With the Highland Council set to debate again the question of a Tourist Tax, many hoteliers and B&B owners are eagerly awaiting the outcome. If the Council go for it, they won’t be the first. Edinburgh City Council have already voted to impose a £1 a night Transient Visitor Levy, a move which they believe… Read more »
Posts Categorized: HNM Column
What a storm in a stone stack!
Confession time… on the corner of my raised veg patch in my back garden I have a small stack of stones. The stones are of all different sizes and colours, and I have gathered them, over time, from walks along beaches. I’d love to be able to say where each came from, but I’m 51,… Read more »
Bergen Inspiration. Time to get a little more Scandi?
So where can I get to within an hour and 20 minutes of my house in Inverness? If I walk I can get as far as North Kessock. The views of the Beauly and Moray Firths as I head over the Kessock Bridge are Insta-worthy. When I get there there’s the reward of ice-cream or… Read more »
Inverness Loch Ness Airport. You decide!
Between me writing this and you reading it I’ll have both taken off and landed again at Inverness Airport. I’m heading to Bergen in Norway for a couple of days on a direct flight from my local airport. I am very definitely departing from an airport known as ‘Inverness’, but by the time I land… Read more »
Berries and Brexit, and gross inequality.
Berry picking…and Brexit How did you spend the summer holidays as a kid? My mum and dad were both teachers, so the whole family was de-mob happy when the last bell rang on the last day of term. We would load the camping gear into our trailer and head west, wearing that classic Scottish summer… Read more »
Thank you for the Music, Rip it Up.
There’s a song* isn’t there, that no matter where you are when you hear it, or who you are with, or how long it may have been since you listened to it, as soon as you register its opening chords or its chorus, it takes you back. The chances are it will take you unawares…. Read more »
Handing the journey over to ‘The Gods of Travel’
My life has become marginally less stressful since I started entrusting my fate on public transport to ‘The Gods of Travel’. They don’t exist of course, but that doesn’t stop me from handing over responsibility to them for on-time departure and arrival times. Will my train get there on schedule and will there be a… Read more »
The thrill of the cockpit on islands tour.
I first flew in an aeroplane the summer after I turned ten. And I did it with bells on, as an unaccompanied minor between Aberdeen and Birmingham on my way to spend the summer with my grandfather. It was a day of firsts; the second first came during the flight stopover at Edinburgh airport when… Read more »
Agriturismo. Inspiration from Sardinia for crofters?
It would have been easy to have lived in a bubble of “Brits abroad” on our beach-club holiday in Sardinia this month. Although the resort staff were Italian, the guests were exclusively from the UK and Ireland. Buffet breakfasts and lunches were included every day and on restaurant nights off, if we didn’t fancy the… Read more »
She’s just finished LeJoG on foot; activity goals trumped by mum.
There’s no point pretending – I have come home from holiday in need of a rest. I’ve never been able to lie on a sun lounger on holiday – certainly not when there are boats to sail, tennis to play and hills and villages to explore by bike. And that’s without counting the cocktail-fuelled dancing… Read more »