of cows and sheep, I found a nice little tearoom – had a pot of tea, read the papers, had a quick squiz in the craft shops before heading back. It was refreshing, a little bit wet, but like it does in Scotland, you never get rain without a bit of sunshine as well! On the way back I passed the fire station where about 5 tall, handsome firemen were trying to raise money by stripping to the waist and washing cars for donations…. I literally ran back to the hotel, jumped in the car and returned for an ogle and a car wash. Every penny of the £5 I donated was worth it!

So that was my day: 6+ miles walking, eye candy and a clean car. Perfect.

The evening was a hoot as always, I just don’t know how the Scots manage to drink as much as they do, for as long as they do, and still manage to grow old and continue to go hillwalking. It’s baffling. We drank in the hotel bar before dinner, accompanied by 35 or so ex RAF search and rescue members who were holding their reunion in the same lodge, finished a 5 course dinner in the restaurant and returned to drink until 1am, flitting between the bar and the auditorium where we were invited to join in the dancing and fun with the RAF guys.

It was a great weekend. Sunday we breakfasted reasonably early, considering the events of the night before, with our new friends and then head off home via Pitlochry which is a quaint little town about 30 miles south of where we were. Instead of taking the motorway home, we took all the B roads through tiny villages and farms and returned home early evening to a steady thundering rain in Glasgow.

It’s so nice to get away for the weekend.