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Nano Adventure: A Weekend on the Black Isle.

During my PhD I have to do a PIPS project, which is essentially a three month long internship in something that has nothing to do with my PhD. My PIPS project is up in Inverness, at the Raigmore hospital. My pal, Anneli, did hers in Brussels at the European Commission, and as I went to visit her, she decided she wanted to visit me whilst I’m doing mine. This time another friend, Alysha, joined us.

Anneli and Alysha arrived on Thursday evening and after checking into our Inverness Airbnb we pretty much headed straight out to the Black Isle Brewery bar for a pizza and beer (I really like it in there). After dinner we went for a little night cap in The Malt Room (I also like it in there). They have an epic range of whiskies and do some great cocktails. I had work on the Friday but Anneli and Alysha explored the city; they toured some of the coffee shops, mooched around the antique and book stores and climbed the castle tower. After I finished work, I met them at the bus station and we jumped on a bus to Fortrose on the Black Isle.

I’d been reliably informed that IV10 in Fortrose was an incredible place to get dinner and luckily, despite not having a table booked, we managed to sneak in. As soon as we walked in we loved the atmosphere, it was suitably hipster for us millennials with water served in recycled gin bottles, marine artwork and lots of re-used wood. The food was amazing too. I had some sort of wood fired cod with a mussel sauce and fries with a really nice glass of Grenache. For pudding I had a pear and frangipane tart with a Lagavullin whisky. Definitely a good start to the weekend.

7th March

After a fairly relaxed morning and a brunch consisting of cake back at IV10 we walked towards Rosemarkie, popping into a couple of the gift shops along the way. Once in the little town we headed towards the beach so that we could follow the bay around to the first couple of Rosemarkie caves. I didn’t realise but apparently there are about 20 old sea caves just up the coast and there’s a cave project (although this might be over by now!) which aims to explore and excavate them.  

We only made it as far as Caird’s Cave which my potentially outdated web source tells me could potentially have been a site of occupation since the iron age but was certainly an active Pictish site. I have literally no idea who Caird is and why it’s their cave, google didn’t help me.

On the way to the caves I found a stone with a perfect circular hole worn away through it. When I was a troubled teenager into wicca I used to keep my eyes to the ground looking for these ‘hagstones’ at the beach or along riversides. I seem to remember they’re supposed to have lots of mystical uses. Now, I just think it’s an awesome feat of nature. What I did think was pretty cool is that there’s the legend of Kenneth…better known as the Brahan seer. In short, his mum acquired a stone with a hole in it from a Norwegian ghost princess and that stone allowed him to see the future. He predicted a tonne of stuff, seemingly with great accuracy but his downfall was in telling a lady on the Black Isle that her husband was cheating on her in Paris. She wasn’t chuffed about this foretelling and boiled the Brahan seer upside down in a barrel of tar at Chanonry Point. Incidentally Chanonry Point is only a short walk up the beach from where I found my stone. I haven’t yet seen the future through it though. I’ll keep trying.

So, not only did I find my ‘hagstone’ on the way to the caves, but Alysha also found her dream stone…An ammonite! Awesome find. Anneli did not find a prize rock but she did do a mini beach clean, picking up all the plastic she could see.

After exploring the caves we walked back along the beach to Chanonry Point to look for the bottlenose dolphin. I’d heard loads of different advice about when the best time was to try and see them but the most common timing seemed to be as the tide was changing/starting to rise. Unfortunately, the dolphin did not show up. It was super windy and choppy at that point though so I have a suspicion that even if they were out and about it would have been difficult to see anything. We did find a few hermit crabs along the point though which was, for me, almost as exciting as seeing dolphin!

On the way back from Chanonry point I started to feel a bit ME relapsey…probably for lots of reasons. So, by the time we reached The Anderson pub I wasn’t quite with it. I’d been told that there were two pubs in Fortrose and that one was dodgy and one was dingy. So, we went for dingy. It was a weird place. It definitely wasn’t immediately welcoming. Once we found our way to the bar and located a space in a dark corner, which was a journey in itself, we were all too awkward to go the bar because it was blocked by lots and lots of men. All of them standing quietly watching the England vs Wales rugby match. You can probably guess who they were rooting for! Once Anneli gathered the courage to go and order drinks for all of us (what a star?!), she was promptly told by the barmaid ‘you’re in Scotland now’ after part of the order involved a bitter shandy. Delightful! It hadn’t really crossed my mind that it wasn’t really ‘a thing’ up here.

After the rugby was over, a few of the men cleared out and the barmaid came over with the menus as we’d originally gone in there for food. She seemed a lot more cheerful, maybe we’d redeemed ourselves somehow after awkwardly stumbling in and ordering an English ale. The menu actually looked great and the barmaid pointed over to the butcher who supplied them, which seemed like a great sign. There were some mixed opinions about whether we should stay or go but the ‘ayes’ had it…just. The food was amazing! I had a lamb burger with feta and mint sauce, Anneli had a beef burger with haggis and Alysha had a veggie burrito. We pretty much licked the plates clean! Although our Anderson experience had a bumpy start I actually really liked it in the end…I’d go back! It probably helped that after a sit down, one of Alysha’s babybels and half a pint I started to feel a bit more like myself again.

8th March

In the morning we had a quick look around Fortrose cathedral…which was ‘nice’. I wouldn’t tell anyone to go out of their way to visit it, but if you’re in the area and you have a spare 15 minutes it won’t ruin your day!

Once we’d seen all we wanted of the ruined cathedral we grabbed some outstanding breakfast baps from the Fortrose Café on our way to catch the bus to Cromarty. I had link sausage and tatty scone just in case you’re interested!

The bus took about 25 minutes and brought us pretty much all the way to the Cromarty lighthouse. It’s one of the University of Aberdeen’s remote campus locations and they run a field course there every year. Unfortunately, because of a re-shuffle, Alysha and I are in the year that don’t get to go, so it was good to go and explore the area on our own.

The Cromarty Firth is unusual in that there are loads of oil rigs ‘parked’ there whilst they’re undergoing ‘refurbishment’. I’m not sure I know what that really means but it’s an unusual and strangely cool sight. We talked a bit about turning one into a bar or a hotel but then realised we have no money.

Before embarking on a damp walk in the unpredictable weather we had a coffee and cake stop at The Slaughterhouse Café. It was a pretty cosy space but lovely, definitely worth squeezing yourself into. Our walk took us through the town where we stopped in a couple of shops. I bought a wooden Cromarty butter knife in a Scandi style shop because Anneli insisted that my life would change for the better if I owned one. I’m yet to use it but I have great hopes!

After leaving the town we headed round to the coast path to the Sutors of Cromarty and then back into town to catch our bus back to Inverness. It was a nice walk with stunning views across the firth and out to sea. We saw a couple of deer on our way back, which is always sweet. 

The bus took about an hour to get from Cromarty to Inverness and only cost about £3.50, which, I think, is an absolute bargain! Back in Inverness Anneli and Alysha had enough time to grab some absolutely essential M&S train snacks before they were back off to Aberdeen. And I bought some sushi dinner and wandered back to the Raigmore on the phone to my parents, giving them the low down on the weekend.

I’m not positive yet but I think next weekend I’ll be in Nairn. These weekend trips won’t last forever by the way…just until I stop living in hospital accommodation!

Mini Adventure: A weekend around Loch Ness.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the thought of spending the weekend in my Raigmore flat doesn’t fill me with joy. So on this particular weekend, my boyfriend came up from Aberdeen to drive around Loch Ness with me….much better.

29th February

Mattia ‘alighted’ in Inverness about half 10 but I’d already been in town for a while excitedly buying maps, shopping and picking up a donut in Perk (essential)! We collected the keys for our hire car at the train station from ‘Focus Rentals’. The guy who met us and introduced us to our car was very friendly and as the car we originally wanted wasn’t actually available we’d been upgraded to a brand new car. Winning!

As soon as we’d picked up a few picnic supplies we headed off out of the city towards Loch Ness. I was actually pretty excited and as soon as we hit Dores the views across to the Loch had me buzzing! Also, Mattia loves driving (I do not) so I just got to sit and watch out the window, pointing things out.  

Our first stop was Farigaig where we just climbed straight up to the viewpoint and had lunch. It needs to be said that the toilets were delightful! A great place to stop if you’re out kayaking or hiking the trail from Inverness to Fort Augustus. Loads of people had left their post it notes of thanks behind which were really sweet to read.

After our Farigaig lunch we followed the ‘Walk Highlands’ route to Foyers Falls, down to the shores of Loch Ness and then back to the car through the village of Foyers. The falls were epic! We’d been told with a grunt earlier in the day that they weren’t that impressive, but they blew us away. The falling water was so powerful that as we approached them I thought someone was having a bonfire, the spray of water being forced upwards looked like smoke. In fact, the Gaelic name for the falls, Eas na Smùide, means the smoking falls…I can totally see why.

I couldn’t get the video to load – you’re just going to have to go!

We were both pretty knackered after climbing back up to the car, so after refuelling (the Foyers shop at the carpark is crazy cheap), we pretty much headed straight to our Airbnb home for the night just above Drumnadrochit. The only other time we got out of the car was to experience the crazy weather in the hills above Fort Augustus. Such a change from 10 minutes down the road! It was insanely windy. I had to crawl out of the car over the drivers seat because the wind was too strong for me to open the passenger door and it was blowing snow and little bits of ice off the hills which made it hard to face the wind. As painful as it was, it was fun leaning into it and trying to catch flight!

The accommodation was unreal. I thought it was going to be pretty special but it definitely surpassed expectations. It was a little wooden shepherd’s hut lit with fairy lights. It had a little wood burner inside, a bathroom hidden behind a ‘secret’ door, hot water bottles, some milk and biscuits for when we arrived AND some free whisky decanted out for us. They’d thought of everything. It was so cosy. I kind of wish I’d taken more pictures but I was too busy enjoying the space.

(Despite the fact the place/day was very romantic and it was the 29th Feb on a leap year I did not, like one friend thought, propose! Bit early for that.)

1st March

We stayed in the hut as long as we could and enjoyed a lazy breakfast. I don’t enjoy cooking in the hospital accommodation so it was just really nice to have something more exciting than tortellini, pizza or super noodles (yep, I have indeed regressed)!

We decided to head to a place called Abriachan for a walk on the way back to Inverness. It was a recommendation from my office mate who has so far nailed it with everywhere that she’s suggested. Almost as soon as we drove away from the shepherd’s hut we saw a red squirrel. Or, more accurately, I saw a red squirrel, yelled ‘SQUIRREL, SQUIRREL, SQUIRREL’ and made Mattia reverse back up the hill so he could see it too!

I didn’t think the day would get much better after that but as soon as we parked in the Abriachan carpark my spider senses were tingling about some birds chirping about in the tree next to the car. They were only bloody crossbills! Sorry, if you’re not into birds or wildlife in general, maybe skip this little paragraph, because I need a little moment! I honestly never thought I’d be lucky enough to see these birds. I mean other things are hard(ish) to spot like otter, red squirrel, waxwings… but I’m happy to head to a hot spot for that species and have a go. I thought it was so unlikely I’d ever see a crossbill that there was no point actively trying! I knew they were shy and secretive and I mistakenly thought that all types of crossbill were only in certain parts of Scotland (I’ve now learned I was wrong on that point). But anyway, here I was, literally stood next to the car in a fairly busy car park watching both male and female crossbill in a tree a few metres away. No idea if they were Scottish or Common but that wouldn’t have changed how I felt. I was so excited! They were around long enough for me to stare and check in disbelief that they weren’t anything else and I hadn’t made an utterly stupid ID mistake but they left after a small group of kids ran screaming through the snow into the car park!

With me still chattering away about the birds and clutching onto my binoculars hoping to see more we headed off up the hill to the 434 metre summit of Carn na Leitire. We stopped via the pond to poke the ice, at the Lochside bird hide to see if we could spot anything, at the bronze age hut to talk about what people would’ve dressed in back then to stay warm and in the forest a couple of times because we were tired!

The views from the top were awesome and I’m sure my photos don’t do it justice. I’m often afraid to push myself to climb big hills or little mountains because last time I did (about 2 years ago now) I triggered another little ME relapse. It felt right though and luckily this time I’ve suffered no payback from it. It was a really nice moment to be up there in the snow, nobody else around, just taking in the scenery.

Once we were back down I finished the Perk donut I’d been nursing for two days (honestly the best donuts ever) and Mattia enjoyed watching another couple struggle to get their car out of the icy bay.

And that was pretty much it. We stopped for a late lunch in a place called An Talla at the Dochgarroch lock (not loch), dropped the car back off at the train station and then Mattia got his train home. I walked back to the Raigmore but avoided Burger King for once!

Next weekend I have a couple of friends visiting from Aberdeen and we’re exploring the Black Isle. Only time will tell if I’ll write about it!

Micro-adventure: Isle of Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh in 2 days!

Now, I hear you already…’you can’t possibly do Skye AND Kyle of Lochalsh in two days, especially without a car’! And I would not disagree with you! But I could get there by public transport (easily from Inverness where I’m currently staying) and spend two days seeing as much in that area as I could and have a great time doing it! Plus, my accommodation at the Raigmore hospital isn’t the most inspiring place and I didn’t really fancy spending the weekend with my door slamming flatmates so I thought I’d go out and explore instead.

I wasn’t actually planning to write anything about my trip but I went on my own and writing in my journal, which isn’t something I often do, came naturally during some of the quieter moments. I also took a fair few pictures! …This is what I wrote…

22nd February 2020

So, I’m on Skye! I got the two and a half hour train here from Inverness which must be THE most beautiful train journey I’ve ever been on. It started out quite sedately – a few nice rivers and rolling hills but before an hour in it transformed into something more dramatic. It probably helped add to the drama in that it had snowed on the high ground and was still trying. The weather flipped between sun to rain to snow to sun again to hail! I stared out of the window the whole time, sometimes it didn’t even click that my music had stopped.

Once I’d reached Kyle of Lochalsh I ran to the bank to get some hard cash. It didn’t seem super clever to go to an island without any (even an island with a bridge) and with that hard cash I ran into a wool shop because I managed to leave my super warm gloves at home and I was going to need something more for the West coast weather. Now fully prepared I found the bus stop and went across to Skye. I was buzzing! The bus journey was much shorter than I expected but very pretty.

Broadford

I was staying in Broadford so that’s where I got off (funnily enough) – in hindsight I might’ve gone further up to Portree or Uig but without knowing how I’d feel after a week of work or how long it would take me to get anywhere, the middle of the island seemed like a safe bet.

Straight away I headed to Irishman’s point (Rubh an Eireannaich) – in the end I wasn’t actually sure what ‘the point’ was! The walk was lovely though. I saw loads of hooded crows, a couple of redshank but mostly the usual wee brown birds and oystercatchers I’m used to. I had lunch in a really sweet bay whilst the sun was shining and took some pictures. About 10 minutes up the track it was heavy hail! It was brutal! I sheltered behind a little dip in the land with my back to the wind and waited for it to pass.

I carried on for as long as the ‘land’ would let me and then had to turn back along the same path. I hit another hail shower on the way back, this one even worse, and sheltered behind somebodies boat.

I checked into the hotel (The Broadford) and ‘warmed up’. I was pretty warm already to be honest but as soon as I sat down I didn’t want to get up and I didn’t know what I wanted to do next.

Eventually I went back out with the vague thought of looking for otter and watching the sunset. I walked down the road back towards Kyle but it soon became uninspiring. Then I walked back on myself and started down Broadford river but the track quickly petered out leaving me to walk on the road and didn’t fancy that in the fading light dressed all in black. So I walked back to where I’d walked before, towards the harbour. No otter to be seen and no view to a dramatic sunset over the hills. So, I went back to the hotel to dine on instant pot ramen (I wanted to save some money for the bar!).

After dinner I headed to The Gabbro bar (where I wrote the first part of this). Not quite what I expected! If I’m honest I wanted the sanitised, Americanised stereotype; tartan, dark wood and stags. I didn’t want real Scotland/normal life, which in this case, was a fairly normal, faceless sports bar with a limited choice in whisky and drunk rugby fans who would occasionally let out a high pitched scream making the old bar lady grumpy! I wanted to drink my Talisker (made on Skye) and Drambuie (invented on Skye) wrapped in an island fantasy! At one point a dog came in that wasn’t happy to find other dogs in it’s pub. It started fighting and then a drunk girl started ineffectively yelling at the dog, Cesar, to sit. This went on for too long! The Drambiue was better than I remembered (I drank way too many as a teenager with coke). After I left the bar, I got one from the hotel restaurant to take up to my room so I could drink Drambiue and eat crisps in the bath. Classy. Incidentally the hotel restaurant did deliver the Scottish fantasy…if only I’d known that earlier!

23rd February 2020

Got up early so I could eat lots of breakfast (French toast with bacon and maple syrup plus a starter of muesli and yoghurt with lots of coffee. I also stole a banana!) before catching one of the only buses to Kyle that day.

Once in Kyle I wrapped up against the rain and headed to ‘The Plock’. I had pretty low expectations but it was much bigger and prettier than I thought it would be. A lot of it skirted the coast so I looked for otter (didn’t see any). I did however see a golden eagle which I almost missed because I was texting my dad!

I headed to a place called Hector’s Bothy about midday for a sit down and coffee and cake. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next but I had a quick look at the map and a google and decided to walk out along the path the Balmacara for 45 minutes and then head back so I could make the only train of the day.

Once I found the path there was a signpost to Scalpaigh burn (which is spelled differently on the map) and thought ‘well I can definitely make that’ – once I got there, there was a signpost to ‘’Loch Scalpaigh ½ mile’’ and I thought ‘hmm, pushing it but I’ll get a tab on’. Made it! Just! I made better time on the way back so was able to take another quick track for some good views over the bay. As with the Plock the walk was far prettier than I anticipated. I really enjoyed myself.

Made it back on time for the train and managed to sit on the opposite side for different views. So.Many.Deer! I made a little mark in my journal every time I saw one and by the time it became too dark to see I’d marked for 93 red deer! Mental.

Anyway, so I had a great weekend. For the next one I’ve hired a car to explore around Loch Ness and I’m staying in a shepherd’s hut just North of Drumnadrochit. I honestly cannot wait!

Dry January

I honestly never thought that I’d be prepared to give up alcohol for a whole month! I love a glass of peaty whisky on a cold evening or a pint after a long walk. I love trying the new craft beers, especially the sours, brought out by Brewdog and Fierce in my home city of Aberdeen and there are countless academic networking events where I’ve enjoyed a glass of boxed wine to help the chat flow a little smoother!

BUT, I hit Christmas pretty hard and I get really bad hangovers now (thanks 30s). I was starting to really resent the fact that I could lose a whole day after a heavy event; struggling to get up, ordering Burger King to my bed and sometimes being in so much pain even watching Netflix for the first half of the day was too much. I’d also seen tweets about academic drinking and started to notice for myself that ALL of the academic events revolved around alcohol and that there were a number of non-drinkers that maybe felt a bit pushed out and jaded at the lack of interesting alternatives.

Now, people have different opinions on non-alcoholic or low alcoholic alternatives to classic bevvies. I heard a lot of people ask ‘what’s the point?’ or say ‘just have a coke’. But I like the taste of all the alcohols and a lot of the time I crave the taste of a glass of wine with dinner not the effects of the alcohol in it. I also found that in social situations having a bottle of low alcohol beer made me feel more involved than a glass of coke would have. However I appreciate that is a highly personal thing. Not that this would have pushed me to having a drink but it also meant that people didn’t question the fact that I wasn’t drinking when I was out, because it looked like I was!

My biggest concerns for the month were that I’d struggle to enjoy things because I’d find it difficult to chat freely and to have conversations with people I didn’t know very well and that my friends would think that I wasn’t any fun or that I was somehow changing.

So anyway throughout January I tried quite a few of the low and non-alcoholic alternatives out there…and here is what I thought.

(Although, to make it quite clear… I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I like what I like and I’m pretty much making it up as I go along, so I’m not going to go on about mouthfeel, or colour, or nose or whatever! But well done you if this is a connoisseur level skill that you do have…I only have the experience and fervour to critique donuts this way!)

Right, without further ado…

BEER

Okay, let’s start with the BrewDogs. I was quite curious to try some of the BrewDog AF’s because I of course love BrewDog but also they’ve just opened the world’s first alcohol free bar in London called…well…BrewDog AF. Now, maybe it’s because I’m used to their alcohol full sours and stouts which are among my favourites or maybe it’s because I only managed to try four of their AF beers (I’ve reliably been told Hazy AF is the best) but I was a little disappointed. I got more used to them the more I drank and I’ve even had one or two since dry January has ended but I was never fooled into thinking I was drinking a real beer!

Wake Up Call – I ended up with two.

Wake Up Call (0.5%)

A dark, coffee stout…with something missing! I love a pint of Jet Black Heart or Zombie Cake, which feels a bit like eating a meal. They’re thick and full of flavour whereas Wake Up Call is a little thin and sad. This was one of the only low alcohol stouts that I managed to try so maybe they’re just hard to do.

3/10

Punk AF (0.5%)

This was the moment it clicked that it was not Punk ‘As Fuck’ but Punk ‘Alcohol Free’. Idiot! So, in all honesty IPA’s with their hoppy flavours aren’t my favourite anyway. This was certainly hoppy but still felt a bit thin and lacking depth. I’ve had this in the Aberdeen BrewDog’s since January when there have been no other alcohol free beer options but I always look at my pals bevvies or scan the options on the menu board and wish I was drinking something else.

4/10

Nanny State (0.5%)

This is my favourite of the BrewDog AF range that I’ve tried so far. It’s hoppy, which as we know isn’t my favourite, but it’s certainly the most flavourful. I think it’s the closest in taste to having a ‘real’ beer. I’d happily drink this on a night out or maybe have a few of these between alcoholic beverages so I’m not quite so hanging in the morning!!

7/10

Raspberry Blitz (0.5%)

For a hot second I’d forgotten I’d tried this one! I think that’s because it makes me think less of a sour beer and more of a sour fizzy drink. I love it though and I drank this many times last summer, usually after beekeeping. It’s super sharp and fresh and tasty. I’m not sure that it would quite fill the gap of an alcoholic beer for me, but I would drink it again and again and again on many occasions.

7/10

Okay, time to move away from BrewDog and onto all the other non and low-alcoholic beers I managed to get my hands on!

‘Pale Ale’ – Big Drop Brewing Company (Suffolk) (0.5%), found in Morrisons.

Excellent! This was 100% one of my favourites. It was rich, full of flavour, it didn’t taste/feel thin…it was one of the few that was so convincing that I managed to unexpectedly feel a bit like I’d ‘had a drink’. Not tipsy, but warm and relaxed! I wanted another one and I definitely want to try other non-alcoholic beers from this breweries range.

9/10

Low Tide – Shipyard (0.5%), found in Morrisons.

Admittedly what first attracted me to this beer was that it has a gull on the label and…I like gulls. But it had depth and flavour and it didn’t have the thin ‘feel’ that I grew to find super disappointing in other beers. It was fruity and tropical and I could even taste the promised hint of blueberry when I concentrated hard enough. This was another low alcohol beer that I could drink over and over again and another that made me feel psychologically tipsy!

8/10

Braxzz Porter – Braxzz brewery (0%), drunk in the Black Isle Brewery pub in Inverness.

(I love this pub!)

I don’t actually remember drinking this! Which potentially tells you all you need to know, BUT luckily, I did make notes on it in my phone. They read, “tastes kinda alcoholic. Best stout/porter yet”. So I must’ve liked it…but not enough to commit it to memory.

5/10 (Totally hedging my bets there)

Brooklyn Special Effects – Brooklyn brewery (0.4%), drunk in Hootenanny in Inverness.

I think we need to start by saying that this was so convincing that when I left the pub after having three of these the thought crossed my mind to ‘sober up’ so I could keep my wits about me getting home (I was completely sober!) AND I woke up with a hangover. Now, okay, it wasn’t a hangover – I think I was just over tired and dehydrated but I still had that beery taste in my mouth and the feeling of shame about ‘drinking on a school night’ hovered over me. All of that collectively made me feel hungover. Definitely one of the things I was trying to avoid! I mean I had three, so I obviously like it…a lot. It was hoppy and piney, with lots of flavour and good ‘depth’.

8/10

St Peter’s without, Gold (0%), found in Morrisons.

Dear lord, do not do this to yourself. This is up there with my least favourite beers of all time and I’ve tried a lot of very funky sours (usually ordered by my supervisor and friend Ewan). I took a few swigs, made a few other people suffer it and then abandoned it on a table mid party. It was SO malty/yeasty. I like both of those things, but not with that level of pungency. It reminded me of when you do a brewery tour and they get you to try and taste the malt before it goes through the brewing process. That experience is great on a tour…. I just do not want to drink a whole bottle of that flavour. The one positive thing I have to say about this is the bottle. It made me think of an old medicine bottle, the kind you’d dig up at the bottom of your garden. For that I can give this beer half a mark!

0.5/10

WINE

‘The Bees Knees’ by North South Wines ltd (0%), found in Morrisons.

In mid-January I did my first 45 minute talk to a group of beekeepers and this was an achievement I wanted to celebrate. The Bees Knees doesn’t claim to taste like a sparkling wine but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t! It reminded me of Schloer or sparkling elderflower and it was probably in a similar price bracket. What I did like was that I had a cork to pop! It made it feel more like an event. Without that I feel like I might as well just have bought a bottle of my favourite, coke zero, and called it a day. I wouldn’t not buy this again…but I’m not going to look forward to my next bottle or crave the taste of it!

5/10

McGuigan zero – Shiraz, from Morrisons (0%).

Looked like wine, smelled like wine…tasted like disappointment. Honestly, every mouthful of this was bitterly sad. I wanted real wine and I wanted real wine more than before I started drinking this alternative. I would not buy this again…ever.

1/10

GIN (yes gin!)

Ceders Wild (0%)

The only note I made on this on my phone was, ‘pointless’! I tried it with tonic, quite a strong one to be fair, and I don’t think I really got any notes of botanicals at all. I tried it straight from the bottle too, just to make sure I gave it a fair shot and, I mean, it tasted of something (probably juniper) but not a lot. If I’m honest I think I’d get just as much of a mock-G&T feeling by just drinking the tonic with a bit of ice and lime. I should probably add here that it was quite expensive at about £15-£20 for a medium sized bottle.

1/10

Seedlip Spice 94 and grapefruit tonic in a can (0%)

I’d heard a lot of people talk about this non-alcholic gin alternative but after the failure of ceders wild I didn’t fancy forking out another £20-£30 for a bottle. Luckily my friend bought me a pre-mixed can to try at a party…and it was great. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that obviously the company have carefully mixed the drink for you, so they’ve undoubtably ensured that you’re getting the maximum flavour. I do wonder what it’d be like if you mixed it yourself with whatever tonic you have lying around the house…but I’m not curious enough to spend any money!

6/10

So, all in all it was easier and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I’ve even gone for non-alcoholic options since the end of January! It’s early days but I’ve loved not being hungover. Maybe it’s a ‘new me’, maybe it’s not, maybe it’ll be a fairly hangover free year, maybe I’ll have a wild couple of months after this post goes up …who knows?! I’m not telling you how to live your life, I’m not a paragon of health! But if this has given you food for thought and it’s something you want to try too at least you know there’s plenty of decent non-alcoholic options out there (and some not so decent ones)!

Now let’s get back to it.

10 things that I’ve realised…during the first year of my PhD

Realised? Learned? Experienced? I wasn’t quite sure which word to go with but whichever way you look at it the following 10 things have made me grow as a student, and in general as a human being.

Imposter syndrome is a constant.

This probably needs no introduction, but, just in case; imposter syndrome describes feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt that aren’t relieved by external proof of your competence. It’s the feeling that you’re going to be ‘found out’ as being incompetent after winning an award or that someone’s made a mistake in letting you speak at a conference or attend a meeting. That somehow you’ve slipped through the net and you shouldn’t be amongst your peers doing a PhD!

Maybe there are some unique individuals out there that don’t experience any level of uncertainty in their abilities, academic or otherwise…but I’d say pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to has at some point felt like an imposter.

For me, what I’ve realised is that feeling like an imposter is actually pretty constant and I don’t think these feelings will ever go away.  But, actually, that’s okay! I think firstly, it makes me more understanding of other people’s anxieties and secondly, I’m pretty used to it now so I can more or less acknowledge those thoughts and then work alongside them.  What’s that cheesy saying’? ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’!?

In fact I had ‘impostery’ feelings writing this section because I found out imposter could, and is more commonly spelled impostor…which made me doubt ever writing anything at all!

Pulling some excellent facial expressions whilst presenting data I wasn’t so confident about at a conference in Valencia!

When you gather your data together it never looks like much.

I feel like I can work super hard, spend some long hours in the lab running experiments and then when the time comes for me to gather that data together to show my supervisor it looks like…*drumroll*…‘nothing’! Several weeks worth of work can sometimes culminate in a single graph. That graph doesn’t show the time spent fixing a problem with experimental design, waiting for a machine to be fixed, collecting difficult samples, the mandatory course you had to attend, the demonstrating you did, reading and planning in preparation for another project you’re working on…you get the idea! Sometimes, if the weight of doing or achieving ‘enough’ (whatever that means) is pressing down on me I write lists of the things I do each day. Each email I’ve sent, each paper I’ve read, each academic conversation/meeting I’ve had etc… It helps me to see that although I might not have achieved as much toward the completion of a particular project as I feel I ‘should’ have I can physically see the list of all the other shit I’ve had to do.

Paying too much attention to other people’s projects is dangerous.

In a nutshell I’ve realised it’s dangerous to compare my PhD project to others. In general, the vast majority of us have projects which are totally different. Some are really prescriptive with papers and chapters already pre-planned but others are totally blue sky and are led by what their experimental data suggests could be interesting next. Neither are wrong and both come with their own challenges.

Also, lots of people you pass in the corridor will give you something akin to the highlights reel. They’re writing a paper, they’re preparing for a conference, they’ve won an award or they’re finishing an experiment. Obviously, sometimes people will talk about a problem they’re having, especially if they think you might be able to help them solve it, but those moments rarely come when you’re feeling a bit fragile!     

It’s easier said than done, but I try to focus on whether my supervisors and I are happy with where my project is at and where it’s going and put my blinkers on to most of the other stuff.

Humble bragging is a thing.

I think academia, and especially academic twitter is the first place I’ve truly experienced humble bragging and it is rife! Initially people saying things like ‘we’re already one month into the new year and I’ve only managed to write 2 papers, speak at a conference and win a Nobel prize’ would have me panicking that I wasn’t working hard enough or achieving as much as I should be. Now, when a postdoc tells me that they’re annoyed because a new PI keeps asking for their advice or a PhD students tells me they just don’t know how they’ll find the time to make the corrections to an otherwise accepted paper from their undergrad project I inwardly roll my eyes, smile, sympathise and carry on with my day.

It pays to be honest.

I think recognising moments when I need help has developed over time, and figuring out what kind of help I need and how to ask for it has come over even more time…and a little bit of practice! Although having said that, I still don’t find it easy.

Having developed M.E. about 3 years ago I consider being honest a matter of PhD survival! I can’t push through, I can’t overwork for a couple of months with the promise of a holiday at the end and I can’t continually say yes to things without it affecting my health. I’ve had to become more honest with my supervisor about when I need a day (or three) to work from home, when I need to postpone an experiment, when I need to scale back on my commitments and when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed so he can help me figure out how to fix that. Prolonged stress is definitely a relapse trigger for me and isn’t good for you anyway! You don’t need to have a chronic illness to be deserving of a helping hand and some advice when things are fraying at the edges!

Holiday is important. Take it.

…even if that means not going anywhere fancy, or anywhere at all!

In my first year I didn’t take my holiday. Idiot!

I have a spreadsheet with my research grant budget on it and also the amount of holiday days I have as a PhD student so I can keep track. I got into the messy habit of feeling if I didn’t work ‘hard enough’ one day I’d consider it a half day or I’d make up the time over the weekend or in the evening. If I’d I worked a day on the weekend I sometimes felt like that meant I could take a day off in the week, but I rarely enjoyed them because I felt guilty. So I stopped taking them. I also had the added complication that I shouldn’t take holiday in bee season or at least if I did I shouldn’t be away for long. If I did go on holiday for a couple of days I took work with me. I also know a couple of people who don’t take their holiday, almost as a matter of pride, and this for some reason made me feel awkward taking mine. All of this is just straight up unhealthy!

On top of this I had a couple of small M.E. relapses in my first year and I wonder if those could have been avoided or lessened if I’d have given myself proper time off. (Although ultimately your physical health should have nothing to do with holiday hours taken). In my second year I vow to take my full holiday…and not to pack any work!

Ironically taken during a conference which turned into a holiday!

It’s a good time to get out of my comfort zone.

This, in it’s very nature is obviously pretty uncomfortable, but I’ve found the first year of my PhD great for trying new things. I try to get in amongst the thick of it as much as my introvert personality will allow! I accept all the talks I get offered, I apply for conferences, I attend networking events and I try to engage in conversations with ‘strangers’ in a vague attempt to build connections but mostly to learn how to ‘do academic chat’. As I’m still early in my PhD career people aren’t really interested in collaborating with me yet, but they might be some day and when they are I’d like to be a little bit better at engaging with them. I feel like the PhD is the perfect time to make mistakes, I mean I’m still training and I’m still finding my feet so I’m allowed to give a bad talk or make a rubbish poster, right?…Right?!!!

EASTBIO; getting me out of my comfort zone as often as they can!

In many ways the PhD is easier than my masters and my undergrad.

First of all, just a disclaimer, I’m not in any way saying a PhD is easy or diminishing the trials of PhD life BUT…

…for me, my PhD in many ways feels ‘easier’ than my undergrad and my masters and actually lots of the “real world” jobs that I’ve had. This is of course different for everyone. I think some of that comes down to the fact that I’m just generally happier now but there’s a tonne of other stuff that contributes to that too. When I did my undergrad I’d been out of education for about a decade and I hadn’t done any A-levels (or highers) so I had to learn how to learn again, plus I joined the university dance team, and I worked in a lab as an unpaid research assistant. So, I just generally had a lot going on! But, also, I had to turn up to a lot of stuff I wasn’t super interested in or I just didn’t understand and the topics change ALL the time. I floundered a bit. Plus you have to write assignments and do exams on all of those things and I remember it feeling a bit relentless.

During my masters I was still recovering from my first and worst bout of M.E. (which I contracted/developed in the final year of my undergrad), so I was pretty scared and lonely and Biomedical Science was quite a change of direction from Zoology and Microbiology. As with the undergrad, the topics changed a lot and quickly. It was great for giving tasters that taught me what I liked and what I didn’t but it was tough going. I felt like I never got good at anything, like I was just scratching the surface, and if I didn’t ‘get’ something I didn’t have time to figure it out before the module was over.

I felt ready to focus on one topic and explore that as fully as I could. I also felt ready not to have to hand in assignments or do exams! And a PhD gives me both of those things and a bit like an undergrad or masters (but unlike a job) I more or less run my own schedule.

So although I’ve had a little cry in quiet stairwells (I’m an emotional bean), I’ve ranted down the phone to my mum and I’ve felt utterly bewildered about what I’m supposed to be doing… I’d still say that doing a PhD is one of the best things I’ve done and yes, in many ways easier.

Aberdeen is fab, but quite far away.

I made some pretty bold statements about visiting people after I moved to Aberdeen and none of it has come to fruition! A lot of my friends are spread out; across West Wales, the Welsh Borders and London. I said I’d go and visit and I really did mean it, but I didn’t quite acknowledge just how far away Aberdeen is and how difficult and costly it would be to go South… especially to West Wales.

Although Aberdeen is a bit of a marmite city, as in people seem to love or hate it, I’m a lover and I think it’s totally worth the relative ‘remoteness’! To me it is the goldilocks zone, not too big or too small, it has everything I need, it’s friendly but not everyone knows your business, it’s easy to get into the countryside, it has history, it has lots of craft ale (although it could do with a decent wine bar!), it’s not too busy etc… etc… which makes up for the fact that seeing Southern dwelling friends or relatives is going to be infrequent or expensive or both!

New Slains, Castle Fraser, Aberdeen NuArt and Seaton park. 🙂

It’s hard to feel enough for academia.

I think one of the hardest things for me so far is struggling to learn what ‘enough’ is. It’s hard sometimes to keep the blinkers on my own project and focus on what I’m doing and how hard I’m working. People will always work early or late or on the weekend but it doesn’t mean that I have to. Everybody works differently.

I feel like I could also work all the hours, stress myself out, go above and beyond and yet someone will always ask why I didn’t attend a particular event, haven’t read something yet, haven’t finished writing a paper or haven’t replied…and I can bust a gut and be super proud of something and someone will tell me that what I’ve just accomplished was easy or unimportant or ask what I’m doing next or why I didn’t do it another way. Like, I said, it’s my biggest struggle and although I’m pretty good at saying no to things and limiting my work hours to 9-5 (ish) I feel like I’m constantly justifying how much work I’ve done and I always feel like I should be more, that who I am and what I’m doing is not enough.

This year I made a resolution of sorts that I’d celebrate my achievements regardless of whether other people thought they were achievements or not and to try and become a bit tougher!

Done.

So there it is, 10 things, in no particular order that I have realised in the first year of my PhD.

How ME/CFS still shapes my life…(mostly what goes on in my noggin)!

So, as with my first two blog posts I have a horrible feeling that this might a bit bleak and sobering. Guess it’s hard to be anything but when you’re talking about an illness really!

Apart from the bloody awful first 9 months that I described in my previous blog post, I am incredibly fortunate that 2 and a half years after first falling ill my ME is predominantly very, very mild. I put some of that down to the fact that I pretty much lucked out with the NHS. Sure, a lot of people didn’t know or understand what it was that I had or what I was going through but nobody outright or openly disbelieved me. Nobody in the NHS ever told me that they didn’t believe that ME was real and from what I’ve read I think I was very fortunate to get a diagnosis quite quickly. I’m also very lucky to be living independently, doing my PhD and maintaining a social life. A few months ago I was even so well I started to play Badminton with my office mates and I started a couch to 5k. I’ve had to stop doing both of those things for the time being, but I’m still grateful because it had flitted across my mind, more than once, that I might never be able to do anything that active again.

The words lucky, grateful and fortunate, like I’ve mentioned above, are words that cycle through my mind often. Almost like a mantra. They’ve helped me to keep things in perspective. I’ve held firmly onto words like that throughout the past 2 and a half years because they’re a life line. I’ve honestly been terrified that if I was anything but strong for more than a moment that I might crumble. It’s only been recently that I admitted to myself that I probably needed a wee bit of counselling, because believe it or not, there are actually a lot of emotions to deal with when your life has been changed by an illness! Shocking huh?

If lucky, grateful and fortunate are words that I hold onto, then fear, guilt and frustration are the ones that I try to let go of and the ones that I struggle with. I guess a good place to start is the fear. Most of the fears that I have are ones that you’d expect. I’m scared I’ll never get better, I’m scared I’ll get worse again, I’m worried about what people think but a fear that you probably wouldn’t expect is the fear that I don’t have ME at all! The seed was planted in the first 9 months after seeing multiple doctors. There is no diagnostic test, it’s a diagnosis by exclusion and by fitting your symptoms to one or more of several different diagnostic criteria. It’s also an illness, like MS once was, that some people firmly believe is psychological. I don’t doubt that there is a psychological aspect to ME but then you try being ill for years and not having your mental health challenged! I also worry that it’s not really ME that I have because I don’t know anyone with ME that is as healthy as I am…in fact I think by several standards I am considered ‘recovered’. Sure, I still get all of the symptoms that I got when I was at my worst if I don’t pace myself properly but they are a fraction of the intensity. The people that I know with ME are on social media and I started following them because there are so many unknowns with ME it helped me figure out what I was dealing with. Those people that I follow are really poorly, they’re mostly house/bedbound and have been for years or decades. So, if I don’t have ME then what is wrong with me and if I really do have ME will I end up like them?

That leads me nicely from fear to guilt! I love a bit of social media and of course, like most people, what I post is a highlights reel. I have one account where I post all the pretty places I visit, the walks I go on, the social events, some PhD stuff and another account where I post all about yoga. I love yoga because there are so many different aspects/levels to it that it doesn’t matter how good or bad I feel I can practice somehow. But when you tell someone that you have ME and then post a picture of yourself in a headstand or tell someone you’re too sick to visit them for the weekend but then post a picture of yourself at an art gallery it all starts to seem a bit incongruous…and that makes me feel guilty. But, as with all social media, people don’t see what goes on behind that. Even with very mild ME I am constantly evaluating my energy levels, constantly weighing up what I have planned for the day/week/month and balancing out how I might be able to manage all those things. Because I obviously still want my life to be as full as it possibly can be and that takes careful thought. So, working out whether I can do a spontaneous activity, for me, looks a little something like this…

But, of course, nobody sees that.

I spent the year that I studied for my masters in bed most of the time. One of the main reasons I picked the course was that there were long gaps between intensely delivered modules. It meant that I could spend 3 – 4 days in lectures and then 4 – 6 weeks recovering. I started that year going out for about 5 – 20 minutes on days I wasn’t in uni and built it up. I rarely socialised but I did have remedic massages every other week as massage for me was a complete game changer. What people would have seen from the outside was probably someone who looked healthy, fairly active and pretty productive. I guess that became somewhat true towards the end but in general the life that people saw and the life that I lived were worlds apart.

Now when I say ‘built it up’ I want to make it clear that I am not a proponent of graded exercise therapy (GET). GET prescribed as a treatment for ME is not okay, the PACE trial is not okay. Recovery is not linear, every body is different and you have to learn to trust yourself and listen to your body (although that is way easier said than done!).

So, yeah I guess what I was also trying to say back there was that sometimes I feel guilty that I’m doing so well and that my symptoms are so mild/sometimes non existent when other people are suffering so badly. It doesn’t make sense…but then I never said that it did!

That leads me to frustration. Woo! We’re almost there folks! Having ME, yes, even mild ME, is incredibly frustrating. Making friends, keeping friends, starting a new job, joining a club, adjusting to inevitable weight gain etc… are all things that can be quite hard anyway but having to do them with newly defined limits is even harder. Telling someone I’ve just met that I love hiking, being outdoors, yoga, keeping fit, doing crafts, going to the pub etc… etc… etc… and then consistently saying no to invitations or cancelling plans makes me feel like a liar and you’ve guessed it is incredibly frustrating. ME is part of my life now and I don’t hide it but I also don’t shout about it. I don’t want to tell someone prematurely because I don’t necessarily want to be questioned or judged, most people don’t know what ME is and it can be awkward to explain it. It can also be bloody annoying. The amount of times someone has asked me if I’ve tried drinking more water or if I’ve been tested for anaemia/pernicious anaemia makes me want to lose my shit. But the people that say those things are just trying to help so I keep the rage inside!

As I’ve mentioned I’m halfway through the first year of my PhD. I love it and I’m enthused about the work I’m doing, which means that I want to do everything! That’s great but it’s also dangerous. I guess that having these physical limits means that I can’t afford to overwork myself which means I pretty much do my 9 – 5 and I don’t work evenings or weekends if I can help it and I have valid reasons to say no to things that many PhD students can feel pressured to say yes to. But it’s very frustrating. What’s also frustrating is unprofessionally and explosively crying in your supervisor’s office because you’re having a little relapse, you feel like poop, you’re asking for a few days off and you’re terrified that he’s going to think that you’re not capable. Oof! 

I’m learning that I have to be quite vocal about how I’m feeling with my lab group because unless you know my ‘tells’ you can’t see my ME. I find this really hard but I have to say I’ve been blown away by how delightful my lab mates/supervisors have been. I’ve been incredibly lucky.

(when you have to lie on the floor for a bit once you’ve got back from work because you’re pretty much in an energy deficit).

Right, I’m done. Again, if you’ve made it this far…well done! If you had moderate/severe ME then you’d probably struggle to read this in one go if at all. Crazy huh? I don’t think I have any take home message for this post. I guess I just hoped that this would perhaps provide some enlightenment with regards to ME for someone, somewhere.

How I went from writing my undergad dissertation and comfortably running 10ks to struggling to walk or talk within 9 months.

Sounds like an inspirational heading written the wrong way around, right?! I’ve sat down to write this a few times but what I’ve start writing always seems too sombre, too moany. It’s hard to get the balance right. But, it’s ME awareness week (6 – 12th May) so I thought I should try again. Warning: It is still a bit too bleak for my liking but it’s important to me so hopefully it’s not too painful a read!

Let’s just dive straight in.

About two and a half years ago now I was in my last year of my undergraduate degree. I was busy. I worked whenever I could as an unpaid research assistant for my two supervisors, I was part of the university dance team who were starting to prepare for a competition, I was generally pretty fit and active; running 10k pretty regularly, doing lots of yoga, hiking and going to exercise classes (Zumba was my favourite). I was busy, but I was happy and I was busy because I was enthusiastic about everything I was doing (most of the time). I got a throat infection, nothing too major, and didn’t really take any time off because like I said, I was busy. I didn’t really think much of it and although I was still a bit tired my throat got better and I got over it.

The first thing I noticed was that I was starting to lose my balance a bit more than usual in dance class but I’ve never been a very good dancer so I thought I just needed to improve my core! It felt fairly innocuous. But then I started to lose my balance a little when I was just walking and I have a history of being pretty accomplished at that! It was a small enough blip that no one would notice and I could convince myself it wasn’t really happening. After wilfully ignoring everything for a couple of weeks I tried to go for a run and barely made it around the block, I didn’t know it then but that was the last time I’d run in two years. At that point I realised that I should probably ease off a little, take a break maybe. I was tired all the time, although tired doesn’t quite cut it. My body felt heavy like the air had become thicker or gravity more pronounced. I’d notice the weight of my arms when I brushed my teeth or washed my hair. Everything became that little bit harder.

Within about three months I had a headache from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. Painkillers wouldn’t touch it and unless it was a particularly bad day I just got used to it. I felt nauseous often and the ground felt like rubber whenever I walked anywhere. I finally went to the doctors and got diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (try saying that 10 times quickly). I had some exercises to do at home which would miraculously make me better. Only they didn’t.

Within about 6 months I started getting a bit confused about things. Like, I got lost in my local supermarket. I bought my shopping and couldn’t remember how to get out of the store. In the same time period I also had to ask for something at the library and I couldn’t remember how. Both times I managed to stall until I figured things out but it left me shaken. I was also having chest pains which radiated into my back and left shoulder and down my left arm, which isn’t traditionally a good sign! I went back to the doctors and had lots of blood tests, an ECG and an MRI but they all eventually came back clear. Which is a good thing, right? This second doctor also asked about my mental health and my stress levels… a valid question. I really struggled with depression and self-harm as a teenager and that’s prominently on my record. I stood my ground in the surgery assuring him that my symptoms weren’t a result of university pressures and deep down I knew I was right, I knew something was seriously wrong with me. He agreed, which was a huge relief, but it did however leave me with a niggling doubt. Was it all actually just in my head? Was I just really stressed? Had I done this to myself somehow? Spoiler alert: that doubt still niggles away at me sometimes.

Anyway, despite everything I was still looking at masters courses. The 6 months hadn’t been a constant, linear decline. There were moments where everything lifted a little and felt ‘okay’ and that was enough to give me hope that I could still move forwards with my academic career. So, I dragged myself from Aberystwyth where I was doing my undergrad to Chester with my mum to have a look at the city and university (and more importantly find a graduation dress). The trip was as a whole all a bit too much. It floored me. There was a point when I was so exhausted that moving much wasn’t an option, my body was like lead and I had to crawl to the bathroom when I needed to go. I cried myself to sleep in my mum’s arms, well I say cry, but I was too tired for that so the tears just kind of rolled out. It was all very pitiful, but I was scared. I didn’t know what was wrong and I didn’t know how to fix it.

I recovered enough to make it back to Aberystwyth but my health was still following a general downward trajectory. To cut a long and meandering story short it wasn’t long before my best friend, G, who had been heroically doing her best to look after me dragged me to A&E. I’d been told by one of the doctors I’d seen that I probably had something ‘like’ post viral fatigue syndrome and I just needed to keep pushing through. That unfortunately wasn’t the best advice though and things escalated to a point where I was struggling to stay upright. G rescued me and intervened. I think I needed that. When all of your tests say that you’re fine you start to doubt yourself and I felt guilty about taking up a doctor’s time when I was just going back with the same problems. There comes a point when they run out of tests and ideas and you just lose hope. In hospital I had more blood tests, my third ECG and a CT scan. I had the CT scan because my left rib cage had become swollen and very uncomfortable. Still is a bit. All of the tests came back absolutely fine (no surprise at this point) and the doctor explained that it was ‘probably’ something chronic like chronic fatigue syndrome but as an A&E doctor it wasn’t her area of expertise. But she did arrange an echocardiogram, a weeklong ECG and an exercise test to check that my chest pains definitely weren’t anything more sinister (they weren’t). She also sent me back to see another GP.

As usual I felt like a total hypochondriac explaining my history and reeling off my long list of wide-ranging symptoms but the GP listened, had a little think and told me that it did indeed sound like I had ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). She also told me that there was nothing I could do and that I probably wouldn’t get better, which was just magical news!      

Within 9 months I was living back with my parents after somehow managing to finish my degree. There were some bright periods where I felt better and managed to get out and about but never with the same freedom and vigour that I’d had before and there was always payback. Something like celebrating a friend’s birthday could leave me bedbound for a few days…and I don’t just mean with a hangover! For the most part I was scared and housebound. It was awful. At my worst my muscles and joints hurt so I could never get comfortable, my muscles would twitch, I struggled to have a conversation because I couldn’t remember words or sentence structure, walking was incredibly difficult, I had to avoid loud noises, strong smells and bright lights because they increased my nausea and caused me physical pain, I had dreams and nightmares that were so vivid that it would take me a while to figure out that I was awake and then I’d struggle to get back to sleep despite being exhausted, I was always too hot, often itchy and I felt lightheaded.

It was about this time I also had my graduation. I was absolutely determined to go even if someone had to wheel me across the stage. I never thought I’d go to university and after finally deciding to in my late 20s with no formal qualifications it felt like an immense achievement. I spent the weeks beforehand doing as little as possible in preparation and managed to walk across the stage and bluff my way throughout the whole day. I had to wear earplugs to get through the constant clapping, took as many painkillers as I possibly could, barely spoke to anyone and lent heavily on both G and my parents but I genuinely think nobody noticed. By looking at my photos you’d never know how much I was struggling.

So lucky to have a friend like G! Mega babe.

That was me at my worst and I’m obviously much better now because I’m living in Aberdeen and I’m halfway through the first year of my PhD. But, I still have ME, no matter how mild it is or how high functioning I am, it still dictates how I live my life.  It has changed my life completely. How ME affects me now, 2 and a half years after it all started is what I’ll write about in my next blog post.

If you’ve made it all this way to the end I commend you! Bit of a slog I imagine! I think if I could give you one take home message from this it’s listen to your body. Don’t rest on something like ‘I’m young and fit’ to carry you through an illness. If you’re sick take some bloody time off, ease up a little. The amount of times someone with a raging cold tells me they can’t take a day or two off because they’re too busy, they’re fine, they’ll push through…it makes me want to scream! Listen. To. Your. Body!

What is ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)?

Let’s ease in gently with the first of my 3 blog posts for ME awareness week (6 – 12 May). This is a post stating facts and then I’ll switch from facts to feelings as I talk a little bit about my experience of ME in my second two posts. I’ve provided a few hyperlinks but in all honesty it’s all a bit too much for me at the moment to go through and provide lots more. Plus lots of the papers I wanted to add in were behind bloody paywalls, which is kind of pointless for anyone not in an academic institution. Google Scholar is great if you want to look up any ME research and if you don’t seem to be able to get access then try Sci-hub. I guess the ‘proper’ way of doing things is to email the author and ask for a copy but despite Sci-hub looking a bit dodge from the outside it has saved my bacon more than once and provided me with a wealth of information very quickly! Anyway…

I’ve written ‘ME’ throughout, partly because it’s a little easier than ME/CFS, but partly because I feel like ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ trivialises the illness. It’s an add-on that you could affix to many an illness…and yet you don’t. Lyme disease/CFS, cancer/CFS, MS/CFS…I’m labouring my point now and I’m sure you understand, so let’s crack on.

ME is classed as a neurological disease by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and it affects about 0.2 – 0.4% of the population. That doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s approximately 250,000 people in the UK and it costs the UK economy over £3 billion every year. It’s entirely possible that as there is no diagnostic test for ME yet that that figure is an underestimate.

Symptoms

I’ll start by saying that having ME is no joke. People are generally classified as having mild, moderate or severe ME and as with most classifications like this the categories have woolly edges; ME is a spectrum. As the disease fluctuates people can move in and out of these categories.  People at the most severe end of ME are bed-bound and trapped in dark, silent rooms because they are so sensitive to light, sound and touch they have become prisoners in their own bodies. They require 24/7 care and many of them are tube fed because they can no longer swallow. People die from ME. At the other end of the ME spectrum you have people like me…and you can read about what that’s like in my next 2 blog posts. Plug!

Symptoms include (but are not limited to);

  • Cognitive dysfunction. Often referred to as ‘brain fog’. This can include changes in memory, concentration and linguistic ability.
  • Sleep disturbance: nightmares, vivid dreams, unrefreshing sleep, insomnia or conversely sleeping too much. I’ve read reports of some people with very severe ME sleeping for around 23 hours a day.
  • Pain in the muscles, joints or nerves.
  • Sensitivity to external stimuli such as light, sound, smell or vibration.
  • Ongoing flu like symptoms.
  • Orthostatic intolerance. Essentially problems with pulse and blood pressure control which leads to feeling dizzy or faint when upright.
  • Alcohol intolerance.
  • Gastrointestinal symptoms.
  • Difficulty controlling temperature.

But the defining symptom of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM). This is a delayed exacerbation of symptoms that occurs after physical or mental activity. I hear a lot of people refer to it as ‘payback’. You do something fun, something beyond your limits and you start paying for it an hour, a day or two days afterwards. PEM can last for hours, days, weeks, months or trigger a full relapse that lasts for years. It’s unpredictable.

Cause

The onset of ME is often linked to a viral infection but for some people it is tracked back to another event such as chemical exposure or another physical trauma. ME can affect multiple members of a family suggesting that genetics may be a factor.  Several differences in an ME sufferer’s DNA, known as polymorphisms, have been found and certain genes have different expression profiles.  

Pathophysiology

There’s some exciting research into the ME disease process but as far as I know it’s yet to be convincingly pieced together. ME research is incredibly underfunded…but then I guess you could probably say that about most diseases and you’re probably more likely to say it if you have it!

ME is generally referred to as a complex multi-system disease…which covers a lot of bases! It has been shown that there are abnormalities in the immune system, central nervous system, endocrine system and in the muscle. In terms of immunological dysfunction; low level systemic inflammation has been found as a result of irregular cytokine activation (cytokines help signal between cells), there are also records of reduced natural killer cell activity (a type of white blood cell that deals with threats to the body) and there is some evidence of an autoimmune aspect to the disease. As for the central nervous system; there are reports of abnormal proteins and white blood cells in the cerebral spinal fluid, neuro-inflammation and differences in the amount of grey and white matter in the brain. Studies recording abnormal levels of cortisol released from the adrenal glands suggest dysfunction in the endocrine system. There is also a growing body of evidence that points to problems with the mitochondria (most of us know these as the ‘powerhouse of the cell’). Problems with the mitochondria can impair and reduce the function of muscles.

All in all the pathophysiology is still a jigsaw with many pieces missing, but we know more than we’ve ever known before and this growing body of evidence shows that ME has a physical root, not a psychological one.

Diagnosis

ME is often diagnosed after a lingering and significant reduction in a person’s health and activity levels. There are no diagnostic tests (such as a blood test) for ME at the moment although there are research groups that are inching ever closer. Currently, ME is diagnosed by excluding all other possible causes of the symptoms presented to the GP and by using one of several diagnostic criteria. The most commonly used appear to be the Fukuda criteria and the Canadian Consensus Criteria but a much more complete, and extensive document came out recently (Beyond Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Redefining an Illness). 

Treatment

There are ways to treat the symptoms but not the disease (yet). Most commonly people are prescribed medication to treat the problems with pain and sleep.

Aside from medication there are other ways of managing pain and fatigue such as meditation, pacing, warm baths and massage. I remember when I first read that these helped ‘treat’ ME that this suggested that the disease was more psychological and I didn’t trust that they’d help at all. For me though, massages and warm baths did wonders to help me deal with the pain and meditation and pacing helped me to re-evaluate what rest and recovery means within the new limitations and confines of ME.

Often ME sufferers still get prescribed GET (Graded Exercise Therapy) and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Originally, I believe CBT was given as a treatment because it was thought ME sufferers had developed a fear of exercise and exertion. That little nugget makes me roll my eyes every time. Anyway, I wouldn’t necessarily balk at CBT. I think it depends entirely on who is treating you. CBT can teach you great strategies to deal with the pain and exhaustion and if it’s given in conjunction with counselling it can help you grieve life pre-ME. Essentially, it’s probably not going to hurt…what probably will hurt is GET. I’m not going to go into this too deeply but GET was designed as part of the “PACE trial”. This trial is highly controversial and with just a quick google you can read yourself about the many reasons it’s now heavily scrutinised. In short, over-exertion when you have ME is dangerous and it can lead to a drastic worsening of symptoms. What it won’t do is cure you because you’ve become ‘deconditioned’.

On a final note there are many programmes out there (*cough ‘lightening process’ *cough) that claim that they’ll cure you if you pay ££££’s and follow their recovery plans. Now, ME sufferers get understandably desperate and there’s often an ‘I’ll try anything’ to recover attitude, which is understandable. I personally think that a lot of these programmes prey on that desperation…and maybe some of them do help some people. I’d just advise caution when somebodies asking you to pay lots of money for an amazing, simple, underknown cure (*cough ‘snake oil’ *cough).

Prognosis

Oh dear lord, who knows?! Some people gradually get worse until they’re completely bedridden and unable to look after themselves. In rare cases people deteriorate until their body completely fails them and they die. Other people suffer a fluctuation of symptoms, sometimes well enough to live a relatively normal life, sometimes not. Others recover. As far as I know these are also a rare bunch, but maybe they slip through the net and are under-reported. Even then I think it’s unusual for someone to recover to pre-illness levels. Without a clear diagnostic process in the first place I’m not sure if there is enough data to give accurate figures.

So, yeah that’s a brief run through of some ME basics. If you want to know more I suggest you take a look at the ME Association website which is just wonderful.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. It’s obviously super close to my heart and makes me feel super vulnerable to talk about something I do pretty well to avoid talking about day to day. So, yeah, cheers. You’re a champ!

Chester.

Chester is an ollllld settlement, founded by the Romans around AD79 as a fortress called Deva during the Roman’s expansion North. In fact, it may originally have been intended as the country’s capital. It’s also where I went to university to do my MSc in Biomedical Science and I went back recently for my graduation.

I booked my train tickets ridiculously far in advance, because Aberdeen to anywhere that far South is expensive! Because I was so unbelievably forward thinking for a change, I actually managed to get my hands on my first ever first-class tickets for only a nominal extra fee. As soon as I got on that first train of the journey I knew that was it, I am never going back to standard class! On the first train I got free coffee and a free scone with free jam and free clotted cream. Actual clotted cream! On the second train I got free coffee and free biscuits. On the third train I got free coffee, a free bacon butty and free cake. On the last train I got nothing because that was only standard class. Rude! FYI on the way back to Aberdeen after my trip ended I got all of that plus two free gin and tonics, which made up for the fact the train was busy and I had to sit next to other people!

In Chester my parents had booked a really nice Airbnb right off Bridge Street, smack in the centre of town, which was great because I had ambitious plans to eat and drink my way around all my favourite places (and some new ones). The notable ones are, of course, mentioned below.

The first place I wanted to go to was Porta, an authentic little tapas restaurant which sits underneath the Roman Northgate. I can’t rave about Porta enough! It’s warm, cosy, full of atmosphere and has hands down the best patatas bravas and the best pastel de nata I have ever tasted. Apart from the specials, which obviously change, I’ve had everything on the menu and have never been disappointed. There are a couple of things worth bearing in mind though. You can’t book a table at Porta, I’ve normally tried to get there early or just accepted that I might have to go away for a glass of wine before trying again. Which is definitely not a problem when you have the likes of Covino just around the corner. Porta’s also normally quite a bustling and noisy place. This adds something for me, I enjoy the activity and being able to watch the chefs in the corner of the restaurant do their thing, but, it can be tough to hold a conversation sometimes. Again, not a problem for me but something worth thinking about if you’re taking your hard of hearing pal or wanting to have a serious in depth chat with someone. Could be a good excuse to get a little closer to someone though!

After a long day on the train (about 8 hours) for me and a long day at work for my parents, Porta was our only stop for the evening. Bed was beckoning!

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I can be a bit of a coffee snob! I’ll only drink instant out of desperation or out of politeness. I can be overly British about accepting personal discomfort over possibly offending someone or appearing awkward…until I get to know someone! My parents are not coffee snobs so with only instant in the Airbnb it was an absolute priority for me to get myself to a coffee shop ASAP! Chester is full of ‘hipster’ coffee places and even more have sprung up since I was doing my masters. If I’m honest I feel like most of them are style over substance. (One fine exception to that is Bean & Cole which is both style and substance). I’m a sucker for good branding though and I love to people watch in these places so paying over the odds for a small coffee that tastes a little burnt sometimes is something I have done more often than I care to admit! What was I saying about being a coffee snob again? Maybe I should take that back and just leave it at snob!

So, my choice for morning coffee was the Bridge Street Roastery which was a new one for me. Honestly? It’s been a couple of weeks between me going and me writing this and I don’t remember much about it which probably says all you need to know. It was fine, I know I had a nice cookie because I have a photo of it, and I’m assuming that the coffee wasn’t bad otherwise I would remember that. But it obviously didn’t blow me away either!

Bridge Street Roastery.

After I was suitably caffeinated, me and my parents went for a walk around the walls. The Chester walls circuit is about 2 miles and takes in most of the ‘must see’ Chester sites; Eastgate clock, River Dee, Chester Canal, the Roodee (Chester racecourse) and the Roman amphitheatre. The walls were built by the Romans to defend Deva (Chester) and strengthened before the English civil war in the mid-1600s. They’ve also had multiple repairs over the thousands of years they’ve been standing. I imagine there’s quite a lot of ‘wear and tear’.

The walls also hold a couple of my favourite stories and ‘facts’ about the city. For a start the Roodee was once covered by water and acted as a harbour but after the river silted and a few hundred years went by, the site of the Roodee became home to the Goteddsday football match. This was such a bloody and brutal match that football was banned and replaced by horse racing in the early 1500s. The first horse race on the Roodee was actually the first horse race of its kind in the country and was allowed by Mayor Gee, hence the ‘gee-gees’. Further along from the racecourse is the home of a set of steps by the River Dee that women would run up and down holding their breath. If they could make it all the way they would be lucky in love! No idea if it’s true but I like to think it could be.

It’s not anywhere near the walls but it’s one of my favourite stories so I’m going to tell it. There’s a clock tower in the city with only three clock faces on it. Chester is right on the border of Wales and when there were fewer buildings to block the view into the city you could see over the border from Wales into England. Not wanting to give the Welsh anything for free the people of Chester chose not to put a clock face on the side of the tower facing Wales. Apparently, that’s where the saying ‘won’t even give you the time of day’ comes from! As above, I have no idea if that’s true but I so want it to be. It’s the height of pettiness!

The Water Tower.

Walking around the city whilst reminiscing (mum also went to university in Chester) is thirsty work and I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I’d been thinking about it for weeks!

There’s a ‘secret’ cocktail bar in Chester along Watergate Street called Prohibition. I love that shit. You have to walk up to, and knock on, a none descript door that’s tucked out of the way and wait for someone to let you in. Inside, the bar is dark and cosy and the menus are hidden in books. The drinks are inventive and tasty and the staff are lovely. I actually spent the 2017/18 new year there. I can’t remember what me and mum had but dad had a cocktail that involved pickle juice and it was weirdly great!

On the way home from Prohibition we weaved our way to Urbano 32, my favourite pizza place in Chester. When I first moved to Chester I was still vegan and Urbano 32 do great vegan pizzas, now I’m not vegan I can tell you they do great non-vegan pizzas too. The restaurant has a really cool vibe but we got our pizzas to take away so we could greedily eat pizza on the sofa. Winner! Whilst we were waiting we had a beer, obviously, and they sold cans of Dead Pony Club, an Aberdeenshire favourite of mine. Also a winner.

The following day was my graduation day and I started it right with a coffee from Jaunty Goat. This has to be the most stylish of the stylish coffee places in Chester and I am in love with their logo.

The Jaunty Goat.

There’s not too much to say about graduation. Gyles Brandreth from The One Show is the Chancellor of the University of Chester and did all the handshaking and Joanna Lumley was there receiving an honorary doctorate. Other than that, it was a pretty standard affair. I made dad take me on a photo shoot around Chester, which is about the only time I’ll suffer having my photo taken over and over again! I’m not going to lie, I love prancing around in that gown and the fact the graduation was in Chester with it’s cobbled streets, medieval rows and fancy clock it all felt very ‘Harry Potter’ and I am absolutely down with that. We, my parents and I, had dinner in Hickory’s on the River Dee to celebrate. The food there is so good and I went to town, had a fair few of their frozen margaritas too.

  • Biomedical Science graduate.

Dad was pretty invested in the rugby on our last day in Chester so me and mum left him to it in the Airbnb and went shopping. The shopping bit isn’t so interesting and I actually don’t think we bought anything. We got bored pretty quickly and retreated to another new coffee place called Chalk coffee on Watergate Street. They had doughnuts there and we all know that I fancy myself as a doughnut connoisseur. I’d give them a solid 6/10 on the scale; bit sweet and the dough could have been softer but I’d eat it again! For 10/10 doughnuts you need to go to the doughnut stand under the Eastgate, but unfortunately they were never open when we walked passed. It was tragic!

Chalk Coffee, Watergate Street.

Pretty quickly after Chalk Coffee I was ready for a beer and I was pretty keen to go to Beer Heroes, also on Watergate Street. My supervisor, my colleague and me have a beer swap every Christmas and I wanted to pick something up from Chester for it. My theme this year is to buy a beer from everywhere I travel. I think I’m a little spoiled by the bars in Aberdeen because they’re on another level, but Beer Heroes was definitely creeping up my list of favourite bars towards CASC, 6° North or Brewdog (all in Aberdeen). Essentially, anywhere that has a good saison and is unafraid to sell sours has a vote from me.

…and that was pretty much it. My visit back to Chester and my graduation was done and after an incredibly brief trip back to Hereford I travelled back up North to Scotland. First class, obviously. That’s the only way I travel now!! (I wish)!

Inverness

As much as I love Aberdeen, I decided I needed to get out of it for a weekend. There’s a tonne of places I want to see but it seemed like Inverness would give me loads of options, plus, it’s on my ‘bucket list for the year’ to see Loch Ness. Bit of a cliché I know!

Day One

It’s only one train and 2 hours up to Inverness from Aberdeen so it’s super easy, and armed with my new student railcard, pretty cheap. As soon as I got to Inverness I hunted down the tourist information place, which is in a different place to what the tourist signs suggest and not where google maps say it is! But, I found it and the lady working in there was super helpful in helping me figure out how to do what I wanted to.

I still had a few hours until I could check in to my hotel and I didn’t have a lot of stuff so I jumped straight on a bus to Culloden visitor centre. I didn’t keep my timetable but I seem to remember it was the number 5 from Queensgate, possibly to Croy. I think they’re pretty used to tourists because there was a little sign on the bus stop telling you exactly which bus to get on and as soon as I walked onto the bus the driver knew where I was going. Apparently, I looked like ‘the type’! The bus drops you off right outside the visitor centre though, which is super handy. I’m making a massive assumption here that people know what I’m talking about when I say Culloden! Depending on your definition of ‘battle’, it could easily be considered the site of the last battle fought on British soil and was where the Jacobite uprising came to a very bloody end in 1746. In short, bonnie prince Charlie (who’d never actually been to the UK before) popped over to Scotland to raise an army and reclaim the British throne for his father. It was pretty clever timing because most of the British army were tied up fighting in Europe. Obviously, the British government weren’t super thrilled about this and they put the Duke of Cumberland in charge to put an end to the nonsense! Bonnie prince Charlie did fairly damn well and got as far as Derby before having to turn back around. But he also made a fair few poor decisions which ended with Culloden. After losing, bonnie prince Charlie got to skip off back to Europe where he was hailed as a hero, which is bonkers when you think he left Scotland and the men that fought for him deep in the shit. The government killed as many of his supporters as they could get their hands on, banned things like tartan and really tried to crush the highland life. Apparently he died as a bitter drunk with a wife that hated him which sounds somewhat like karma to me.

The museum is pretty extensive and really well laid out. I learned loads and some of the films and media displays really helped to give an idea of just how desolate the situation was. Going through the museum before visiting the battlefield itself gave an idea of perspective and helped to give life to what could be mistaken as any other field. From the Culloden battlefield you can walk to the Clava cairn which is a bronze age chamber tomb…unfortunately I didn’t have time…but I wished that I had. Maybe next time! Because there will be a next time.

Culloden battlefield, with something pretty in the background. Is it the Black Isle? Is it the Cairngorms? Is it something else? Does it really matter?!

When I got back to Inverness it was time for me to check in to my hotel. Now, the Mercure in Inverness looks absolutely tragic from the outside! I steeled myself with assurances that as long as it was clean it’d be fine, I wasn’t going to spending a tonne of time in it anyway. BUT…as soon as I walked into the foyer I knew I’d been completely wrong. It was really nice! It was super cosy and inviting and the staff were really friendly. I still had some marking to do so I sat in the restaurant and did it there over dinner. I didn’t need to book and I felt really comfortable to just get on with my work. 

Day Two

My first priority on day two was to pick up some doughnuts from Perk for my day trip. A chap had recommended them to me on the first day and boy, was it a good recommendation. I got the two types of vegan doughnuts they had available; the lime glaze and the regular jam filled, sugared doughnut. Best.doughnuts.ever. And trust me, I’m a seasoned doughnut connoisseur! I really hoped that they were a Scottish chain with a shop hidden away in Aberdeen, but alas, no. If you’re in Inverness, even just passing through, get a doughnut!

Seriously, get yourself here. It’s almost definitely worth the 4 hour round train trip from Aberdeen to pick up a load of doughnuts!

The doughnuts were for my day trip to Urquhart. If I’m honest I was more interested in seeing Loch Ness and the castle was just a happy additional extra which I didn’t know about before I started googling the area. Like Culloden, there’s a bus that drops you off right outside the attraction from Inverness. In fact, there are a couple. I just rocked up at the bus station and jumped on one. So, Urquhart castle is beautiful and definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area…here’s the ‘but’…! I got there as soon as it opened so there were only about 10-15 people about when I looked around. This meant that I could take in the atmosphere, read the signs easily and take pictures without people in. I hear that in summer thousands of people visit and the site gets packed. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I think it’s great that people want to engage with history and even more so, that they choose Scotland/UK for their summer holiday but I think it’s something worth preparing yourself for. You’re not going to get that Instagram ready, picturesque shot in mid-summer at Urquhart castle. This is one of the many reasons I like travelling in winter!

In terms of history, I think it was originally a Pictish site before St Columba wafted in and turned everyone Christian back around 560 AD. I’m never quite sure how that worked! Anyway, I think the earliest part of the castle remaining on the site now is from the 13th century when it was all tied up in the Scottish war for independence. It’s now a ruin and it became a ruin way back in 1690 when soldiers blew up the gatehouse after a fight with the Jacobites. Once it was partially blown up and left unprotected it wasn’t long before locals started to pilfer the stone for their own homes.

As an aside, I think it’s also worth mentioning for both Urquhart and Culloden that they’re not cheap places to eat, although to be fair they’re not unreasonable when compared to any other major tourist site. I had lunch in both of them and it was again about what you expect, just fine! Had it been spring or summer I would definitely have taken a picnic.

Urquhart castle was actually quite a lot smaller than I expected so I had quite a bit of time in the afternoon to play with. The first thing I did was walk into Drumnadrochit, which is about a 40 minute easy walk from the castle, to visit the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition. I have mixed feelings about this place! It wasn’t a museum like I expected but a system of several rooms which you’d go into to watch a video about the geology, myths, explorations surrounding the Loch and it’s supposed monster. It was good and I learnt some stuff, but I think in the height of summer you’d easily feel like you were being herded. It felt like any typical UK attraction that is totally magical when you’re a child and then as an adult you feel slightly disappointed by the lack of substance and tired exhibits. I say that with fondness though, these places give me a feeling of familiarity and homeliness that I’m not mad about. They make me think of my parents and family holidays. As a lone adult however, those fuzzy feelings were pretty much the only thing that stopped me feeling sick that I’d spent £8 to get in there. One last thing before I move on and stop moaning, the last rooms you need to pass through are shops. If you had kids, you’d have to run a gauntlet through loch ness monster plushies and cute Scottish themed t-shirts. It’s clever marketing and I don’t blame them but it’s also a pretty disappointing display of commercialism. Nearby there’s an associated café, more associated shops selling tartan paraphernalia and kilts and a place to trace your Scottish history. This is cheesy tourism central!

All your Scottish/Loch Ness dreams come true!

After being bombarded with overt “Scottish” tourism I decided to take a walk in the Drumnadrochit woods up to a viewpoint I saw on the map. It was a nice little walk and there are much longer ones for next time. I was hoping for a red squirrel, but no luck, maybe that’s for next time too. I did see the Loch and a tonne of hooded crows though, I always get excited crossing the crow line! I’d definitely say it’s worth going for a wander if you’ve got time.

Views over the Loch Ness from Drumnadrochit woods, unnecessarily excited to be there!

Back in Inverness my first priority was getting to The Malt Room, an independent bar, for a couple of whiskies. It’s a really dark, cosy, sexy little bar with a million whiskies and cocktails and the staff really know their stuff. I had one of my favourites, a Laphroaig quarter cask (I’m definitely an island girl at heart) and then I tried one of the local whiskies, a 12 year old Tomatin. It was nice, an easy drinker but it was no smokey, peaty Islay! After recollecting my spirit blurred thoughts back in the hotel I went for dinner at Scotch and Rye, another Inverness independent.

The staff in there were super kind and managed to find a place for me. That’s one thing to be said for the people in Inverness, they are really friendly. The atmosphere was really relaxed in there with a real mix of people, I can’t remember exactly what was playing but I do remember enjoying the music in there too. I went armed with my book and my horrendously cheesy postcards (Nessie, a Scottie dog and a ‘true Scotsman’ caught out by the wind) and sat in there for quite a while. I had a chicken and haggis burger… I genuinely like haggis, I promise I wasn’t trying to be authentic! Then, for dessert, I had two variations on white Russians, and they were so, so yummy. They had quite an expansive cocktail list and if I wasn’t so full and if I earned more money then I think I definitely would have kept going.

Scotch and Rye.

Day Three

I had my train back to Aberdeen booked for the afternoon so I had all day to do something fun. I decided to walk out along the Caledonian way and see how far I got. I wandered up along the river Ness and over the Ness islands which are incredibly pretty. It reminded me a little of areas along the River Don in Aberdeen, especially near Seaton park. For both places it really doesn’t feel like you’re still inside the city.

After Ness islands, I was ready for a little brunch and luckily Inverness botanical gardens and their little café was open. I had a pot of tea and a toasted sandwich that was way better than the more expensive fair that I’d had at Culloden or Urquhart. I didn’t plan to spend long at the gardens because I wanted to be on my way along the Caledonian path but I did whip around. It was bigger than I expected and beautifully laid out, it also had one of the prettiest cactus and succulent houses I think I’ve ever seen.

Cactus house at the Inverness botanical gardens.

Back on the Caledonian way there was a rowing event taking place on the canal. Despite being mid-February, it was unseasonably warm and there were loads of people out walking, cycling and watching the race. The whole path up to Dochgarroch locks was easy to follow, felt safe and was really quite pretty. It didn’t feel particularly wild or remote, but it was definitely the perfect way to get out of the city. I wanted to keep going and see what lay beyond the locks but I needed to get back for my train and I wanted to try the Black Isle bar before I left.

Dochgarroch Locks.

The Black Isle bar was another place I wish I’d been able to stay a little longer. They sell a great range of craft ales, most of which are made by Black Isle brewery…obviously! They look like they do incredible pizzas too but I was in the mood for Cullen skink. The super warm and sunny day turned around pretty quickly on my way back and started raining as soon as I got back into town, so a warm and hearty soup was perfect. It was just what I needed and alongside the Black Isle ‘23 Trees’, citrus saison, it was a perfect end to a weekend in Inverness. I will definitely be back…and I’ll definitely be getting my hands on more Black Isle beers when I can.

Mmmm, Black Isle saison.