Two or three times a year I fraternise with my two brothers at a good food venue, usually combined with an overnight stay.
Last Friday we changed the routine by renting The Lodge at Ardmaddy Castle south of Oban for three nights. The incentive was provided by Younger Brother, requesting help to reduce his stockpile of good wines.
We each enjoy contrasting interests: Older Brother writes and pontificates, Younger Brother sails, and I embrace the outdoors.
We agreed to visit Loch Melfort Hotel for lunch because it had been recommended, and also to explore the inviting windy, single- track road on the north shore of Loch Melfort. After five miles or so the tarmac surface terminates and continues as a “white” road shown on the OS map now running north for three miles over a high pass and traversing contour lines predicting challenging ascents and descents, and emerges within a hundred yards of our rented cottage – that three miles contrasts with the fifteen miles or so return journey by our incoming journey on normal roads.
The off-road facility of my new 4WD Skoda Yeti had not yet been tested. I was excited at the prospect of attempting to “take the high road”, but also concerned by the thought of sustaining damage. From experience I know “white” roads on the OS map can be impassable for vehicles.
Older Brother has always had the capacity to provoke others into risky ventures whilst personally remaining in the background. I was easily manipulated into taking up the challenge.
Perhaps at sometime we three may mature, but for the moment it seems our original agenda of gastronomy and the bonne bouteille may become secondary to more adventurous pursuits?
Older Brother and Younger Brother - the last of tarmac in background.
Yeti in its element.
Well, I thought this post deserved a comment, so I waited. And now I'm having to do the dirty. There are two meanings for pontificate and I'm assuming you were applying the second: "To officiate at a pontifical mass." Too true. And I expect to be quite busy this weekend serving as an acolyte to the guy who makes me laugh when he speaks in English and comes up with something in the "Ve haff vays of making you talk." bracket. Just in case you meant the primary reason I have to say that those who leave tempting holes in conversations deserve to have them filled with whatever comes next up the pike.
ReplyDeleteBB No - I didn’t mean to infer that you are some kind of Roman Catholic Nazi. I reckon that the most widely used meaning of the word is the one that applies. My thesaurus gives the following: declaim, dogmatize, expound, hold forth, lay down the law, pontify, preach, pronounce, and sound off. I suppose, to avoid confusion, I might have selected one of those instead.
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"...up the pike"?
to return to the main theme - how did the yeti cope - how big were the steps it had to jump? i assume it swallowed them whole, as its namesakes do to the foolhardy who wander off the tourist trails of the high himalia
ReplyDeleteand did you manage much a drop in the level of the lake?
we are all agog!
(maybe he meant spike but what's an ess between friends - to say nowt about brethren! it'd be hard to make a pike vomit, I suspect, not being a fisherman!
Gimmer. The Yeti did not have to work hard, except for steep ascents and descents. Our route proved to be a well founded Land Rover track, but the excitement came from not knowing this beforehand, and in taking the risk.
ReplyDeleteThe lake was reduced, supported by the fact that we opted to take the empties to the bottle bank rather than endure the embarrassment of letting the cottage owners count - I am not prepared to quantify, but confirm that quality was not disappointing.
"comes up the pike" or "down the pike" is US for "happens". Pike is merely turnpike abbreviated. in French Ce qui arrive or Ce que se passe.
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