Spent most of today wading through the Byzantine schedules for the Western Isles buses, trying to piece together a workable route northward. It’s a tricky business because many services run only 3 or 4 times a day, if at all (Sunday, being a day of rest for everyone else, actually means I’ll be walking like 20 miles that day). It’s menial but the puzzle of it keeps me distracted, and it’s a great way to learn more about where you’re headed. Crossing the timetables with the library’s gigantic laminated OS maps, connecting up stops with cryptic Gaelic place-names overflowing with consonantal bounty, some vague kind of sense (both route-wise and linguistically) starts to emerge, even if pronunciation remains an issue. Compare “South Galson” in English with its Gaelic equivalent “Gabhsann bho Dheas”. I could never bring myself to dislike any language that looks like someone poured out a bag of Scrabble tiles and said “yep, that’s the name of our town then”. It bespeaks a masterful sense of humour.

Booked all my tickets today for the mainland legs, at least. Most importantly, rather than 20 minutes at best, now I’ll have a few hours in Inverness on the return leg, so no getting into town late just to watch the London-bound service motoring into the distance. I can even get dinner now. I’ve managed to sidestep the feverish change by booking a “bargain berth” on the Caledonian Sleeper train, leaving me bleary-eyed but hopefully rested in London the next morning not a mile from home. Travelling solo means instead of Sleeptalking Nazma in the bottom bunk, it’s a lucky dip whom I’ll get in my cabin. The last time this happened was in Vietnam, when we ended up with Typhoon-Snoring-But-Likable-Guy-From-Ontario. Though it can’t beat my 8-hour exercise in sleep-deprivation back in 2000, trapped sitting-up between two unyielding Scotsmen at the back of an London-Edinburgh coach, tearing far too slowly through the night.