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Outer Hebrides - Arrival

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Ullapool, just before boarding our ferry   “Oh, he’s adorable!” I look down the lead in my hand to the small, scruffy brown and white dog at the other end. Sherlock is slowly dripping water, collected in his undercarriage fur from the rain-soaked streets of Ullapool, onto the hotel reception floor. We’ve just been for Sherlock’s last walk of the day before we turn in ready for our early start tomorrow.   “I have a cockapoo just like him back home.” I return my gaze to the small, white-haired lady standing in front of me. From her accent she is from the US.   “Um, he’s actually a Cavachon.” I reply, knowing that I’m treading a well-worn verbal path. “He’s a cross between a Cavalier King Charles spaniel and a Bichon Frise.” I add.    Not for the first time I am struck by the irony that this handily shortened breed name has to be explained long-windedly every time someone meets Sherlock. Unbowed by my pedantry, Sherlock’s new admirer bends down to pe...
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Dubrovnik Old Town

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For some time I had hankered after travelling to Dubrovnik, the bustling and beautiful UNESCO world heritage city, as part of a wider Croatian ramble  This plan had been foiled last year when my lack of basic Balkans geography had put paid to a plan to visit to the Istrian peninsula before heading south to Dubrovnik. Without direct flights between Pula and Dubrovnik airports the travel logistics of combining the divided north and south of the long, spindly coastal part of Croatia, proved too challenging for a family holiday. A trip by land would mean the significant complication of negotiating the 12-mile wide Neum corridor. Neum gives an otherwise land-locked Bosnian and Herzegovina a corridor to the Adriatic Sea that, undoubtedly to the delight of many Bosnians, but much to my personal annoyance, separates Dubrovnik from the rest of Croatia. By sea, concerns about the reliability of the Adriatic ferries and their ability to disrupt my obsessive-compulsive derived travel plans was...
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