Goodbye Lochinver.

---

I know its been a long time since my last blog entry but there is a good reason why. Well mostly because it was pretty uneventful. The other main reason is that Ive pretty much had absolutely no internet access. Im now back to civilisation and where I have time on my hands to try and recap.

Ive now finished work and left Lochinver well over a week ago, and looking back its been a pretty good memory and the last month or so had turned out to be quite a lot of fun. The end of the season was coming up and the hotel had become a lot less busy, so everyone had pretty much just relaxed at work and pretty much just fucked around. It became pretty enjoyable to work which was good because by this stage Id pretty much exhausted the things to do and see in the area and didnt really get up to much outside of work. I pretty much turned to watching movies or tv shows (thanks to Simon, Jimmy and myself for downloading at work) or kicking Simons ass at Fifa11. Id also been doing a fair bit of cooking as well. I finally got sick of eating average food from work and decided to start spending a bit of hard earned on some luxuries. Earlier on when I got here and after having a few drinks with John and Simon, I mentioned cooking up a stir fry but being annoyed at not having anything to cook a stir fry with. Simon mentioned how we had a wok hiding in one of the sheds at work so we went out and borrowed (permanently) the wok. Since then though Ive been cooking curries, bolognese and carbonara, rib eye steaks with a creamy garlic mushroom sauce. I also did something I never thought Id ever do spending 85 pounds ($140Au) at a restaurant! To be fair though it wasnt just an average restaurant, it was a Michelin star rated restaurant called The Albannach. And to be honest it was worth every cent. The food was magnificent and the restaurant itself was very charming. It was a six course affair including Cullen Skink, Guinea Fowl, Red Pepper Soufflé, Grilled Tarbot, Tart Tatain and a plate of cheese. It was also at this restaurant that I have realised why I think wine tastes like shit. It turns out I have expensive tastes, and pretty much the cheap stuff just doesnt cut it. So I will officially retract my statement that wine tastes like shit, and replace it with most wine tastes like shit. So I guess I still wont be drinking wine anyway. I have managed to become even fonder of whiskeys though, and now have a list of whiskeys to work through (thanks to Jen, for stealing a whiskey menu when we were in Inverness). My whiskey appreciation has reached a higher level which is going to be a massive problem when I get back to Australia. I know how much the stuff Im drinking here costs back home and it definitely is not cheap stuff! Seems like a good excuse to drink shit loads of the stuff here. I was also pretty lucky to have also been able to witness the Northern Lights while I was around. Jen and I decided to go star gazing one night with a few beers in hand and a lot of warm clothes and blankets. It wasnt the full Northern Lights experience, well it was really a faint glow on the horizon but you could see the green lights and watched as they changed patterns.

Looking back though it was a good start to working in the UK. Even though wages were pretty much the minimum, I did get a lot of food and had my accommodation provided. And having not much to spend my money on I managed to accumulate 2500 pounds in three months. Pretty good going. But when the season had ended I was ready to leg it out of Lochinver. Id had enough of working and not being able to pub crawl. Jen and I grabbed a bus the day after we finished and headed off to Inverness, the first stop on our road trip to Orkney..

---