It's been so long since I wrote a travelogue, I hardly know where to begin. I've sat down to begin this a couple of times, only to abandon it. Alas, I must finally put thoughts to page, if only in a vain attempt to exorcise them from my head. It may take several posts.
I'll begin by going back to mid-May. I was travelling away from this lonely Isle for a long weekend residential school. I should add a word of explanation that I'm studying for my MBA, and part of the course involves a series of residential business schools where we get to mingle with other managers, drink into the wee hours, and get stressed out of our boxes by all the devilish situations the fiendish tutors' minds can concoct. I got to design a logo for a travel company, with a soft sandy beach and palm trees in a quaint mobile style suitable for indoctrinating very small children in their cots
After registering they kept us working till 9pm, after which we hit the bar and got to know each other properly, because lets be honest here, ice-breaking session only tell you how well the opposition can lie or at least maintain a poker face. Apparently I won - It must have been all those years convincing people that "these magazines are really interesting", while maintaining a straight face because the cover article was about some kind of sexual deviancy like masturbation.
I got in with a crowd that included an articulate Northern Irishman who had a black belt in Karate, and a TV scout who did professional belly-dancing on the side, with a flair for flashing her room-key fob at the prospective unwary. "Room 32" shall forever be emblasoned into my consciousness, though I never did find out which corridor it was on
Well, I finally got to bed sometime after 4am, only to rise again at 7am for some TaiChi and breakfast. Fortunately I was still reasonably enough compus mentus not to blend the two else I might have got funny looks from the catering staff, eating my yoghurt on one foot, etc., but I digress. We had lots of coffee. We had veritable oodles of the stuff, from every coffee growing region you could imagine. It was all that kept our minds engaged as we went through a battery of scenarios designed to test our mettle.
The day culminated in "The Management Challenge", wherein we had to put the day's projects together and fight it out to see which group would be declared to have won the contract as business consultants for a reputable travel agency. I confess, I had a vested interest, as my mind kept wandering to ApostoFests, but I wasn't going to let the competition know this... nor my team - kaniving b*st*rds!
I didn't really care which role I filled in the team, be it the marketeers, the communications crew, the change management squad or the financiers. Ok, I confess, I wasn't that chuffed when I got assigned to the financiers section, especially given that one guy was from my usual tutor group and love the subject and the other was a chartered accountant. It kinda left me for dead, and so after throwing together the figures that were asked of me, my mind wandered again. I noticed that noone was pulling the various strands together, and so I grabbed a fluipchart and pen and launched myself into that role...
...that was a mistake... they then assigned me spokesman - I had to sell the project, at the end of the day, before the assembled group of colleagues, tutors and agents. And remarkably we won! Furthermore, I later had Ms Bellydancer take me aside later and express her admiration. Fortunately my sensibilities took over and I decided that it was too much bother to try and find the right corridor when there was good drinking time a-spoiling. Another 4am finish.
The following day began as the last, to the tune of a bemused waiteress, a wry-eyed chef and a Cuban single-mum attempting not to dance the chacha - I swear I couldn't make this stuff up!
We had a whole bunch of stuff I'd done before, such as active listening and career pathways, before being let out early. I promptly drove off to see some friends for the night, before heading home the next afternoon.
Here is where disaster struck!!!
I was driving up the A9, approaching Inverness and it suddenly started sleeting! WTF? It was the middle of May!!! Then, at the last minute I noticed a car ahead swerved into the left lane revealing that they had narrowly avoided a log of wood. It was the kind that trucks use to chock their wheels - about 5"x5"x18" - and it was directly in my path!
There was nowhere to go, as I had been passing cars on my left, and the central reservation was on the right, so I reacted to avoid it taking out my fuel tank, only to clip it with my wheels. The result was that I was now driving downhill at 70mph with a double blowout!!!
After finally bringing the car to a stop about half a mile down the road in the nearest layby I called the police to clear the debris, and the breakdown truck to get me to a place where I could replace the tyres. Since I only carry one spare, I was stranded and was definitely going to miss my boat home that night. The front right type was shredded and the wheel was star shaped. The rear right wheel had dints on the inner and outer rim. All in all an expensive excursion as I later had to replace the springs and shock-absorbers as well.
Anyhow, I did have an unanticipatedly pleasant evening in a harbourside Hotel, as a result. But that, as they say, is another story.
