a highland fling

I am sitting overlooking a loch. It would be pretty spectacular if it stopped raining for long enough for me to see the water. Really, this is the kind of rain that they have in the Bible.

In light of the rain, we took a ride out to the tourist information to enquire what we might do on a rainy day in this beautiful spot. The tourist information woman – Carol – had one suggestion. ‘Have you tried the wildlife hide?’ We had.

Actually it had been pretty magnificent. We turned up, with none of the correct outdoor activity gear, just at the right time to see a group of otters playing on the island and a couple of seals coming into shore. And then we left. It was cold and damp – I’m sure you’ll understand.

Well, what a success. How very efficient of us. The people who were waterproofed up to the nines in the hide had likely been sitting there for several hours. Then, these two imposters turn up in jeans, (jeans are useless in rain) and get all the action in twenty minutes.  I wouldn’t have liked us very much either.

When we had first arrived at our accommodation, Val (the cottage owner) showed us around. She handed us the key, which had a wind up torch as a key-ring. ‘City types don’t tend to have a torch to hand’ she’d said. I wanted to tell her that I had an app that served as a pretty bright torch, but as a city type, I just keep quiet.

This place is unspoilt, uncrowned and often shut.

Mo’s fish and chip shop, which proudly displayed a sign claiming it was the ‘best fish and chip shop in Scotland’ had run out of fish. On a Saturday night, at 7pm. Oh - and curry sauce. And chips. Actually, turned out that Mo hadn’t run out of any of the above, but she wanted to get home to see the X-Factor, and our custom was set to get in the way of the opening credits.

Obviously no establishment takes card. Obviously we hadn’t thought this through, and as such have a limited supply of money. There is one petrol station with limited opening hours. We did however have enough spare change to buy raspberries from an honestly box at the side of the road. Yum. Actually, I hope the petrol station accepts Visa. If I could get signal I’d phone ahead to check.

There is little scope here for the 24-7 facilities of the modern world most of us inhabit. You might wonder how people survive without Tesco Metro, but it seems they’re surviving just fine.

Tomorrow we’ll show up at Ardnamurchan Point just in time to catch a pod of whales, capture the moment in high-res on our smart phones -and annoy another bunch of waterproofed professionals.

You should visit; it really is a chance to enjoy a gentler pace of life in the most beautiful spot. Just don’t expect to get fish and chips for your supper; seems people have got better things to do.

Luck be a lady tonight

I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and I bloomin’ loved it.

I have just returned from a weekend in a luxury Highlands lodge, complete with a footstool the size of my lounge, a stag mounted above a roaring fire and not an item of IKEA furniture in sight.  For the first hour or two I felt like an imposter who might be asked to leave at any moment. But I was there and saw it for myself - how the other half live.

It was the height of luxury. Built dramatically overlooking its own loch (or, strictly, a fully public loch), the lodge boasted six large en suite bedrooms (each with very high thread count White Company linen) and - to the delight of us all - an outdoor hot-tub the size of a small car. (I couldn't help thinking of the poor architect who had conceived this fabulously romantic set-up as we necked Tesco’s finest beers by the gallon from within it.)  

Frankly the only thing that was missing was our very own butler. Now I am not wildly experienced in the management of man-servants, but I am certainly a fast learner. Within a short time I am quite sure that I could have been casually asking him to unpack the suitcases and ensure that the Merlot was decanted for supper.

The shocking thing is how quickly you can get used to a preposterous level of luxury - and just how enjoyable it is. Money can't make you happy, they say, but lounging with a Shiraz (the butler said the 98 Merlot was piss – a bad year apparently) on a giant plush footstool, watching the roaring fire, overlooking snow capped mountains, before heading to my luxurious 6ft bath and White Company sheets, you do have to wonder.

But this was a fleeting foray into the life of those who own tweed non-ironically, despise fashion-wellies and deny watching reality TV.

Readers do not despair; I have not lost leave of my senses, thrown caution to the wind and maxed out the credit card with this luxurious escape. I did not pay for this trip. No, even more shocking than all of that, I won it.

Yes, I am now ‘one of those people’ that nobody believes exists. One of those lucky ones. A surprising number of people have responded to this prize-news in utter dismay. ‘They would never even bother entering,’ they tell me, so impossible would a win be. They just aren’t that lucky. Personally I think it would take some serious levels of luck to win a competition that you hadn't even entered, but that's just me.

This all got me thinking about the science of luck.

Are you lucky or unlucky? Why do some people always seem to be in the right place at the right time, whilst others attract only bad fortune? Why are my friends so convinced that I am ‘lucky’ just because my name came out of hat?

For this, I turn to my friend (well a researcher whom I admire) named Professor Wiseman. (No pun intended.) Richard Wiseman has spent 10 years researching the lives of the lucky and the unlucky and notes that ‘the lives of the lucky and unlucky are as consistent as they are remarkable. Lucky people always seem to be in the right place at the right time, fall on their feet, and appear to have an uncanny ability to live a charmed life. Unlucky people are the exact opposite.’

He designed a series of studies to investigate if good and bad fortune really was predetermined, or if psychology could account for these dramatically different lives. In one memorable study, he gave the volunteers a newspaper and asked them to look inside it and tell him how many photographs were printed within the pages. What he didn’t mention was that halfway through the paper was an unexpected opportunity. This ‘opportunity’ took up half a page and announced in huge type, ‘Win £100 by telling the experimenter you have seen this.’

People who had previously described themselves as ‘unlucky’ tended to be so focused on the task at hand, the counting of the photographs, that they failed to notice the ad. In contrast, the lucky people were more relaxed, saw the bigger picture, and so spotted a chance to win £100. In this simple experiment Wiseman demonstrated how lucky people can create their good fortune by being more able to make the most of an unexpected opportunity.

Would you spot the ad? Enter the competition? See the opportunity?

Be optimistic, energetic and open to new experiences. You never know, your name might just come out the hat.

Of course I should add that I’m not that lucky. My lottery numbers haven’t come off quite yet, but there’s still time for me and my own lodge. For now I’ll just head back down to steerage and will have to accept that the problem with luckily winning luxurious breaks – is that it makes real life that bit bloomin’ harder.