Walking: Fort William to Inverness via the Great Glen Way

For our holiday this year, we decided to pick up where we left off in Fort William and walk the Great Glen Way to Inverness, following the Caledonian Canal and the shores of Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and - for the whole of the second half of the walk - Loch Ness. There appears to be some confusion about how long the Way actually is, with some websites saying 79 miles and some saying 73; in total, we walked 74.75 miles as measured by Runkeeper, though that included some additional distance getting to and from our B&Bs and our finish was a couple of miles short of the "official" finish.

( Day 1: Fort William to Spean Bridge )

( Day 2: Gairlochy to Laggan )

( Day 3: Laggan to Fort Augustus )

( Day 4: Fort Augustus to Invermoriston )

( Day 5: Invermoriston to Drumnadrochit )

( Day 6: Drumnadrochit to Inverness )

Overall, I think I preferred the Great Glen Way to the West Highland Way. The WHW was absolutely at the limits of our capacity as walkers, leaving us both feeling absolutely done in, whereas the GGW was well within our capabilities, and generally seemed to have better paths (the stoniness of so much of the WHW was a big part of what made it feel like such hard going), so that we still had enough energy left to enjoy the rest of our holiday (a day in Inverness and then a weekend in Glasgow), rather than just wanting to sleep. The GGW was also much, much quieter, with long periods where we didn't see anybody else, whereas the WHW is so popular that there was almost never a moment when we couldn't see at least a couple of other walkers ahead or behind us. However, as the trail itself goes through less sparsely populated areas we found better food along the way; on the WHW it was basically standard pub grub, and by the time we got to Fort William I was desperate for a dinner that didn't involve chips, whereas on the GGW there was a lot more choice and despite mostly sticking to my resolution to be pescetarian whenever I have a choice about what I eat (the exception being a slow-cooked lamb shank in Invermoriston, which was the only thing that seemed hearty enough when I'd spent the day being so cold and wet) I only had macaroni cheese and chips once. (Which is actually a little sad, as I do love macaroni cheese and chips and English pubs don't do it.) The weather did nearly defeat us (after getting soaked to the skin despite waterproofs a second time, I swore that if we had another day of heavy rain like that I was just going to get the bus; fortunately, the remaining two days were better), but you can't control the weather and people did keep telling us what an incredibly wet August they'd had (and even down in Glasgow the rivers were clearly very full).

Reading: The Duke is Dead

Ankaret Wells and Irene Headley's new novel, The Duke is Dead, landed on my Kindle just before I went away. It seemed like a perfect choice for holiday reading, so I bumped it straight to the top of my to-read list and started it just before we went away.

The Duke is Dead is the first in a projected series, set in a fantasy world which bears a certain resemblence to late fifteenth-century Europe, although with key differences; in particular, the dominant religion is a more egalitarian version of Christianity where there were both female and male Apostles, dates are reckoned from an unspecified cataclysm which took place around 1000 years after the birth of Christ, and members of the royal houses possess "kingsblood", which gives each of them one of a range of arcane powers including shapeshifting, the ability to persuade people to the speaker's will, communicating with the dead and exceptional fighting skills. The Duke is Dead is set largely in the city of Briége, capital of the Duchy of Bergomance, where the recent death of Duke Gaston has left his only daughter Ambrosia as Duchess, with eligible princes from all the neighbouring states contending to win her hand in marriage and thereby join Bergomance to their territories. Supporting Ambrosia against the more importunate of these are her stepmother, Josiane, sister to King Roald of Ambion, and her brother Thomas, Duke of Wharram (whose crooked shoulder suggests a certain resemblance to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of an English king and later king himself), and, more reluctantly, Nicolas ás Ithel, the sole living heir to the king Roald defeated to take the throne, concluding a long and hard-fought civil war, and his uncle Morcant ás Ithel, who find themselves in Briége by accident after they are forced to leave the court of Boisseul where they are living in exile when the Duke of Boisseul tries to sell Nicolas out to Roald of Ambion.

The novel is partly a political fantasy, full of intrigues, international incidents and court machinations, and partly a romance, as Thomas and Nicolas try to find a way to balance their places on opposing sides of a long and bitter conflict with their mutual attraction. In addition to the central m/m romance, there is at least one background f/f romance and a trans character. It's plotty and funny and snarky, with a delightful cast of characters (both the lead characters and those in the background) and some nice twists, and it was definitely perfect holiday reading. It reminded me rather of Dorothy Dunnett, if Dunnett had written fantasy and m/m romance; it doesn't quite reach Dunnett's level of "character X has had five minutes of happiness so now something utterly terrible will inevitably happen to them" and the plot is rather less Byazantine than Dunnett's, but there is a similar sense of densely textured history with real, complex characters and trade and commerce seen as being as important to international politics as battles and conquests. I gather that several more books are planned, and I hope thie is the case as I'm really looking forward to reading more set in this world.

(Disclaimer that both Wells and Headley are friends of mine, but this really is just terrific fun.)