Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates (30/7/13 Day 311)

We went to Crianlarich once. Just me and J. Totally by mistake.

It was before we had the kids, one of those weeks when you're off and you just take the car and go where the road takes you. Scotland, we thought, we'll go to Scotland, we'll see Glasgow and then head North. Fort William, the Highlands, that kind of thing. We had no concept whatsoever of the size of Scotland. As far as we were aware the Highlands were just to the left of the Gorbals. This appears not to be the case.

We actually go as far as the Lake District and stayed there for three days. We watched Forrest Gump (a new release at the time, work out the date for yourself, I can't be bothered) in a small cinema in Keswick (although I was convinced for years that it had been Kendal until I went to Kendal and couldn't figure out why I didn't recognise anything)

Anyway... we got up to Glasgow about three days later than we intended, spent a pleasant evening there, got up the next morning and asked ourselves 'where next?' Every sign seemed to include the mileage to Crianlarich. We assumed that this must then be a fairly major destination. We headed for it.

We followed the signs up the edge of Loch Lomond; lovely, picturesque, unspoilt, peaceful. Quite notably, no gas stations. At all. The needle on our poor little car was edging ever closer to, and then ever further into, the red. Not to worry though, we were heading for Crianlarich. We would be fine once we got there, we'd fill up, have a look round the town, book into a hotel, find a nice restaurant. All would be well.

Do you know what's in Crianlarich? You can probably guess.

Bugger all. Not a thing. Nada. Squat. Nish.

A crossroads, a pub which appeared closed and a shop, equally closed. We were in the middle of nowhere with no petrol. Two Sassenachs with disturbingly vivid memories of Braveheart. (If Braveheart came out after Firrest Gump don't bother pointing it out, allow my memory to put things in the wrong order in the name of poetic licence)

We retraced our steps down Loch Lomond as the dark gathered around us (in fairness it may well have been the gloaming. Very big in Scotland apparently, the gloaming) and somewhere on the way we came across a petrol station from 1953; the olde worlde pumps that you see in black and white films (they may well have actually been in black and white, it was quite difficult to tell by this point what with the darkness and the panic and the being lost and everything)

I scraped together the last cash that we had, pockets, purse, car seat, glove box and got as much petrol as we could pay for. Cards? Don't be ridiculous, there's no way that place took credit cards.

That night, safely ensconced in a nice little Italian restaurant at the base of the Loch we ate the greatest garlic bread on the planet. The taste may have been augmented somewhat by the sheer joy of still being alive and not abandoned in the wilderness.

And when, years later, Mark Millar (now the exceptionally successful author of Kick Ass and other equally wondrous comics) started the first story in the first arc of his run on Hellblazer with a coven of witchy types up to no good in Crianlarich, I wasn't even vaguely surprised.