Circus, Circus

Mushrooms and eggs accompanied by a croissant again for me this morning.  This may be my new guilty breakfast pleasure! 

We have been traveling in the mountains. Called “Ben” or “Munro” here depending on the height.  A Munro is above 3000 ft and named after the bloke (Sir Hugh Munro) who catalogued them in 1891.

We are on a single lane road much of the time,  which requires much patience and politeness.  

We had a very quick stop for a selfie at this cute phone booth,  Claire and I cheated and took each others photo. 

We stopped for a coffee and the Whistle Stop Cafe in Torridon, Claire and I shared a

Bakewell Cake raspberry filling with yellow cake and a light lemon icing.  

The scenery was lively and today the sun is shining!    

Inverewe gardens were lovely.  I saw many plant I had not seen before.  Others planted in such a way that made my heart sing

and yet others that gave me ideas for planting next year.  

There were California redwoods that are about 100 years old!

We made a couple of other photo op stops and finally ended up with a back of the hotel view and a shower that does not work at the Gairloch Hotel,  this hotel has been an absolutely nightmare. We arrived and were told that there were not 2 keys to the room. We then were efficiently checked in, my traveling companion got undressed and tried to take a shower, and we could not get the shower to work, so my friend ( Claire) had to hid in the corner while I got the manager who said she would be up in a minute, we waited quite a while and finally the manager showed up, and said it would be a bit before the maintenance man could have a look at it because he was dressed in traditional Scottish garb and was busy with that. SO finally my friend took a sink bath and got dressed. We went down So Claire asked for another room and the room we were put in was horrid, tiny, dark, and one bed did not ok like it was going to be comfortable for anyone. SO we went back to the desk and the lady at the desk and she said our options were to stay in the room with no shower (by now I had voided in the toilet while waiting) and a toilet would not work, Keep the unacceptable room, or move to a different hotel and she would take us there and leave us. OR we could share a bed. So we tried to call Stephen and he did not answer the number he gave us day one. SO we went back to the desk to say we would share a bed if necessary and there was a different person who gave us a key to another room and off we went to see this room and we walked in on another couple who was in bed. ( So I am sure they are thrilled). At last we were given another key. Now we are both a wreck and have lost our free afternoon. AND not looking forward to dinner due to the embarrassment at walking on another couple on this trip. Honestly I have not been on a trip like this since I was a teenager, I have never wanted to be treated like that again and my friend Claire talked me in to trying this as I wanted to come but was afraid to drive here. She had traveled with you in the past and said CIE was a great company. I don't care to be treated like an adolescent, nor do I care for the the management of some aspects of the tour, for example yesterday in Portree we were tile to make lunch a priority. This could have been a lovely place to visit, but finding food was as bad as a bunch of women at a panty sale as every where we went we were told no room, and finally we ended up eating bad Chinese. That is just an example. I pray the rest of the trip goes well, but based on my experience so far I am not hopeful.