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| Glencoe I forgot to reset date on my camera, but all these photos were taken last week! |
This time last week I had just returned home from my holiday in the Highlands. I stayed in Oban again and this time I visited some of the Western Isles, Seil Island, Glencoe and Loch Lomond - all places that have been on my bucket list for a while. I took some rather nice photos but because I'm a technophobe I didn't know how to set the date on the camera - all the images here were taken just last week, between the 23rd and 30th of September 2017, not in 2005!
I have been to Oban before, back in 2013 for my 40th birthday. It was the last time that I saw my soldier and I remember dancing with him in front of the hotel, losing my shoe on the steps and him kneeling to replace it - I call them the Cinderella steps now...
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| The Cinderella Steps to my hotel |
This holiday though, it was just me and Scotland getting reacquainted after a three year separation, although I did have a good laugh with the hotel bar manager, Cameron, in the evenings. He's great fun to be around and they all really looked after me because I travel alone. It felt so good to be back in Scotland! The mist was beautiful. It has been three long years since I last saw Scotch mist clinging to the treetops, curling up from the pine forests like smoke and wrapping around the mountains like a scarf, just the summits peaking out at the very top. The beauty of it is indescribable and its something you really have to see for yourself to appreciate.
On my first day I took the advice of Colin Maclachlan and went on the ferry to the Isle of Mull. As we sailed, we went right into the rain and the island suddenly loomed up on us out of the cloud. It was a fantastic sailing trip and I loved every second of it, despite the drenching from the rain. Rain is something to enjoy in Scotland, because without it you wouldn't see all the many waterfalls flowing down the mountainsides. It is beautiful in all weathers and I love it.
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| Taken from the ferry, heading out to Mull |
Mull is such a pretty island. Tobermory is a little coastal town there, with a row of pretty pastel coloured gifts shops and cafes. It reminded me of a storybook, all the pretty colours being washed clean by the rain. There was an aquarium I visited too where they had the cutest little octopus, about the size of a tea-plate. As I watched him he scratched his head with one tentacle and his back with another. It looked like he was playing that co-ordination game of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time - and he was very good at it too! They also had a very rare blue lobster who was equally lovely, though a bit shy. Apparently blue lobsters get bullied a lot in the wild, so they keep him safe at the aquarium for conservation purposes. He kept trying to hide behind a rock half his size, so I don't think he's quite grasped the concept of camouflage and taking cover, but he was adorable.
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| Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull |
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| Tobermory main street |
On the second day of my holiday I kept a promise. A few years ago I swore to my Strathpeffer friend Petr Royston MacGreggor that I would one day go to Loch Lomond and see the area where our hero Rob Roy had lived. Roy told me that I would love Loch Lomond and that it would suit me. He wasn't wrong - I fell in love with the landscape and loch as soon as I saw it, partly for its own beauty and partly for his sake. Sadly my friend Roy died a few years ago, but I kept my promise to him last week and threw a pebble into the loch for him. I could feel his presence as I walked lochside, watching two swans paddling together on the water and I knew that he was keeping his promise to me too. He said he would always be watching over me like a daughter - and he was. It is clear to see from the photo below why Clan MacGreggor were known as The Children of the Mist...the beauty of the place has a haunting, ethereal quality, swathed in Scotch mist...it would be so easy to just slip back in time and become a Highland lass.
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| Loch Lomond |
The two swans reminded me of Roy and his lovely wife Betsy. They were such good friends to me and I miss them both.
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| Swan love on Loch Lomond |
For the next couple of days I stayed in and around Oban. I went on a seal spotting boat trip which was wonderful. Its hard to recall that I was once terrified of boats because I can't swim. Now I love boats! I do still get nervous and I can't walk around on them yet - I cling to the side like a barnacle, but I like to be up on the top deck, open to the weather with the wind in my hair and the sea spray putting roses in my cheeks. When the boat rocked and rolled I just remembered my soldier telling me, years ago when we were in his boat together, "The boat has to rock so as not to let the water in lassie - when the boat rocks, it's keeping you safe". So I have learnt to face my fear of boats and I have come out the other side loving them! I love the sense of freedom and liberty they give you - it's as good as a great gallop on a fast horse. If I were a man and I lived by the water, I would definitely want my own boat. It felt like a great escape to be out on the Atlantic Ocean with the sea gulls screaming and the wind blowing my hair into a million sea knots! I think I am learning to trust that the boat will carry me safe out to sea and back to port. Sailing is wonderful!
I also went to Dunollie castle, which Robert the Bruce confiscated when the MacDougalls betrayed him. There isn't much of it left standing, but it was nice to know I was walking in the footsteps of the Good King and Sir Walter Scott. It is a pretty place with a lovely Celtic Cross in the grounds. The hike up the cliff is worth it for the panoramic views.
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| Dunollie Castle |
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| The stunning Celtic Cross in the grounds of Dunollie Castle |
On the final day of my holiday I went to Fort William. Again this is a pretty Highland town, very small so you could never get lost there, which is great for me as I have no sense of direction! There is an impressive museum there that is full of artefacts, from targes and claymores to Victorian gowns and the kilts of clansmen. It was interesting and I would like to go back because there was so much to see and read that I couldn't take it all in.
And on the very last day, on my way home in fact, I managed to find something I had been looking for all week - an Outlander scarf, made in the very tartan that was designed for the TV series and which is worn by Jamie Fraser! So I was thrilled with that and I've been wearing it ever since. It was the perfect end to a wonderful week in the Highlands and already I am thinking about my return to Scotland and where I want to go next.
Edinburgh has been suggested to me and is somewhere I have always wanted to visit so the suggestion has taken root in my mind. And somehow, I don't think I would be on my own quite so much there, so I am considering a fun trip to Edinburgh next year...watch this space! 😏
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| Bardic harps at the Fort William Museum
xxx
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