The 2014 Challenge, day 10: Feshie - Geldie again (12)

Beyond Linn of Dee I persuaded Alan and Lucy to walk the road South of the Dee with me. It may be a marginally longer route - due to the crook in the road at inverey - but it meant that they could approach Mar Lodge over Victoria Bridge, by means of the carriage drive to the front door, rather than scurrying in at the tradesmen's entrance round the back. They were taken in by this reasoning, and so we crossed the Dee at the Linn and trudged the road past the old youth hostel at Muir Cottage (where I had stayed on my first Challenge in 2000) and on to Inverey.

A number of cars passed us as we walked this road. One of them was a Fiat Panda 4x4, and Alan said "That's Maggie" and started waving like a mad thing. The Panda stopped, and its driver got out and came back to greet us. It was indeed Maggie ... Alan's wife and Lucy's mother. She had come to join them at mar Lodge, and was persuaded to go on ahead of us and ascertain whether there was any chance of a bed for me at the Lodge. I had decided that if there was then I would not press on to Braemar; but I was not going to divert to Mar Lodge just to find out, in case there wasn't and I had to retrace the diversion and continue on to Braemar anyway. So a panda-borne messenger, able to make the enquiry and report back before we reached Victoria Bridge, was just the ticket.