Overcoming Mental Illness

Completely random one shot video blogs (no retakes or scripting) of my trip to Scotland!  

Whether you like it or not, part 2 is coming soon!

Well that was a bit of a gap wasn’t it. Blimey. Almost a week without any interesting post whatsoever! Och well, these things happen, and when you’re shacked up in the Highlands of Scotland with little or no internet connection (and when there is some it keeps dropping out!) these things have to be expected!

Yep, Addy has returned to Scotland. Two weeks of hill walking, mountain climbing, hairy coo spotting and general let’s-visit-some-old-haunts excitement are in full swing! So let’s wait not a minute longer!

Day #1: Bristol - Fort William

My trip began at 1:45pm on Thursday 14th February 2008 (Valentines Day, schmalentines day) at Bristol airport. Yep, despite the fact I have a tremendous fear of it I opted to FLY to Scotland. You have to combat your fears somehow, don’t you? So there I was sitting in the smallest plane in the world listening to the cranks and crashes and oh so obscure noises these wee planes tend to make thinking “is this thing actually going to make it off the ground?” or “frack, that was a lesser spotted sparrow dive bombing into the engine! We’re all gonna die in a fiery inferno!”…

…but we didn’t, we took off, they tried to sell us all sorts of bizarre things at discounted prices, and then we landed in Glasgow about an hour later. Not too bad. Then came the trip to Glasgow Queen Street; a cavalcade of three buses, two walks and a train trip (if the internet was to be believed) but was in actual fact just a matter of getting on a bus and then - BAM - twenty minutes later I was sitting at the train station thinking “what the hell do I do for two and a half hours?” So I whipped out the DS to continue my epic game of Germ Buster(which had, by the way, begun on the plane and thus far had been rocking on for approximately 2 and a 1/2 hours) and when I boarded the train bound for Fort William it was still raging!

It has to be said the trip from Glasgow to Fort William by train is one of many utterly gorgeous train journeys in Scotland. The train winds north, leaving Glasgow and then heading into the lower Highlands before crossing the bleak and unforgiving Rannoch moor. Quite simply the scenery is devine - it’s just a shame I was taking the trip in the evening so the only thing I could see through the window was my own reflection, which, in a good light, is equally as devine (and equally as bleak and unforgiving)

My arrival in Fort William occurred at 10:06pm and my heart jumped a thousand beats as I alighted the train to be slapped in the face by the beautiful Highland air (i.e. sheet of ice which passes as Highland air) and I immediately skipped away from the train station with a barmy grin on my face.

Where I’m staying, I’ve stayed at before, so I knew exactly where I was going. Under the underpass (much better than going over it, it’s called an underpass for a reason), along the High Street, past the rather new looking memorial, and then a left up the stairs into the building which is a rather cheap and cheerful hotel. I threw my pack onto the floor - and like anyone who has just returned to his home after 6 years immediately resumed my game of Germ Busterwhich I played until I unceremoniously lost and then collapsed into bed.

Day #2 - Fort William

I missed breakfast. Or rather, when I descended the multiple staircases I couldn’t find breakfast. I had trained my nose to seek out the wistful odour of corn flakes, but alas, it picked up nothing. There was not a corn or a flake or a person to be found - so I went to Morrisons and had eggs on toast instead.

My first view of Fort William/the Highlands in the day light was something I had been eagerly anticipating (so much so I had, very nearly, performed a 10point worthy triple forward tuck roll down the staircase. So obviously, by definition, it was going to be something special - it was FOG! Yep, Loch Linnhe and the mountains I know so well were enshrouded in a blanket of mist which meant I couldn’t really make anything out - which sounds disappointing - but it isn’t. Scottish mist is all part and parcel of Highland life and in it’s own right is a beautiful sight to behold. I stood for a while, watching the mist roll over the crystalline waters of the loch past a wee red fishing boat which has been in the same spot (barring tidal changes of course) for the last six years.

My day was spent milling, meandering and moseying around this quaint wee town (the second biggest in the Highlands) and checking out what I have decided is the Op-Shop capitol of Scotland. So far, six of them! Which is really rather wonderful. I collected numerous brochures and sat by the Fort planning the things I wanted to do over the next couple of weeks.

Day #3 - Glenfinnan (on the shores of Loch Shiel)

Glennfinnan. A place so ingrained in my psyche that there’s not a single person who’s ever known me won’t be familiar with the name. A tiny wee town consisting of half a dozen houses, a Church, visitor centre, monument and viaduct…ahh yes, the viaduct, a monumental moment in Addy history in it’s own right. It’s been mentioned a few times in this blog, primarily here, and my return to this special place (my second favourite place in Scotland) was an emotional bumper car ride of conflicting ecstatica mixed with teary memories of times and moments from days of lore.

I know the place well and nothing had changed in the seven years since my last visit, well, a bench had disappeared (presumably eaten by wood-mites) which featured in a particular stirring memory of this place, but that’s besides the point. My track from the train station to the loch is well worn and I circumnavigated it with barely a second thought.

The monument itself isn’t anything special really. A cylindrical tower atop which stands the figure of a Highland soldier - many people presume it to be of Bonnie Prince Charlie himself (the monument’s existence being to commemorate the beginning of the 1745 uprising which he started) but it is not Charlie, rather it could be Geoff or Bob or Angus McHaggis. What makes the monument something special is it’s location, at the end of the Loch with the murky waters spanning off into the distance between the mountains. It is considered to be one of the great views in Scotland; and anyone who has travelled by train on the Road to the Isles will remember always the view as the train passes over the Viaduct.

I never really do much in Glenfinnan. I sit, I think, I ponder, I traverse hillsides and occasionally (as has been documented in the past, consider suicide). Today however I did all of the above (bar the last) I trekked up two different hills and half way up a mountain. I had a staring contest with a stag (I interrupted his meal of heather and grass gravy, to which he offered me none) and by the close of the day as I returned to the station looked a little windswept and brow beaten.

There is nothing in the world more delightful than trekking the Scottish hills and glens with only a friendly stag for company.

Day #4 - Fort William

So being a Sunday, there is little open in this wee town today. Scotland has a habit of closing it’s doors on a Sunday, which is fine by me, as I’m feeling a little queasy today. A visit to the medic on Tuesday saw me prescribed prozac which is not faring well with me and the side effects (I should be used to side effects by now) are taking their toll. So a quiet day today methinks in the hope the side effects will not become a feature of this trip, nor affect my adventure in the way they have the potential of doing.

On a slightly more annoying note I was not prescribed any mood stabilisers, not because I don’t need them, but because they wish to keep me off them for the next 6 months to monitor my changes. In a warped sense this makes sense, but having lived with my oscillating mood for so long now I had hoped for something to help control it - they are getting rather difficult to control on my lonesome.

I will return wit the further manic adventures of Addy in Scotland in due time, and if we’re lucky, perchance the prozac will kick in a manic phase - as it has the possibility of doing!

PS…The first in the Manic Adventures of Addy in Scotland Video Blog will be posted as soon as I’ve had time to upload it!