My rush hour's busier than yours!

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Stephanie’s out on her test (1st attempt), trembling like a wet whippet, so it’s blogtime.

A picture quiz for you:

Picture 1. Name the country?

Picture 2. Name the country?

Picture 3. Name the country?
Ok, so how did you do? A big gold star if you knew that all of them are sunny Scotland (1. The Isle of Coll, 2. Inverness and 3. Morar.

Nine years ago, when my daughter, Rachel, announced that she was moving to Inverness with her boyfriend, we looked at the map and thought ‘Crikey! It’s the North Pole! Why on earth would she want to move there?’ (Answer - Because that’s where Donnie, her boyfriend, was from). At that time, we lived in Dunstable, Bedfordshire; over 500 miles away. I had been to Mull and Arran on university geology field trips, and I had been hillwalking in Glencoe with my friend ‘Molly’ Kewell. Then, just before I met Jane, I went the whole hog and travelled all the way to Dunnet Head (the most northerly point) and John O’Groats, before cycling to Land’s End. So I had been to Inverness (briefly) and it was July, so the weather wasn’t as formidable as I feared. Cutting the story short, Jane and I quickly came to love the area each time we visited Rachel (and Anna, who had also moved up). We decided that it was a far nicer place to live, so we put our business up for sale and bought a house in Glen Urquhart (20 miles south of Inverness, 4 miles west of Loch Ness). So far, we are living happily ever after.

I was reminded of my preconceptions about Scotland recently. Honestly, for those of you who don’t live here, how do you picture the Highlands? Bleak? Cold? Barren? Fields full of sheep, haggis and men in kilts? Forbidding mountains and lochs containing monsters? Of course, you would be right (apart from the bit about ‘fields full of haggis’ - they live in the mountains). But you would only be partly right. I once read an article about ‘Britain’s Best Beaches’ and it proclaimed a beach in Aberdeenshire (I can’t remember which one) as ‘The Best Beach in Britain’. At the time, I thought ‘How ridiculous - How can it be better than Studland Bay (Dorset) or some of the beaches in Devon and Cornwall?’ Of course, now I have seen the beaches, I can agree. Even Nairn Beach and Culbin Beach - within cycling/walking distance from me - are beautiful, unspoilt, white sand beaches. My favourite Scottish beach (so far) is near Loch Morar, just south of Mallaig, on the west coast (Photo 3). On a sunny day you could easily imagine you were on a perfect Greek island, with the whitest sands and crystal-clear water.Obviously, it’s not all wilderness. Last year, Inverness was Europe’s fastest-growing city, and Nairn and Elgin are busy little towns on the route from Inverness to Aberdeen. They all provide a significant challenge to someone learning to drive. Presently, traffic is a fraction of that which I experienced in Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire, but it is increasing. We do get ‘rush hours’, but at least they only last one hour.

The reason I write all this is because of something written in BSM’s Instructor Forum recently. The topic was ‘Cyclists’. An instructor had (quite rightly) expressed concern about the number of accidents in which cyclists were involved. The discussion on the forum then seemed to become an anti-cyclist tirade, with some of the suggestions being that cyclists should take a test before being allowed on the road, only use busy roads during off-peak times and even have registration plates. As far as I am concerned (even though I rarely use my bike on the road), cyclists have just as much right to use the roads as motorists - as do horse-riders and tractors. When I made this comment, the reply I got (from a Manchester instructor) was

"I notice you live in the Highlands, Martin. Must be a lot of rush hour commuters there? (rolls eyes)".

Maybe it's me, but (especially with the 'rolls eyes') the tone seemed a tad patronising. I bowed to Manchester's superior traffic and replied ''Lots of rush hour commuters'? Well, it's not Manchester, admittedly (Oops, I almost said 'thankfully' there), but, yes, we do have the odd car that passes by."

I'm English. I was born in Harrow, grew up in Bedfordshire and spent my twenties and thirties working within 70 miles of London. I know all about traffic problems, from a motorist's and a cyclist's point of view. But just because I work in the Highlands doesn't mean that my pupils have it easy. As I said earlier, Inverness, Elgin etc, provide a 'significant challenge' to learner drivers with spiral roundabouts, dual-carriageways, blind T-junctions on steep hills, buses, taxis and, yes, cyclists.

Stephanie has only had 24 hours of lessons with me. She had never driven before and does not have anyone who could give her extra practice between lessons, so she did extremely well just to get to the stage where I was happy to take her test after so little time. She has just passed with only 5 minor faults. I can only assume that she did not have any cyclists to deal with because, living in the Highlands, how would she have coped?!