Clare Teal: A small world – where the chips are always down

Scottish Brazillian musician Mario Caribe took over the bass duties. We first met him about 10 years ago during an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival, and have stayed in touch ever since.

Grant, piano, asked him if he'd ever come across an Australian trombonist/ composer by the name of Chris Greive, the man who first planted the "travelling" seed in Grant's head in Perth about 10 years previously. It turned out that Chris was one of Mario's dear friends, who, after an excited phone call, then came and sat in on the gig. Brilliant fun – it's a small world.

The next morning, we drove to Nairn for our day off. Muddy, who did all the chauffeuring in a bus called Sharon, was very keen to go dolphin watching. Unfortunately, whisky distilleries kept getting in the way. We spent a good few hours with Sandy the supernose at Benromach; he told us everything we needed to know about malt – and more. I must confess I was seeing dolphins by the time we left.

The weather was bright but bitterly cold. Wrapped up in my ski jacket and scarf I was astounded to see Nairn locals walking around in T-shirts.

Nairn is a very pretty place but, unfortunately, most of it is shut on Mondays. We walked up and down the High Street for at least half-an-hour looking for something to eat that wasn't chips. Just as we were about to give up and head back to our tartan hotel, we asked Jimmy, the Nairn taxi driver, if he could recommend anywhere to eat.

"If ye head up to the white building you'll find some very nice food"

He wasn't wrong, I had some fresh Orkney salmon, a beautiful green salad and er… chips. Grant had a wicked dessert. It was like

the restaurant version of a deep-fried Mars bar, and although we asked for three spoons, neither Muddy nor myself could get anywhere near it.