How Scottish are you? A test.

 

Below are two columns of words.  Match the Scottish word from the left column to the American word on the right column. 

Brae	Wee
Burn	Pigeon House
Bracken	Old
Tablet	Inlet from sea
Peedie	Climbing Mts of a minimum height
Neeps	Hunting Guide
Tatties	Sugar Candy
Auld	Hill
Bairn	Potatoes
Bonnie	Narrow street
Glen	Baby
Loch	Church
Ben	Dance Party
Ceilidh	Ferns
Croft	Lake
Doocot	Circular ditch with a bank
Coos	Stream
Firth	Valley
Gillie	Cows
Laird	Mountain
Henge	Turnips
Kirk	Estate Holder
Munro Bagging	Sport similar to field hockey
Shinty	Beautiful
Wynd	Farmers House
Close	Narrow alley

 

90% +    Clan warlord

80-89%  Welcome to the clan

70-79%  You’re invited to the Highland Games to spectate

60-69%   Feel free to buy all the souviners you can take home.

Less than 60%  You’re getting soaked in the rain.

 

Answers:

 

Brae    Hill

Burn    Stream

Bracken  Ferns

Tablet    Sugar Candy

Peedie    Wee

Neeps     Turnips

Tatties     Potatoes

Auld         Old

Bairn        Baby

Bonnie     Beautiful

Glen          Valley

Loch          Lake

Ben           Mountain

Ceilidh      Dance Party

Croft       Farmers House

Doocot   Pigeon House

Coos        Cows

Firth         Sea Inlet

Gillie        Hunting Guide

Laird        Estate Holder

Henge      Circular ditch

Kirk           Church

Munro Bagging  Mountain Climbing

Shinty  Field hockey sport

Wynd   Narrow street

Close   Narrow Alley

Opportunity for writers an d artists

Ad from ArtWork, a Scottish Fine Arts Newspaper

 

WINTER ON THE ISLE OF IONA

 

Shepherd’s Bothy: Self-directed creative residencies.

 

The opportunity to focus upon your own artistic development in a quiet and elemental Hebridean landscape.  Call for prices.

 Interpretation:  Isolate yourself from society and outdoors in a land with short days and lots of rain, with the intent to produce great art, as we all know quiet isolation is the key to producing art.  There is risk (besides the cost of the renting space) including adverse impacts to your emotional and physical health.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  Are you JK Rowiling or Mr. MacGongal (noted worst poet in Scotland and namesake for Harry Potter character).  Here's one way to find out.

Highlands Sunshines (Sort Of)

A nice walk today.  And dry.  And windless.

 

 

River Nevis in Glen Nevis

 

 

Glen Nevis, Ben Nevis hidden in the clouds.

 

Glen Nevis Cemetery

 

Heather filled peaty valley.

 

Heather filled peaty valley with Ben Nevis behind the clouds.

 

Sunshine on High Street, Fort William.

Jacobite Train

The rain kinda let up today.  Here are some pictures from our ride on the Jacobite Train, a steam train ride between Fort William and Maillaig and back, through the heart of the Jacobite rebellion, hence the name of the train.   It is more known these days as the Hogwarts Express.  Unfortunately, along the way I somehow changed the settings on my camera, so I’m not able to share with you the pictures of the iconic trestle from the Potter movies as our train arched around it.  Perhaps after getting home and converting the files to jpg I will then post on Fbook.

 The train snaked along lochs, afforded views of glens and bens, and regularly brushed the vegetation growing over the tracks.  As it was raining, views had the added element of rain and fog on the windows.  No matter, we could see plenty, and enjoyed the ride.   At Maillaig we had fish and chips and took pictures across the water to the Isle of Skye. 

Upon return to Ft. William we took a walk to a nearby 13^th c castle ruins.  Not shabby for being just out of town.  The story boards told of clan warfare and how clan MacDonald defeated Clan Campbell at this location.  Yay.   For reasons previously mentioned, no pix to share.

On the walk to the castle we came across a falconer who was training a young Harris Hawk.  He let us take pictures.   Beautiful bird.

 

Travel Day Orkney to West Highlands

One ferry ride, two long bus rides and we went from blue skies and sun to torrents of rain, apparently

remnants of a hurricane in the Atlantic.  The pix below of Stromness will confirm for your edification that the morning of our departure was the prettiest of days we experienced on Orkney.

 

 

 

Lots of wind and aerogenerators on Orkney and northern Scotland.

 

Clan Gunn museum is located behind this building.  You'll have to trust me.   Bus moved too quickly to get a picture of it.  Also saw the church and graveyard associated with the clan, on a bluff overlooking the North Sea.  Alas my autofocus was focusing on the dirty bus window and not the church. 

 

 Nessie

 

Our hotel in Fort William, one of the wettest places in the UK.  Our room is in the upper left hand corner above the sign, below the gable.

Rain Trips and Clips

Rain  in the title is obvious.  Trips, well, Cathy was stopped on a path to photograph a feature and as I went around her  by stepping off the path into the vegetation I learned that she was on a foot bridge and I no longer was.  Camera is fine, so am I.  Clothes are wet.  Clips-- since the rain drove us in, Cathy is catching up with her travel journal, clipping and pasting relevant artefacts (as spelled over here) she has collected.

Here are a few of today's pictures.

Fresh from our discovery of the Culween Cairn yesterday, today we followed small roads and paths that lead to various features on the road maps such as cairns, ruins and tumuli.  I presume the latter are tombs. And there are lots of said features all over the place.  Not necessarily visible, not necessarily accessible.  We didn't find any that we could crawl through, but still had a nice day.  This tumulus was on a farm.  Cathy had a blast taking pictures of the very large cattle that are at my back as I shot this.  As she came the 50 yards back to the car, the moo-moos followed, saying "take more pictures of us, we're beautiful".

 

Beautiful moo-moos.

 

This was the only "listed' historic site on our agenda, called the Broch of Gurness.  A broch is a fortress, in this case for a 2,000 year old farming settlement.   The Vikings subsequently used it periodically, until the Seahawks blew them out of the water. 

 

Nearby is Orkney's longest continuous sandy beach.  Cathy wanted to collect shells the beach is known for, so we were out in the rain for half an hour doing just that.  I  don't know if this old building is a croft, although we have seen more than our share of dilapidated crofts around here. 

 

Someone had made this sandcastle and adorned it with shells and pebbles found along the shoreline.

 

This is where I stepped off the bridge.  This structure, 20' tall is a dovecote (doocot in local dialect) from the 1600s.  There is a small entrance we could have crawled in, but hearing the pigeons inside flapping away we were concerned about the tops of our heads and the bottoms of our shoes.

 

Stromness Town Hall.  Apparently by the nature of the following structure, they hold their municipal government in higher esteem that we're used.  Maybe they pay tithes rather than taxes? 

 

Stromness was pouring down as we went up the main street searching for a particular CD our BnB hostess has played for us.  Mid afternoon, high tourist season, attractive street adjacent to the water, large ferry just arrived.  The place was still deserted.  A couple shops were open.  I bought some olives but found no CDs.  Found no appealing  pubs to duck into out of the rain, checked the dinner menu at the Stromness Hotel and decided PBJ will suffice tonight rather than $100 tab.  The fish and chips shop was dark and empty.  Otherwise a cute town.

More Good Stuff

I always get asked how much gas is over "here" wherever here is, and I never have known since we weren't driving or buying gas directly.  Now that we have a car for our days on Orkney I know.  I wish I didn't but I do.  Our car is diesel, and after doing the requisite math converting pounds into dollars and liters into gallons, a gallon of diesel is $9.00.

 

While speaking budget we've found Scotland to be quite expensive, particularly lodging and eating out.  A pub burger and fries will run about $15.  Add a beer and you're over $20 for lunch for one.  A couple from Germany arrived at the BnB we're staying at any they commented how much more expensive it is this year than when they visited Scotland last year.  My best guess is the Commonwealth Games were being held in Glasgow, which drove prices way up.  No matter, PBJs are just fine as long as the sites and experiences continue to elate.

 

We did a loop drive today to take in Kirkwall, the largest town in Orkney, about 8,500 people.  Made a couple stops along the way, one being a particularly fun surprise for us.

 

First stop was this site which has the ruins of a 12th century church surrounded by graves from the Commonwealth Wars.  I don't know what those wars were, but the graves were typically from the 1800s.

 

 

On to Kirkwall.  The big site being St. Magnus Cathedral.  Magnus was Norse who became Earl of Orkney, and according to legend bravely faced his martyrdom, praying for his executioner, and after death healed many infirmed.  The cathedral is 12th century, made of standstone.  The following picture shows how the sandstone has worn over the centuries.

 

After lunch we found this very nice Orkney Historical Museum.  It was free, which is a good thing.  Their collection was simply amazing.  Stone age relics.  Bronze age relics. Right up to the 1900s.  The following picture is from the garden behind the museum. 

 

The cannon above and the sign below are reminders who runs this place.

 

 

In a previous post I wrote about Maes Howe, a burial tomb we went into.  It was formal, fees paid, tour guide to listen to, well let, easy to find.  Today we found another tomb.  Free, no tours, easy to miss.  This sign is all we know about this 3,000 year old structure.

 

 

 

The cairn from outside

 

 

Cathy on the inside.  A little dark.  We had to crawl about 8 feet on hands and knees to get into the main chamber.  There were three side chambers, through which we stuck our heads, but looked a little challenging to crawl through.

 

Hard to see.  Look carefully and you can see runes scratched into the stone.  There were similar runes at Maes Howe which the guide told us the were from the Norse around 900-1200 AD, well after the tombs were originally built.

 

Atop the hill, in addition to powerful winds were a number of cairns built, probably by our contemporaries.  Not bad, they were probably up to 8 feet tall.

 

 

 

One day left on Orkney.  Are there any more nice surprises like this one?  We will find out soon enough.