Post John o'Groats

John o'Groats is a very distant memory but no less a treasured one for that.

Principally for my own purposes, I'll record a little of what has happened since. I've failed miserably in my intent to keep a blog reasonably up to date and all I've done in the interim is attach pics to the LEJOG blog entries which I was not able to do at the time.

I took the ferry the next morning as planned to Orkney. Almost missed it while taking this pic. They were lifting the ramp as I ambled round the bay from where this was taken.  When I expressed dismay that there was still 5 minutes to go before departure, I didn't get a helpful response.  Very lucky.

Pedalled then to Kirkwall from St Margarets Hope via Churchill Barriers and had a day and half there recuperating before getting ferry overnight from Kirkwall to Aberdeen. Bus with bike and all gear to Braemar and had a very peaceful 2 days there catching up on a mass of admin matters.  A couple of nights then kind courtesy of Keith and Fiona, followed by 2 delightful weeks at the Beach House, North Berwick. First Jane and Johannes joined us for a few days and then the Ryans. Very special.

  A week then in Braemar , again catching up and dealing with all the preliminaries of getting Morrone on the market next May.  A good afternoon with the Colemans and another day and night with  a lovely visit from Keith and Fiona and a walk in Glen Quoich.


Also a delightful 2 night visit from Greg and Di. Mary and Greg set up a long overdue violin duet session with George briefly lending a discordant note on the oboe to balance things. A study in concentration.

A couple of days in London with Harry and a fabulous evening at Covent Garden for a stunning performance of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore.
Back then to Snowmass and to work for us both a week later on Thanksgiving Day.  A slowish start to the season with very poor snow conditions in November and first half of December. A good couple of dumps around Christmas rescued the early season and it's been good , but not spectacular , since.

Early season included a lot of days skinning up the mountain - one day with Sarah Jewett - and skiing down runs before lifts serving them had been opened . A lot of fun and some good snow.

Duncan was with us for 5 days ( Katy delayed in Australia with visa problems - now resolved ) and we had a blast.  Paul , through Mary,  recruited him to the tenor section of the Snowmass Choir for an ambitious Christmas eve performance in the Chapel - Utube has it for those interested - and it was very , very good. Followed next day by a powder day extraordinaire .  Duncan on tele's and no problem ! We threw a Christmas night dinner party with turkey and all the trimmings - the 3 of us , Gracie, Dick from next door and Beige from across the road. No pics unfortunately.

On now to beginning of Jan and another season well under way.  Bus driving going well . 4 days and 4 different routes breaking such monotony as there is. Mostly I enjoy it enormously and meet a lot of people. Just driving round the village in a state of the art bus among this spectacular scenery all day long is a thrill in itself. And always good music - to keep the passengers happy of course ! But it's been busy particularly with huge numbers of college kids from northern states.   M also doing 4 days a week for Ski Co - all outside and it's been very cold , and again v busy for her. She's reveling in it though, albeit comes back tired at night after spending up to 9 hours on her feet. Our 3 days off each week are  special. How lucky we are to be an integral part of one of the great ski areas of the world. A real privilege.


Today,  Monday,  for instance ,

we hiked, very early,  on skins up to Gwyns for breakfast , skied back down, drove into Aspen where Mary had a violin lesson from Heidi  and I got a car tire fixed, back to Meadow Ranch , played some music together while Dadou cooks ( he's a chef as well ! ) a delicious meal for Mary me and Alex our new downstairs tenant. A Slovakian boarding instructor.  Dadou is only here for a couple of weeks from Taos with private lessons fixed up for each day with Australian clients of his who will ski with no-one else ! We're  hoping he'll manage to fit us in one of the days he's here ! He's a legend.

Tragedy last Sunday with Patsy - ski patrol - a regular on my bus, and in Mary's yoga class - killed in a an avalanche on the Hanging Valley Wall. A memorial service , attended by about 800 people, after dark at Elk Camp restauraunt at top of gondola. 50 or so ski patrol skiing down afterwards with red flares portraying PATSY on the slope beneath the gondola. Very impressive.





Today Tues Jan 8 , another good hike up to summit of Highland Bowl with Peter.  Two weeks since snow and the descent was tricky - for us anyway. But a fun day.