A Walk In Scotland

Friday broke the streak and dawned rainy and gray. 

I got tired of looking through the windows at the drizzle and figured if I walked the woods I might not get too wet. Ha!

It didn’t work and I walked back to the cottage damp but refreshed. I took a nap, drifting off with my latest Longmire novel on Kindle  sliding  off my chest. 

I decided to have another go at ducking the showers blowing in from the ocean. Do I took off walking down the A835 highway  hoping to keep my feet dry. 

My father built these chalets in the 1960s as a hotel and restaurant. They have new owners now renting them out as vacation homes. 

My father met my mother in Italy.  during World War Two and she went to live with him in London. They had twin daughters in 1947 and me in 1957. They divorced in 1969, then my mother died leaving her land in Italy to us three children in 1973. Our father remarried an Englishwoman and had Lucy who grew up in England. Later Lucy’s mother, my stepmother, died followed by the patriarch in 1998 who left the Scottish estate to Lucy. 

The day before the wedding, guests gathered for afternoon tea before Lucy’s sons ushered everybody out to witness an ancient Highland custom. Luke and Lucy had to be blackened.

The idea is to cleanse the betrothed by paradoxically covering them in muck. Hauled to the site in wheelbarrows (dressed in old clothes) they are tied together and covered in molasses. I added my handful of chicken feathers kindly provided by the boys. 

In addition to molasses some flour was added to the happy couple as they stood and suffered. 

Some straw is piled up as part of this absurd purification project. 

I was pleased to see no fruit or eggs were included in the torture. 

Duncan with a bag of flour enjoying his mother’s misery. 

Luke making the best of it. 

Aww. Sweet. 

Oh wait. 

Johnny had a bucket of cow manure so proper tradition was maintained, much to everyone’s delight. 

Alex whom I last saw traveling on our boat with Lucy through the Panama Canal in 1999 orchestrated the chaos, he of the green jacket. We’re both a bit greyer now, he said. 

Enough levity, I got a ride back to my cottage while the happy couple washed off. The hardier celebrants lit a bonfire down by the farm. They needed it, it was cold. 

Enough people for me. A whole afternoon talking.  

 

Loch Broom

 

In Gaelic Loch Broom means “loch of the rain showers” appropriately enough but my sister Lucy’s constant gloomy prognostications of imminent foul weather have forced the weather gods to modify their plans and day after day we have had sunshine and cool crisp temperatures.

We started the day at lunch time with what in the States would be called a rehearsal dinner, except we didn’t rehearse anything and my anxiety meter should be climbing off the charts. I’m supposed to usher a battalion of wedding guests to their places Saturday, then walk Lucy down an unknown aisle and give her away to Luke. Except I have no clue about any of it  so I guess it’ll be fine on the day. I’m assuming a pose of debonair self assurance that I do not feel inside. The lunch however was fabulous at the Dipping Lugger a restaurant named for a sailboat -a lugger- that dips, or lowers it’s yard or lug, to tack the foresail; and  if none of that makes sense to you don’t worry as it’s just a name for a very discreet eatery in Ullapool. Its billboard-free discretion illustrated here by Duncan my nephew:

It was a  tasting menu lunch with wine and thoroughly Scottish in intent. The menu was obscure enough the meal was an adventure ending in Murder, a blue cheese course (Blue Murder) to illustrate how this fine eatery prefers not to take itself too pompously. I want to bring Lucy here on my dime on my next visit.

The snack was a mushroom Madeline with a cheese cracker and cheese custard. 

The halibut, cured:

Warm brown bread and dill butter which I’d never previously had:

 Layne should have been here as she has the tastebuds for all the nuances. Venison with a cube of black pudding, which is blood sausage made with oatmeal and has a very different texture from South American blood sausage which I don’t like.  This I enjoyed. 

Mixed chocolate dessert:

And a blue cheese plate with oat cakes finally:

It was a great lunch in good company. It put me in mind of eating at the famous Osteria Francescana in Modena one of the world’s top rated  and I preferred this place, with its unpretentious sense of humor, the surprise menu and highland highlights. The best part was the head chef was unwell and his 22 year old sous chef ran the lunch service which was astonishing. He didn’t miss a beat.

And as if on cue a fishing boat was drying out on the foreshore right in front of the restaurant, left high and dry as the tide retreated.

Ullapool has a string of dilapidated unoccupied waterfront homes just begging for owners. I suppose the prices must out of line with reality but it surprises me to see prime waterfront unused. There was some work underway nearby and my nephews who know everybody stopped to chat. 

There was among them Rich from Trenton New Jersey who has spent a lifetime in Scotland after marrying a lass from Glasgow and moving to Ullapool for the lifestyle. No regrets apparently and no wonder.

I got dropped off at the farm as I wanted to walk a lovely sunny afternoon away. I met Big Duncan, he of the red hat preparing the wedding chariot for service with refreshed brakes. Lucy mentioned one of her sons found the brakes to be lacking (I’m not sure what trauma was involved in the discovery) and Big Duncan said he’d fix them.

Work can always slow down for a natter with Lucy’s neighbor Johnny joining in. 

Solais (“light” in Gaelic pronounced more like solace) showed me the farm whose buildings I used to wander around 60 years ago.

These buildings have existed for more than a century and the corrugated iron roofs, beautifully curved are still solid. 

The irony Solais noted was the newer shed, half their age, is in worse shape than the original buildings. 

The farm also has a cattle shed nowadays used for the sheep as needed, 350 of them wander the land. 

And a walk-in cooler to handle the deer killed during the stalking season. People pay good money to hunt deer across the hills. 

Solais cleans the deer himself after he or a client shoots them. It’s no easy business to get a gun licence in the UK with a lengthy background check and interviews with police. A drunk driving arrest would be enough cause to be denied a rifle or shotgun license. And any such conviction in the future would lead to his license being revoked. 

There are also the portraits of Lucy’s parents in the farm office, our father and her mother.

All this history on top of a large lunch meant I  needed a walk. 

The Scottish saltire, the cross of St Andrew. Lucy wants independence for Scotland especially since Brexit, but that moment seems to have faded perhaps temporarily. Scotland does have its own parliament and laws and its own national health service as part of a devolutionary drive intended to head off independence.  The struggle against separation has been helped by some substantial scandals plaguing the governing party’s leadership, but the possibility of independence isn’t far away for many residents of Scotland. I’d choose Scotland over England the way things are, if faced with the need to choose. 

The loch side cottages are also vacation rentals 

A large group of Scandinavians  came  by walking along the shoreside path. In Scotland private land is not as private as in the US and hikers can cross land on recognized trails quite legally. 

The A835 from Inverness to Ullapool

If you can’t beat ‘em, join’em: walkers welcome

The red line marks my walk

Passing place 

Loch Broom at dusk

Home sweet home

Solais and Duncan helped advertise the family business many years ago when they were a lot younger…

The hillside and loch side cottages are popular but with enough notice they can be had for rent for the ultimate highland vacation. And Lucy is pet friendly. Works for me.