Was it All Worth it?

I suppose it’s an inevitable question after more than a week away.  Even more so now, two days after my return, when there still seem to be lots of ‘extra-ordinary’ tasks to be done, homes to be found for guide books, souvenirs and so on.  What have I enjoyed?  What could have been better, in planning or in execution?  What have I to show for it? are the key questions that come to mind.

To answer the big one first ... I have to say yes, it was worth it.  Otherwise there would be no point in having the motor-home in the first place.  At its very basic level, I enjoy driving it.  The healthy throb of the engine every time I start it, the thought of negotiating over 2.5 tonnes of moving vehicle in traffic or between obstacles, is empowering, satisfying and, as I said to someone the other day, calming.

What could have been done better?  In April I wrote about using a parking scheme this year that, at its very basic level, relates the cost of an evening meal in a pub to an otherwise free park for the night.  I had planned one such on the way to Scotland and one on the way back.  It would have helped if I had read all the details about the Windmill PH at Linton, where I stayed last Monday, my first night out.  The warmth of the welcome couldn’t be faulted; the car park was fine and virtually level (although the van next to mine had been parked on ramps at one end) and the food was perfectly acceptable.  The problem came when I judged the following morning that my motor-home would get through the archway that was marked ‘Exit’.  

Windmill PH car park, with the
miscreant arch to the left.

Width-wise, it probably would have, but at the spring of the arch, almost at roof-height, are projecting capitals to the uprights.  There was a rubbing sound, as if I’d caught a tarpaulin with my back wheel.  It was actually the sound of stone against the window of the over-cab bedroom!  When I consulted the guide ready to warn others of my misfortune, I discovered that this had already been done; the warning was there, in three languages, at the foot of the page: “leave by the entrance; the exit is too narrow”.  If only the sighted could see!

The visits I made on Monday, Friday and Saturday all went according to plan, and enabled me to spend time with people I don’t see very often ... in one case for about forty years!  What could have been better planned was the homeward journey.  The selected pub stopover on Sunday seemed not to be very far from the campsite where I’d spent the last two nights (hampered by non-stop rain, exacerbated by the tree under which I’d parked).  I decided at the last minute to change this to one much nearer home but, given the short journey then left before arriving at my last campsite (booked and paid for in advance) I now see it would have been better to have broken the return journey somewhere else, and made it in two days instead of three.

I certainly enjoyed the site I stayed at near Stirling.  The weather was perfect, warm and dry, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable.  There was a bus stop not far from the entrance, and upon my return from a day out the driver dropped me at the gate!  And for a backdrop, the Ochil Hills!  As one not accustomed to mountain scenery, I was - in the modern idiom - ‘blown away'!

And what will I take from it? Apart from the photos, and the lessons learned, and a few small souvenirs there are unwritten memories of people visited, people watched, people spoken to, and places seen, signs to interesting possibilities for another time and above all, the excitement of finding out what’s over that hill, round the next corner, and where I get to if I leave the trusted roads I’ve come to know only too well in the past few years!

The Ochil Hills, and Witches Craig
campsite, Blairlogie, Stirling