“We arrive as the sun begins to wane and are shown to a spot by the stage. The tables by the elongated, convex windows that fill one entire wall of the restaurant are full of bankers negotiating lobster claws and oversized steaks.”
“It’s when I’m sat at the top of Carn Daimh, looking out onto the sweeping green, amber and bronze hills with a glass of Glenlivet in my hand, that I realise how much I love both Scotland and whisky.”
“I could hear my heart pounding as we inched our way around yet another terrifying bend. I could only wish someone had told me how dreadfully nerve-wracking the Applecross Road is before we’d embarked on our drive.”
The low, moaning drone hummed through the glass of our hotel room in Inverness, immediately bringing an ironic smile to my lips. “It can’t be,” I mused to the boy. “It can’t be bagpipes. Can it?”
“I stare into the bevelled edge, floor to ceiling mirrors running around the room. Drifting my fingers over the notched glass handle of the wardrobe, I lose myself in visions of ’20s glamour…”
“There is a point in every hotel stay where, I believe, you decide if you love it…For me, love happened at around 11pm while I was stood in the bathroom of my suite at the five-star Kempinski Hotel Dukes’ Palace in Bruges.”
“I am not a polar bear. I do not have layers of fur, nor do I find basking on a slowly-receding iceberg pleasurable.” Alwynne visits a snow-covered Bruges, and discovers that sipping gourmet beer is a good way to avoid frostbite.