The Mostly Aluminium Road Show (part 2)

Shieldaig is way up on the West coast of Scotland. So is the other one.

Yup, there are two Shieldaigs, less than 40 miles apart. Who would've thought? After a little satnav confusion and yes, a visit to the other Shieldaig, I parked up at the campsite overlooking the loch at the right Shieldaig. It was just getting light and just starting to rain, again.

Glasgow was a distant memory, negotiated in the early hours through eerily empty streets, Inverness had been a fuel stop at 4am, and my progress North had been marked by three lane motorway thinning to dual carriageway, which narrowed to single lane A-roads which finally gave way to single track lanes with passing places.

But that was then, this is now and as the light came up I decided to get my head down for a bit before off-loading the Seven, parking up more permanently and a little straighter. With relentless drizzle fizzing on the canvas of the roof tent, I knew I was being hopelessly optimistic.

Some hours later, and I'm not entirely sure how many, I stuck my head out of the tent and....yup, more rain. Not the kind of rain that sees you pack up and go home, nor the kind that you can ignore. No, it was that species of rain that kids you in to thinking it'll clear up later. Very thin patches of blue sky in between slate grey cloud seemed to confirm this, so with the campsite now a little less crowded, I unpacked the Seven and headed even further West towards the row of stone houses called Applecross. This surprisingly English sounding town is just that - a row of houses, a pub and a retained fire station. In the rain, which had defied my cheery outlook and intensified, it was just a collection of buildings on the coast. Even the Evo-esque mountain road to get there couldn't make up for the fact this was my wettest blat to date. Ever.
With water actually pooling in the footwells I resigned myself to an afternoon back at the campsite, grappling with the Daily Telegraph crossword whilst cocooned in the roof tent which at that point seemed an appealing prospect.
I didn't so much drive back as surf back, and taking the mountain road back from Applecross provided some entertainment for the German tourists in their campervan, climbing the mini-Stelvio as I descended. This was getting really silly and I was caught with the age old Caterham dilemma of driving fast and getting a free precipitation-based facial exfoliation, or drive slow enough for the rain not to hurt...and drown instead.
I tried a bit of both.
Now, there's never a good time for a clutch cable to snap, but there are times when it's difficult to think of a worst time for one to snap.
The combination of torrential rain, aeroscreens and the Scottish Highlands is just one of those times. Oh well, at least I now had something to concentrate on that I could actually have some kind of influence over. Clutch cables can be fixed where the weather cannot, so I crash-changed the car in to 2nd gear and plodded back to base.
The grass at the campsite was squelchy underfoot by now, and the Seven was truly forlorn looking as I coasted to a halt near the Land Rover. Without access to the clutch, parking properly wasn't an option so I simply tugged it out of gear and stopped.
At this point I became aware of being watched, and from not too far away. Sure enough, a bloke from the nearest caravan had wandered over. Let's call him Andy, after all, his parents did and who am I to argue?
Andy asked a bit about the car, helped me push it further off the main open area of the campsite and then, crucially, admitted to bringing a fair few tools with him on holiday, which was good to know as I, rather stupidly, had brought none.
My next move was to source a new clutch cable but this didn't faze me too much. I was in Scotland, home of rallying, and where there's rallying there are Mk2 Ford Escorts. And in Inverness there's a Ford dealer by the name of McCrae. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, at the McCrae Ford dealership in the heart of forest rallyland, a Mk2 Ford Escort was ancient history. Set of mats for a Ka? Certainly, sir. Load shelf for a Mondeo? No problem, we hold them in stock. Clutch cable for a mid-70s Ford Escort with a Type 9 gearbox? Nope.
So, a quick phone call to Redline in Caterham and a dose of the usual sympathy....
"Oh you've broken it have you?" said Mick in typically subdued tones.
"Errr, no it broke".
Whoever or whatever was to blame, by 2:30pm a new clutch cable was dispatched from Surrey and, much like the car it was destined to repair, headed North overnight.
Having warned off the post office to expect random car parts in amongst tomorrows newspapers, bread and Readers Digests, I wandered back to the campsite where my new best friend (or so he thought) was waiting. Now I've never considered loan of a 3mm Allen key to be the basis for a lasting relationship, but Andy clearly thought otherwise, and it seemed after helping me push the car round the campsite a bit he felt my entire life belonged to him.
Everything I did was met with verbal approval or critical acclaim from across the way.
I rustled up a bit of chilli con carne, remarkably successfully under the meteorological circumstance (yup, still raining) and sure enough, there was Andy, peering almost over my shoulder, assessing the cooker, the table, the chair, the Land Rover, the roof tent.....everything I'd brought camping was commented on, and all in a weirdly sycophantic, positive light.
This was getting annoying and more than a little intrusive, so I adopted the polite tactic of reducing first the number of words in any reply, and eventually the number of syllables.
Eventually Andy took the hint and buggered off, although the promise of a 3mm Allen key remained intact.
So, I could do nothing until the mail arrived at 11am the next day, nothing that is except remain relentlessly optimistic that Redline had caught the last post.
It was now getting dark, it was still raining (obviously) so I did what any other stranded British tourist would do under the same circumstances.
I went to bed and read a book.