Design consequences

I’m travelling to Inverness for a funeral tomorrow. The AirBnb is a two bedroom cottage in the Crown area, near the centre. Each room is let separately, and the hosts must live somewhere else. I never meet them.

The place is almost perfect. Clean, functional, complete. Almost because the kitchen is dark and they’ve positioned a fridge freezer in front of the light switch. Helpfully they’ve put a sign on the fridge. Unfortunately, when the light is off, the kitchen is dark, and it’s hard to see the sign. The torch on my phone comes to the rescue!

Ailsa and I meet in town. We eat a pizza at Cheese and Tomatin, with sourdough base and wood-fired oven. There is just a bar downstairs facing the wall, but upstairs they have a snug with comfortable chairs, low coffee tables, nautical light fittings, and a delightfully kitsch toilet.

We’re joined by a random architect from Birmingham who is supervising an extension to the Mormon church. Pizza and conversation are both good.

Ailsa and I stop for a nightcap at the Heathmount. It’s all shiny and modern with lots of glass. She heads home, a six o’clock start and twelve hour shift awaiting her. I stay for another unnecessary Tomatin before heading back to my AirBnb and finishing the excellent Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.