Scotland 2011

This is an article Mike recently had published in the BSG magazine.

I have to say straight away that Scotland is my Favourite place to be. I first discovered it in 1990 – driving through the heaviness of Glencoe in a November dusk and I have returned time and time again since. I never tire of its Beauty, its diversity or the friendliness of the Scots. I never feel baulked by the long drive – there or back – and I never miss an opportunity to go.

So when Frankie was invited to Aberdeen and Moray to demonstrate and run some workshops, I had been looking forward to it all year.

This piece is not about the wonderfully friendly Sugarcraft ladies from both cities, it is not about the diversity of architecture of Aberdeen and Elgin - it is not even about the fishing. This is about one very odd day when strangeness was in the air, when the fey Scotch mist dissipated and turned one normal day into a day not to be forgotten. It is about Thursday 22^nd September 2011.

It was certainly an odd few hours - although that might be an understatement; a little like saying that the wedding of Kate and William was slightly extravagant.

Of course, it could also easily be an overstatement, my perception on these things is somewhat hazy at times – we’ll just have to see, I suppose.

The day started normally enough – we were on holiday finally, after working for a few days and the three of us (and the dog – mustn’t forget the dog!) decided that a drive to Ballater, a nice walk in some wonderful scenery and a spot of lunch would be in order.

I had found a road on the map that looked interesting; it ended up in the middle of nowhere around the back of the Balmoral Estate at a Loch called Muick in Glen Muick and was at the beginning of the eastern end of the Cairngorms. There was nothing beyond it apart from Country. Miles and miles of Country – mountains, moors, rivers and, hopefully, not too many people.

It’s not that I don’t like people, individually, but when they get together they seem to become an entity rather than just a lot of ‘persons’. It’s like one wasp on its own is sort of ok, but you wouldn’t want an entire swarm anywhere near you.

Anyway, I had found this road and having partaken of a lunch in the delightfully overestimated cuteness of Ballater - there’s a Shopping Mall there for goodness sake! Ok, only three shops in it, but a mall in a tiny village is never the less pushing the definition tourism in the wee place just a little too far – we took a leisurely drive over the bridge into what the road sign called South Deeside.

Now, to me, that just sounds industrial! South Deeside - like South Merseyside or Thameside, which always makes me think of Wapping. The truth was entirely different. We were in very beautiful surroundings of mixed woodland on a single lane road just approaching the foothills of the Cairngorm Mountains. The traffic was light and there were ample passing places along it to allow oncoming traffic to pass.

And that was exactly what I did when I saw the large black Range Rover beetling its way down the lane. The driver gave me a stunning smile, a wave of his hand and mouthed “Thank you” before driving politely past.

It was Prince Charles.

Like two gunslingers in a western shootout, Frankie and her sister Anne pawed for their cell phones, within a split second texts were on their way around the world….

“You’ll never guess who we just saw…”

My only thought, other than to marvel at the speed at which mobile phones had been located, loaded and fired, was to wonder if Prince Charles was saying “Was that Mike Kelly? It was…I’m sure that was Mike Kelly…”

The weirdness had begun.

In a few minutes though, we were really in the Country. Deciduous trees had given way to Coniferous forest which had now yielded to open Scottish Moorland. Breathtaking views around each corner became different each time the sun pierced through the scudding clouds creating rainbows on the autumn sky and coruscating across the distant loch and rivers. The girls were finally quiet which either meant that they were as gobsmacked as I hoped they would be or the mobile signal had been lost.

After a few miles we reached the visitor centre car park, even out this far there were tourist pennies to be taken, but I felt that it was ok out here. An ancient crofting village had been preserved, real people still lived and worked here, but the visitor centre was a very real attempt at education, conservation and maintenance of the area and three pounds wasn’t too much to pay for that.

As I was putting my money into the machine and marvelling at the dozen or so cars in the car park – what were all these people doing out here? – I looked down. There was a piece of paper lodged between the ticket machine and the longish grass growing tight against it. It was a ten pound note. A Scottish ten pound note, but real money none the less. That was nice, not life changing you understand, but a bit like finding money in a pair of jeans you haven’t worn for a while or discovering that there’s still one last custard cream in the corner of the biscuit tin that you missed earlier. I strolled back to the car thinking that it was turning out to be a very nice day thank you very much and a nice long walk now would be the icing on the cake. Annie asked if she could stay in the car while we took Basil the dog for a walk. She wanted to relax (sleep) and I think that she thought it might rain. Actually, that’s a pretty good mind set to have in Scotland in September – it might rain! A suitable mindset for Scotland in June and July is that there may be midges around, as well as the previously mentioned rain mindset of course. But as Billy Connolly once said – there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes. We had the right clothes and so, leaving Annie in the car with a good book and some Scottish Tablet in case of emergencies, we set off along the track towards the Loch.

A mile or so along I spotted a lone figure walking towards us. Clad in green wellies, olive green jacket and hat she was walking with a good pace and purposeful stride.

“That’s Camilla.” I thought to myself. Frankie was pre-occupied with Basil who had yet to grace us with his daily gift of a perfectly formed poo. “That’s Camilla and I don’t know how to address her. Is that Camilla? It is, oh my God it’s Camilla – what do I say?” my thoughts continued to race as the figure approached.

It made perfect sense to me that Camilla should be out here; I didn’t once stop to think that it was strange to see her. This was where she lived and if I lived here I would be out all day everyday. If this was my back garden I would spend as much time out in it as possible – that didn’t strike me as unusual. Neither did her lack of companions, she was alone and looked hale and hearty, happy to be alive and unconcerned about her solitude, maybe she felt the same about people as I do. No, all I could think about was what to say to her. Frankie was still unaware of the proximity of Royalty right up until I said the only thing that I could think of at that particular moment, which was;

“Ooo hello, we’ve just seen your husband.”

At this point Frankie looked up expecting to see someone we knew or at the very least someone I knew. It had happened before and strangely with the same sister in the same country.

We were staying near Loch Tummel and had spent a wonderful day around Rannoch Moor and Loch Rannoch spotting salmon leaping in the falls, red deer and buzzards in the hills and many species of birds all around us. We had stopped along the roadside to fire up the KellyKettle (The most wonderful invention, ever, Google it if you don’t know what one is!) making a fresh brew of tea whilst drinking in the scenery of the River Tummel, the Queens View and the Hydro Electric Dam (much better to see than to say). Then, in the evening, we had eaten a wonderful meal and had partaken of a dram or two of various single malts and were relaxing in the afterglow verging on stupor when Annie had leapt to her feet exclaiming “I don’t believe it!” and dashed across the restaurant. She had seen a work colleague from Bexhill who was also on holiday in the same Hotel at which we were staying.

It was a touch surreal because the thing one most tries to forget whilst on vacation is work, but it does seem to be the main encroachment into sleep and thought, for the first few days at least, until one is sufficiently unwound enough to completely forget about it. For a colleague to appear in the same Hotel in the same week, to me, is the stuff of nightmares but Annie seemed rather pleased.

I notice I have slipped into using the pronoun “One” since mentioning Royalty, I wonder if I could get away with using the royal “we” on the odd occasion as well.

“What a charming dog, I have one of these too” said Camilla, with a smile. I was considering bowing, but could quite easily have slipped into a curtsey and so decided to remain upright for the time being.

“Thank you,” Frankie said, the epitome of cool “he is rather cute.”

I was trying to choose my next comment, still struggling with ‘Your Grace’ versus ‘Your Highness’ or maybe just plain ‘Ma’am’ to rhyme with jam not farm, of course, when I discovered, to my horror that Basil had chosen this moment to relieve himself of his little package right in front of the future Queen of England. Dumbstruck, I stuttered an apology, “Oh, it’s ok” said Camilla, completely unfazed before wishing us good day and striding on.

In a daze I glanced around looking for a stick to remove said package from the path swearing at the ignobility of the hound as I did so. Frankie naturally had drawn her cell phone once more only to discover the continued unavailability of any network and so our encounter went unbroadcasted for the time being.

Our own walk continued for a way further but the weirdness was not yet at an end. As we approached the Loch a piece of crumpled paper rolled along the heather pushed by the breeze. Muttering something about litter miles from nowhere, I considered picking it up whilst noticing a familiarity about its colour. It was a twenty pound note – an English one – wrapped around a two pence piece that must have fallen from someone’s pocket at some stage fairly recently as it was only a little damp.

I’m still not sure what was going on; we considered the possibility of Camilla spreading the coin of the realm to ease the suffering of us poor middle classes, but really it was an extreme case of happenstance and anyway I gave the twenty to Frankie who used three pounds of it to buy us a lottery scratch card each. The girls won nothing.

I won a tenner!

A rather poor photo of Camilla taken after the dog poo was cleared away!

Roadie

This is an article I published for my wife - in a Sugarcraft Magazine....she's an author and a Sugarcraft Tutor. We travel quite extensively and I thought it would be a nice idea to provide a light hearted insight into some of our travels....

Her Facebook page is HERE

Her Website is HERE


I think you know how it is: The Talent receives the praise and acclamation, while The Crew works frantically in the background trying to ensure that things work as smoothly as possible.

Frances McNaughton – my wife – is the talent.

I’m the crew.

Of course there are benefits to being The Crew, not the least of which is the travelling to wonderful places and meeting so many marvellous people. And to be honest, there aren’t many drawbacks to this side of the job either – but there are times in our travels when we feel that we are actually, for real, living in a soap opera and the script writer – who has just suffered a mental breakdown in the middle of a mid-life crisis – has been carted off to the asylum leaving us at the beginning of a scene which has no end. Like Midsomer Murders – but without the murders – well most of the time anyway.

I wouldn’t necessarily want to be The Talent either. There are definitely times when situations conspire against you and The Talent, naturally, has to smile and continue as if nothing untoward were occurring.

The Crew, however, walks serenely out to the car, removes the hand brake, lies down and allows the vehicle to run over his own head.
Ah, The Car. This could also be loosely construed to be part of The Crew as it is long suffering, under serviced and constantly in need of attention, but more of that later.
Satellite Navigation, however, is most definitely NOT part of The Crew.

A relatively recent innovation, Satellite Navigation can be a wonderful work tool. I bought our first one in Harrogate in 2005, I believe, for the princely sum of £365 – now you can buy them for around a quarter of that price. It has managed to get us to most of the places we need to find, but the occasional electronic collapse has caused us a few concerns. Once we were driving into Weston-Super-Mare for the annual Exhibition at around 8am in the morning after a very early start. The Sat Nav was telling us we still 72 miles away – we were actually in the Town Centre!

But at least we were where we needed to be on that occasion, not like the journey through Holland when for some reason the Nav Man told us to leave the main motorway just so we could drive along a more minor route to sit in road works…it still tries to do that every time we go – no wonder I’m starting to lose my hair! And what is it about Satellite Navigation that makes it never want to operate late at night when we’re leaving a demonstration with a journey of an hour or more ahead of us. It won’t work! We have to find our way out of a strange town, in the dark and the Sat Nav won’t show us the way.

“Locating satellites” it says.

“Locating satellites?” I whisper, hoarsely, “They’re in the sky. Look up; Look up, for goodness sake.” Franc pretends she’s asleep.
Anyway, talking of Harrogate, I really must relate an appalling story of horror that occurred right in the middle of Betty’s Tea Room the day before the Harrogate Exhibition in 2007.

It had been an awful week, starting with the funeral of a 21 year old lad we knew. There was a horse drawn white hearse, red Ferrari and the whole works – a very sad occasion. We somehow managed to follow this with two long haul evening demonstrations and long work days. By the time we arrived in Harrogate on the Friday, we were pretty much exhausted so we decided to walk into the Town Centre to treat ourselves.

Betty’s is a lovely Tea Room – expensive – and very busy – but a special treat for us. The food had arrived, so had the tea and I was beginning to relax – always a mistake for a married man! I looked across at the love of my life, the trauma and travel of the week was showing in her eyes, and lovingly, I smiled took her hand in mine and said “How are you doing? You look very tired.”
At least, that’s what I said in my mind, what my treacherous mouth actually said was: “How are you doing? You look very old.”

The busy Tearoom silenced instantly. Everyone looked at me as if watching the condemned man in the tumbrel approaching the Gallows. Married men sadly shook their heads and the women glared at me. The waitress dropped her tray and all the flowers in the vases wilted. The ground, which must have been female, refused to open up and swallow me.
I yelped...“Tired, I mean tired!” but it was too late. Fortunately Franc was too weary to hit me, but I’m sure she really wanted to. Naturally, she has never forgotten it, nor has she ever missed an opportunity to tell anyone who wanted to listen. For months I was the main topic of conversation at her Demonstrations and occasionally laughter would ensue, but sometimes a shocked silence greeted me as Frankie’s tale drew to an end. Ladies would give me a steely glare and whisper to one another.

I’ve not been in Betty’s since.
The lesson has never been forgotten though. Last year we moved from a large town house to a tiny cottage in the country. In the middle of packing I picked up Frankie’s passport and said to her “I’ll put this somewhere safe.” A month later, in February, she was due to fly to Ayr for a workshop and demonstration, but needed her passport, as the airline still required it for flights into Prestwick even though it is classed as an internal flight. Yes, I know, lunacy isn’t it?

I couldn’t find Franc’s passport.

I looked everywhere, I turned everything upside down, I emptied boxes as yet unpacked, I checked pockets, and I even flicked through pages and pages of books. No passport.

Frankie said she would have to go to London and wait for a new one. I was very, very apologetic, but Franc being Franc was very nice and said “It’s ok, these things happen.” I was devastated. As it was February, the weather was dodgy, airlines were disrupted by snow and freezing fog so I told Franc that I would drive her up and back – which I did - all the way there and all the way back. I was knackered.

But as I said, the lesson was learned. When Franc finally found her passport – in her bedside cabinet where she’d put it – I said “It’s ok, these things happen.” Then I went outside and smiled smugly for an hour or two until my face hurt.
Over the years we have never really been let down by The Car. This statement is probably tempting fate, but cars have really been the least of our troubles. We had a year long episode with the CRV when the engine light came on and gradually over a few weeks the car lost power until it became undriveable. The garage couldn’t find out what was wrong, neither could the AA. Even Honda couldn’t discover the problem. So we moved on to a new car – which has been fine.
No punctures, no collisions major or minor, no scrapes or bumps.

The same can’t be said about The Crew. Well at least I’ve never had a puncture! The Crew has, however, been worse for wear and has had a bump or two.
It was Cork in 2003, I think, that Gerry and Marion from Patchwork Cutters led me astray. Well, that’s my story, anyway. Being of Irish heritage, returning to Eire is always a special occasion, although our “real” Irish friends all refer to me as the “Plastic” Paddy. But when Ireland are playing Rugby against England at Lansdown Park, then it’s even better. However the evening before the Exhibition, the four of us decided to go out for a few drinks and find some good Irish music. Both Gerry and I are musicians and like all musicians we just love a pint and a good band. But perhaps not 5 pints and not Murphy’s when The Crew is mostly used to Guinness!
So The Crew was in a terrible bad state the following morning and not an awful lot of use to The Talent. In fact The Crew had to have a lie down to get rid of a headache, but somehow he landed up back in the bar to watch Ireland trounce the English good and proper. (Well, hair of the dog, and all that.)

Just last week, The Crew smacked his head on the tailgate of the Car in Salisbury, hard enough to make his knees buckle, but the most damaging collision occurred in our old house when The Crew was unloading stock from The Car into the garage. I had opened the garage door and picked up a box of books from the boot. I turned back to the garage and walked smack into the up and over door with my forehead. It was a heck of a crack and I fell solidly on my backside, biting my lip as I hit the ground. My head was cut, my lip was bleeding and my coccyx was in agony. I was a mess – I hadn’t opened the garage door fully. I was an idiot and I was laughing so hard at my idiocy that Frankie gave me no sympathy at all. Oh well, no change there then.
But as I mentioned earlier, we have made wonderful friends all around the country and all over the world. We have friends in Israel, Holland, Belgium, USA, Ireland and of course Scotland.
But not Liverpool.

The Crew told so many jokes about Liverpudlians when warming up the crowd there with Karen and Barry Davies that he will never be allowed near the place again, probably. They are very nice people though and I’m sure they will forgive me, eventually.

There is another wonderful bonus for both The Crew and The Talent and that is home made cake! Frequently when we arrive at a demonstration or workshop we have been in The Car for several hours. The best thing that can happen when we walk in the door is to hear “Cup of Tea love?” The second best thing is to hear “And how about some home made cake?” Of course at Exhibitions this can lead to The Crew seeking out and monopolising the “Homemade Cake Stall” almost to the extent that the day’s profits are reinvested in Victoria Sponge or Swiss Rolls and bags of Cup Cakes. Or the Time at Weston when he spent pounds and pounds on the Tombola, trying to win the big prize which only went with the sale of the penultimate ticket to a young local girl. Still, a bar of soap, a pack of Christmas cards and a cardboard chess set are all very useful.

So to all the ladies who make sure we have a cup of tea the minute we arrive – a very big thank you. To all the ladies who then offer homemade cake – a huge kiss and a very big thank you.

We hope we will continue to see you all on our travels, but we’re certain that there will be many more stories to tell.

Mike Kelly – The Crew.

                                               At the NEC with Annie and Ann