The evening was perfect from beginning to end. The host is an amazing guy who is utterly charming. There were some six or seven tables outside, but as more people came along he just added more tables across the street and up the street, too. Couldn’t extend down the street owing to another restaurant in that direction, rather devoid of customers.

Wendy had Avocado with Madeira wine as a starter which arrived with a wee pool of Madeira in the space vacated by the stone. There was a tiny, beautifully arranged salad on the plate too. My starter was melon with ham which was also good, but did not have quite the visual impact of Wendy’s.

We both decided to go for the traditional Madeiran skewers for main course. Wendy’s was chicken and pineapple and mine mixed meats which included beef, chicken and pork. Firstly a contraption is attached to the side of the table so that these huge skewers can hang from it allowing you to take your meat (or fish if a fish version) as required. Very impressive.

I was a bit concerned about the beef as it seemed a bit tough when cutting into it, but once it was cut it just melted in the mouth. As good as a Highland fillet steak any day. The whole came with salad and French fries.

To be honest, after the main course I was stuffed, but old hollow-legs opposite me then took on crepe with fruits of the forest and ice cream while I sat and watched drinking a rather nice Lello wine.

We began talking to the couple alongside who had been coming to Madeira since they bought a time-share in the eighties. They’d never eaten in this restaurant before and were much impressed. On the other side was a farmer and his wife from near Nottingham.

So great company, great food, great banter from the host, lovely location. Perfect evening. Will be back before the vacation ends.

When the flight was called we had to go through security. All passengers seemed to be shady characters as they were all forced to remove their shoes, belts, empty their pockets into a tray, remove their laptops from their bags and then walk through the metal detector.

While trying to hold trousers up I was then thoroughly frisked in case I had explosives in my underpants or hidden under my socks (that’s a new one) and finally allowed to collect my belongings.

It really is ridiculous that there is no profiling. Let’s face it, the bulk of suicide bombers travelled on their own, have been of middle eastern extraction or, as in the case of the infamous moronic shoe-bomber, looked bloody weird. So why are ordinary families and couples subjected to this ridiculous search. Is it that they don’t want to be accused of victimisation? How crazy! Profile the people, look for the ones who might be of concern and, yes, if necessary, stop and search everyone from the middle east. It is not the fault of the entire rest of the world that it is people from those parts of the world that normally carry out these bomb attempts. Let them be inconvenienced for what people from those regions have done. Don’t penalise the entire population of the world who has a need to fly in order to remain racially neutral. It does not make sense. Dare say I’ll now get a knock on the door and be arrested for inciting racial prejudice! However, this is not that and is clearly different. Flying has been turned from a pleasure into a pain by these attempts to blow people out of the skies. Perhaps they have won? They have so inconvenienced us that they consider that a victory. Now please excuse me while I take my 20ml Optimist spray out of its little plastic bag and return it to my carry bag! Madness.

I have trouble bending to put shoes on at the best of times, but airports have nothing to assist, no chairs, stools or other areas where you can lift your foot to tie laces etc. I managed to get  my belt back on without resorting to removing my trousers to thread it through the tight loops at the back and, joined by Wendy we went into a crowded waiting area.

EasyJet have again changed their boarding procedures and they now have children and infirm first, speedy boarders (extra charge) second and then absolutely everyone else in a total free-for-all charge for the best seats.

Why do they do this? In the past, when you checked in they gave you a boarding sequence – A, B, C etc. depending upon when you checked in. That worked quite well and at least it prevented the latecomers from barging their ways to the front by sheer brute force. Now everyone is at it. This is quite obviously a cynical attempt by EasyJet to coerce people into paying the extra for “speedy boarding”. When they have achieved this with a large number of flyers, what is the betting they’ll add a new higher charge for “Executive Boarders” and then “Superior Boarders” etc. What a con?

We got to Gatwick in normal time to be greeted by the most awful rain. All would have been well after that, except that we had made the insane decision to choose Travelodge for our overnight accommodation.

If you have read my review on Trip Advisor then there is no need to read the following duplicate report unless you enjoy laughing at others’ misfortune! 188 of 496 reviews of this place were one star “terrible”, a further 89 were two star “poor”. More than half the reviews are therefore bad. Here is mine:

I started off to write a review criticising the room, but I soon realised that it is not the room’s fault. The room has four walls, window, bed, cupboard, TV, shower and usual facilities. It was quite happy being a room. If you are going to exist as a room, the tip corner of a Travelodge is probably not a bad location to spend its time on earth. There is nothing wrong with the room, but there is everything wrong with the management of this hotel and, thereby the whole business.

We walked into our room after a long flight and found it roasting hot. The windows are sealed and cannot be opened. I turned the air conditioning thermostat to 10C which was the lowest it would go. After an hour there was no noticeable change to the temperature. It was still blowing air at about 25C out of its blower.

In the bathroom the toilet seat was coming adrift. The wash hand basin was cracked. The shower curtain was mouldy. The grouting in the shower was brown with dirt. The corners of the bathroom had never been cleaned. The plug for the sink was undersized and did not keep water in the sink for more than a few seconds.

So, what is going on here?

When we went down for some food I complained to a nice young man on reception and I asked why the cleaners don’t report these faults to the management. What he said was that they are a separate company and no one talks to anyone else. Well judging by one of the staff we met in a landing, very few of the cleaning staff speak English.so it is unlikely that they would be able to report back nor understand any training provided. Obviously no training had ever been given to the people who cleaned room 354 for many months.

It all comes down to the manager. One Kellie MacDonald apparently. It is the manager who is responsible for making sure the problems we encountered are dealt with. It is the meaning of the verb “to manage”. How simple it would be to call the staff together and start a new regime. Any loose toilet seat found should be reported. Then the room closed until a work order can be given to maintenance to fix it. The same with the cracked wash basin and the filthy grouting and shower curtain. NO ONE ELSE IS TO BLAME BUT THE MANAGER AND HER SUPERIORS IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND. While putting this right the manager should visit each room with the cleaning contractors, point out how they miss the corners in the bathrooms and when shower curtains need replacing.

This place really was the pits and any manager staying in our room for more than ten minutes would have also spotted the awful air conditioning.

I fear that this company is on a downward spiral to oblivion if they don’t wake up and take some action now.

I can’t finish without mentioning the meal. Wendy’s battered fish appeared to have been cooked in blue-circle batter! The fish was wet and soggy, the batter like concrete. When we mentioned this to the very pleasant restaurant supervisor he came back a short while later and offered us free tea and coffee in compensation, but we turned it down as we didn’t want any.

Then I remembered we were going to buy some bottled water and when he came back to the table with our ice cream, I said we’d like to take up his offer, but a bottle of still water instead of two coffees. No, he couldn’t do that because he had no authority to take bar stock.

HOW INSANE. Talk about failing to empower the managers! Well Travelodge, I intend to get the cost of that fish and chips back from you and that will cost you more than the 20p for which you pay for a small bottle of water.

Get real Travelodge – and visitors – avoid it like the plague! As a British citizen I am embarrassed for the way guests are being handled by this company.

By the way, we’d got a special deal because we booked six months in advance, but someone else in the lobby was also complaining and they had paid £130. Unbelievable!

However, after this night, what did we have to look forward to? Oh no, another EasyJet experience to Funchal, Madeira!

However, I now see that he and his friends and manager are claiming that God stepped in to save his life. The supreme nonentity who, according to their beliefs, created the entire universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, happened to be watching Tottenham v Bolton on 16th March 2012 in North London. How wonderful that he performed his miracle to save Muamba’s life!

Now, what about Venkatesh who died during warm up at a game in India the previous day? Did God abandon him because he was not Christian? Was he making a point? “I’ll show them, I’ll let him die and save a Christian in a Spurs game at a Jewish club tomorrow!”

Then just eight days ago Piermario Morosini dies on the pitch while playing for Livorno in Italy. Mind you, he was a Catholic.

What is going through the minds of these people who claim God saved them? Do they not realise that the only people who claim that God saved them are people who are still alive?

Everyone who dies was not saved by God, whether it be people in the planes during 9/11 or caught  in the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the earthquake in the Caribbean, the car crash on the A96, the baby in Ethiopia, the drowning hundreds on the Titanic. Why were their prayers unanswered? Don’t give me that guff that God needed them so took them for himself.

Are we supposed to think that God chose to save those in the lifeboats, high ground, in earthquake proof buildings etc.? Anyone who believes such crap really needs their brain testing!

Why would God rescue Muamba, but not Morosini or Venkatesh? Is this a loving all-powerful God? How can born-again bigots believe that a loving God would commit to everlasting damnation a Jewish, Islamic, Hindu or atheist individual just because they don’t accept that Jesus was his son? Get real. Can they not see how ridiculous that is? Even the flat Earth society have better theories.

Little by little, all the religious dogmas are gradually being shown to be wrong. Earth being the centre of the universe being one of the first. People had to die at the hand of so-called pious church leaders to get these idiotic beliefs overturned.

The other day someone told me that because the scientists can’t find enough dark matter around the sun (which shows how an unimportant Radio 4 news item distorts everything) it means scientists are probably wrong about everything. Scientists haven’t not found dark matter, they just have not found it locally and it does not mean they must be wrong about everything else.

One of my sisters believed that the world was only 5,000 years old and that all the fossils were put in the ground to make life interesting for us. She was an intelligent, clever woman, yet went to the eternity of nothingness believing such absolute nonsense.

There is no God, never was a God and hopefully, although we like to play God occasionally, we will never be Gods either. Once the whole world realises this then there might be some chance of peace.

One final note. Going to heaven after I die would be my idea of hell. No challenges, no competition, nothing to do except to be forced to praise a nonentity who, if he did exist, had made a dreadful mess of everything he ever touched! Hell indeed!

Oh, yes, and no beer either!

When you work hard to improve business in the area by taking voluntary posts with organisations like the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce and Destination Loch Ness, it really makes you feel good when you see that hard work being supported by thoughtful help from local government.

So, having spent money and a great deal of time refurbishing the Information Board (above) in the main village car park it is so good to see it being augmented by the Highland Council.

As you arrive in the village and see our nice looking information board, the attractive Visitor Information Centre and the lovely planted verges, what brand new sign do you see as you turn in? Well here it is – what do you think? Do you think the “NO” is big enough? Is it RED enough?

We all know that fly tipping in lovely areas needs to be stopped (USA & Canadian readers need to know that this does not mean giving gratuities if you find a fly in your soup). We had a problem with people dumping rubbish beside the recycling bins in this car park and our local councillor, Margaret Davidson,  with Pat Veitch, has managed to get an improved regime in place beside the bins. No doubt she also asked for a sign and there is one now by the recycling bins. It seems some helpful person thought it would be a good idea to put a warning sign at the entrance to the car park, too. Thoughtless overkill.

Tourism is the most important industry in the Highlands of Scotland, but people not in that industry don’t seem to think about how their actions can hurt the industry. Here we have a typical situation where an absolutely thoughtless action has been taken by someone who has not thought, even for a moment, of the impression such a sign gives to our visitors. Especially the giant word “NO“.

Perhaps it is time for courses for council staff on what tourists expect in regions like ours. How would they like it if they were entering a car park in Spain and the main sign they saw was a Spanish version of this sign? Bad first impressions are very difficult to correct.

It happens all the time. “NO OVERNIGHT PARKING” is another example found in laybys. Surely something more positive like “CAMPER VANS – NEXT SITE – 5 MILES” instead should not be beyond the wit of these people.

For sure Margaret will get this sign removed, but why was it put up in the first place? Thoughtlessness by someone! I wonder who this genius was and what position he/she holds?

Suddenly filling stations were running out of fuel and people who were genuinely running low found they couldn’t get any fuel. How downright irresponsible of the prime minister.

When you consider that fuel is currently almost £7 per gallon (US$11) what a great suggestion to buy as much as you can at the highest price. Who benefits? The tax man.

Then Francis Maude suggests we should keep fuel in jerry cans and keep them in our sheds. I don’t even keep my mower and strimmer fuel in the shed. It is asking for disaster. If petrol fumes escape the container they form an explosive gas. Create a spark in your shed and it could attempt to go into orbit, taking you with it!

How could this moron make such an idiotic suggestion? There have already been cases of people trying to fill paint cans and jam jars at filling stations. You can be certain that while government ministers can be stupid, the general public can be downright insane. One woman, while pouring petrol from container to container in her kitchen, caught light and now has multiple burns. Francis Maude should offer his resignation.

The trouble is that if you are a millionaire Tory, you have probably never been in a shed in your life and the chance of you ever keeping the mower fuel topped up is low. These people employ staff to look after such things and this might mitigate Maude’s stupidity to a tiny degree.

I can’t believe the stupidity of people in positions of authority. Just look at the ex-treasurer of the Tory party who got caught in a scam by a newspaper team. He was lying through his teeth about what you would get as a donor to the Tory party. Frankly, if people are stupid enough to give vast sums to the Tories, perhaps they deserve scamming.

However, with the dropping of 5% from the top rate of tax, we now find that captains of industry are tens of thousands better off each and every year. Yet more money to give their benefactors and, should we be wondering if some of those donors have influenced the reduction in that tax?

Independence for Scotland can’t come quickly enough.

In my day the teachers would have picked up on it every time it happened. Today we have so many people in the country who don’t actually know that it should be “should have” not “should of” that you hear it more and more in adverts and in the media.

It is extremely noticeable among footballers when they are being interviewed. They decide to speak slightly posher than normal so instead of saying “should’ve” which they think is short for “should of” they pronounce the “of” even more clearly making it sound even more stupid. Why was this not jumped on from a great height when they were at school?

But we mustn’t stop there. We can get upset with people, we can get annoyed with gadgets, we can get bored with our phones. Yesterday I saw a TV advertisement which asked, “Are you bored of your phone?”. Good grief where did that come from? Again teachers should be correcting it and correcting it over and over again. Get them to write lines, like we used to have to do. “I must not say could of when it should be could have”. Writing that a few hundred times would  commit it to memory.

I was in a meeting the other day where one of those present kept using bad grammar regarding “less” and “fewer”.  It was so obviously wrong it made me cringe every time I heard it. “There are less cars in the car park”; “There are less tourists on the roads”; “They are buying less items”. All of these, of course, should use the word “fewer” not “less”. You only have to say it out loud to hear that it is wrong. And, if it doesn’t sound wrong to you then you were not properly educated. Interestingly one of the others present made similar statements, but using fewer correctly. Did the other person notice? No, but you can bet your life that the person speaking properly noticed, because it grates on the ears.

You can have less money, you can have less insurance, you can have less petrol, less in your glass, less food, less time and less information. They are all collective nouns so take less. You CANNOT have less coins, less items, less cards, less bottles as they are all plurals so you must say fewer coins, fewer items, fewer cards, fewer bottles etc. There are fewer cars in the car park. There are fewer tourists on the roads. They are buying fewer items.

If you don’t understand it, keep saying the above until it becomes obvious.

Of course, it does not help when a huge company like Tesco and a similarly sized company like Marks and Spencer get it wrong on official signs. How often have you seen “TEN ITEMS OR LESS” in a supermarket.

That really is unforgivable because there must be several people in the management teams at these companies who know it is wrong. The sign should say “TEN ITEMS OR FEWER”. Why won’t they put it right?

OK some grammatical rules are more difficult than others, but the rules I’ve mentioned above are easy to teach and easy to learn. Why aren’t people using the correct versions? The answer is that they have not been properly taught and that falls fairly and squarely on their teachers and school inspectors. If every mistake incurred a punishment it would soon sink in – whoops, I should of used the Jedi version “soon sink in, it would”!

I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with. I must not end a sentence a preposition with.
I must not end a sentence a preposition with.

Now how about that Barclays banker with his £5,000,000 bonus. If I calculate it correctly he will be £250,000 better off each year and every year.

Does that sound reasonable to anyone except a Tory chancellor?

Still it will boost the economy as he might buy a £120,000 car instead of a £90.000 car. He could get a holiday cottage in the country with his tax savings over the next two  years. Yes, I can see the logic in that.

My God, the sooner we break away from that shower of shysters in the south, the better!

When people book with us they can be sure that we will plan and execute our tours with utmost professionalism and the knowledge of our guides is second to none.

However, tour operators also rely on the professionalism of their partners. We expect Jacobite Cruises to provide a great cruise, and they do; we expect Urquhart Castle to be clean and tidy, and it is; we expect Drumnadrochit to provide cash machines and shops, and it does; we expect Corrimony to amaze our visitors and it does that, too.

So, with two prestigious groups we then headed off towards Glen Affric. We believed our groups wanted sandwiches on the hoof, but when we got to Corrimony they changed their minds and wanted a sit down meal. We are not talking a coach party here, we are talking one group of five and one group of four. Seven prize winning scholarship students and two professors.

No problem, we thought.

We arrived in Cannich and turned into the Bog Cotton Cafe which, as it happened, this group used two years ago. The food was great on that occasion. Unfortunately, although they had been opened in the winter in the past, on this occasion they were closed for the winter. Is a Saturday after the middle of March still winter?

So, next stop was the Slaters’ Arms where I had once stopped for tea with the ex Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe,  and his party. Fine on that occasion, but on Saturday 17th March they were as good as closed. When asked to provide lunch at lunch time for a group of four and a group of five they said we should have booked in advance and summarily turned us away.

Now I was starting to get worried. My co-guide, John, suggested we try the Glen Affric, but many years ago this had been a not very salubrious establishment. However, we turned in and I was pleasantly surprised to see a refurbished, bright, welcoming entrance area which proclaimed, as did the Slaters’ Arms, that we could get food. Co-guide John went inside and asked the barman, with some trepidation, if he could help us.

Turning up in the middle of the Scottish rugby did not bode well, especially as we were losing to the Italians. But, we were met with a beaming smile and within minutes he had extra staff on hand and orders were being placed. What a difference to the Slaters’ Arms. This was a real Highland welcome.

The clients loved the home-made soup, pudding, lasagne and curry. Brilliant and the tea was good, too. Excellent all round and you can guess where clients will be taken if they want a sit down meal on a Glen Affric tour in future.

So now, later than normal, we headed into Glen Affric itself. Normally we stop by the suspension bridge just before Dog Falls, let the clients off, and then meet up with them again at the Dog Falls car park after their short walk. Because we were late, we decided to skip Dog Falls and go straight on to the River Walk car park at the end of the glen.

Imagine my horror when we got to the Chisholm Bridge (see image) and found a sign which said “ROAD AHEAD CLOSED”.

There had been no previous warning that the end of the glen was not accessible. What sort of people let you drive, what, six or eight miles of single-track roads without warning you the road would be closed at a particular point along the way? So thoughtless and uncaring.

Did this mean at the bridge or further on. Then I saw that the bridge was full of potholes which, in turn, were full of water so there was no way of knowing how deep they were.

After checking that the potholes were no deeper than about five or six inches we gingerly crossed the bridge and continued, avoiding an increasing number of potholes, all the way to the River Walk car park.

At the car park we saw around a dozen other vehicles which had also taken the risk and a lot of heavy plant. These machines could have dealt with these potholes in no time at all and I now suspect that the Forestry Commission had deliberately decided not to repair the road until these vehicles had gone.

This was my first tour to the end of Glen Affric this year so, while our clients were enjoying their riverside walk, I looked around to see what all this plant had been doing.

There was a huge metal parking charge machine and sign telling us how the money we put in it would help maintain the glen! There was a new interpretation board surrounded by a beautifully constructed low stone wall. The car park had been extended and resurfaced. The River Walk paths had been improved and laid out to follow a slightly different path. There were new toilets which should remain pristine as they were locked!

So, the Forestry Commission, in their ultimate wisdom had done everything except repair the access road and bridge. What a bunch of Wallies? (Apologies to my friend Wally.)

Surely the absolute number one priority is to keep the access open. Everything else – parking area, paths, signboards and definitely parking charge machines are secondary. Someone in Forestry is not living in the real world. I could not believe what I was seeing.

However, I suppose it follows their usual ineptitude. The toilets they commissioned last year were provided by an English company who then went bust meaning that local firms had to come in and rescue the situation. Why weren’t local businesses used in the first place? Too obvious, no doubt.

The previous year, 2010, they demolished all of the interpretation boards without any plan for when they might be reinstated. Well, now we know, two YEARS later.

When is this bunch of civil servants going to appreciate that they are in partnership with professional outfits like us? They are letting us down, the Highlands down and the people of Scotland down.

Disgraceful and unforgivable.

GLEN AFFRIC – CLOSED FOR BUSINESS – SORRY!

Everyone is capable of a mistake. It just has much more serious consequences if the error is by a bus driver, pilot, truck driver etc. If a shelf stacker or ticket seller makes a mistake it can just be shrugged off. How many of our bank managers have made mistakes?

However, when I see all the religious purveyors jumping on the bandwagon it really does annoy. These people are thanking God for their kids’ lives. As if any God could have had any hand in such a disaster. If there was a God he had a duty to stop it. I know, I know, “He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.” This is no less than a sop to grieving families. There was no grand scheme it what happened in that tunnel as there is no grand scheme in the creation of the Earth.

God is the crutch for the insecure. Does anyone seriously believe that those candles achieve anything. What are they for? They are an encouraged activity by bishops and clergy to try to make people feel better.It looks effective. It looks religious. It looks as if it means something.

Perhaps that is enough. Perhaps the crutch is what people want? But while there are so many nutters believing in an all powerful nonentity there will never be peace in this world. Look at the hatred we see all around us at the moment. One religious faction fighting another, whether it be Shia and Suni, Muslim and Christian, Jew and Islam. It is all so much nonsense. It perpetuates hatred and distrust.

I am amazed and a little frightened by the leaders of the western world who claim to believe in God. Perhaps their only excuse is that they view their own incredible power and success as being God’s will. Now isn’t that thought frightening?

The pro campaign seem incapable of thinking like low earners and pensioners.

We like good wine. In times gone by it was not unusual to find some of the finest clarets, champagnes and Chablis in our collection.

With our nineties’ business failure and my stroke I have become a lower earner and we have had to cut our cloth to suit. Today I regularly buy £3.49 and £3.99 wines in Lidl and for normal uses these are fine. If we have visitors or are going to a dinner we usually buy better quality. The days of La Fite and Dom Perignon are long gone.

The average bottle of wine I buy has ten units of alcohol and the new pricing regime will mean that the bottle will no longer cost £3.49 to £3.99, but will in future cost a minimum of £5.

Effectively, in order to stop binge drinkers getting their hands on over-strength ciders and beers I am going to pay up to £1.50 extra tax on each bottle of wine I buy.

Why should I be penalised. On the basis that I drink probably two to three bottles per week, I am having to pay £4.50 per week on this insane tax. That comes to over £200 per year. That is more than five weeks of my working tax credits gone back to the government. Did they really want to penalise people like me?

This extra tax applies to everyone who buys the bottom priced wines.

The most annoying thing is that the pro camp refuse to accept how many people will be affected. They just lump us in with moderate drinkers who they seem to think all pay £5 to £8 per bottle. WAKE UP MORONS – I cannot afford those sort of prices for my glass or two of wine with my evening meal.

Why the anti camp cannot push this point more determinedly is even more disappointing.

This is not the right way to deal with the binge drinking situation.

There must be a better way.