Day 8: Culloden, Cairns and Cawdor (and cookies)

I'm sitting next to an open window in my lovely hotel room.  It's after 10 and there's still some daylight. The River Ness is flowing hurriedly beside me and I just noticed the statue of Flora MacDonald I love is visible from my bed.  I'm quite smitten with Inverness.  

Today we set out to see the Culloden Battlefield and I was excited to see it and learn about the battle.  If I hadn't gone in to see the movie mid-exhibit or if I had seen the warning about disturbing content, I expect I would be writing a very different entry-- likely about the brilliant curation of the museum and the way the multiple historical perspectives were conveyed.  But I did see the movie and I didn't see the warning about disturbing content. I'd somehow got separated from my three companions and when I saw "movie starting in three seconds," I dashed in expecting the standard museum film about background and context.  I found I was the only person in a large white walled room.  The lights dimmed and the 360 perspective of the battlefield was presented on all four walls.  At first it was a beautiful landscape with birds chirping.  And then on one wall, some Highlanders scraggled in.  And on a wall across, red coats started lining up.  Then more Highlanders came in, bagpipes blaring.  And more and more red coats came in and formed perfect lines.  And then the Highlanders charged and the red coats stood still.  And they kept standing still until the Highlanders were in shooting range.  And I stood there paralyzed and helpless as the carnage began around me.  I had just been reading about how 1200-1500 Highlanders and 50 British soldiers were killed in just over an hour.  And somehow these numbers were put into perspective.  Once I started, I couldn't stop crying.  I made my way out of the exhibit, found a cup of tea and a quiet table outside by myself overlooking the battlefield.  I suppose I could say many things here about the power of history, about museums, about connecting with the past, about equally horrific things today.  But I will leave it there.  And change the subject abruptly to the Clava Cairns.

From Culloden we drove to the Clava Cairns-- a Bronze Age tomb/ cairn.  Pictures and descriptions don't do them justice.  But I'll include a picture anyway.  To find out more about them, you should google them because they're really interesting.  As your friendly neighbourhood information literacy librarian, I think you can trust me when I say "it's good for you to find your own information.  Active learning etc etc." Or, maybe I'm too tired to write about it myself.  Take your pick: both could be right. 

After that we drove to the tavern at Cawdor because, well, who doesn't like a pub connected with the Famous Thane of Cawdor?  Food and everything was lovely; I think even Lady Macbeth would have approved.  My favourite thing was being told that the restaurant side was totally full but we could sit in the pub side instead if we wanted.  The waitress paused and said, "I should warn you people will be coming and bringing their dogs shortly."  I was very pleased with the cheddar sandwich but disappointed the dogs did not arrive before we left. I hope the dogs had a pleasant afternoon.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering rainy and charming Inverness.  I purchased my 2nd travel umbrella of the year (sigh). I am hoping this will be the last travel umbrella I will purchase on the road since I now have one for each of my three regular suitcases. And I'm hoping that purchasing an umbrella will also ensure that it will not rain on us again.  It's now nearly dark and I cannot see Flora MacDonald any longer.  I think I should call it a night as tomorrow's an early-ish morning as we're off to Edinburgh.  Thanks again for your nice emails, comments and FB notes.  Oh, and PS: As if I needed another reason to love Scotland, Scottish hotels give you cookies in your room. 

Culloden

Clava Cairns

Cawdor (sans pooches)

Day 7: Train to Inverness, or, you never really travel alone

"Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could not shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a traveller, even  though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town, or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again"-- Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse p 288.

Last week, before I left, more than a few people mentioned they were worried I wouldn't come back.  They'd seen how deeply smitten I was with Ireland and wondered if I'd somehow find a way to stay this time: third time's the charm? It's nice to ponder.  

One of the things about traveling is that while you're looking at the new and unknown, you do still think about home and the people you love there.  It's occured to me over the past few days that I never really travel alone.  Obviously I'm traveling with Dale, Sean and Barbara but I've realized that there are a lot of other people along with me on this journey.  Maybe this blog is meant to let them know they're along with me.

Today we took a train to Inverness from Kyle of Loch Alsh to Inverness. Inverness is a pleasant surprise: very pretty and interesting.  Once settled here, we went out for a drive and went to see Loch Ness (avoiding the tourist areas) and also seeing the Falls of Foyers.  All of it was so lovely and exciting, it would seem 

It was a pretty and rainy train ride to Inverness this morning and the scenery was astoundingly beautiful.  I read To The Lighthouse on most of the train trip, looking up often to take in the scenery and let my mind wander.  My mind wandered to the people I love and who are-- perhaps unknown to them-- along on this trip with me. 

Yesterday I got an email from my adored friend A who, writing about this blog and the posted pictures, noted "I was amazed but not surprised to learn that we were reading To The Lighthouse at the same time."  This pleased me and, while I read it on the train today, I was loving every word but also imagining what he was thinking about this very book and imagining what conversations we'd have about the book and wondering too what he would say about the landscape before us.  It was nice to travel with him today.

And it's nice to travel with my friend G who would have, I am sure, been able to identify the birds I saw today and would have, I am quite sure, known that Robert Burns wrote "Lines on the Fall of Fyers Near Loch-Ness" before we got to those falls today,  I looked at those falls, excited to tell him "I saw how  'the horrid cauldron boils'!"  And perhaps mention the various whiskeys I've encountered on the trip. 

And, last night, thinking about the recently lost and much missed AH, I ordered for the table an order of sticky toffee pudding in her honour.  I was lucky to see her in a dream last night.  She called my name and gave me a big hug.  I woke up teary yet grateful to see her again.  

And I was also thinking about my friend J, who would have talked about Lairds and Lochs in a Sean Connery accent to make me laugh.

And, I was thinking about my favourite professor who taught me how to read and love Virginia Woolf among many other things.

And my brother who, writing a final exam about To The Lighthouse, somehow (?!) forgot Mrs Ramsay's 

name and ended up writing the whole exam referring to Mrs Ramsay as "the friend of Lily Briscoe."  No matter how many times I think about this, I still laugh.  

And my parents who would love the highland cows, the clouds, the green, the people, the stories, the rain, the sunshine, the hills: they would love it all in the same ways that I love it all.  

Even though I'm far away from lots of people I love,  many of them along here with me and I'm grateful for their company.

Castle ruins at Kyleakin above, Loch Ness below

Falls of Foyers

A Highland Coo

Rainy Inverness

Flora MacDonald

 

Day 6: Looking Up and Looking Down on the Isle of Sky

I was just flipping through my notebook and found something I'd meant to include before.  When we were taking the train from Glasgow to Mallaig, the train stopped at what I have referred to as the Harry Potter bridge.  When we stopped, one of the train employees pointed me to a window that opened so I could take some very nice photos.  He told me that the train stops there so people can take photos and that they use this spot as a place to kill time if they're running ahead of schedule.  Seems pretty nice of Scotland Rail to me.  He also told me, "For 100 years, people called this the Glenfillan Viaduct; now they call it the Harry Potter Bridge."

We've been doing a lot of driving-- actually-- Sean's been doing the driving and he's doing very well.  Barbara's reminders of "leftleftleftleft" are useful.  Today during breakfast at our B&B, our hostess was talking with another table about the driving around Skye and she said: "You can tell Scottish drivers from British drivers because British drivers brake around the corners while the Scots never slow down."  She and the other guests talked about the recurrence of the phrase "God willing" at the end of phrases like "See you tomorrow."  They both made connections between that phrase and the driving style of the locals. 

Most of the roads we covered today were single-track roads which are about as wide as most North American bike trails.  There are frequent passing places where you can move over a foot or so to let the approaching car pass you.  It's a remarkably effective system but not without a few brief moments of alarm/ terror.  

One of the other things I've liked about the roads is-- as I mentioned before-- the random placement of red phone boxes.  I keep thinking about the phone box in Local Hero (one of my very favourite movies), maybe that's where my fascination comes from.  I also really like the equally random placements of lonely bus stops on single lane roads.  Most you'd need to hack down weeds and thistles to get into the shelters: some have two or three stacking chairs thoughtfully left in them.  I've yet to see a person waiting for the bus on these roads.  Or a bus.  No matter, they're there if you need them and some kind people have left chairs for you. 

Today we drove out to climb Duncraig Carn which rewarded us with some spectacular views.  I realized that a lot of the photos I've been posting are of the huge, giant, sweeping skies and landscapes of Skye.  But that's only part of what can be seen here.  I find that when I'm hiking where the ground is rocky and uneven, I rarely look up unless I stop.  As a result, I see lots of lovely tiny things.  This seems to be the perfect time to be here as all sorts of plants are blooming.  Barbara is a very fine traveling companion for many reasons.  One reason is that she is equally keen to look at flowers and plants and we're able to pool our knowledge of plants and flowers to name what we see.  It's been great to have the conversations I usually have with myself with someone else, especially someone as knowledgeable as she is.  Google-less, we've been trying to figure out the differences between azaleas and rhododendrons (azaleas are subgenera of rhododendrons, I have just learned), what makes a lily different from an orchid and from an iris and many other things.  It's also interesting to see plants we get in our Ontario and Alberta gardens here.  Fresias grow freely here (as they do in Ireland) in great big shrubs not in carefully tended hanging baskets. One of the growing things that has most  delighted me are the fields of pink foxgloves.  I usually have one foxglove in my garden and I tend to it like a spoiled, demanding child that I adore unconditionally.  Seeing them thriving in the wild makes me think I may be able to back off a bit with them.  My foxgloves may get some tough love this summer. 

We also went out to Eilean Donan Castle, which was incredibly picturesque. After that, we headed back to Kyleakin where  Barbara and I also had a glass of drambuie which, according to our reading was (summarized here by Wikipedia) "concocted after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when Prince Charles Edward Stuart fled to the isle of Skye. There, he was given sanctuary by Captain John MacKinnon of Clan MacKinnon. According to family legend, after staying with the captain, the prince rewarded him with this prized drink recipe. This version of events is disputed by historians who believe it to be a story concocted to boost sales of the drink."  It seems that one cannot toss a stone without running into some legend about Bonnie Prince Charles.  And I'm okay with that. 

Today's photos are going to be of looking up and looking down.  The fluffy white flower is Barbara's photo.  Tomorrow we're off to Inverness on the train.  Thanks for reading. More tomorrow (God willing).

Day 5: Skye is pretty

All day today I just assumed I'd post a load of photos since nothing I could say could quite articulate the beauty of Skye.  I kept thinking about how my friend MN met her husband on the Isle of Skye-- I've always thought that was amazingly cool (and that was before I'd been here).  It seems like the perfect place to meet the love of one's life.  Meeting the Isle of Skye is also like meeting a love of one's life too.

Today was a driving and hiking day.  We saw a lot of terrain and breathtaking scenery.  We hiked at Quiraing (where most of the photos are from; Dale took the above of me there), stopped at many spots at the side of the road, lucked into tea at a historic hotel with a gorgeous view.  Here, we saw Flora MacDonald's cottage and met a cute sheep dog.  Later we stopped by the monument to Flora MacDonald who I've always been fascinated with (the Jacobite heroine and rescuer of Bonnie Prince Charles, not the politician, though she's pretty cool too).  There are some funny things about this space too: I love the random placement of red phone booths in this landscape. Not sure if I'm tired or just feel verbally inadequate in describing what I saw today.  I'll leave these pictures to you.  Skye is pretty indescribable.  Wish you were here too. Talk to you tomorrow.  

Day 4: Exploring the Isle of Skye

Instead of settling into our B&B and writing this entry tonight, I stayed out late and sang along with a fun pub musician.  I'm going to assume cafe visitors are fine with that decision.  The first few songs included two songs I adore beyond words: Wild Mountain Thyme and Dougie MacLean's Caledonia.  He also did some feisty Blondie, Mumford and Sons, and Johnny Cash songs.  It was a fun night after an equally fun day.

Late this afternoon we stopped at a bakery in Glendale and split 4 very tasty desserts.  We sat at a picnic table outside.  The sun was hot but grey clouds were starting to skulk across the sky. Sean spread out a very detailed map of Skye.  "Where exactly did we go?" I asked and he outlined today's journey from Mallaig to Skye and then along the western edge. When I looked at the map, I was struck at how far we'd travelled today.  I wasn't really paying attention to the geography as we travelled but I noticed lots of other lovely things instead like baby lambs, pink foxgloves growing wild, staggeringly beautiful views, thick brooding clouds hugging the Cuillin mountains, elegant dancing rivulets, and the list goes on.  My heart's in the Highlands for sure.  

Toward the end of the afternoon, we drove out to the Neist Point lighthouse.  It was a great trip out there and the walk to the lighthouse showed us some of the most spectacular scenery we've seen so far.  And somehow, reading To The Lighthouse this week, it seemed particularly fitting to go to a lighthouse.  I'm all out of words right now (and don't want to make KC cry again-- especially if she's eating her lunch hehe) so I'll stop here and let the pictures do the talking for me.  More tomorrow, kind friends.  

Day 3: Train to Mallaig

This is the view from the desk where I'm writing.  If you're my Facebook friend, you can see the photograph of me writing this entry.  The only desk has a mirror in front of it. It's weird to be writing autobiographical things while one's typing self stares back.  And, it's also weird to have a Highlands harbour in the edge of the mirror, making me wonder "How on earth did I find myself here?"  The easy answer is, of course, by train.  And this entry is in part about the train ride here.  But it's also an entry about something else. 

It's funny how things somehow fall into place in ways that would seem too contrived in novels.  In the past year, I've had a strange craving to read and re-read Virginia Woolf.  A few weeks ago, I needed a book to bring to a conference and I grabbed To The Lighthouse.  Notes in the novel suggest I read it in 1988 and 1989 as an undergrad in what was my favourite course with my favourite professor. To The Lighthouse was my favourite book of the semester.  I know for a fact that I wouldn't be who I am today or where I am today without this professor.  And arguably wouldn't be here if it weren't for Virginia Woolf too.  I was a little nervous that it wouldn't live up how I remembered it but after 10 pages, it was like reconnecting with a best friend.  As I read it, I was thinking about how I learned to read Modern British literature with my favourite professor.  And how she said at the beginning of the semester-- and she was right-- if you can learn to read Modern British literature, you can learn to read just about anything.  The course was a full-year class and I learned so many things in that class-- and not just about British literature.  Two funny things about picking up this Woolf novel a few weeks ago: one, at this conference, I ran into this very professor and I was so very happy to see her, and two, I realized that the lighthouse in question was on the Isle of Skye where I now find myself staring toward through some hazy dusk clouds.

 

I didn't end up finishing To The Lighthouse before I left and so I brought it with me on this trip.  I read more than half  of it on the train today and loved how all the passages I'd underlined so very long ago were still ones that resonated with me.  It's a stunningly beautiful novel and it still stands next to one of Miss Austen's as my favourite novels of all time.

Between passages of Mrs Woolf's, I stared out the train window and watched this landscape unfold.  We passed the famous Loch Lomond  where the banks are indeed bonny, bonny.   The Loch Lomond song danced through my head for a while.  We passed these little streams and big streams and rocks, pools and waterfalls.  Words kept popping to mind in unusal fragments.  Phrases like "darksome burn" and "wiry heathpacks," "flitches of fern," "dappled with dew," and "fawn-froth."   I was unsure whether I was remembering a poem or losing my mind in very poetic and archaic ways, I let the words bounce around in my head for a while as I stared out the train window.  Eventually, I began to remember that these were words from one of my other favourite writers from that British literature class-- GM Hopkins.  And, I then recalled I had written a paper about this poem for that class and that this was one of the first papers I did really well on.  I also remembered that I loved this poem so much that I researched where it was set and looked at a map to find where it was.  I mentally circled Loch Lomond on the map I keep in my head made myself a promise to one day visit Loch Lomond and see this darksome burn, horseback brown.  The poem was "Inversnaid."  

Tonight when I got internet access again, I googled "Inversnaid," and the words felt familiar in my mouth as I whisperered the poem to myself.

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth	5
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,	10
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;	15
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

I loved the last stanza then and it still resonates today, maybe even more than it did then.  And I loved-- and still love-- phrases like "degged with dew, dappled with dew," and "Of a pool so pitchback, fell-frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning."  Hopkins makes me smile.  

The harbour in Mallaig is now dark and I've been staying up later than I should the past few nights to write these blog posts.  We have an early ferry to Skye tomorrow and I really should go to sleep.  Even though I probably should have gone to sleep an hour or two ago, it seemed important to think about and thank those who brought me here via words and deeds.  

These following photographs are Dale's: he documented today's train trip beautifully.  More tomorrow from Skye.  Thanks for reading and for your nice comments.  XO.  H

Day 2: Walking Glasgow

I just wrote a Facebook status update that said "I like being around other people who cannot tan." I wrote it in part because it's kind of funny, especially after coming to terms with a lifetime of being mocked for how ghostly pale I am. But I also wrote it because it's been on my mind today that I keep running into people with hair and skin like mine-- curly reddish hair with a mind and will of its own. It's nice not to be the only one in a crowd who will sunburn in 15 minutes without a thick layer of SPF90.  As much as I try to ignore it, I must confess that there's more to the common hair and skin than the comfort knowing most of the room won't tell me to go get a tan.  There's something else about Glasgow.

My grandfather emigrated from Glasgow to Canada in the early 1900s when he was a very small child. I know it's easy to over-sentimentalise one's connections with the ancestral land so I've tried to put those ancestral connections to the side and just be present here. On the cab ride in, however, I was thinking about what in this city would have existed when he was a boy or when his parents were growing up.  Having decided there would have been very little of the Glasgow they would have known still in existence, I put it out of my mind. And I did for most of the day.  

One of the things I love about traveling with D, S&B is that we all love to walk. Today was almost all walking with a stop at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and for lunch at ___.  We walked around the University of Glasgow campus a bit, strolled through the Botanical Gardens, wandered through a few street fairs and generally wandered around taking in the sights, moods and scenes of Glasgow. We also stopped at the Pot Still-- apparently the best whiskey place in town and had the two malts of the month.  Over the years, I'd not heard good things about Glasgow but recently people who I think are really cool have told me they liked it a lot.  It's a very interesting city and I wish I had more time here.  There are an awful lot of interesting things here and I'd like to come back and explore them.

 

One of the most interesting things we saw was an exhibit called How Glasgow Flourished: 1714-1834. It was there where I saw paintings, drawings and maps of a Glasgow closer to that which my great grandparents would have known and I tried to imagine what it might have been like to live and work there and where they fit into this increasingly complex social and economic system.  I was reminded that my great grandmother's occupation was listed as "french polisher": something I've always thought was very interesting for a woman of that time.  There was a segment of the exhibit devoted to the economics of a changing Glasgow.  B noted that so much of the economy was built upon the backs of exploited labourers like slaves and migrant workers both here and abroad.  I started to think about what roles my great grandparents would have played in that economy and wondered too, exactly why they left for Canada.  I also wondered what they would have thought about their red-haired descendant coming back these many generations hence and looking for traces of them, however small, wondering if Walt Whitman was right: "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged/ Missing me one place search another/ I stop somewhere waiting for you."