Hill view

For a day that was potentially very trying indeed, today has gone quite well.

We had to head down to Livingston for Mr A to attend his pre cataract op appointment. So it was 400 miles of driving, give or take the odd mile, for a couple of short appointments at St. John's, with the nurse to do the measurements and with the consultant who, it turns out, has been displaced from the Eye Pavillion in Edinburgh which is temporarily closed until mid June, because of urgent work on the plumbing system, which seems to involve some asbestos removal. That probably at least partly explains quite why Mr A has had to wait quite so long to get to the top of the list, because apparently since the displacement fewer cataract operations have gone ahead because the surgeons have less operating theatre time out there. So that will have added a few months here and there to an already very long wait.

Anyway, now he has been seen, his operation will go ahead either at St John's or at the Eye Pavilion, if they are back there by the time he gets to the top of the list. No one can tell us how much longer he might have to wait..... But the whole experience was a lot better than eight years ago, when Mr A had been referred too early by a not very competent optician about his cataracts, and we ended up in the west.... At that point, there was no point in going ahead and a more competent optician took a more sanguine view of the situation until about three years ago (and he's basically been waiting since then....).

We took advantage of being in the central belt to do a couple of other things. After a failed attempt to have a coffee at Taste Perthshire, which was mobbed by about 6 coach loads of tourists (I do not jest), we ended up at Hopetoun Garden Centre, which was barely off our route and we knew we could park there. And, of course, alongside excellent bacon rolls, coffee and a wee sweet treat (we'd had our breakfast at 5.30am so we were hungry....), we had a look at some plants and picked up a couple of things that Kevin at the garden centre does not appear to have. I will blip them if they work out well.

We also visited an Aldi (there being no Aldi north of Inverness and we like both their wine and their beer selection and we have friends coming tomorrow....). Every time we deviated from the route, the sat nav threw another little benny. However, the biggest benny it throws, each time, is the one when we follow the now redirected A9, just north of the Inveralmond Roundabout. Even though the cross-Tay link has now been opened, which involved a diversion of the A9 a couple of hundred metres to the west, our sat nav has not updated, so it tells us we are not on the highlighted route.... "Drive to highlighted route", it tells us, with ever greater desperation. I don't understand why the sat nav map has not updated, when it gains real time information about changed speed limits and expected journey times because of road works or accidents (and redirects us away from blocked roads).

Anyway, including a stop at the Newtonmore Grill, where I got my blip (of desperation, to be honest, although it shows that the precipitation last night had come down as snow on very high ground), we were back in Tain by 7pm, so we were away for just over 12 hours. Whilst we were out, our new bench for the back was delivered. We have to put it together tomorrow, hoping that we will be able to use it for drinks in the garden reasonably regularly. It had obviously been dry in Tain, as the swimming kit I put out this morning, which was sodden, was dry when we got back. Meanwhile, we had driven through quite a few rainstorms on our way south and back north.

Now we are having a glass of wine to help us wind down from a day in the car.