INTO THE GREEN

digging deeper

until you've dipped into the GREEN, i mean WAY DOWN into the GREEN, i mean SWIMMING IN THE SEA OF GREEN, i don't think you've really experienced SCOT-LAND.
it is, after all, a country all about LAND.
but, first the LOCHS...

heading south out of Inverness, we hugged the LOCHS (that's lake to the uninitiated and should rhyme with the composer Bach - a THICK ch at the end).

monsterless Loch Ness

no monsters in evidence but we did drop by the parking lot of the magnificent ruins of the URQUHART CASTLE. the structure dates from around 1230 AD and though it is built on a theoretically very defensible promontory, it was the site of many a siege and plunder.

sadly, everybody and their mother is desperate to visit castles so we stood on a wall, as it began to rain, and satisfied ourselves with a birds-eye-view. waiting in long lines is not a fun holiday sport.

Urquhart Castle ruins overlooking loch ness

the rest of the day was dreamy, slow miles spent weaving along the edge of the loch in intermittent rain. 

among roadside treasures, the stone bridge at Invermoriston was spectacular, just above the falls.

Telford bridge Invermoriston

eventually we reached the LOCKGATES in the Caledonian Canal and stood there in the rain watching sailboats and small yachts get threaded through, fascinated by the incredibly slow process, the letting in and letting out of water, opening the lockgate, closing the gate, rinse and repeat.

Caledonia Canal

lockgates opening in the Caledonian Canal

all over Scotland stand these dry stone walls or dry stone fences. dry because there is no mortar used to hold the thing together - it's sheer rock magnetism! i love the way they are topped with side-ways members. very appealing design.

toward the end of the day, after Fort William, heading east to look for lodging, we were met by a brooding sky. but we found a slice of heaven on Loch Leven, our gateway to Glen Coe. 

thistle on the shore of Loch Leven

ALPHABET SOUP

SIGNS AND SIGNALS

i love the way words and language give clues about a culture. or don't.
in Danmark, for instance, the word HYGGELIGT (pronounced, roughly, HUE-ga-lit) means "COSY" and when you want to tell someone you had a really great time last night you say:
"det var hyggeligt"
as in - it was COSY. and this says SO much about the Danes and about what they value.

we didn't really give Inverness a fair shake but we had a wonderful conversation with a guy at the information bureau who opened up to us about a lot of things OTHER than travel routes (though he was fabulous with maps too). 
i began with a disclaimer, excusing myself if anything i said was insulting, then let fly a bunch of questions beginning with: 


- WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAELIC AND CELTIC?


and he told us CELTIC is the CULTURE and GAELIC is the LANGUAGE and there is Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic (does everyone know this except me?). he also told us that England BANNED the language (and bagpipes and tartan) after defeating the Scots in 1745 and this made me incredibly sad, reminded me of wholesale oppression of Native Americans in the u.s.a.

the good news?
Gaelic is being taught in many Scottish schools again. also, Scotland will hold a REFERENDUM on INDEPENDENCE from England in 2014 and many Scots are very excited about this prospect.

easy to read Gaelic - fun to say OUTLOUD

this sign at McDonalds looks WAY BETTER in GAELIC - whatever it says

i love this version of YIELD though i was not always able to heed it

sometimes the signs are SO demure, they are almost nonexistent 

tow-truck doubles as an advertisement for the 12 step programs

home but still tripping!

technically, i came home last wednesday.
but given the nature of highspeed travel, my body is in san francisco and parts of my mind and spirit are still in Scotland. therefore, the journey continues.

i'm a little confused about why nobody commented on the baby osprey's toilet habits.uncareful reading or taboo subject? (see post: North by Northwest).
i am still amazed by its aim!

the trip from Dunkeld to Inverness, up through the Cairngorms, a massive set of rolling mountains was, frankly, way too long. we took the Road Less Traveled to avoid the highway thinking it would be, in every way, more desirable. and mostly that was true. except the part about the longness which was partially due to being on REALLY twisty roads that were often ONE LANE with a fair number of blind curves and some wooly obstacles. and this all created a LOT of stress - not just for the driver (who was NOT me) but also for the passenger (who was me. i actually was not keen on the long road and sulked a little - when i wasn't biting my nails).
oh, and it RAINED, for a change, which was another curvy road stressor.

cute in field - a wooly obstacle in road

on the plus side, we went out to the scottish CRANNOG centre on Loch Tay and saw a replica of an iron age loch dwelling, a stilted structure of the type people were building and living in 5000 years ago in scotland, ireland and also scandinavia. very cool looking! but the centre wanted too much money and too much time from us to take the tour and wouldn't let us just have a look around. so we ate crackers and smoked salmon and cheese and celery on the rocks near the fence and thought about what it might be like to live on the water.

faux crannog 

there was a beautiful old hotel in Braemar that had some fine tile work in the entryway. and there was a david lynch-esque lupine garden in the town sporting massive muscular stalks in hot pastel colors.

Braemar hotel on main steet

more fancy tile work 

 

surreal giant lupines, the size of a small children

sadly, we did NOT book ahead for accomodation in Inverness and had to WING IT, exhausted from a long drive and some short tempers.

after a bunch of strike-outs, i finally talked to someone who had a room (it was SATURDAY NIGHT). i was on the phone with him getting directions as we were heading into Inverness and Andrew said: LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL BRIDGE!

i said to the guy: WE'RE ON THE BRIDGE.

and the guy said: BRIDGE? WHAT BRIDGE? YOU SHOULDN'T BE ON A BRIDGE!

we got across, pulled over and i collapsed into paroxysms of laughter. Andrew told me later this broke the ice and saved the day.

we made it to the B&B which was tacky, in an Everything's-Purple-with-Sachets-Everywhere sort of way, but fine really. we forced ourselves to go out to The Hootenany to hear some traditional music but the place was SO loud (why on earth they have to amp the hell out of a fiddle and a guitar is beyond me) we could only stay for a couple of songs. even WITH earplugs.

sunset over the River Ness was glorious.

swan loch

  wet friend from a parking lot

purple type of tacky

10:30 pm sunset over River Ness, Inverness

north by northwest

THE ISLE OF MAY is the Jewel of the Firth of Forth.
but this is what i am NOT posting about yet.
too much to say about the 45,000 nesting pairs of puffins we saw in addition to thousands of kittiwakes, shags, fulmar, razorbills, terns and guillemots. it is a stunning salute to water bird life (in spite of the fact that dozens of terns attacked us as we got off the boat onto the island and one guy's bald pate was bloodied - it was worth it!).

it was hard leaving Crail of which we'd grown very fond.
we headed north to Perth, a city that many Scots adore, and we liked it fine but found it challenging to get a really good feeling for the place in the rain.
we are troopers. really we are. and we have made the best of a lot of wet.
we found a tiny COFFEE BEAN ROASTER there and John turned us on to some CUBAN beans that were positively rocking. caffeine can really improve a rainy day. plus, the thing about rain here is - it doesn't usually last. not all day. it rains on and off. and on again.
we picked up the TAY River around Newburgh and ended up in DUNKELD.
i am voting DUNKELD my own personal jewel of Scotland thus far.
we stayed at the Atholl Arms Hotel and i sang a few songs at the Taybank, a lovely pub.

LADY OF THE LOCH is the oldest osprey in the UK? or maybe in the universe? that is still laying eggs and hatching chicks. she is 26 years old and looking GREAT. she has one chick in the nest and the dad flies in with fish for feeding on a regular basis.
we rushed out to the hides (little shacks designed for watching) the night we arrived and spent time there the next day too before we drove to Inverness.  there is a webcam that i find riveting. http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes/#

while i was watching the webcam, there was a disturbance. the mom kept shifting and shifting until she partially stood up and the baby's speckled ass moved sideways. suddenly, a quick muddy spurt shot over the edge of the nest and out into the night. complete in the matter of seconds, perfect projectile pooping, then the chick hunkered down beneath mom who adjusted and adjusted until all that could be seen was a tiny hem of speckled fluff. nature is astonishing. consider me amazed.

leaving Crail

Perth's secret coffee roaster

 

Monart glass, circa 1922 (perth museum)

 

abstract pavers

Atholl Arms Hotel, Dunkeld - patio tile

 

wet little lane

 

  

pinknesses

 

lonely boat

 

duck's picnic

window glass

Edinburgh Edifices and Appliance Apoplexy

EDINBURGH Edifices + held HOSTAGE by an APPLIANCE!

we had a fabulous 30 hours in Edinburgh last week. pure sunshine. huge relief.
(that's pronounced EDIN-BURRA. and do practice rolling your R's if you want to fit in around here).
we took the train from LEUCHERS (the CH sounds like you are clearing your throat of a big lugy) which was simple and fast. plus CLEAN. (imagine public transit that is CLEAN?) also true of the DELIGHTFUL DOUBLE-DECKER buses we rode around town when we weren't walking our tootsies off.

we arrived via the Forth Bridge which is a cantilevered railroad bridge from which we could view the Forth Road Bridge, for automobiles, further down the glorious Firth of Forth upon which Edinburgh majestically sits. it is a CITY OF SPIRES. churches, of course, but all manner and means of amazing pointy skyward projectiles. it is built on the remains of a VOLCANO from around 300 million years ago and has been in continuous occupation by scottish culture for several thousand years.

Forth Road Bridge seen from a train crossing the Forth Bridge on the Firth of Forth

the skyline is packed with chimneys that have these clay tubes sticking up. birds love to sit on them.

 

casual corner kilt

impressive edifice that's no big deal - they are EVERYWHERE

 

more and many chimneys

 

piper notices ladies - ladies ignore piper

 

glorious horizon view

i have a lot of other lovely things to write about but must include a brief appliance review.
don't buy BEKO washers or dryers. they might hijack your life.

i remember old car advertisements about "european styling" which was thought to be superior. i beg to differ, at least in this instance.

the machine says, on a bright sticker, FILL ME UP!, which i did but it was late and i hoped to do a quickie wash then go to bed. but there is no short cycle. if there is, it is poorly marked.

i was challenged in denmark by a foreign language washer, an industrial machine that had special "programs" represented by numbers rather than words.
but the machine that messed with us last night, the one that held us HOSTAGE in Scotland, speaks ENGLISH. no excuse.

the regular cycle is INTERMINABLE. i am saying Beyond Long. are Scottish clothes especially dirty? my load took forever but finally ended. Andrew's load was positively INFINITE. every time it made that promising fast whirring which would normally indicate termination, the machine would sit quietly for a spell then begin to fill and swoosh again. i left the kitchen and returned 25 minutes later, Andrew was sitting cross-legged staring at the tumbler saying: i'm going to kick it.

meanwhile, the DRYER was a piece of work.
it had a CONDENSATION CHAMBER - a long plastic rectangle that COLLECTED WATER and had to be EMPTIED at regular intervals - like a dehumidifier. plus, the lint chamber required constant management. the clothing limped toward a state, not of dryness, per se, but of increasingly less wetness. a BRAND NEW DRYER (just like it's washing machine mate). perhaps they needed breaking in?
i'm not an expert but no matter - don't invest in BEKO...

the culprit ("condenser drying"? is this like "slow food"?)

humpty Dundee

Saturday it rained (don't feel sorry for me - i have a waterproof coat!) so we drove to Dundee to see an exhibition about JUTE and have a look at the McManus Museum. we also saw two men in kilts and some sad, heavy drug-users begging along the walking street.

two things -
1) remember - DRIVING means the left side of the road. my brain in still scrambling to RE-ORIENT to this mirror version of operating an automobile in the u.s.of.a., still something of a comedy routine. but i am becoming more confident.
and
2) JUTE was a major industry for this part of the world and Dundee was the capital of it all complete with JUTE BARONS who owned enormous factories and employed hundreds and hundreds of workers paying them pittances for their back-breaking work. millions of bales of JUTE were imported from PAKISTAN in the 1800s and then woven, in Dundee, into fabric used for a myriad of purposes including roofing felt, underlament, bags and sacks, chair canvas, rope, tarpaulins, etc (see one modern permutation, below)

for some perverse reason, this Jute Mill was called "Verdant Works"

  the courtyard from above

JUTE COFFIN: a very modern use for an old-fashioned material

 

two wedding goers in full kilt-ish regalia - LOVE THE SHOES!

 

the McManus Museum in all its Gothic Splendor - dig the TOPIARY

 

McManus stairway looking DOWN

 

McManus stairway looking UP

 

narrow alley off the walking street 

Rainy Daze

when it rains, ROOFS are king

i meant to do a piece on the THATCHED roofs i saw in Danmark and now, especially here in the Kingdom of Fife (still on Scotland's east coast in Crail), i am struck by the beauty of the red pan tile roofs (or pantile, as some would have it). they dot the horizon in the small coastal villages. also significant is a roof-related feature, what might be called a roofing accessory - the CROW-STEP GABLES which are ubiquitous.

i don't want to harp on it but IT'S RAINING. again.
yesterday we were meant to go on an adventure to the Isle of May to visit with the PUFFINS but the wind was so high, the white-caps (our Scottish friend, Ann, calls them "white horses") so fierce, the boat would not have been able to land and the captain called off the journey.
plus, it was raining (but i'm not harping).

we took a walk around the town and got reasonably wet and felt EXTREMELY GRATEFUL to have a warm, dry, well-roofed cottage, though neither thatched nor pantiled, to which we could return. Ann said we could COURRIE DOON which means "COZY DOWN" and we agreed and that's what we did. none of us had seen The King's Speech and the dvd was here so we watched and some of us cried. Andrew and i made baked eggplant with cumin and turmeric and all-in-all it was a lovely day.

the danish thatch is called stråtag (stro tay) which means, literally, "straw roof"

thatch

thatch eaves, moss on roof, super close

thatch dormer!

atypical low-hanging thatch

 

possible vanity thatch (applied over tile roof?)

skip the thatch, plant the roof

 

a long LONG time ago, the towns in Fife had important trading relationships with the low countries - like Belgium and the Netherlands - and ships would go out carrying scottish goods (like coal, wool, linen) and come back filled with RED PAN TILES as BALLAST. this ballast roofed so many of the ancient cottages along this part of the coast.
and CROW-STEP gables created easy access to chimneys for maintenance.

  pan tile roof, Crail harbor

pan tile roof

pan tile roof

 

 

crow-step gable

 

  more crow-step gable