Snow! Wonderful snow! - on a negative note, who's ever heard of congleton?

If you have heard of the place I hope that's all you've done - I hope you've never had the misfortune to actually visit the place. If you live there and love it, I'm sorry, I guess someone has to....


But anyhoo, today:
We woke up in our lovely b&b in Aviemore. I'm not a huge breakfast fan but this morning I was really looking forward to it. I woke up feeling happy, I knew I'd achieved my goal of showing tt snow and the day was only going to get better from here because we were planning to go even higher.

The breakfast was excellent. The owner had travelled all over the world and she'd had her photo's made into table placemats. This caused loads of breakfast conversation with people talking about their own, and other peoples mats. It just made everyone start talking about travel and so on. Great idea, very social!

We left the place and headed off up the tourist trail through the Cairngorms. The drive was spectacular. Not very long, but it seemed it. The conditions got worse every few minutes. As we ascended the windy road up the mountain the outside temperature display on the dashboard descended accordingly.

The snow got thicker, the car got less responsive.

Being a mountain road it had hairpin corners which we had to negotiate at snail pace. It was great challenging driving. Due to the conditions we only saw one other car the whole way, and that was a rescue vehicle.

When we reached the top tt got out into proper deep snow. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

We then took the fenicular railway (train pulled up mountain by a chain) to the very summit. The picture shows tt and the view from there. The view was awesome, but having tt in it was what made it wonderful for me.

tt was in an amusing childish mood up there, and we went to the childrens play area and completed a kids activity book together. I wish I had kept that, it was funny. You should have seen what we done to the "spot the difference" page....

Tt also sent her mother a postcard from the highest post box in Britain. (I wonder if she ever received that?)

Early afternoon we realised we had to start heading back. We were in remote scotland, in heavy snow, and I was supposed to be at work on monday morning. It had taken us all week to get there, so we knew we'd better head back.

We took a scenic route down from the mountain and saw a herd of deer on the way. That was a remarkable sight.

I wanted to get as many miles done as possible that afternoon so when tt dozed off I put my foot down and we were quite a way down the M6 when tt woke and decided she'd had enough car time. We decided to pull off at the next junction and find a guesthouse or b&b.

We ended up at a place called Congleton. Don't ever go there. Perhaps that's severe, maybe the rest of the town is ok, but don't go to the bed and breakfast pub next to the railway bridge - words can't describe it, you need all your senses to get a true appreciation!

It had taken us a while to find anywhere so we tolerated the unfriendly welcome (how's that for a contradiction in terms?!), crap food, damp and peeling room, mouldy sheets, cold shower, etc.

I'm a terrible boyfriend, how did I end up bringing tt here?! Especially after the wonderful place we stayed last night in the highlands. And she's been here less than a week! They say variety is the spice of life though eh?

Woke: Aviemore
Bed: Congleton (aka shitville)
Done: 400 miles