BOB HIND is back on his travels this month, casting a professional eye on what he finds as he begins a five-part ride around 15 Scottish islands on the Clyde communities of Bute, Great Cumbrae and Arran — all before a connecting bus leaves him high and dry in an isolated corner of mainland Kintyre
DAY 1
It’s all in the planning
The problem with being a pensioner is that everyone thinks you have plenty of time on your hands. I never believed the cliché I heard so often from retirees, that they never knew how they found time to work.
But it is true; days get filled with grandchildren and family, with visiting those places you always hoped you would visit and doing those things you never had time for while working. So planning another excursion to the far-flung corners of the UK is always an additional challenge to the list of intentions that grows by the day.
Realistically you have to start 12 months before you intend to travel to get some feel of how timetables look at that time of the year, even knowing it will all be changed by the time you come to travel, by inconsiderate bus operators and local authorities.
My experience travelling round Britain and then on the five islands has taught me that however …
