LEJOG Day 87: Alness to Tain

Weather: Cloudy and cool with cold northerly

Distance covered today: 20.8km (12.9mi)

Last night's B&B: Commercial Hotel (£40)

Cumulative distance: 1793.4km (1114.4mi)/ % Complete: 92.7%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 87 (click!)

For the last three days, despite my references to the dreaded A9, I have in fact managed to avoid it almost completely with the exception of the crossings of the Moray and Cromarty Firths, where there was no alternative. Today, I was able to use a minor road that actually described a straighter route from Alness to Tain than the A9 would have, and I managed to avoid the A9 altogether.  My good fortune is though, about to run out!  From now on, I fear the A9 will be my constant antagonist.  With any luck, the traffic will start to reduce as I get further north, on the reasonable assumption that there are fewer and fewer places for the road to get to until eventually, it just runs out of land!

The minor road took me through agricultural country, with the emphasis on cattle and sheep farming, but with some arable activity as well.  Most of the farms looked relatively small, and as I felt the edge of the cold northerly, I could only wonder what it must be like farming at these latitudes in the grip of an icy winter. There would be very few hours of daylight, lots of rain and snow and bitterly cold winds to contend with. I imagine only the very tough and determined can succeed here. Amongst the farms, there were though, a number of almost palatial residences tucked away from the A9 and almost out of sight except to me on my minor road. Presumably, these places are still within commuting distance of Inverness, which would explain the wealth. I saw a number of equine properties and even came upon a cross-country course with some rather tasty fences at a place called Scotsburn. I discovered that this was in fact a British Eventing Course, and it must be one of the most northerly eventing properties in the UK.
 
At one point, I saw in the distance almost behind me a huge cruise liner, moored in the Cromarty Firth, seemingly amongst the oil rigs and drilling equipment. It couldn’t have been more incongruous!  I spoke about it to a fellow who was battling with ivy that had overwhelmed his boundary wall.  He told me that two or three of these enormous cruise ships visit the Cromarty Firth every week. The passengers disembark onto buses which ferry them down to Inverness and back. We speculated that it must be considerably cheaper to moor these huge ships in the Cromarty Firth, rather than docking them in Inverness. With great respect to Cromarty, but there are better views! Perhaps the average cruise ship passenger’s eyesight isn’t so good anymore….

As I walked northwards rather briskly in the cold northerly breeze on the straight, flat and rather featureless road, I found myself with more time to think than has been the case for some time.  It struck me that I have said very little in this blog about my cancer.  The reason for that is partly because I have nothing original to say about it, and mostly because I wanted to avoid harping on about my health which would be of no interest to anyone except me.  It is though significant that my health did not inhibit my LEJOG attempt at all.
 
Certainly, when my condition was first diagnosed in 2003, I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would one day be able to attempt LEJOG. In common with many of my fellow males, I had had only the faintest idea about prostate cancer, but I was in some unfocused sort of way, more scared of it than of other cancers.  I suppose the reason is because it affects an intimate, vital and multi-functional part of the anatomy, in a region which most males are in any case uncomfortable talking about and since things in the area are very sensitive, the thought of ill-health and painful intervention there is even more unwelcome.  I let myself and my family down badly by not having the appropriate check-ups in time.  By the time it was diagnosed, it was already too late for a number of the conventional treatments such as a prostatectomy (surgical removal of the prostate), or brachytherapy (treatment through the use of radioactive pellets injected into the prostate). I had as a result to undergo a more severe regime of radiotherapy and hormone treatment, with more short-term health effects and a poorer long-term prognosis.

The day the positive confirmation of the cancer came through, I was working in The Hague.  I remember that terrible conversation with Veronica in which I told her that our fears were real.  I didn’t have a car in The Hague, preferring the very Dutch business of relying exclusively on a bicycle for transport.  I remember deciding not to go back to work from the hospital and instead cycling down to the beach at Scheveningen near The Hague, and sitting in the dunes, feeling shocked and depressed, but also feeling very cross with myself for feeling those things.  I have talked earlier in this blog about my attitude to death, and now, confronted with its imminence, I wasn’t exactly behaving rationally in accordance with my views on these things.  Be that as it may, I do remember a great feeling of numbness; a separation of myself from the rest of the world, lost in my own thoughts and feelings and almost oblivious of my surroundings.

The medical fraternity in The Netherlands had great equipment and joined up computers, but they were a little ordinary in terms of bedside manner.  They had told me bluntly that with my stage of cancer, the five-year survival chances were limited. I decided anyway that I was going home: the business of commuting weekly to The Hague wasn’t going to work while I was undergoing treatment. I simply informed my boss that I was going back to England, fully expecting that this would result in an early termination on medical grounds.  I was surprised and delighted when he told me that he would have done the same. He told me to design myself a job that I could do from home within the constraints of the treatment and that there would be no change to the terms and conditions of my employment, including my remuneration package and retirement benefits, etc.  I could hardly believe my ears!  I very much doubt that there are many companies in the world that would have done that, and I do doubt that even my company would do it again if confronted with the same situation in present circumstances.

In England, I found the medical fraternity the polar opposite of that in The Hague.  Joined up computers?  I found that the only way to share information between surgeries, hospitals and consultants was to get hold of the information myself and bring it with me in a big file.  I remember my first MRI Scan. It took place in a big trailer next to a prefab shed!  But I will never fault their bedside manner. I can’t comment professionally on their recommendations; I don’t have enough knowledge, but I found the nature of their attitudes to me to be uniformly excellent. They never minimised the seriousness of the condition, but they seemed convinced that together we would address the cancer logically, that we would try appropriate interventions and that there would always be alternative approaches to be tried. Gradually I became convinced that they believed their rhetoric that “most men die with prostate cancer, rather than of it”. We will see.

In some ways, this journey has symbolised a return to “normal” health for me. When the cancer was diagnosed, I doubted that I would ever lead a normal life again.  This walk has shown me that I have made the appropriate and necessary adjustments, and whatever the future holds, this is a new lease on life.

Believe it or not, that is a bigger achievement for me than walking a thousand miles.

The High Street in Alness. During the few hours I was there, this street sweeping machine swept the street 5 times!!  Either the Scots throw a lot away on their streets, or there is spare capacity in the civil service!

This lugubrious lady seemed to be asking, "What on Earth are you doing??"

Beautiful, but ??

Nature in colourful harmony!

Opulence revisited

Old opulence!

?

 

An enormous cruise-ship in Cromarty Firth

A terrible picture, but these were some very difficult cross-country jumps!

A clue!  It turned out that this is the British Eventing Scotsburn Eventing course

And still my constant companions, the posties are here in exactly the same little vans, just dirtier!

Typical countryside: the farming is small scale and not very intensive

Typical of my walk today. Long straight minor roads without much of interest

My destination: the atmospheric little village of Tain

A hotel which used to be a castle. My B&B is more humble. It is called Dunbius. This is apparently not a strange Gaelic name. The house was built by the owners. Hence "done by us"! Geddit!!