Round, round, get around, I get around.

Greeting from the Capital of the Highlands

Or possibly the Gateway to the Highlands. I’m never quite sure which one is Inverness, and which one is Fort William. I’m in Inverness, for the avoidance of doubt, on some interesting business for my corporate masters.

I drove up yesterday, instead of taking the train, mostly because I wanted to give the new car a work out. I’ve been playing with it since it arrived on Wednesday, and it’s shaping up very nicely indeed. It handles motorways effortlessly, which you’d expect from what it basically a Grand Tourer, and it’s fine in town, even though I’m normally to be found trying to navigate the on-board entertainment and navigation screens instead of watching where I’m going.

The car has a programmed in multi-personality. With the press of a button you can go through Eco-Pro (treads gently on the earth) through Comfort (priority is a nice smooth ride) up to Sport (get out of my way, puny mortals) and finally Sport Plus (A driver as good as I am doesn’t need any of these electronic nannies to drive safely… oh shit, oh shit, we’re all going to die!!!!). I haven’t had much chance to try out Oh shiiiiit! mode yet, but that will change tomorrow.

Coming up to Inverness I took the quick route, the A9, which has a certain amount of Highland Majesty, but no real winding roads. Unlike, say, the A82, which follows Loch Ness down to Fort William via Glencoe. It didn’t make sense to come up that way, but I need to drop by the cottage tomorrow to pick up some documents, so that’s a perfect excuse for some, um, performance testing. I might even stop in Oban for some seafood dining.

It does put me on the wrong coast on Thursday, though, since I have an art show to go to in Edinburgh that night. Ach, it’s nothing that a shitload of driving won’t put right…

50 by 50. It begins.

I won't do the business traveller moaning, since I've been put in a nice hotel with a gym and a pool. I've been in the gym twice and the pool once since I got here, and I'll be heading in that direction in 30 minutes or so. I don't think going to the gym twice a day is going to last, but it's a good start to the 50 by 50 campaign, which I've just this moment thought of. My fiftieth birthday is 4 months away. I reckon I'm around 20 pounds overweight. The internet seems to think that I'm between between 40 and 80 pounds over my ideal weight. I'm thinking that 40 by 50 sounds good, but 50 by 50 sounds even better. In old money that's about three and half stone, and would put me down to around 12 stone. The lightest I've been in the last 10 years or so is a whisker above 14 stone. I have 120 days to lose 50 pounds. Call it three pounds a week. That's a lot. That might be impossible. I don't think it's unhealthy, quite, but it might be an unrealistic target. But even if I fail, I'm going to be a much healthier failure.

I'm a leaf on the wind. Or something.