Walk, Drive, Public Service Broadcasting

It had been recommended to us by our AirBnB host that we try The Hidden Treasure Tearooms in Johnshaven, and we made it by the skin of our teeth, as it reopened after a break at ten o'clock, this morning.

Now, I am a man who has been in an awful lot of tearooms in his time, so I'm not saying this from a position of ignorance, but I think it may have been the nicest tearoom I've ever been in. I would definitely recommend it to you, should you be passing.

And after that, as we had the day off, we took a walk south along the coast, further than we'd been before, passing an old lime kiln (Extra 1) and an old ice house (Extra 2). And then we returned to the car - already packed - and set off for Inverness.

Google Maps suggested a very bucolic, cross-country journey to us, which looked promising, so that's the route we took. Now, I really enjoy driving in Scotland with the Minx, and I have to say that this may have been the best journey we've ever had. It was just beautiful. And everything conspired to make it perfect; the public loos in Strathdon even had fresh flowers in them!

We were in Inverness to see Public Service Broadcasting, and, yes, you'd be well within your rights to exclaim "What?! Again?". In fact, by the Minx's estimation, this was the seventeenth time we've seen them!*

And I was thinking, as I sat having a pint while the Minx was on a Teams call, that perhaps it was getting a bit much but there are two mitigations; one is that the gigs also serve a purpose as an excuse to travel around together. And the second is simply that they've been great every single time we've seen them.

And it was no different this evening: they're just a fantastic live band. The songs, the visuals, the performance, all brilliant.

* That list in full (not entirely chronological):
Holmfirth (first time we saw them)
The National Space Museum ('Race For Space' launch)
Royal Albert Hall (x3)
Ebbw Vale ('Every Valley' launch)
Malmo
Berlin
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Glastonbury festival
Blue Dot festival (twice)
Manchester
The Natural History Museum
and in a castle near Cardiff.