A change of scene ...

The long winter in the Highlands of Scotland may not be quite over yet, but for me it will be so on Thursday, when I start the journey south to my home in Spain for a few months. The first part of the trip will take me beyond the 'snow fields' of the Grampians (with a bit of luck) and on down to the southern Lake District, where I will be spending a night on my way to Portsmouth to catch the Friday evening ferry for Bilbao.

After two nights of hopefully not too rough weather crossing the Channel and the Bay of Biscay the vessel is scheduled to arrive on Sunday morning and then it will be on to the motorway to make my way to a south-eastern suburb of Madrid where I shall be spending Sunday night, before continuing in the direction of Valencia, then Murcia, en route to the house which, with a bit of luck, I shall reach mid-late afternoon on Monday, with pleanty of time to do such mundane things as get to the supermarket to do a little food-shopping for a few basics for the first day at least.

I've just heard that the weather in the Mazarrón area, close to where my home is, continues cold, windy and wet. Ah well, we'll just have to hope that Spring will soon be on its way there too and of course the average temperatures are somewhat higher than here, so that is always something to look forward to. Meantime I thought it would be pleasant to open a bottle of champagne this evening to celebrate my imminent departure as obviously alcohol will be off-limits for me tomorrow evening, ahead of my fairly early start on Thursday morning. Eagle-eyed readers may notice that I have anticipated my arrival in the Murcia Region of Spain by amending the sub-heading of this blog a few days 'before the event'. Hasta luego!

Not a word here about the budgetary implications!

This kind of propaganda piece on behalf of public subsidies for ferries to remote areas around Scotland seems to me to be laughably lacking in even the merest hint of basic economic analysis. The 'Road Equivalent Tariff' for certain western isles routes will obviously have increased traffic - most people like to feel they are 'getting something for less', but ultimately someone is paying for all this largesse. And that someone is you and me, Joe-taxpaying-public!

A little bit of factual reporting wouldn't go amiss so this policy can be judged dispassionately on its merits. At present some areas, such as Orkney and Shetland feel 'miffed' at being left out of this particular gravy-train, and who can blame them? Take a look at the political complexions of the different areas benefitting and not benefitting and the genesis of this policy perhaps becomes somewhat clearer.

Tragedy averted on Stranraer-Belfast ferry

How close was this from turning out like this? On this occasion the passengers and the shipping company have been pretty lucky, I'd say.