Notes from Samo

Going to the Places that Scare Me

2011-09-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday (tomorrow!) I start volunteering in Penn Vet's Emergency Service (ES) department. Orientation was last Thursday. I've been anxious about doing this. I'm excited about being in a hospital environment and learning about how medicine works in practice (especially at a preeminent institution), but I'm worried about how I will react to seeing suffering, both of the animals and of their people. On the day of the orientation I was feeling a sense of peace (I think my subconscious has been working through the conflict). I believe I can see this as exposure therapy: a way to go to a place that scares me and learn, eventually, that the place is not as scary as I believe it to be. Besides, I want to be there for the animals; if that's hard for me to do, so be it.

I admit I was slightly shocked when we were told "If you're in ES, the first thing you do when you come in is check for dead bodies. It's okay, they're already bagged and tagged; you just need to take them where they need to go." Dead bodies? How can I not pick up those vessels without wondering what suffering brought them to this point? Did they have a good life? And who had to go back home to an empty house with an irreparably broken heart?

After considering this part of the job, I decided I would be okay with it. Animals die; that's something I'll be close to when I'm in this hospital. After all, I don't have to look at their faces or their damaged bodies; they'll be bagged and tagged. That was my rationalization until the volunteer coordinator opened the door of the cooler where the dead animals are kept and I saw the shelves holding the black bags. That made a rock drop into my belly, taking my wind away.

We volunteers have an out. If we ever feel uncomfortable, we can leave the room. I've already decided that that won't be me. Even though I'm scared. Even though I probably will feel like I want to leave the room. It's important for me to stay.

We only saw a few animals during our orientation. On the 3rd floor of the hospital is the IV fluid ward. That's where lovely Zose spent a night in January 2010, two months before she died. I looked in and saw a couple dogs, and a cute kitty looked back at me. She seemed small, but bright, healthy. I hoped she's not a terminal kidney patient like so many of the IV fluid patients are (and Zose was).

Serendipitously, my preparation for working at Penn Vet is the culmination of challenging work I have done this summer: participating in a weekend workshop with Pema Chodron at Omega and immersing myself in meditation practice; nine credits of Thanatology courses at Hood College. My understanding of myself and my capacity for compassion has grown. I am ready and willing to face my fears and be available to provide the furry patients with lovingkindness, to take in their fear and pain and anxiety and send them calm and compassion.

Not surprisingly, the IV fluid ward is on the same hall as the rooms for the feline kidney transplant patients and the feline kidney transplant donors. One is across the hall from the other. No transplant patients are in residence right now, but I looked in the donor room and saw two black cats lying casually on a round pet bed on the floor. These cats are waiting to become a match for a cat who is in acute kidney failure, is deemed a good candidate for transplant, and has a caretaker willing to spend the upwards of $5000 that a transplant requires. After transplantation the kidney donor cat goes home with its donee. It doesn't seem like much of a life for them to be confined to a small room with no windows. But they really didn't seem very bothered. As I consistently find, and try to remind myself, these creatures are often far more resilient than I give them credit for.

The hospital is quiet after 6pm. All of the scheduled appointments are over for the day: the staff of the dentistry and opthamology departments (and other non-emergent services) have gone home. The staff that I did see moved about the building with a friendly confidence. I wondered if I could have been one of them if I had made different career choices in my youth. (I am older than most, if not all, of the other volunteers.) Moving through the hospital, I felt I was where I was supposed to be. I have felt this way before: lurking around observatories, especially old ones (Nantucket, Wellesley, Edinburgh). Now I am in a new chapter, with my eyes and my heart open to the beings proximate to me rather than to the intangible bodies far above and far away.

There are many things about this experience that I anticipate will be difficult for me, and likely many other things that I cannot yet imagine that will challenge me. But this is where my courage will grow. I will lean into the fear and the discomfort. I will be a presence of calm for the people and animals who are having one of their worst days. I will not leave the room.

Iceland on $500 a Day

2010-02-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

[This post was written on 12 January 2010.]

We got a slow start today. From all the research last night we were ready to be gung-ho this morning, but I just couldn't fall asleep when it was time to be doing that.

I had hoped to get up at 8am, but I probably didn't fall asleep until around 6am, so, consequently, I didn't get up until noon. And if it wasn't for Robin's prodding it wouldn't have even been then. Though, to be sure, it's silly to sleep through the daylight since there is so little of it.

The first errand was to find the shop with all the maps; my Insight Guide gave the address for the office of the Iceland Geodetic Survey. However, my Insight Guide is from 2000, so when we arrived at the address we found the office no longer there. We did find a helpful person inside whatever organization is now using the space at that address. I don't know what the office was; there was a rack of postcards on the reception desk, but there was no sign or anything identifying what the business was, so I don't think it was a place for the public. In any case, this helpful person gave us the address for an academic-type shop that had loads of maps and just what we needed. We got a nice map of the Reykjanes peninsula, and a road atlas of the country. All together, about $50, which I thought was very reasonable considering our experiences with the knitting book and the dictionaries.

The walk to get the maps was windy and far, but we got to see the striking mountainous scenery across the bay. Since we'd only been out in the dark so far, we hadn't seen this yet.

We did a little grocery shopping to get a few more items for our larder, including some milk to replace what we mistakenly thought was milk when we were shopping yesterday, but turned out to be a carton of yogurt. You'd think that mjolk would be milk (the label on the yogurt carton), but no, milk is clearly marked "Muu." Silly me.

Next we went to the Tourist Information Center where we learned that there's no easy way to get to the Blue Lagoon other than an extortionately priced coach ride. And the admission to the Lagoon itself has become extortionate: nearly $40. I remember it being something like $12 or $15 when I was last here, in 2001. Now that Conde Nast Traveller has been singing its praises the Blue Lagoon can apparently charge virtually whatever they want. What other reason to travel to Iceland than to bathe in the runoff from a geothermal power plant? (Okay, to be fair, it's a pool of interesting silt and minerals that is heated by the runoff from a geothermal power plant...)

In any case, the costs involved caused me to think that perhaps a car rental would be better. Frankly, I hate being without a car. I love the freedom of going where I want when I want, not having to wait for someone to pick me up, to keep checking my watch to make sure I am on schedule. The cost for a car is high though. I sent my sister Jess a text to look up the cost on Travelocity since I thought it would be cheaper to book from home. $76 per day for two days, $204 total. (This compared to renting a car in Scotland last year which cost about $200 for two weeks.)

We also went to the handknitter's shop (see Handknitting Association of Iceland). They still have the nice style Nordic sweaters similar to what I bought when I was last here for about $100 and other more bulky knits for about three times that. Perhaps the ones I like are not handknit? They also have some yarn for sale, but it was hard to get to in the shop as it's near the stock area. They have some pattern books, but I didn't see anything terribly inspiring. I bought some Icelandic (probably machine-knitted, but reasonably priced) mittens for our friend Brandi, the vet tech who is helping out with Zose (my kitty with chronic renal failure) while I am away. The woman on line in front of me bought a small ball of yarn for the equivalent of about $3. My eyes were surprised to see such a low price. I would love to find a nice Icelandic pattern and the wool to make it with. There are other shops. The search is not yet over.

The best turn of the day came when we were leaving the house to try to find the thermal beach we saw on the map yesterday. Hlin was outside and she was telling Robin about her cats. She told a familiar story of families moving away, leaving their cats, and she takes them in, or at least looks after them. There's one ginger tom (a doppelganger for my Little Ginge) who is incompatible with her indoor cat, so he lives in a shelter that her husband built for him. Hlin also has a parakeet that was brought in (alive) by one of the cats. She invited us in to meet the parakeet and in the course of conversation asked us how things were going and how our plans for the week were shaping up. We expressed our desire to find a car and right away she was on the computer looking at local rental agencies. The first one she looked at was more expensive than what Jess found, but Budget turned out to be cheaper. They don't allow you to reserve online less than 24 hours in advance so Hlin picked up the phone right away to call them to inquire. They have a good rate (for here, anyway): the equivalent of about $200 for three days.

So now, with our car, our plan for tomorrow is to head to the Reykjanes peninsula which (I hear) has lots of lava beds, hot springs, and other geo-interesting things to see. And some lighthouses. Hlin's husband Sigi had a look at our map and gave us a very useful overview.

Hlin and I talked about how expensive entry to the Blue Lagoon now is. She seemed slightly surprised that I also felt it was expensive. I have the feeling she thinks the rest of us (in the world? in the US?) are much better off than the Icelanders, and that spending close to $40 to sit in a thermal pool is small money. Frankly I was encouraged by her reaction. I was starting to feel that maybe the Icelanders weren't bothered by these price tags.

We have not had a meal out yet and have been quite satisfied with our diet of bread, cheese, tea, yogurt, toast with jam, and juice. Today we even had some meat: salami with cheese and crackers (for me) and bread (for Robin). Yesterday we found ourselves hungry often; probably from our adjustment to the time and place. But we don't seem to eat more than a snack at a sitting. Maybe it's the good Icelandic air?

I read tonight that the cold water here comes from springs, and the hot water comes naturally heated from geothermal sources (and that's why it smells like sulfur; after lunch today Robin had a good laugh making farting sounds while he was doing the washing up to pretend that he was making the smells rather than the hot water. Ha ha). So no energy is needed to make the hot water, and most electricity is generated by harnessing the geothermal energy, making transportation the primary source of pollution.

Later in the day (that is, when it was more or less dark) we had a nice six-mile hike (as tracked on my Garmin wrist GPS) to the "Dome", a funny, yes, dome-shaped building that houses a revolving restaurant at its top, then to the thermal beach which was unfortunately closed, then a walk along the path that follows the coastline before heading back home. It was a nice walk but I am not struck by Reykjavik. It's hard for me to remember my exact impressions from when I was here eight years ago. There is something about it that seems unsettled, as if it is trying to be a modern European city, but it's not sure how to go about it. Even though it is nice to walk along the coast, there were several areas of detritus (presumably from the business of the Reykjavik Airport which we walked around) and some derelict huts of unknown (current or former) function. Even on our walk to get the maps, once we got past the swanky shopping area that is clearly dressed up for the tourists, the buildings look much more utilitarian (that is to say, ugly), the roads are busy and the ambiance is far from charming. Robin said yesterday that he didn't care so much for Iceland and wouldn't want to live here; he much prefers Scotland. I challenged him, citing that we had hardly been here long enough to make an informed comparison, but for now I have to agree with him. I think that the next few days will tell. We will be getting out of the city and exploring the countryside to the south, north, and east.

We still haven't seen any aurora. Perhaps tomorrow we will stay away from the city until after dark (and hopefully it will be clear!) and we will have a better opportunity. If nothing else, it would be nice to have a clearer view of the night sky than we get at home.

Arrival in Reykjavik, First Impressions

2010-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

[This is my entry from 11 January 2010.]

The flight was awful. I don't know if it was because I wasn't in a flying frame of mind (whatever that is) or that it really was just awful, but we were so uncomfortable most of the time. There are worse things that can happen on flights, to be sure, but this one was awful because it was so cramped, and hot, and dry. It was like being in a sauna. The two small children (one yabbering, a younger one screaming and carrying on most the time) didn't help, and Robin's incredibly frequent coughing and throat-clearing left over from his Christmas flu also did nothing to help me as I tried to get some sleep.

As an extra bonus, on arrival at Keflavik airport, you get to go through the security rigamarole all over again. This is because, once you arrive in the airport you "mix" with all the people who have already cleared security. So even if you're staying in the country, I guess just in case you change your mind and hop on another plane, you must be cleared through security: take off your shoes again, take your computer out of its bag again, put your liquids in a separate container again, and have a friendly pat-down by the security guard AGAIN. Thankfully the line moved pretty quickly, but the inanity of this exercise is striking. [rant]Do they ever stop anyone dangerous this way? Has a terrorist attack ever been prevented through these checks? If a guy can still get on a plane with a bomb in his pants, I know it's an obvious question, but what is the point of these "security" checks?[/rant]

In fact, a minor note: I usually bring an empty water bottle with me into the terminal, and once through security I fill it up at a water fountain in the terminal (this useful tip given to me by my good friend Cathy Andrulis). When at JFK, after passing through security, I went to retrieve the bottle from my hand luggage, and I realized that the bottle was not at all empty and had about 10 oz of water in it. Maybe they're not as careful if you're leaving the country?

In any case, our minds dulled from the time spent in the Sauna in the Sky and a general lack of sleep, we had a pretty hard time making our way out of the airport. As if something in the air sapped our intelligence we wandered around a very quiet terminal and it took some amount of effort to even find the luggage carousel (when we finally did, it was only our bags sadly traveling round and round on the belt).

We took a very expensive coach trip (about $35 for both for a 40 minute ride) to get from Keflavik Airport to the bus depot in Reykjavik. We walked to our apartment, at Forsaela, from there.

The apartment is adorable. It is lovingly maintained and has a lovely entrance done with lights on the tree outside and in the garland decorating the window boxes. My heart warmed as soon as I saw it. As I walked past the kitchen windows with their pretty lights, I thought, how lovely if that was to be our kitchen. And it is! As with our wonderful cottage on Islay, I feel lucky to stay in such a lovely place. Two views are below:

Our hostess, Hlin, is very personable and has offered to help with any extra arrangements for tours, etc., that we may want to make. She instructed us that we must leave our shoes on the rack in the entryway outside the door to our apartment and don the slippers she has provided when inside.

Many people still have their Christmas lights and decorations up. It is fun to see how others in the world decorate for the holidays. Not that it's much different, but there are some cute departures: Santa in Iceland has a more Scandinavian physique (read, skinny) and a less full beard.

I had a lovely nap after we settled into the apartment; I had some of the best sleep I think I've had in weeks. Unfortunately, I slept through almost all the daylight, of which there was very little. When we got on the bus from the airport at around 8:30am and were walking to the apartment at around 9am it was dark as night. The streets weren't even busy and it was a Monday morning. Many shops open at 11am (sunrise is at around 11:30am). What do people do for work here? Why wasn't there rush-hour congestion?

Also, why are the houses covered in corrugated sheet metal? It's generally not very attractive (unless painted a lovely cornflower blue, like our apartment house) but perhaps it's long-wearing? Good for keeping out the elements?

Robin's first comment on starting out from the bus depot was "Iceland smells like farts." I thought the smell was from the sea; the smell seemed similar to the kelpy, salt-watery smell common to the seaside, but no, he's right, it smells like farts. The hot water smells like sulfur. Turning on the tap in the apartment, it's a bit strange to smell the "eau de sulfur."

After napping, we walked around the shopping district some. We bought some groceries; the grocery store was pretty rudimentary by our standards, even by those of the Scottish Co-op in Bowmore on Islay. The store here is called Bonus; their logo is a cartoon fat pig with money popping out of his spine. I find it unpleasant; he looks crafty to me. Here's a screenshot from their website:

I like that their refrigerated food section is an actual refrigerated room that you walk into: kind of the inverse of what we have at home. Neither of us is in the mood for elaborate meals, so we bought some basic staples: yogurt (Icelanders love their yogurt), bread, cheese, pasta, and what we thought was milk, but turned out to be a carton of yogurt. Robin tried to make the best of it by putting it in his tea, but that turned out to be a bad idea. Thankfully there was at least some powdered creamer left by a previous resident.

We walked around the main shopping district where there are lots of swanky boutiques; no sign of a collapsed economy here. We went into a couple bookstores to try to find an English-Icelandic dictionary; I thought this might be useful for signs and labels (everyone here speaks at least passable English). Even the teeny-tiny one we found cost the equivalent of about $30 (something that would cost about 6 USD). The exchange rate is currently about 120 Icelandic Krona (ISK) to the US dollar (compared to around 85 ISK when I was last here in the summer of 2001). I saw a beautiful knitting book, on sale for 15,900 ISK (about 132 USD). I couldn't believe the price could be so high. Surely it must be 1,590 ISK? Who would spend so much on a knitting book? The high prices are discouraging to me. I was expecting things to be priced more reasonably than this.

Of amusement: we passed a (closed) sex shop while walking through town. Their URL is included on their shingle: www.pen.is. Cute.

We've been seeing lots of cats around. Since I am a cat magnet I guess this shouldn't surprise me. We've already seen three or four, including one who said hello as we were walking from the bus depot (what better welcome than one from a cat?). They all seem very tame and friendly and have collars with tags. It's heartening to see that people here seem good about keeping up with their animals.

Tonight we took a walk to the harbor area where we thought it might be darker to try to look for aurora. It was a bit overcast though. No aurora to be found.

We spent the rest of our time today at the kitchen table poring over our guidebooks, brochures, and maps, most of which we picked up at the airport and bus depot, trying to work out what to do and where to go (the picture below shows the spread). It's hard to work through all this! The maps are hard to follow and the brochures don't give a lot of practical information; for example, how to take the bus to the Blue Lagoon. This and the extortionate book prices we encountered earlier are making my head spin. Thankfully we have an adorable apartment and lots of cats to meet.

Last Day

2009-06-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

[Written 5 June.]

If I didn't have my furry monsters to go home to I'd want to stay here much longer. The weather has been absolutely terrific this week. Again today we woke to sunny skies. It's getting colder, but I don't mind about that. It's the grey skies that bother me.

Today turned out to be more of a pajama day (that is, one where you don't do much, and more or less spend the day in your pajamas). We woke up late and I had one of those headaches where my eye felt like it wanted to force itself out of its socket. After some pills and a nap we took a walk to Brigend so I could post a letter. When we got back we started, ugh, packing. I'm going to hate leaving my charming cottage! (Here's a view of the rhododendron and trees just outside and to the left of the cottage entrance.)

After another nap and some dinner (during which we had a caller whom Robin dealt with -- apparently the young man was inquiring after a Miss something-or-other who is apparently one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. The gentleman said that she always stays here when she's on holiday) we took another glorious sunset walk. I wanted to go back towards the hill that we climbed the other night. The map shows that nearby are remnants of an old village: forts, "burnt mounds," and hut circles. I thought it would be fun to try to find these things. We walked through a lot of farm land, were told where to go by countless cows and opened and shut several
gates. (Below is a picture from our route that passed near Knockdon Farm.)

It was not clear which path led to the ruins and one went through a meadow where some intimidating cows were. We could skip it, I thought. By this time we could see the Loch Indaal (really a bay) and Bowmore. I decided I wanted to walk along the coast. So we left the search for ruins behind and walked to the road. We soon found ourselves on the same road where we saw the swans the other day. Tonight there were other water fowl there, as well as many sheep on the beach. As the sun sank lower the hills to the east were coloured pink and the puffy clouds made for a very pleasing view on this our last night on Islay.

Tomorrow we leave the island at around 2pm and head back to Glasgow from there; to fly home Sunday morning. As much as I hate to leave, I am so pleased to have had such a wonderful trip. I will savour these memories for a long time to come.

Shifting Focus

2009-06-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

[Written 4 June]

I think we've arrived at the point in the trip when our minds are starting to drift back to home. Today is Thursday; tomorrow will be our last full day on Islay. It will be sad to go. I'll miss sitting in the sun on the bench outside, the blue skies that we've been so lucky to have while we've been here, the people who wave from their steering wheel as we pass each other on the road. We've been joking all week about what sort of enterprise we could start up here so that we could sustain ourselves. Today I hooked on the Islay Cat Sanctuary and Astronomical Observatory (ICSAO). What fun to combine those two loves into something I could do full time. I always thought I might want to spend my sunset years as director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket. Starting a new venture of my own here would be far better.

Our energy was pretty low today. Maybe because we've been keeping our days pretty full and we needed a break and/or maybe because we're starting to feel the pull of home and it's getting us a little down. We talked at dinner tonight about how work feels like it's another world away. Robin can't believe he's thought of it so little.

We didn't get out of the cottage today until about 2pm. We started by going north few miles to Port Askaig. This is a ferry port that serves Jura and the mainland. We want to go to Jura tomorrow (it's only a 5-minute crossing, and there is a distillery there) and we wanted to look into booking. But there is no ticket office. It turns out that getting to Jura works in much the same way as I found when I was traveling through the islands of Shetland: show up at the dock and drive on when the boat comes in. I suspect we'll also have the guy coming round to the car windows with his mobile till to collect payment. Have I said this before? I love how simple life here can be.

We booked ourselves for a 15.15 tour at Bunnahabhain Distillery. Since we didn't have much to do in Port Askaig we had some time on our hands once we got to Bunnahabhain. The day was clear and bright, but quite a bit cooler today, especially on the water where we were. After a few minutes outside we moved to the "office" where people are meant to wait for their tour. There was surprisingly little to be seen going on while we were waiting. Only a few workers were around (which probably means they don't have many -- this actually wouldn't be unusual; it takes surprisingly few people to run a distillery). We thought we might be able to spend some time looking around in the shop before our tour, but when we actually found the shop (it wasn't easy!) the woman there suggested we come back with the rest of our tour when it was over. Not a very warm welcome to Bunnahabhain (pronunciation: boon-a-hav-an; remember, in Gaelic bh=v).

Our guide on the tour couldn't have been more than a few weeks outside his 18th birthday and mentioned that he thought at first Robin and I might be "part of the Opposition from down south"; that is to say: English. This remark came after the other tour-goers reported that they'd been to Caol Ila (cul-eela) Distillery earlier in the day and our lad said "may be a nice shop, but not a nice whisky." This brusque arrogance contravened the good naturedness we'd seen in all of the other distilleries we've visited so far, to say nothing of the good will they have all shown towards the other distilleries on Islay. I had half a mind to walk out at this point, but decided not to make a scene, so we carried on.

There's not much to see at Bunnahabhain. They get their malt from Port Ellen, and they sell much of their whisky for blends. So they have no malting floor, and very little aging is done on the premises.

We saw their mill, the mash tun, the wash backs, and the stills. None of the few workers we saw around the place seemed in a particularly good mood (this was definitely out of character from what we'd seen at other places). Many distilleries (including Bunnahabhain) are cutting down on production due to the recession; perhaps this is hitting them harder than the others. Also, it is a shlep to get to them; they're many miles down a single-track road. It seems like they may be at the end of their golden days. Perhaps it won't be long before they're absorbed by a corporate giant.

Bunnahabhain takes pride in the fact that their whisky is only lightly-peated. I don't see how this can be much of a selling point on Islay where most people come for Laphroaig, the most peated whisky around. It seems that Islay visitors are looking for the peatiest whisky they can find; the peatier the better. Although they do bottle a single malt, Bunnahabhain's claim to fame is their "Black Bottle": a blend of the seven whiskies on Islay (Kilchoman is set to be added at some point in the future). This seems like something of a gimmick, though the whisky does have a good taste and it does have a hint of peat to it, so you're not going to mistake it for a Speyside (north east mainland Scotland) whisky. The blend uses mostly Bunnahabhain (again because of its lack of peaty character).

Some photos from Bunnahabhain. View of the distillery from the pier:

View of the Paps of Jura from the Bunnahabhain pier:

Empty casks getting sprayed with water outside one of the warehouses:

Me, enjoying the view and the sun, while waiting for the tour to start:

After we left Bunnahabhain we made a stop at the historic site Finlaggan apparently a medieval seat for the Lord of the Isles (who ruled the islands and part of the west of Scotland). It's a somewhat interesting collection of ruined buildings, more so because it's on island reached by a causeway. While Robin took pictures, I (you can probably spot a trend here) sat down and enjoyed the sun. Unfortunately I did this out of Robin's sight, and when he called to me I couldn't hear him for the wind over the water. After awhile realized that it had been awhile since I saw him and I stood up to see him walking back towards the visitor centre, clearly perplexed that I'd gone missing. Thankfully he wasn't angry, just "glad that you're still alive."

A few views of Finlaggan. The ruins of the Great Hall:

Two views of the ruin of the main house of the complex:

We've decided that we won't make it to all of the distilleries. We will probably go to the Jura distillery tomorrow, but we will likely miss Caol Ila and Lagavulin. These are both run by the large conglomerate Diageo and we have read some very scathing criticism of the company in the local paper we picked up The Ileach. Both Laphroaig and Ardbeg (the distilleries we visited yesterday) are owned by large bourbon distillers (I can't remember who owns whom; this is a useful partnership though -- bourbon casks can only be used once and Scotch whisky loves to mature in bourbon casks. When you're owned by a bourbon company it's a lot easier to get the casks). Feeling this local animosity toward Diageo has cooled our interest in visiting these distilleries, even though they make a damn fine product (and, as Robin points out, what is being bottled now was produced before Diageo took over).

Ah, and for once, I'm done writing before midnight.

Serendipity

2009-06-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

[This is my entry written 3 June 2009.]

Today we woke up on time, but we still got a late start. I guess we thought that Laphroaig (la-froyg) was closer than it is. We booked ourselves in for a 10am tour this morning and it turned 10am when we were still about 3 miles away. Thinking that Laphroiag would be more formal than the others we'd visited so far (because it's more famous and more popular), we thought they probably would start right on time (the others started a few minutes late). So Robin phoned from the car and gave our coordinates as I was barreling down the road (and still waving to as many people as I could -- everyone waves on the road on Islay, not just when you're at a passing place; it's friendly island living). We were told they might be able to wait, but put our names on the list for 11:30 just in case. When we finally parked the car, since it's a big distillery, it still took us at least another minute and a half to make our way to the visitor centre. But they hadn't started yet. There were four other people on the tour: a young (early 30's?) American and two older men who sounded Irish to me.

Here are a couple views of the exterior of the distillery:

Our guide was David. He was visibly thrown-off by the scheduling change. I saw him ask who was probably the centre manager if he should modify the tour because we were starting late. She said no, just do what you usually do. I thought this was a little strange because David looked to be at least in his late 50s. Is he new at this? It turns out that, yes, he's been in the tour guiding job for about a year, but he's been at Laphroiag since the mid-70s. In the course of the tour he told us that he used to work in the warehouses (I think) but that handling all the barrels got to be too much on his body. He was even away from his job for more than a year to get his hip replaced. Having been at the distillery for so long (and having a very colourful personality) meant that he had a lot of good stories. In the old days workers on a break were able to drink samples from the still. He said it was better than Valium. As they do, the laws changed, and this is no longer allowed. David seemed to have fond memories of those days.

He also told us about the two visits Laphroaig has had from the Prince of Wales. The first visit, in the 80s was accompanied by 40 members of the press. During his visit last year, there was no press coverage at all. David was proud to tell us that Laphroiag is the only Islay distillery the Prince has ever visited.

I took several pictures at Laphroaig to document the whisky-making process. First, we were able to watch the wet barley get rolled out onto the malting floor:

Because it has been so warm in recent days the barley was germinating faster than usual as can be seen in this closeup of the barrel used to pour the barley on the floor:

A malting floor nearly completely covered with barley:

We were allowed to pick up and sniff the wet barley that had just been laid on the floor:

David showed us the kiln that burns the peat:

The barley is laid out on a mesh floor above the kiln. The heat dries the barley to stop its germination. The smoke from the peat fire infuses the barley and gives our Islay whiskies their distinctive flavour. Here we were able to look onto the drying floor. David said that the kiln had just been fired up a little bit ago. When it really gets going, you can't see the back wall anymore.

After the barley is dried (I think we call it malt now) it's put in the mash tuns and rinsed through a few times with hot waters of different temperatures. I didn't get a picture of the mash tuns. It's the liquid that is drained from the mash tuns that is used for distilling. The spent grain is fed to Islay's cattle (which are apparently very yummy to eat). Yeast is added to the liquid and fermentation begins. At this point, we are pretty much making beer. The fermentation is done in big vats called washbacks. Bowmore has wood washbacks. At Laphroiag (and also at Kilchoman) the washbacks are stainless steel. When the yeast is working hard there is a lot of bubbling activity. We tried to capture that here:

Here are a couple views of the washbacks:

The liquid at this stage in the process is called worts. It is pretty stinky and has a sharp though slightly sweet taste, with some carbonation from the fermentation with the yeast. Nevertheless, David broke out some little cups and gave us all a taste to try.

Once the worts has finished fermenting it moves on to the stills. This is where the magic happens. The spirit is distilled twice. Each distillery's stills are a different shape. This and the angle of the neck of the still (is it pointing up or down, is it parallel with the ground) are supposedly the key features that give a whisky its character.

As the spirit is produced it goes through a spirit safe. Here the distiller can test for alcohol content and flavour and decide when to take the "middle cut": the spirit that is put into casks. Here's David at the Laphroiag spririt safe:

When we reached the warehouse where the casks were filled I asked David if you can overfill a cask. I thought you would want to avoid losing a drop at all costs. This is where David told one of my favourite anecdotes (possibly better in the telling). He said, no, today the pump that fills the barrels will switch off automatically when it's finished (akin to a gas pump at a filling station is my understanding). But back in the day, he used to fill the casks and if you weren't paying attention ("if you were talking about the football or whatever") you could end up getting soaked with the stuff. Then you'd go home to your mum reeking so much that she'd accuse you of drinking at work. Here are some recently filled casks:

After the tour we tried both the Quarter Cask and the 12-year Festival bottling. (Islay's Music and Malt Festival, Feis Ile, occurred the week before we arrived and most distilleries did a special bottling for the event. We were initially planning to be on Islay the week of the festival, but when it became clear that accommodation was going to be hard to find, we opted for the week following. This turned out to be a good choice; staff at the distilleries were in good spirits (ha ha) because the festival was over and it had gone well and the masses of people who were thronging their visitor centres were now gone away so they were relaxed and happy.)

After our excellent tour from David we went down the road to the Ardbeg Distillery (Ardbeg, Laphroaig, and Lagavulin are very close to each other on the southeastern coast of Islay). Ardbeg no longer malts their own barley (they get their malt from Port Ellen Maltings down the road) and they have converted their kiln rooms into the visitor centre shop and cafe. So we booked our spots for the 3pm tour and had a reasonably tasty lunch in their cafe.

After lunch, because we still had about an hour before the tour started (and of course we wouldn't want to be EARLY for our tour) we took a drive up the road to see Islay's one official Historic Scotland site: Kildalton Cross. It being another nice day (the heavy cloud forecast never materialised) we enjoyed the scenery:

I enjoyed finally getting to see the cross:

From the chapel nearby:

We got back to Ardbeg in plenty of time and had our tour done by Rachel, who announced at the very start that this was only her third tour so "be nice." She was very sweet but quite unsure of herself, even though she did a fine job and knew her stuff. Here's a picture of her consulting her notes at the spirit safe:

Ardbeg's mill (the malted barley is milled before it goes into the mash tuns):

The view of the distillery from the Ardbeg pier:

Unfortunately Ardbeg isn't nearly as tasty as Laphroaig; we made no purchases in their shop.

After Ardbeg I decided I wanted to back to the shop at Laphroiag and satisfy my vacation shopping impulse by buying their "Islay weather proof" jacket (very nice, with a nice Laphoiag stitched logo). David was manning the shop and seemed quite pleased to see us back. He offered us another wee dram and this time had the Cask Strength (very good, as fellow whisky-lovers may imagine). David was in a good mood. The weather was good and it had been a "good day." While sitting at the bar/counter sipping our dram he gave us each some chocolates that could no longer be sold in the shop since they "expired" on 1 June, and 5cl Quarter Cask mini-bottles. And pens! A Laphroaig pen for each of us. A wise choice indeed to return. [Two days later when I was wearing my jacket to protect me from some Islay weather, I found a piece of cat hair. How can I have cat hair on my new jacket? I'm thousands of miles from the cats. Further proof that, ah yes, they are always with me...]

It was a long day! And especially after 4 or 5 drams before 5pm, I was sleepy. When we got back to the cottage I had a wee lie down on the couch while Robin channel-surfed. At 9pm I was refreshed and ready for a walk. Today we decided to go left out of our road instead of right. I've been feeling a little lazy/guilty for doing only one walk on the walk map/guide I bought before the trip. I'd been thinking that if we drive out to a walk site we'd probably see better scenery and views than if we just walked locally. Ho hum. But after an already busy day I don't really feel like getting back in the car and doing all the single track shenanigans. I mean, I need to return the Fiat with the axles intact! So, we're walking along and arrived at a sign: "Footpath to Carnain." Hmmm, okay.

"Carn" generally denotes a hill, and yes, there was a hill in front of us, as well as lots of cows and sheep (we had also passed the sign for Knockdon Farm). These animals were very wary of us. They watched us closely and moved quickly if they thought we were getting too close.

The footpath soon ran out, but as we climbed we found that we were getting some of the most astounding views we have seen so far. We could see Bowmore on the left, and Port Charlotte and Bruichladdich on the right. As we climbed higher we could begin to see more and more of the complete southern coastline of the island.

And then, as we reached the top of the hill, the setting sun was the backdrop for the rocky hills of Islay to the north, Jura, Oronsay, and Colonsay. Shown here are the Paps of Jura:

All of this in our own backyard. It was an amazing find. I walked home elated.

Well-Peated

2009-06-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

[I wrote this entry on 2 June.]

First, make sure you know what peat is. This entry will probably make a lot more sense.

A pretty low-key day (did I say that about yesterday?). It's a good thing I'm blogging all this. There is no way I would remember everything. In fact I'm not remembering things from one day to the next. Did we go here? Yes? Was it by car or on foot?

So, yesterday I phoned Kilchoman Distillery just around closing time to arrange for a tour today. We got going this morning a bit later than planned (surprised?) so we arrived just about on the minute for our 11am tour. Strangely, not much seemed to be going on at the visitor centre shop (which for being a good way down a single track road was pretty extensive).

Kilchoman has been something of a mystery to us. It is often not included in the list of Islay distilleries (for those of you playing at home, these are: Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bunnahabhain, Bruichladdich, Caol Ila, Lagavulin, and Laphroaig). And we didn't know why that was. After a couple minutes in the shop, Robin wandered over to me and whispered, "I think I see why they're not always on the list; they don't have any whisky yet." In order to be a whisky, you need to have matured for at least three years. And indeed, when I read the labels on the bottles on the shelf they all said "spirit." Uh-oh, we thought, are we wasting our time here?

But no. After wandering around for a few minutes I caught the eye of an employee who had just come out of the office. When I told her we were there for a tour she seemed surprised. Oh, you must've talked to Mr. Wills, she said. He's the owner. Hmmm, small operation. I booked the tour with the owner of the distillery? She shook off the surprise and promptly took our money and started us on our tour herself. At the other two distilleries we've visited there have been about 15 people on each tour. To be the only two seemed like an extravagance.

The name of the distillery is pronounced kil-HOME-an, not KILK-o-man as we'd been saying it. Another complete surprise. I didn't even understand what she said at first when she asked if we'd ever visited the place before.

Like Bowmore, Kilchoman malts their own barley. This involves wetting and draining the barley 3 or 4 times in a large vat, then laying it out on a concrete floor to germinate, but only slightly. After germinating (this has to do with releasing sugars from the starch in the grain) the barley is dried in a kiln. Being Islay, the barley is dried in a peat-fired kiln. Kilchoman is a small operation on a farm; the owner started the distillery because it was something he always wanted to do. Consequently their malting floor is very small (compared with 3 levels of large floors at Bowmore). Distillation is done in an interesting still with a funny bulge in the middle:

Our guide gave us the sense of the collaborative relationship between the different distilleries on Islay. It is not a competition. In fact, Kilchoman borrows warehouse space from Bruichladdich. At the end of the tour we had a dram of the two-year old spirit; this was quite tasty and rather peaty. The spent mash (what's left of the grain after it is dried and then put in "mash tuns" with water to extract the sugars) is fed to cattle (this is done island-wide), and apparently (our guide tells us this is often asked) it does NOT make their meat taste peaty (???).

We bought the "Connoisseur's Collection" in the shop: small bottles of the 2-year, 1-year, and 1-month bottlings. Kilchoman's first batch of proper whisky will be ready in September. Robin has already reserved and paid for his bottle (and says he probably won't open it; Kilchoman has already created a very good reputation for itself; the first bottling could be a significant collector's item).

Port Charlotte was nearby so we stopped in to do some more blogging, and had some soup and scones. Again, we were very lucky with the weather and sat outside, but the mist on the horizon in the distance told us that the rumours are true about a cold front coming in. The weatherman on the BBC confirmed this tonight, and was almost defensive about it, just in case we'd all suddenly come under the mistaken impression that we're actually living in the Mediterranean. He told us it's going to seem colder, but really these are normal temperatures for this time of year. He should have had a subtitle reading "Don't Blame ME!" Really, it must be a terrible job being a British weather forecaster. The news is hardly ever good. And we've had such a run of nice days that I suspect no one wants to be the one to tell the nation that Shangri-La is coming to an end.

We'd been up late last night poring through our hundreds of pictures, trying to find the best to post here. With less sleep than I wanted and a dram at noon I wasn't sure I was up for much more without a nap first. So instead of going to another distillery we decided to have a look in at the Islay Ales Brewery. They're a small operation (as many things seem to be around here) run by two salty guys from England. Yesterday we bought a pint of their Bruichladdich Ale at the eponymous distillery. Islay Ales takes Bruichladdich's (what, mash?) and turns it into beer. When we arrived we started straight off with a couple half-pints for tasting (as you can imagine, just what I needed to really drive me into the ground) and enjoyed chatting with one of the brewmasters before heading out with a selection of six bottles.

Next we went a short way up the road to the Islay Woolen Mill. Yesterday I bought a wool throw at Bruichladdich in their own tartan that was woven at the Mill. I thought this might be a fun place to see lots of fabrics and maybe find some more tartan. Unfortunately the shop was stocked with mostly knitted garments (they don't do spinning or knitting at the mill) and an odd selection of "gifts" (knick-knacks and other things one doesn't really need). There were a few samples of tartan, but they seemed to have been on the shelf for years. And some tartan hats and jackets, but nothing well-suited to either of us. The owner/operator of the mill appeared (another rather salty fellow) and showed us the room where the very noisy looms were running and told us that his fabrics are sold to Chanel and to Savile Row in London. Near the till in the shop was a newspaper page with a photograph of Princess Anne wearing clothing made from tartan made at the Mill. He (rightly so, I guess) is quite pleased with himself for these achievements.

Apparently cashmere comes from China (I guess I remember that, but only vaguely). I learned this for good because he gave me a good scoff when I asked if he used wool from Scotland to make his fabric. Oh no, 90% of the wool produced in Scotland is shipped out of Scotland, and 90% of the wool used is Scotland is imported from outside the country. (He obviously mostly uses cashmere.)

He asked where we were staying on the island and when I told him Eallabus Cottage (using my self-fashioned pronunciation, EALL-a-bus) he immediately corrected me. It is ey-al-A-bus. Those women at Islay Estates are too polite to correct my pronunciation, but I'm feeling a bit silly now. However, we did learn that the owner of Eallabus is also the owner of about "one-third of the island" and is one of the richest men in Britain. Sounds like someone worth getting to know!

We headed back home at around 3pm and I went straight outside for an almost hour's nap in the warm sun. When it was time for dinner we knew we were hungry but didn't know what to eat. I had roasted a chicken a couple nights ago and had saved some juices for making gravy. Hmmm, but we don't have any flour for thickening the gravy. Oh, but we do have that oatmeal that's been pretty finely ground, let's sift out the finer stuff and try that. Worked a charm! But oh, it's a little too thick, we need some liquid. Let's add some beer! So we opened our Bruichladdich Ale (it's peated beer; a bit strange) and added that to the mix. Okay! Now for the chicken: just to make it (more) interesting, let's cut it up into smallish pieces, toss it in some beaten egg and more oatmeal and fry it up. Okay, it sounds strange, but it really tasted quite good. I think the influences of these master distillers and brewmasters are wearing off on us: be creative, use your instincts. And how much more Scottish can you get than having oats in your chicken?

I'm on Top of the World

2009-06-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

[Unfortunately, I am back home. Thankfully, I get to remember the fun I had as I go through the back posts I was unable to publish earlier because I lacked internet access. The entry below was written on 1 June 2009.]

Literally and figuratively. I love it here. So few people and stunningly beautiful scenery. We took a walk tonight around Ardnave Point and from the high dunes there were able to see many of the surrounding islands, including a couple with ruined buildings (no one lives there now; I wonder if we could buy it? A running joke of the trip has become that we can of course buy whatever we want because "we're Americans." We're going to march up to anyone whose property we want and -- preferably while chewing on cigars -- demand, "We're Americans, how much do you want?") In any case, from high up on the dunes, where we were able to see far off into the distance to other islands: Jura, Oronsay, and Colonsay, and also the Kintyre peninsula on the mainland, I really do feel like I'm at the top of the world. So I'm moving here. Forward my mail. Tell my cats that I love them... (just kidding, of course).

But seriously (no, not really), Robin and I are working on a business case for making a Thermo satellite office here. Or, we're going to open our own distillery. Unfortunately we'll need to wait at least 10 years until we can think about turning a profit.

We had another late-ish start today. It's nice when we don't have to be up for breakfast like we did when we were staying at B&Bs. The freedom of having our own space is very nice. We don't have to worry about waking up too late or staying out too late; we can eat when we want and what we want. We didn't have a plan on waking so we lingered over breakfast. I hung some laundry out on the line outside. We needed to stop into the estate office as the fees and the exchange rate of the bank transfer left them 14 pounds 12p short. The two women working in the Islay Estates Office are in a space that can't be bigger than 10x10 feet. I'd go completely mad.

We had more gorgeous weather today. First stop after paying our balance to Jane at Islay Estates was to the community centre in Port Charlotte where we had the first internet access in days. I was so excited to see what my friends had been up to on Facebook and had a quick chat with Anne, and posted one back entry on the blog (here I am blogging about blogging). Hopefully we'll be able to get back soon, but there's so much to do here, I'm not sure when that will be. The view from our outside table was of the vast Loch Indaal (which is really a bay). The sky was so clear today we're pretty sure it was Ireland we saw off in the distance.

Next we visited our second distillery of the trip, Bruichladdich (this is pronounced "brook-laddie" with the "oo" like in "loo." We're having great fun learning the pronunciation of these names; even with my experience with Scots and Gaelic, I often (mmm, always) get it wrong and am amused to find how different my pronunciation is from the right way to say it.)

Bruichladdich is a fine little distillery that has only been back in operation since 2001. After our visit we found the book Whisky Dream in the local Spar shop that describes how some enterprising men got the business back on its feet again. It seems that each distillery has its own character, and even though their processes are more or less the same, I think it is probably worth seeing each one. We were pleasantly surprised by the bright character of Bruichladdich (and they even gave us two free drams of tasting! One very peaty -- more peaty than Laphroaig I'll contend -- and one not so peaty). On a bulletin board in the shop were clippings of a bizarre story a few years ago where some arm of the CIA admitted to spying on them under suspicion of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction! (Read more on the story at Bruichladdich's website.)

Then back home for some food before heading out for our walk at around 6pm. We walked for almost 3 hours on the cliffs, dunes, and beach around Ardnave Point.

We still have wool fever and spent a lot of time as we started the walk gleaning stray wool that had been liberated from the sheep by the abundant thistle in the area. We didn't have a bag for it, so we ended up stuffing it all in my little backpack:

(No, I don't know what I'm going to do with all the wool.)

On the way back we passed by the ruined Kilnave Chapel that holds one of the island's famous crosses. We stopped the car to walk down and take some pictures. At 9:45pm the sun was just going down and made for some dramatic compositions. That's another fun thing about Scotland in summer: it feels like it's 7:30 in the evening for about 3 hours (the trade-off of course is that in the winter it feels like it's night pretty much all the time).

While Robin photographed the chapel and cross from many angles, I wandered amongst the stones, looking more at the oldest ones. This one in particular caught my eye:

The text is:

He lived beloved & died
Regreeted. What is said
to One, is said to all.
Watch, & be ye also READY.

We've booked ourselves on an 11am tour of Kilchoman Distillery for tomorrow: incentive to get ourselves going a little sooner. Also perhaps we'll get to Laphroaig, the granddaddy of the Islay distilleries. Maybe a crossing to Jura later in the week, but I have a feeling we won't be sailing to the island of Colonsay this trip. There's too much great stuff to see and do here on Islay.

On Islay!

2009-06-04T11:27:00.001-07:00

This post is from 31 May:

Oops, missed yesterday! A live connection is hard to find around here. And the ones we do find are well-protected. What's that about? There's hardly anyone around.

Yesterday (30 May): We had breakfast at our B&B on the harbour in Tarbert, then shot over to Kennacraig to make our ferry. We had a lovely crossing, it was uncharacteristically sunny and warm.

I was tired! I napped in the sun for much of the trip. The fine weather made for clear skies and we could even see Ireland at one point in the journey. We arrived in Port Ellen (one of two of Islay's ports; the other is Port Askaig) which we drove through quickly and then made our way to Bowmore where we checked in at visitor information and then went on a tour of the Bowmore distillery. A fantastic tour.

Our guide, Isabael, was extremely knowledgeable and seemed to have more than a passing knowledge of the inner workings of whisky making [this is in fact true - we still don't know what her position is, but we saw a picture of her in the local paper handing over a donation check to the area high school]. The most surprising part of the tour for me was near the beginning where we went to the malting house and the malt (germinated barley) was just lying there on the cement floor. She told us about wetting the grain and then laying it out on the floors (Bowmore has three floors for this purpose). She walked right on to it and showed us how it is partially germinated when it is put down and then it is turned every four hours. [Other tours in further postings will describe other parts of this process.]

We picked up some groceries at the Co-Op in Bowmore and then went on to try to find our cottage. I never got directions. I didn't think to ask for them, and the estate office we rented from did not provide them. They must just assume we all know where it is. I wasn't too concerned since "Eallabus" is marked on my OS maps, but it is a label for a group of buildings. Which one is the cottage? In any case, I had an idea where to go, but I wasn't specifically sure. I had glimpses of fear of having to sleep in the car for two nights, not being able to find the cottage, and not being able to get to the estate office until it opened on Monday. Not to worry, Robin's navigational skills prevailed and, since we were well familiar with the pictures of the cottage from the website, we were able to find it without too much trouble. As promised, the keys were in the door.

It's a lovely place. It's just outside the small village of Brigend which is about 3 miles north of Bowmore. The cottage is part of a group of what look to be former farm buildings. It is tucked away amongst lovely plants and trees.

Today, sunday, our weather has also been good, so the cottage really does look like its promotional photographs. The road we're on sees hardly any traffic. While we've been "at home" we've seen probably less than 5 vehicles. We've also seen a mama bunny and her young one, and a fawn, as well as (what I can only guess, not being a practised birder, but having seen a picture on an information board) a blue tit (boys, insert your own joke here).

Today we slept in til after 11 and cooked ourselves a full breakfast before driving back to Bowmore to stock up properly on groceries for our week. The shop, the largest "supermarket" on the island, is pretty well stocked but has very narrow aisles; you're always in someone's way and vice versa. We have probably bought enough food to last us the week. Hopefully if we need anything else, we can pick it up at the small Spar shop in Brigend.

We went on a couple walks today, both close to home, so we could begin to get a sense of our neighbourhood. First one was to Skerolls Loch. This is only about 20 minutes away (by foot) from our cottage and has a couple row boats moored to a small dock. How nice if we could find a canoe somewhere to enjoy some time on the water! Perhaps we'll remember to ask when we stop in at the estate office tomorrow to pay our remaining balance of 14 pounds 16p.

Back home for crumpets with jam, then out again, this time in the other direction. Strange beaches around here, we haven't figured out why they're like this. The sand extends out for at least a couple hundred yards. And it's flat. As we were passing along the beach we saw in an inlet a family of swans! Mum, Dad, and 5 swanlings (help here on what baby swans are called). They are such elegant birds. We stopped and sat and watched them. Dad swam ahead and Mum stayed back with the little ones, dipping their heads in the water to eat what looked like seaweed. As we are watching this, believe it or not, a herd of cattle made their way from one end of the beach to another. It was so bizarre to see this along the beach. There were about 2 dozen cows and probably about as many (maybe a few less) calves.

And that was about all for our first day on the island. We walked home via the brewery; we'll probably go there tomorrow or the following day. We found a ruin of a watchtower and a sculptured stone nearby.

As we were making dinner we started hearing sheep noises so I went outside to investigate. Indeed several sheep had made their way (I don't know if they were herded or what) into the field about 50 feet down the road from us. As sheep do, they ran away when I approached.

We enjoyed our dinner of pasta even though the only spices we had were salt, pepper and some smoked garlic we got from tourist information in Balvaird.

The Sun Really Does Exist!

2009-06-03T04:20:00.000-07:00

This post is from 29 May:

What a difference a day makes. The rain and cold finally broke, and we woke to clear blue skies. This was such a more welcome beginning than cold and rain. We had our brekkie, and walked down to the Eilean Donan castle. Unfortunately we were 30 minutes early for its 10am opening so we decided to skip it. Robin figured (and he's likely right) that the castle is prettier from the outside; it's probably full of mounted animal heads and portraits of old dead people. Fair enough.

Next to went to Glenelg to find the group of 3 brochs. The sun was pretty hot by now. There were lots of tufts of stray wool on the grass at the first broch and we started picking them up; some of it had poopies in though, so we skipped those. Somehow I fancy myself a wool spinner and am going to make myself some sort of garment out of the stuff (if it's not confiscated by Customs?).

One sheep had found her way inside the fence of the broch and was there when we arrived. She wasn't very happy having us show up! But she did get used to us or something after awhile; she even came close enough to me that I could pat her woolly head. That's a first!

After leaving the first broch, we walked down the road a bit and saw the 2nd one, but decided to head on to the 3rd. It turned out this was about a mile down the road and was a well-ruined ruin.

It was a good climb to get there, and it felt good to stretch the legs. After those exertions we walked back and explored the 2nd one.

Despite ourselves we keep photographing sheep.

The road to Glenelg is mostly single track and goes up some steep hills. Even though the 1st broch is 11 miles down the road, it takes at least 30 minutes to reach it.

We spent a good few hours in Glenelg. Once back on the main road, I started to get sleepy after not too long. The walk in the sun probably helped with that. I needed a nap! So we stopped off at one of the forest walk sites and had a rest under a pine tree near a stream. Robin decided to stay in the car where ticks were less likely to appear.

Refreshed, we got back on the road and soon stopped for lunch at the very nice Invergarry Hotel. We had a great lunch of leek and potato soup, grilled steak sandwich (NOT a cheesesteak), and a brie sandwich. Super yum!

From here I thought the rest of the trip to Tarbert would be quick because it was on green A roads. Not so. The going was still windy and slow. We got to Oban at about 6pm and got some gas. Then we stopped at Kilmartin at 7pm or so and saw a few ancient ruins. It was very nice to have an evening walk and to see some of these sites again. The last time I was here the area was crowded with tourists.

Now one the home stretch to Tarbert: only a half hour further. We're staying at a very nice B&B on the harbour; I've just had the best shower I've had all week.

Unfortunately we got here too late to have a cooked meal so we've had snacks in the room. Another cooked breakfast in the morning though and then -- hooray!! -- on to Islay!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2009-06-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

From 28 May:

Well, it is Scotland after all. But it was rainy most of the day. This got to be drag after awhile.

Today was meant to be a scenery day since we didn't have any historical or other remarkable sites to see. We took the roads closest to the coast; these are also slow roads. Many of them are single track with passing places. This means if you see someone coming towards you, either you or they need to stop at the nearest passing place. (The road resembles a snake that's digesting several rodents.) Even though everyone is generally very polite and each party gives a wave after passing, this charm wears off after stopping a few dozen times.

As it has been, the scenery was exceptionally striking for its vast and often barren beauty (barren of human evidence; often barren of trees). We took special care as we were driving through the area of Loch Laxford to find the roadcuts that contain Lewisian gneiss. We learned about the roadcuts here from the TV show How the Earth Was Made; Lewisian gneiss is folded into and appears above some sedimentary layers that are younger than the gneiss. Unraveling this geological mystery was the subject of the HtEWM episode. And indeed there are some very interesting examples of this type of folding.

We did see one castle: Castle Ardvreck on Loch Assynt. This is a small and minor structure, though it does have some interesting stonework. As with Dun Dornaigil the previous day, the center of the structure is filled with earth. Again I had to scramble up the wall and investigate. Thankfully getting up and down was not too treacherous this time, in comparison with yesterday's scaling of Dun Dornaigil. Since it was raining when we got out of the car, and I didn't want to get soaked through as I did yesterday at Urquhart Castle, I decided to don my rain trousers. What a great feeling to be covered from head to toe in water-resistant nylon! Nothing could stop me! Let's go! Even though we spent much of the day in the car I kept the rain trousers on the whole time. Just in case. And the day was cold enough that I did not overheat.

Pictures of Ardvreck Castle. The ruin from a distance:

A closer look:

Me, in full rain gear, looking out one of the upstairs windows:

By the time we arrived in Ullapool it had warmed up quite a bit. The highlight of this city was its yarn shop (there are surprisingly few of these to be seen in Scotland, one would think there would be more with all of the sheep). The shopkeeper is a lovely and eccentric woman who commanded me: don't knit with metal needles!! (Think Joan Crawford as a knitter.) One must always use wood! I spent way too much money on some beautiful yarn from Wales made from wood pulp, and a pattern for a casual jacket. But hey, lemme alone, I'M ON VACATION.

The weather was frustrating and I was feeling some frustration that we were spending so much time in the car when there were such gorgeous hills and trails to be walked, but Robin and I were endlessly cheered by seeing the sheep, and particularly their lambs near the side of the road. The lambs are probably a couple months old and they are still very attached to their mothers, always keeping by their side. Yesterday we saw a lamb that was on the other side of the road from his mum. We slowed down to take a closer look at him and he panicked when he saw our shiny metal box separating him from mom. I stopped then and seeing the opportunity he bolted across the road to be with her:

This was an incredibly endearing sight. The lambs have a mischievous look about them that reminds me of kittens. And we all know I can't resist kittens.

We finally arrived at our B&B for the night (our room is in view of a loch) at around 6:45pm, not long after the proprietoress phoned us to find out what was the hold up. (Thankfully Robin got himself a UK T-Mobile SIM card, so we have a local number.) We are a short walk from the Eilean Donan castle. This site has become a Scottish icon; its photograph is the subject of countless postcards, adorns the cover of many Scottish guidebooks, and is even the backdrop for the balloon in one of the BBC America spots.

We rewarded ourselves with another hearty dinner at a local hotel restaurant tonight, again including a pint of McEwan's 80/- and even a dessert of sticky toffee pudding.

Hoping for better weather (there are rumours of a mini heat wave) for tomorrow...

It's Smoo-licious!

2009-06-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

[Wow! Two posts in two days! We're at the community centre in Port Charlotte again. Another sunny day, but a cool front is making its way down from the north, so we have some high cloud and slightly lower temperatures than yesterday. And some mist on the ocean. Can't see Ireland as clearly from our outside table today. Just back from an interesting tour at Kilchoman (kil-HOME-an) Distillery; more on that later. Belly (and head) still a bit warm from the dram... The post is from 27 May.]

Road fatigue. Starting to get tired. Especially after a pint with dinner at the pub, I'm feeling particularly tired.

We started the day at Urquhart Castle; first thing. We got there before all the coaches started arriving with their loads of foreign tourists. Rainy! We watched the clouds roll through the loch (Urquhart Castle is on Loch Ness and gets a lot of its tourism from the fact that some sort of monster was allegedly once seen in the vicinity). The setting is very peaceful and soothing, but we got well-soaked and a bit of a chill from all the rain. I didn't put on my rain trousers for the visit which I should've done. I didn't get as wet as I did during the hail storm yesterday, but we were out in it for a longer time. The castle, though, was lovely as ever (this was my third visit):

There was a guy wandering around the castle grounds in period attire (I'm not sure what period; Robert the Bruce period? Mel Gibson and Braveheart?). I gave him a perplexed "Hello" hoping he would tell me what he was up to, but no dice. Too early in the day for me to be amusing and take it any further, so I walked on. Robin couldn't think of an opener either. Another missed opportunity to show off our clever wits.

Hardly anyone was speaking English in the visitor's centre (lots of German, also Japanese). For some reason I really wanted some tacky Nessie souvenirs, particularly the ceramic thing I'd seen years ago -- Nessie in the water (how to describe this?) -- it's four ceramic pieces that when laid out on a flat surface look like a serpent half in/half out of the water (maybe a picture would do better here --- ha! got one:)

Everything at the Urquhart Castle shop is so posh now, so no fun for us (at least not in the mood I was in today). I did get Olivia a plastic knight's mask and sword. Every girl should have these things. I figured since she's worked that walking around with a blanket over your head is a giggle, she should enjoy tormenting her doggies with a plastic sword (sorry Jess!)

Thankfully we found some cheesy souvenirs in a shop in a nearby village. Now I'm all set for tacky Nessie stuff.

Next stop was Corrimony Chambered Cairn. Lots of cows with their calves in the field next door. Lots of mooing. This made Robin (aka 'City Boy') nervous even though there was a fence. Cows can't jump fences Robin. He settled in soon enough and enjoyed playing with his camera. I took pictures of cows, but after a little while decided that photographing livestock isn't very satisfying.

Here are a couple of my pictures of the cairn:

Livestock photography:

Lots of slow roads today. Single tracks with passing places. After the cairn we started to make our way north, on our way to Durness by way of Dun Dornaigil Broch. This is a remote site that I never made it to before: a long sought-after Historic Scotland site for me.

On the way a sign for a falls caught my eye, so I cajoled my navigator into taking a detour. It was not a long detour, and it was over narrow roads with hardly any traffic. I figured this would be a quaint stop-off with few or no other people around. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find a sprawling complex that included mini golf, bbq pits, a cafe and an extensive shop that included a surfeit of Harrod's merchandise (Harrod's???). The falls were surprisingly small, nowhere near large enough to warrant their adjacent activity farm. Take a look for yourself:

Who are we to judge? We used their well-appointed toilets for a wee break, and I bought a sock for my phone in the shop (yeah, you have to see this. I think it's a Japanese thing. And it has my name on it! Hey! I'm on vacation!)

The road to Dun Dornaigil was slow, but it had some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen in my life. Hills and vistas and clouds and light and NO OTHER PEOPLE to crowd us or spoil the view. This is why I come here. My only regret is
that we haven't been out more exploring on foot. As usual I have bitten off more than I can chew in terms of distances to travel (yes Mahinda, you were right, I've tried to pack in too many miles into too short a time). My hope is that we will have more time for walking next week on Islay. I'm already planning our next trip here: walking the Western Higland Way, and climbing Ben Hope are two items on the list.

At Dun Dornaigil the entrance was blocked up, but my inner imp emerged and I managed to scale the wall to find that the interior was filled with earth and grass was growing on top (so we weren't shut out for safety reasons or other nonsense). Brochs are interesting to visit because they have a double wall structure. I was hoping to find this, and show it to Robin. While it was fun to climb the wall and imagine myself queen of all I surveyed, I didn't think through how I was going to get down. Thankfully my gallant companion again rose to the occasion and guided my feet a few steps until it was safer to jump down. He helped to break my fall and prevented me from falling into the ditch alongside the broch.

The broch from the outside:

Me, in repose, after satisfying my curiosity:

Robin took this picture of Loch Eriboll while we were in transit:

We finally arrived at our B&B a little after 6pm. Tired and hungry we went to the Smoo Cave Hotel for dinner. I had a sustaining meal of steak pie and chips (yummm) and a nice hearty pint of McEwan's 80/-, our new favourite ale. Feeling much better, but a little tipsy, we went to Smoo Cave. Making every bit of word-play on the name that we could think of (it works like "Smurf" did), the cave stunned us. It was unexpectedly vast and beautiful, with a falls hidden inside. Here are some views from in and around the cave:

Wondering where the hell that water was coming from, had to scale back up to find the source. A stream flowing down from the hills feeds the falls:

Thankfully the large hole in the cave that the falls, um, fall into is safely fenced off, though we are advised to not throw rocks down the hole, to avoid clocking visitors below on the head:

At 11:15 pm it was still twilight and didn't seem like it was going to get much darker. Ever.

Chasing Rainbows

2009-06-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

[Hello Evereebodeee! Even though we've not been able to get internet connections very frequently of late, I have been writing every night ('cept Saturday May 30) so that my entries aren't coloured by hindsight. This entry is from 26 May. When I have some more time I will add the other days and add photos for what's already been posted.]

All day the weather has been so changeable. We'll have clouds and rain and then beaming sun. We started the day in Fort William, running a few errands first: getting phone cards and arranging accommodation for the night, as well as a trip to Boots where they always have so many nice things to buy that I can't seem to find at home.

On then to Inverlochy Castle. I'd been here before, in 2001. To me, it's not one of the more impressive castles because it's pretty well crumbled away, but since we were in the area I wanted Robin to see it. I couldn't get him out of there! He took dozens of photos. (I took the one below.)

And here's one of me: happy to be in Scotland, happy to be at a castle:

After awhile I decided to wait at the entrance and watch the clouds pass around the bens, notably Ben Nevis. There is something, I thought, about viewing this scenery that is good for the soul. So awesome, and so peaceful.

A fun thing about the changeable weather is that we're able to see the scenery (and take photos) in a variety of lighting conditions.

Once I was finally able to extricate Robin from Inverlochy we went to the Ben Nevis Distillery (this is a whisky trip too; wait 'til we get to Islay). Outside of the distillery, for whatever reason, were three Highland Cattle (phonetically: "heilan' coos"); the first we'd seen on this trip:

After a few obligatory photographs we went inside to find that the next (and last) tour was to be in more than an hour, at 2:15. They weren't very welcoming, and didn't even have toilet paper in their loo, so we decided to give this one a miss and move on to the town of Caol, rumoured to have a nice yarn shop.

Another bust. It was more of a second-hand shop with some yarn scattered here and there. Nothing you could really do anything with. Very disappointing.

On to lunch. Finally things started looking up. We had a nice pub lunch of salmon and chips and a nice slice of lemon meringue pie to finish. Then on to Neptune's Staircase and the Caledonian Canal for a long walk. Here's part of the path along the canal:

Unfortunately, my pint at lunch made me a little less than energetic for a walk. Then we took a detour -- very strange, there was water running under the water: An aqueduct. We took the path down and walked under the canal.

Once we'd crossed the canal from underneath we decided to walk back to the car along the canal path on the other side. We had a much better view of the bens on the way back and took more pictures. Then only minutes from the car, the skies opened up and we were pelted with hail!

Soaked through, we got back on the road, driving up along Loch Ness. We stopped at the Bridge of Oich (another Historic Scotland site). On approach Robin said it was crap, but he changed his mind once he had a closer look. (Here he is on the bridge.)

During much of the drive the weather was literally a mix of rain and sun (Scotland is the only place I've been where you can need your sunglasses on and your windshield wipers going at the same time) so a few times we got lovely views of full-arced rainbows. Robin took some pictures out of the car window:

Then we were able to get some better pictures at a parking place (there aren't that many of these) along the road.

After our long day of traveling we finally arrived at our B&B. For dinner we walked down to the local shop and got cheddar cheese and biscuits and wine, after which (since it was still light out at 8:30pm) we took the nearby Woodland Walk which goes close to Loch Ness, but not close enough to get good views.

We even got some wireless access at the B&B [where I posted the previous days' adventures]. Now time for sleep to ready ourselves for tomorrow!

Day One

2009-05-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

I was worried about not getting enough sleep on the plane, since I wanted to be fresh for our first day. The flight wasn't so bad after all. I ate some (not very satisfying) food in the airport so I could forgo the meal on the plane and maximize my sack time whilst we were in the air. This and a couple of Klonopin did the job pretty nicely. Ever the gallant one, Robin slept on the floor (!!!) so I had the 3-seat all to myself on which to stretch out.

First job on arriving in Glasgow was to find our hire car. Last time I was here I had pre-paid the car and the company subsequently went out of business leaving me on the phone on hold with Travelocity for over an hour. I didn't share with Robin my fears of a similar scenario this time. Our company, Practical, does not have offices in the terminal, so we phoned their office and was told they'd "be there in about 5 minutes." Only I misunderstood the meeting instructions and it ended up taking about 30 minutes to finally find each other. Once that was done, our rental agent, William, who was incredibly funny, complete with a thick Glaswegian accent full of glottal stops and other fun Scots-isms, got us ready to go. We've been issued a Fiat Panda in electric blue:

More than once on returning to the car today I thought the back end had been chopped off. It handles well, especially now that I'm getting the hang of driving on the left again. There were a couple times on making turns that I almost went into the right lane; thankfully I kept my senses well enough to avoid disaster. So far. On occasion I check with Robin to make sure I am indeed on the correct side of the road. Eight years is a long time. The last time I was here was in 2001; then it had only been 2 years since I had been driving on the left. It's harder to get back into the swing of it now. I'm sure I'll be zipping around like a native again in a day or so.

First stop of the trip was Glasgow Cathedral. The cathedral is in a part of the city that is old and quite charming. I had forgotten how sprawling and built up the city is.

Here's a picture of the cathedral:

Here's a picture of the cathedral with me in it:

Across from the cathedral is Glasgow's "Oldest House," a charming building of three floors with a lovely garden in the back:

I think I was taken with this a bit more than the cathedral, especially since it had some whimsical carved stone faces at the back of the garden. Here are two of them:

Whilst sitting in the garden at the Oldest House the sun came out in force and I enjoyed some welcome radiation.

After a very refreshing cup of tea and scone in a nearby museum café we decided to make our way out of the city and towards Ballachulish, our stop for the night. Soon after leaving the city limits the scenery began to change dramatically to the steep, stark hills of the Highlands. The road was heavy with traffic and although I had slept better than usual on the flight, I still had not had my full night's rest; I started to get very sleepy. We stopped in a layby and I slept in the car for 45 minutes of the most hearty sleep of recent memory. Robin, the guy who spent the night on the floor of the plane cabin, wasn't at all in need of a nap and went for a walk in the wilderness, coming back to the car with no fewer than six ticks on his person. Once awake, we continued our route on the A82 alongside Loch Lomand. Even though we had clouds and rain the scenery was astounding.

We took a short detour to see some falls that are part of the route of the West Highland Way and were there in time to see some daring lads dive in to the chilly shallows:

By evening we arrived in Ballachulish for a welcome pub meal of fish and chips (and a couple pints of McEwan's 70/- for me).

Getting Ready!

2009-05-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Leaving in TWO DAYS! So, today I phoned the estate office in Islay to find out how to go about getting into the cottage next Saturday. The woman who answered said, "Oh, just go to the cottage, the keys will be in the door!" I didn't bother to tell her that's not how we do things here in Philadelphia.

It's a Blog!

2009-05-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I made the first post just the map because my Compose window got hung up with all that HTML in there to read. Or something. Not sure...

If you click on "Larger Map" you can see the planned route in better detail. The insert got a little squiggled at the end where we make the trip from Kintyre to Islay.

My idea for the itinerary is:

25 May: Arrive in Glasgow. Pick up luggage and car. For some reason I picture that it will be sunny and hot and I will be feeling unwell because I spent my night on a cramped, smelly plane. It's much more likely to be cloudy and cold (and I'll still be feeling unwell). In any case, we'll make our way out of the airport to the first stop: Glasgow Cathedral. This is a Historic Scotland site that I never managed to get to in my years living in Edinburgh. From there we head north in the direction of our B&B near Glencoe (which is near Fort William) for the first night. What the day brings will depend upon how tired we (well, me, really) are.

26 May: We may try to hike near, around, if not up Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK. This seems a bit ambitious for a 2nd day activity. Watch this space.

From here I only have a rough idea in mind:

From Fort William head towards Inverness, stopping at Urquart Castle along Loch Ness.
Continue north to Tongue, turning west there to the Dun Dornaigil Broch (another missed HS site).
Travel along the coast west and then south to Ullapool where I hear there's a great yarn shop!
Continue south to Glenelg near Skye to see the group of brochs there. I have been there before but only briefly. It was striking and beautiful; I promised myself I would get back there someday.
From Glenelg we'll make our way to Oban, the relatively large port on the western coast. There's a distillary there; it may be a good place for overnight if we can find lodging.
On Friday the 29th we'll be staying in the port village of Tarbert. I've already booked this and it looks like the B&B is right on the harbor (when I'm actually over there I may start adding "u"s to words like this).
On the 30th we make our way to Islay from Kennacraig. Then it's an entire week on Islay visiting distillaries, walking, and hopefully visiting the neighboring islands of Jura and Colonsay.

So it's all quite exciting really!

Scotland 2009, An Itinerary

2009-05-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

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