Day minus one

A more typical Scottish morning

Today started in more expected Scottish style – waking up to rain. A brief breakfast washed down by a cafetierre coffee and I was ready to start violin practice! My cafetierre is my luxury item, my desert island disc object; made of unbreakable material (not glass, as I’ve had 2 previous cafetierres both smashed, both not by me (cough claire cough rob) and both kindly replaced) it’s the perfect size as a one cup, and is completely indispensible. I think it comes from when I watched Ueli Steck give a talk and he revealed that ‘proper coffee’ was his one luxury, surely if it’s mine too I might hope to emulate a fraction of his incredible climbing prowess. Anyway, onto the violin – I’ve made it my elective mission to try to get a handle on it. My mum provided me with the loan of an instrument, complete with folk tune song books. I’ve got the theory from playing piano and cello, so it’s just translating it onto an instrument I hold horizontally rather than vertically. Hopefully I didn’t annoy my host family too much with early morning jigs played quite badly! Plus it helps get me into the Scottish mood, and maybe by the time I land on Lewis I might be up to a pub folk session!

After that it was off to Morrisons, mainly to get food but also to meet up with Noel, a friend from London who completely conincidently is also in Fort William at the moment on a camping trip. After battling through the aisles (it was rammed with tourists, guess it was a Sunday) and feeling elated when I eventually managed to track down the couscous (not with the pasta, rice, porridge as one staff member told me or pasta’n’sauce) we piled ourselves and shopping into my Polo and drove through the rain back to his hostel in Banavie. The Polo’s amazing, a second hand car bought earlier this year that I just tipped over 100,000 miles on the way up; sadly I missed the exact moment, instead glancing down to see 100,001 miles, tragic.

An incredibly healthy dinner of diced beef with sweet potato on a bed of rocket (thanks Noel!) we headed back into town to peruse some shops. Ellis Brighams was our first port of call, where I purchased a Glen Nevis map (of course I left mine in Kendal) and a scrambling book (in case I can’t find people to climb with). Then we headed over the road to poke our heads into the hospital – Noel is an A&E nurse so he wasn’t totally disinterested in a look! First impressions from the outside are not good, pretty ugly building but once inside very impressed by the interior. A quick attempt to track down the canteen, my meeting place tomorrow, ended in failure – just have to try again in the morning when hopefully more people to ask. We stepped back out into the drizzle to venture further up the high street, opting to step back out of the drizzle and into a cafe for some excellent carrot cake and coffee.

Bit knackered at the top

I bade farewell to Noel, forgetting that he owed me £10 that he claimed he’d get out of a cash point. Obviously the next round's on him. Back to the house I was spotted by the children who promptly ran off down the road shouting ‘Dad, Dad!’ – bit strange but all was explained when barely had I walked into my room than there was a knock on the door from John, my other host who I’d missed on arrival yesterday. Strong Scottish accent, hands that showed many rock climbs and member of the mountain rescue team – awesome. A quick change and I went for a run up the local mound, Cow Hill. At 287m it blocks out the view of Ben Nevis from Fort William itself, but provided superb views of the town and Loch Linnhe from its modest summit. From the house it took 27mins to gain the summit, yielding to a 47min round trip – that’s the benchmark time to improve on now! On the way caught first glimpses of the Ben’s zigzag tourist path that I’d perspired on over Easter with my family.

Amazing view of Fort William, with Loch Linnhe

On returning to the house my fellow elective student arrived, a 3^rd year Glasgow medical student called Helen. After some brief introductions I cooked some dinner and managed to eat outside in the glimmers of evening sunshine – the rain had finally abated and amazingly there were no midges! Baked potato in the microwave oven worked surprisingly well, accompanied by tuna/sweetcorn/mayo, washed down with hard-found couscous before a 3^rd course of mushroom soup – I was hungry! Passed most of the evening making some more progress with Frankenstein – getting into it now and amazing that Shelley was only 19 when she wrote it. Bumped into John again as I was reading, he was off out in his van. Off hand I asked him if he had a spare map of Glen Coe by any chance, explaining that I had left mine in Kendal. He promptly got out of the van and shot off into his house, despite my protestations that he needn’t get it right away. I read a few words more of my book before he appeared again, clutching a battered old brown leather suitcase which he flung down onto the bench. Popping the catches revealed a veritable treasure trove – it was full of 1:50,000 maps of what must have been the entire Scottish mainland, certainly every area in thelocal vicinity. After identifying my requested Glen Coe map he returned the suitcase to its resting place in the attic and went off on his business. Amazing!

So I start tomorrow at 9am. Pretty excited, wondering what I’ll be able to do and how flexible it will be. I’m really keen to get some anaesthetic procedure experience (airway stuff, intubation, cannulation etc) and also try and get hands on in A&E and surgery. We’ll see how it goes!