A GENTLEMAN, if an Irishman can be so described, of this parish recently had an informal trip with Scotrail recently but as he travelled free and also for other technical reasons involving his car we have decided not to name him and protect his anonymity.
Let's just say that he has some involvement with the Kingussie High School Parent Council. We don't want to get people into trouble so we'll leave it at that.
Mike recently (Mike is as good a name for an Irishman as any) took his daughter to the train with a large, heavy and cumbersome bag containing all, or at least most, of her worldly possessions.
He lugged the bag on the train and spent a few moments trying to find somewhere to fit it, not an easy job.
Sadly while he was engaged in this riveting pursuit the train doors closed and 30 seconds later it rolled out of Aviemore station on its way south.
Unfortunately, Mike had left his car in the station yard with the keys in the ignition. As he was now stuck on the train till Kingussie he used the time productively to find an appropriate place to stow the large, and awkward bag.
He then had to phone his wife, who on a whim we will call Dot, to pick him up at Kingussie and drive him to Aviemore thus restoring equilibrium to his motoring life.
THE bard of Tomatin, Donnie MacAskill, has been busy again on the subject of the two plus one overtaking lanes at Moy, a saga which has entertained the lieges for several years now.
Although the road is open once again - it took the great brains of Transport Scotland a whole year to decide to, er. shorten the road a little to make it safer.
Obviously it took a lot of time and thought to come up with that one and we shouldn't encourage unhelpful thoughts that such a simple solution might have been a five minute job.
Donnie's poem arrived just after our previous episode went to press so although it is slightly out of date now it is still part of the long running tale of woe so we feel it should be recorded as such.
We can only hope that Donnie will put pen to paper once more to recognise the re-opening of the road after a long history of disasters.
A9 Moy Traffic Cone Blues III
I'm an agitated Traffic Cone,
In fact, I'm most concerned.
There's not much fun on the 2+1
since the Highwaymen returned.
We've been battered by the winter salt
and softened by the sun,
But the last thing that we wanted
was the Highwaymen's return.
Now we're shunted north, or maybe south,
and sometimes east or west.
We find it so confusing -
could they be playing chess!
We keep a lookout
while they footer about
as the cost of the job fairly rockets.
We would never have seen
this ridiculous scheme
had their brains been as bright as their jackets.
We are agitated Traffic Cones
with agitated bosses.
For us, it's keeping traffic safe,
For them, it's all excuses.
IT'S almost the end of November, and by the time this hits the news-stands November will be almost but a memory.
Across the strath wives and girlfriends will heave a sigh of relief as many of them will have had husbands and boyfriends sporting facial hair in support of 'Movember'.
It's a good cause, whereby men grow a moustache and in doing so raise funds for men's health issues.
Nothing wrong with supporting a good cause, however we two are a bit curious as to why so many men seem to go for the 'Mexican' or 'Porn star' moustache.
We should, of course, make it abundantly clear that we are led to believe that this type of facial hair resembles that sported by stars of the blue movie world, having never seen it personally we can only go with what we are told.
TALKING about resembling things for the last couple of weeks the 'Strathy' has resembled a game of football. Two halves.
We imagine it to be a quirk of the printing process which has led to the somewhat unusual formatting of the paper. (That's right we can only print 20 broadsheet pages at a time not the 24 pages we have been producing - Ed).
It's been rumoured that our dear editor, having been on an advanced origami course, has decided that a few pennies can be saved here and there by adopting a folding process that defies logic.
One which can leave you standing with a paper in each hand flapping uselessly about and nothing quite frankly in front of the eyes where it should be.
We like reading the paper standing up by the way and so this is of personal upset to us.
At the risk of bringing down upon us all the wrath and doom the editorial suite can muster on a Wednesday afternoon, could we suggest that the thing is at least printed in a way that would allow it to hang together.
Although when we both want to read the paper at the same time this new split screen option has its uses.
WE are now on the countdown to Christmas which means that our annual extravaganza of fun and intellectual stimulus - or to put it another way the Christmas Poetry competition is about to rear its ugly head.
This year we want to encourage our poets to consider the current economic situation as a subject for their artistic endeavours although we naturally don't mean to be prescriptive.
Send your entries to the Strathy Office, 44 High Street, Grantown on Spey, PH26 3EH or direct to our 10th floor eyrie on foolscap@btinternet.com
