"That's my girl," he sighed as he passionately swung on the Ducati as if to check how much life it still got left, "You're good to go now, but not without me". He disembarked from the back of his favourite rider, leapt over a flight of four stairs -successfully avoiding all four, sashayed away to the front desk of the B&B he and a half a dozen other riders had pitched tent for the snowy Scottish night.

The stone-age facility lay humbled between a magnificent Munro and a host of endless strands of hills that make up the north. The spectacle of gloriously white snow dotted in hundreds of scattered bushes charred by winter, streams of crystal clear water draining into powerful rivers that pour into the nearby loch painted an apparition of a destination hard to resist. Adventurers like him, and peace lovers who still remained locked inside their cosy cottages, had rather been stuck in this part of the planet than anywhere else. The bewitching tranquility!

Minutes later and Thym hadn't spiraled back to his Ducati, except for a resident porter, who had hurriedly zoomed out from where Thym had entered, and grabbed an orange rucksack that he pulled out from Ducati's bright yellow top box. Thym was set and all ready to depart to his next adventure, but the anxious porter's rush to pick up the rider's kit had signaled a possible change of plan -or a delay engendered by the unexpected -by whatever was going on in there where he had dashed into and didn't return, and where quick the porter had zoomed off into and yet to return from.

To add to the mystery, no sound could be heard from behind the scene -at least not a sound that warranted an attention or any prying ears, neither did the blonde lassie manning the reception appear curious about anything, nor did other ramblers around seem to notice the overhanging cloud of uncertainty. Was this onlooker just overthinking it yet everything was perfectly normal as is always the case in this secluded jungle?