Bonnie Inverness

My sister Marion and I had planned a day away to do some Christmas (shudder) shopping before the end of November. You know how awful it is if you leave it until December, and my weekends are all getting booked up fast with babysitting and partying (not mine!) anway.

I discovered to my delight, that due to my increasingly old age, I can now get a return train ticket anywhere in Scotland for only £19. So, Club 55 ticket in hand for me, and an off-peak return for sister, and off we trotted to Inverness yesterday.

I was feeling pretty ill in the morning, but dosed myself up with Beecham's, and wasn't too bad when we arrived after the 2-hour journey. We did a bit of shopping, then a bit of lunching, then headed to our hotel which was a big old place called the Columba, looking out across the river Ness to Inverness Castle.

We took a wee tour round the nearest restaurants and were pleasantly surprised by how it reminded us of Amsterdam at night. You could almost believe that across that bridge lay Grand Central Station on one side, and the Hilton Doubletree hotel on the other.

Decided in the end to purchase a small 'carry oot' from the nearby Tesco, ate dinner in the hotel, then decamped back up to our room to watch 'I'm a Celebrity' in our jammies with a wee G&T.

Damned civilised!