More Pictures From York

Here are some more snaps of York, including the view of the Minster from our bedroom window.

A True Story

Once upon a time two travelers, Jane and Tom, left Edinburgh, in Scotland, to journey to York, in England. They had in mind some stops to make along their way. Their first stop was to be Lindisfarne, also called “The Holy Isle”, a small Island off the English coast north of Newcastle. Indeed it is a bit of a sticky wicket traveling to Lindisfarne, for it is reached via a causeway that is flooded, and therefore closed to traffic, twice a day by tides. But when Jane and Tom arrived at Lindisfarne at 11:30 in the morning the tides had [literally] just cleared the causeway and made it passable.

So Jane and Tom drove into Lindisfarne. Jane and Tom wanted to visit Lindisfarne for in the 7^th century a man named Aidan (later Saint Aidan) left Iona, where Jane and Tom had recently been, and went forth to Lindisfarne to seed the Gospel. A Northumbrian monk, Cuthbert (later Saint Cuthbert) came to Lindisfarne. The Lindisfarne cathedral was connected to the church in Durham. When Cuthbert died his body was removed to Durham and buried in the cathedral there.

Although Jane and Tom had planned to visit Hadrian’s Wall, Mother Nature decided that this was not going to happen. At least it wasn’t going to happen unless Jane and Tom were willing to get absolutely soaked in the massive downpour that commenced as they neared the Wall.

So Jane and Tom decided that since there was a connection between Iona and Lindisfarne, and between Lindisfarne and Durham, why not visit the Durham Cathedral. They arrived at the cathedral just in time to attend evensong, but not early enough to take the time to read the directions and prohibitions of the Cathedral. Jane and Tom sat in the quire and heard beautiful music as the evensong was sung. Afterwards the clergy from the service were standing to greet people. Jane and Tom, having [as heretofore mentioned] not read the signs, decided to ask if it was permissible to take photographs in the cathedral [it is not]. Jane decided to ask the female clergy person.

“Is it permissible to take pictures?” Jane asked.

“No, it’s not,” responded the female clergy person, “but there is a guide book on sale that has excellent pictures. Where are you from?”

“Connecticut in the States.”

“Where in Connecticut?”

“Newington, just outside of Hartford.”

“I know where that is. I lived in New Haven for three years.”

“At Yale?”

“Yes, at the Div school.”

“When were you there? I went there also.”

“Mid 90’s”

“Your years overlap with mine.”

“My name is Rosalind Brown.”

“Oh, my god! I know you!”

Rosalind was a class behind Jane at Yale Divinity School.

Since picture taking is not permitted in the cathedral Rosalind took Jane and Tom through the Chapter House into the Durham Cathedral cloister. Durham Cathedral was used as a shooting location for indoor and outdoor scenes in the first two Harry Potter film. The Chapter House was used for classroom scenes. In the picture of Jane and Rosalind you will see the cloister columns and common just outside of the Chapter House. Real Harry Potter cognoscenti will recognize it.

Whilst exploring Durham Cathedral Jane and Tom got to see the tomb of Saint Cuthbert, who you will remember was involved with Lindisfarne.

Since it was starting to get late Jane and Tom drove on towards York. They had been using very well done maps to navigate from place to place. However, regarding York these maps let them down: there was simply not enough detail to figure out exactly where their lodging was. This was further complicated by the fact that the sheet, dutifully printed out prior to the trip, that had the name, address, telephone number, and simple map for the hotel, got misplaced. So in the dark Jane and Tom drove into a walled, medieval city with no idea of where they were going. They both agreed upon “Marygate” as the name they could vaguely remember as the lodging address. And upon checking their trip calendar they found the name “York Coach House Hotel”. But despite their best efforts at finding Marygate they were thwarted. There are numerous one-way streets in York. And the city is sliced by the rivers Foss and Ouse. After an hour and a half of driving it was nearly 11:00 pm, and still Jane and Tom had not found their hotel. Finally they found a petrol station just about to close for the night. They were able to purchase a local map on which they could find the street of their hotel. But alas, when the drove down this street (Marygate), whose lower end terminated at the rivers’ edge, they had not seen a sign for the York Coach House Hotel. So Tom parked the car and walked into the Bay Horse Hotel, and asked the bartender, “Can you help a traveler in distress? We’ve been driving around your fair city for an hour and a half, and we can’t find the York Coach House Hotel.”

“Julie, this poor lad can’t find your hotel. What’d you do? Leave your lights out?”

It turns out that Julie Thomson is the proprietress of the York Coach House Hotel, and she only frequents the Bay Horse Hotel bar once or twice a year. And on this very night she was there. This was fortuitous in the extreme, for Liela, the evening hotel clerk, was in the process of locking down Coach House for the night when Julie called on her mobile phone and alerted her that we were coming.

July 29 is my daughter Julie's birthday. After a very long day of sightseeing and travel, through the marvels of modern telecommunication and a time displacement of five time zones, I was able to call and wish her a happiest of birthdays.

And so, as this story ends, Jane and Tom were let into the Coach House Hotel and had a restful night’s sleep, and continued their adventures the very next day.

P.S.: How could anyone not believe in guardian angels?

Edinburgh and Environs

We took the bus into Edinburgh and went straight away to Edinburgh Castle. We had read that queues for tickets could get long. In our wildest imaginations we couldn’t have dreamed how long they became later in the day, as we were leaving. We had purchased Historic Scotland Explorer passes that let us proceed immediately to the ticket check point. The castle is like a small city. I won’t attempt to describe the history of the Castle – it is far too long and convoluted to cover in blog format [note to self: American students have it way too easy when they take American history. Hey, they’ve only a few hundred years to study. Scottish and English students have Millennia to worry about. Furthermore their rulers have a penchant for changing their names, changing the numbers after their names, changing spouses, and so on. It would have been so much easier if they’d made a law that if you are a King of England your name is Harold, and if you are Queen of England your name is Margaret. Then if you read “Margaret XXI said . . .” you’d know immediately that it was a queen they were quoting.]

Some of Edinburgh’s charm was suspended by major transportation construction that has ripped up major portions of streets near the Castle and the Royal Mile. But if you look up a bit as you walk by these old buildings it is possible to get some sense of what walking a medieval city must have been like.

We saw a small, special Swiss drum corps perform some drumming routines. They will be performing in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo that starts this weekend. The Castle has been used for many purposes over the years, including housing prisoners of war. During the American Revolution captured Americans were held there. In one picture you can see where an American prisoner carved the Stars and Stripes into the door of his room.

Edinburgh has many wonderful statues to many famous people. I loved the image of a gull doing to the statue of Adam Smith what Wall Street greed did to capitalism the past few years.

For dinner we returned to the Espy in Portobello. During the meal I commented to Jane that Roy Zartarian would be disappointed in me, for we would be leaving Scotland the next day and I hadn’t had so much as a dram of Scottish whiskey. Vanessa, the hostess of sticky toffee pudding fame [see previous post] asked if I would like a whiskey after dinner. I was going to demure but, thinking of Roy, asked her to bring me one of her choosing. She brought a small glass of Lagavulin. I must say it was a rather satisfying way to end the meal.

Tomorrow it’s on to Lindisfarne and York!

Pictures At Bottom Of Post

When planning our trip a visit to Stirling headed my list of “must-sees”. For decades I’ve admired William Wallace, whose victory over King Edward I’s invading army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge lit the fuse of Scottish nationalism. So the day after we had gone to the Cairngorm Mountains and ridden a funicular railway to the top (pictures were in my last post), and driven back to our lodging via the road along Loch Ness [note to self: Loch Ness was a non-event. Seeing it was a “Welcome to Lake Champlain” moment - pleasant but not worth crossing an ocean for. The Scottish Highlands are absolutely stunning. Without a gimmick, Loch Ness would not attract much interest], we headed south to Stirling. We visited the William Wallace Monument that appears to have come straight out of a J. R. R. Tolkien novel. I had read that Wallace was a large man for his time (late 13^th century), but when I saw his sword I realized just how large he must have been. A marvelous docent at the Monument, dressed as one of Wallace’s warriors, explained what it was like to campaign with him. It is significant that Wallace’s warriors fought not for glory or money [note to self: be sure to tell the Pentagon that they should seek real patriots to recruit rather than hiring Blackwater mercenaries] but rather for the idea of a community of people called Scotland. The spirit Wallace nurtured culminated in the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320: “. . . for so long as there shall but one hundred of us remain alive we will never subject ourselves to the dominion of the English. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honour, but it is Liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life.” Tom Paine couldn't have said it any better!

This morning we visited Stirling Castle, and this afternoon the Falkirk Wheel. Stirling Castle, sitting high above the main crossing of the River Forth. The original fortifications were built on the site of a mid-first Millennium chapel. James the IV initiated one cycle of construction, James V did major building. James VI was baptized there and departed to become James I of England (James I was the first to use the term "Great Britain" to verbally assert the union of England and Scotland). Mary Queen of Scots was crowned at Stirling. It figured in numerous conflicts, including Bonnie Prince Charlie's attempt to regain the throne, failing in his attempt to capture Stirling Castle.

The Falkirk Wheel was completed in 2002 in order to re-connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. Rather than rebuild 11 locks that would have taken a day to negotiate, they built this marvelous rotating wheel that moves boats, floating in enormous tubs of water, from one canal to the other in five and a half minutes. Whilst watching the Wheel turn I enjoyed an Irn Bru (pronounced “Iron Brew” and brewed for over 100 years in Glasgow), as national a soft drink for Scotland as Coke is to the U. S. [note to self: Irn Bru tastes like Double Bubble bubble gum, and might catch on for gum chewers who are too lazy to chew].

We had dinner this evening in at a small bistro, the Espy, on the esplanade on the Portobello beach. Vanessa, the hostess, asserted that they had the best sticky toffee pudding in the world. Having previously decided that the sticky toffee pudding at the Queens Hotel in Lockerbie [note to self: remember that this was the place where you had your first sticky toffee pudding] was the best in the universe, we accepted the challenge and tried theirs. You can see by the expression on Jane’s face as she savored the last bite, that it was indeed delicious. We awarded the Espy sticky toffee pudding a tie with that from the Queens Hotel. Vanessa was thrilled with the news. Ah, the excitement of it all!

More Alike Than Different, but

Similarities between Great Britain and the United States are enormous, built on the foundation of a common language. Touring in Scotland we have encountered numerous Europeans, and although we hear many different languages, Jane commented how increasingly the world dresses alike: denim jeans, T-shirts, running shoes, etc. You can now get a cold beer in a Scottish pub. In many pubs you can even get a Budweiser, although God only knows why you would want to when you can have a Macewans’ or a Caledonian or a John Smith or a Hebridean Gold or a Black Isle or a . . . .

But there are differences. Driving on the left side of the road is an obvious one. Europe is car enthusiast heaven. In two and a half weeks of touring I’ve seen six American cars. I don’t mean six American brands, I mean six cars made in America. But I’ve seen many marquees that are not on offer in the States: Skoda, Daihatsu, Citroen, Renault, Seat, Vauxhall, Peugeot. The most common vehicles are from Ford UK and Volkswagen: Ford Fiesta and Focus (versions not available in the States) and diesel powered VW Golf’s. The Ford Fiesta we are driving gets terrific mileage, handles well, and has been quite reliable. This suggests to me that what I have read over the past year about the U. S. Auto industry is correct. Their foreign units have already solved the gas mileage and emissions issues that would meet rigorous CAFÉ standards. They just neglected to bring them onshore in the U. S.

Every gas station we’ve stopped at has had diesel fuel on offer. And at least half of the cars we’ve seen have a TDI, CDi, SDi, or other diesel badge.

A major difference between the States and the UK is plumbing. In addition to my normal houseboy duties, on this trip I have become Jane’s shower hacker. Every place we have stayed has had a different shower arrangement, with different temperature and flow controls. For instance, in one B&B there was no response from the shower unit until I identified a switch outside the bathroom that controlled the power to it. The majority of the showers we’ve taken have been with on-demand heat units. Rather than use energy to keep a tank of water constantly warmed, even though not constantly needed, they have units that quickly heat the water when it’s needed. However, the controls on these units have great variety, even among units from the same vendor. Canny as the British have been in so many areas (after all they did initiate the industrial revolution), I have not yet heard a good explanation for why they still insist on having two separate faucets on bathroom sinks: one for hot, and one for cold water. Most places we’ve stayed have had scorching hot water. This means that whilst washing hands you lather them with soap and then sweep them in a quick arc back and forth between the scalding hot water and the cooling relief of cold. I’ve heard explanations that you are to put a stopper in the basin and fill it up with water to wash your hands. Not only does this take more time than seems warranted, but it can also leave you with that same “not quite completely rinsed” feeling that you get after taking a bath and not shower-rinsing afterwards.

But the real head-scratcher is the toilet. Britain could do with a good dose of Toto toilets. I’ve become Jane’s toilet hacker as well. To get these English (usually Armitage Shanks brand) toilets to flush takes a vigorous plunge and hold of the handle. Woe be unto he or she who is a woosey flusher (I suggested that this could be the name of a P. G. Wodehouse character, Dame Woosey Flusher)! I looked inside the tank to see why this is so. It appears that they use a complex siphoning mechanism to get the flow going. But the result seems to be many gallons of water used every flush, unlike Grace Church, where as I write, new, low water use toilets are being installed.

How a country this backwards in things related to WC water services can provide towel warmers in every bathroom is beyond comprehension. How utterly civilized to reach from the shower and fetch a warm towel with which to dry!

Instead of the typical Holiday Inn thin blankets and sheets we’ve slept under duvets. As we like to sleep with a window open, and since it gets cool during the night (down to 8 or 9 degrees centigrade) the duvets are welcome. There’s another difference: no screens. We have not seen one window screen in Scotland. They either don’t need them or choose to live with the consequences. We were concerned about midges that are bane of anyone who spends time outdoors in Scotland. We bought some Avon “Skin So Soft” to use as a repellent, but so far we’ve not had any need for it. Perhaps British insects are just as proper as their human neighbors.

There are other differences I’ve observed, but I’ll recount them some other time.

Leap of Faith

Planning a trip to places you’ve never visited is always a tricky business. You can read travel guides. You can peruse online advertisements and reviews. You can listen to friends’ experiences. But ultimately you have to take a leap of faith and make some bookings. Yesterday morning Jane and I boarded the Northlink Ferry in Stromness, Orkney, sailed to Scrabster on the Scottish mainland, and then drove south through Aberdeen to Stonehaven. Along the coast we saw some North Sea oil platforms and offshore wind turbines. Stonehaven is a small town on the Scottish coast that promised to be utterly charming. Driving to Aberdeen took much, much longer than we had anticipated, and we arrived in Stonehaven 7:00 pm. As you can see from pictures, it is indeed a picturesque town. And since we’ve both gotten bitten by the Scottish lighthouse bug and the role of the Stevenson family in engineering them, we were delighted to find that Robert Stevenson visited Stonehaven in 1812 and advised the town council to blast a large rock that had been making access to part of the harbor (the part in front of our B&B) difficult, and to build an additional jetty (the one we walked on that evening).

However, I was a bit disappointed because on that Thursday evening the town was crawling with tourists. Having been in remote parts of the Scottish Highlands, we had gotten spoiled and we had come to expect sole or nearly sole presence wherever we travelled.

Today we visited Dunottar Castle and some Aberdeen sites that have remarkable significance to the Episcopal Church, especially the Connecticut Episcopal Church. Jane will recount those experiences. Let me just say that, as houseboy/tour arranger, I redeemed myself by my selection of Mamore Lodge Hotel in Kinlochleven. Getting here takes some real doing. Since a bridge was built across the mouth of the loch several years ago, folks don’t have to drive by the private road to the Lodge. And once we did find the private road it was an arduous drive up a narrow single-lane road to the lodge. But once we arrived, ah, what splendid reward we received! You can judge the view yourself from pictures from the window of our room and of the wonderful, wood-paneled room itself (we are in the King Edward VII room, as he was a regular visitor in his day). The hotel could use some real sprucing up – it’s definitely out of the mainstream today, but it is an awesome [I know, I know how overworked that term is, but in this case it is apt] place for us to stay two evenings.

Information about the Lodge was not contained in any of the four or five travel guides I consulted. It was not mentioned by any friend. I found it via the Internet, so our reservation was made with a stream of bits and a leap of faith.

The Ornkeys

In junior high school I read a lot of history books, and much of that history was World Wars I and II. Since my grandfather Jackson was a captain in the U. S. Navy, I was particularly interested in things naval. I was intrigued by this place called Scapa Flow where the British based their Grand Fleet in WWI, and where they based major naval units during WWII. As I’ve grown older I’ve found that my metrics for understanding history have improved. For instance, if A. P. Hill’s Confederate division marched 17 miles in one day from Harper’s Ferry to Antietam Creek (arriving on the field of battle just in time to save Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia from destruction) during the Civil War, how far does that “feel”? After Jane and my 7½ mile pilgrimage around Iona [without the burden of serious backpacks, weapons, etc.], I have a better sense of the gravity of that feat.

So I have enjoyed exploring the Orkney Islands where Scapa Flow is, getting a sense of how big the place is. I have also gotten a sense of proximity. You can see the northern Scottish mainland from Orkney. Walking around Stromness took us back to the 1600’s, 1700’s, 1800’s when the town bustled from a variety of riches from the sea. Curiously, Stromness was the source of 2/3’s of the Hudson’s Bay Company employees in Canada, and was a major shipping point for the company as well.

Yesterday Jane and I went to see the standing stones of Stennis and the Brogdar stone circle. Four and a half to five thousand years ago what we term Neolithic peoples stood these stone slabs on end. It is stunning to see, walk amongst, touch these ancient monuments to human connection with creation.

We visited an archeological dig being done by Orkney College. Hearing the head researcher speak there gave us further insight into the Neolithic culture.

In Kirkwall we visited St. Magnus Cathedral, an Earl’s Renaissance palace, and the Bishop’s House. For such a small collection of islands, the Orkneys just ooze history.

Don't Panic

One evening during our stay at Iona Abbey there was a Guest Show, a talent show of sorts. Iona Community resident staff, visitors to the Iona Abbey (such as Jane and I), and visitors to the MacLeod Center (an Iona Community facility geared towards people accompanied by children and others wishing a more modern accommodation) participated. The show started with performances by children. One five-year old English lad played masterfully on the piano [made me jealous]. Afterwards he told a five-year old’s joke about three pigs that went in to a restaurant; two of them ordered wonderful [non-pork] dishes for each course whilst the third kept ordering only water. After the meal when asked by the waiter why he had only ordered water at such a fine restaurant, the third pig replied, “Because one of the pigs has to go wee, wee, wee all the way home.” An English family trio (mother and her daughter and son) played a violin trio.

An English couple [well at least they acted like they were a couple] from Sheffield, UK did a duet that if they had been American would be called 20^th century burlesque. You may have seen English films (usually in black and white, they’re that old) from the 1930’s & 1940’s of broadly performed British stage acts. “Sarah” was dressed in an apron and a plaid head scarf. “Harry” had on his farmer’s cap, work clothes, and his arms and shirt pockets full of vegetables. They sang wistfully and longingly to each other, “Oh Sarah, when I pat the bum of my cow, how reminded I am of you!”

Four other Sheffield English persons (two male, two female) performed “The Dangerous Song”. It also appeared to be a classic English stage revue number. The four singers stood in a line across the stage, fairly close together, alternating male and female. The first singer, a man, sang about being a policeman, and how he luved being a policeman, ahnd, as he sang, well, he would gesticulate at certain words with a thrusting out of his arms, both arms, both left and right, and then bringing them back to his sides. When he was done his verse he stood silent as the woman next to him sang her verse about how much she luved being a conductor on a train. She punctuated her words with gestures as well, but her movements were more up and down, standing tall and squatting. When she completed her verse, she and the “policeman” sang their verses in unison, and every time the policeman thrust out his arms the “conductor” would quickly squat and barely avoid being whacked by the policeman’s hand. This cycle of different characters, verses, and movements progressed across the four singers until in the finale we saw two singers thrusting out their arms just as the other two singers squatted and avoided getting hit. It was marvelous fun to watch and hear.

Another singing act involved a middle-aged male explaining to the audience that his grandmother had claimed Scottish heritage and that she had taught him a song that she had learned from her Scottish Glaswegian grandfather. He sang earnestly, seriously, “Well the streets of our toon are all covered aroon with stuff that was beautiful golden and broon.” Afterwards some folk were commenting on how they felt they were getting the genuine Scottish cultural article, a Scottish lament of some sort. The singer went on, “It was left there of course by a big Clydesdale horse, and its name was manura, manura manyah. Wih manura manyah, wih manural manyah, wih manura, manura, manura manyah.” He then indicated to the audience who were slowly getting suspicious that something was afoot, that, “Aye, it’s a sweet chorus, so sing it wih me!” which they all proceeded to do [well, actually, not all. Most of the Dutch contingent at the Abbey (17 of them) were able to speak English fairly well. However, they had been learning it from British television shows, and the term “manura” hadn’t shown up in any of the programmes they’d viewed. One of them, however, had been watching gardening programmes, and she knew right well what the term was and realized what was going on. So she quickly translated and shared with her Dutch colleagues what it meant]. The audience sang the chorus several times, each time with real *feeling*. [Full disclosure: your author was the one who sang this song]

This morning Jane’s houseboy/tour guide had a major hiccup. In laying out seventeen reservations over a five-week holiday, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with various B&B’s and hotels. Somewhere along the way the houseboy wrote down “July 18 – Glenview, Skye”. But when same houseboy, shortly before departing on this trip, searched for telephone number for this ”Glenview”, he did not realize that there are two Glenview lodgings on Skye, and he managed to locate the wrong one. Imagine his surprise/consternation when he telephoned the Glenview to confirm the reservation and to check what time dinner was, only to hear the proprietor of that Glenview that he did not have a reservation for White-Hassler for that evening? Ah, but there was backup. Check the email trail online and see what the number was that should be called. This activity escalated the anxiety, for the messages for the pertinent time period had somehow disappeared. Ever remembering the admonition from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: Don’t Panic, the houseboy set aside the question to allow time for subconscious memory work to happen.

We packed up the car that we had parked the night before along the Plockton waterfront. Plockton was the location the BBC used to film a television series called “Hamish Macbeth”, the protagonist being a small village police officer tackling small village offenses. Although I was sure we would someone draw upon the sleuthing spirit of Hamish to solve our mystery of where we had a pre-paid reservation, I had, perhaps a bit more angst at play than I realized. We got in the car and I started to back out of our parking place [note: ALL of Great Britain was built by and for Lilliputians. EVERYTHING is small, narrow, low. Well, actually not everything. They have tractor trailers that tower several feet higher than those on the U. S. Interstates, but everything else seems, um, snugger], carefully I thought, when I heard and felt a smack of the back of our vehicle against something solid. After uttering an appropriate oath and turning off the ignition, I got out of the car to see that I had hit the rear of a [small] car behind us that I hadn’t seen. Whilst ringing up in my mind’s eye how much expense I had just incurred, I walked back to survey the damage. An elderly Plockton resident, a kind-faced woman, peered at the bumper of the other car and said, “Oh, there’s no damage there. Why you hardly grazed it.” It was her vehicle. I asked if there was anything I could do for her. She said, “Oh, no. It’s fine. Why I did just the same to Hector Sample’s car up the road just last week. It’s easy to do around here.” I thanked her, surveyed a wee bit of scratch on our bumper and assumed that Hertz would find some way to extract their pound of flesh, and realizing that our car was blocking others, got in and prepared to drive away. But before I could the woman whose car I’d just bumped came up to my window and said, “Ah, now be sure to have a wonderful time on the rest of your holiday!”

We left Plockton and drove to Broadfort on Skye, where there was a tourism office that, in the event, was of no assistance whatsoever, as they only carried the listings of lodgings that were registered with the Tourism Bureau. However, we were able to do our laundry there, and the folks at the tourism office had told us there was a much larger tourism information office in Portree, which was on our route, up the road. I spent time staring at maps and decided that I had either made a reservation in Digg, Staffin, or Dunvegan (the last a bit of a stretch, as it was on the west side of the island, and way too near the Stein Inn where we will be staying tomorrow). I threw myself at the mercy of this kind tourism office clerk in Portree. We identified a telephone number of a Glenview in Staffin, which number she kindly called and confirmed that the Glenview in Staffin was indeed the place where I had made a reservation for lodging and dinner [and pre-paid the full fare]. Sigh. Relief. Exhale. So we took a rather dawdling drive from Portree to Staffin (stopped to take pictures at Kilt Rock). The lodgings here are fine and the meal we just ate was superb. The Skye hills are named the Cuillin’s, and there is a Skye brewery that brews Cuillin Red, Cuillin Black, and Hebrides Gold ales. Purely in the interest of scientific research I sampled each [samples come in 500 ml bottles] to see what the variations were and if the brewery was any good. The Hebrides Gold was, um, excellent. So was the Cuillin Red. And so, indeed, was the Cuillin Black. As you know, the scientific method is based upon repeatability. However, your intrepid researcher/reporter decided that discretion being the better part of valour, he would leave that further process of validation for another day.

During dinner Jane and I were treated to overhear the conversation going on at adjacent tables. There were two older [yes, older even than Jane and I!] couples. One was certainly English and the other possibly Scot. The Scot apparently was investing in a malt whiskey distillery that would be run entirely by Gaels. The Englishman was “critiquing” the business model of the Scot. The Scot was asserting that the Gaels had taught the English their language. The Englishman asserted back that the Welsh had taught everybody everything. The Englishman asserted that “by laws” malt whisky had to be aged ten years. The Scot said that there were no such laws – you merely had to indicate on your bottles what the aging of the contents was, and he would be able to start selling his product in three and five years. “Well,” said the Englishman, “if you’re going to lower your standards. . .” It was delightful eaves dropping on this acerbic exchange, carried out with the utmost English civility and propriety.

Today was a good transition day for Jane and me. After living in community for a week, doing chores, worshipping, and engaging in activities and conversations with new folk on a full-time basis, we needed to adapt to a different routine. The weather was overcast and dour. It was the first time since coming to Scotland that we had serious rain, and we felt like we had finally found the *real* Scotland.In the Scotsman newspaper today the headline was about how God’s providence had interceded in the Hebridean Isle of Lewis. Lewis has long adhered to strict observance of the Sabbath: there is no work done on the Sabbath. Aye, and so it would continue to be except for the devil’s hand-servant, The Caledonian-MacBrayne Ferry company. Apparently this apostate company has decided to provide ferry service from Lewis on Sundays. The headline story chronicled how the ferry intended to intrude into this Lewis’ tradition is named “The Isle of Lewis”, and, wouldn’t you know, said ferry developed an exhaust problem and must be taken out of service for 48 hours, thus disrupting the first of this new ferry runs. Said a stolid Lewis person of faith, “God’s providence has spoken. And the God who can impair a ferry can sink one as well!” Jane and I are glad that we came to Skye via a bridge and must defer a visit to Lewis until some future trip.