Bloody students: a bargain isn't always what it seems

Gillian Lambie is a journalism student originally from Speyside. A keen cyclist who will read anything she gets her hands on.

WHEN my other half, Cameron, and I go away anywhere we like to take it in turns to book the accommodation. Now, admittedly I like a bargain - however a bargain isn't always as it seems. In three years I have booked a hotel in Edinburgh with a bed so small that Cameron's feet would have hung off the end - if it were not for the fact that the bed touched both sides of the room. The trip made more disappointing by the lack of breakfast and tea and coffee making facilities (a MUST, apparently.) I have booked a B&B in Callander which was actually a room above a very noisy pub with a dodgy heater, walls which looked like they'd had holes in them previous to us staying and a very convenient smoking spot filled with cackling drunk women outside our window - not. Cameron on the other hand has booked four star hotels with not only tea and coffee making facilities, but deluxe tea and coffee making facilities with green, peppermint, camomile and berry flavours, not to mention the shortbread. He never forgets breakfast. And even when we went camping in Pitlochry he found a fantastic spot for wild camping, great view of the stars and a relatively dry and comfy patch to sleep on! So you can imagine how nervous I felt travelling to Inverness the other weekend. I had booked the B&B and admittedly I had only picked it because they said they had somewhere to store Cameron's cycle. He was taking part in road race which started at 6 am the next morning and I had assumed a safe place for his rather expensive bike was of most importance. I hadn't checked anything else. Hadn't read any reviews. Basically I had not learned from my previous disasters. So I had my fingers and toes crossed for this one. I had a feeling my relationship depended upon this… (Kidding!) On arrival we found that the B&B was only five minutes' walk from the race start line. Phew. Then (I hid behind Cameron for this bit as I had forgotten to mention this when I booked it) when we had to tell the owners that we would need to be up and away really early on the Sunday morning - the man smiled at us. Smiled?! Not only was he okay with us disturbing him in the early hours of the morning to unlock his shed - but he offered to cook us breakfast! And he did, at 5 am we sat down to a full cooked breakfast, haggis and all. On top of it all, most importantly - there was tea and coffee making facilities in our bedroom. Result!