House Day

Usually when traveling for a long time, we try to build in a rest day mid-trip. Today was that for us, but only because we did less than other days. Willie MacLeod’s House is very cozy, and very remote, being the last-but-one house on the northern tip of Skye. 

While we didn’t rest all day at our home away from home, we did spend it in other people’s houses. Today we visited a range of human dwellings, from Iron Age pithouse to an ancient watch tower (we only imagined it to be Amon Sul), to a timeless crofter’s cottage to a castle that’s been occupied for centuries.

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. 

Grooving with the Picts

A day of adventures on the high and low roads of Perthshire. Today we put our our rented van to the test on some seriously skinny roads. Rowan named our chariot “The Dreadnaught” which is appropriate as it’s much larger than anything else we see people (other than lorry drivers) using. You basically have to drive off the road on the left to allow an oncoming car to pass. On the straightaway it’s alright but on a blind corner against a stone wall is something else!

We first visited the Ian Burnett chocolatier in Grandtully. Treats in hand we next went to the Dewar’s Aberfeldy distillery for a tasting. Lovely scotch on a nicely kept production facility. 

Stone circles and a reconstruction of an Iron Age lake dwelling followed by a 5,000 year old yew tree now in a churchyard rounded out the day. 

The folks at the Crannog Centre were welcoming and very earnest in their “Experimental Archaeology,” and some had been at it for nearly a decade. It was an excellent demonstration of Iron Age life skills, but it did bring up some lingering questions, first of which is: why would people living on a lake (oops, LOCH) that connects to an excellent (and still productive today) salmon river NOT eat the fish? 

The guides insisted there’s nothing in the archaeological record to support fish consumption. Apparently the ear bone is what survives to tell the tale. Now, they are portraying the leaders of society, so maybe the plebes who lived on land had a different story, or maybe the archaeologists just haven’t found the right midden yet, but in a time when growing, processing, and storing food, especially protein, was so challenging, it makes no intuitive sense that such a rich resource would be ignored. After all, where we’re from a whole culture developed with salmon as its foundation, its staple, and one of its prime trade goods. The Picts truly were mysterious. 

The Angel’s Share Fungus

We’ve finally made it to Edradour! It only took ten years after our first try. 

The “Angels’ Share” is something we’ve known about for quite some time, but today, in addition some superb touring and tasting, we learned about the fungus accociated with distilleries, specifically with spirit aging facilities. It eats the ethanol seeping out the barrels, and forms a crusty black mat on buildings, equipment, and nearby trees. According to Andrew our guide, the tax collectors would use black-stained trees to locate and destroy illicit stills. (I regret I didn’t get a good photo of the really black trees by the warehouse, but you can make out some of it here.) 

Apparently the distillery has to paint its buildings four times a year to keep them so spotlessly white, and they want them white to reflect heat from the buildings, keeping them as moist and cool inside as possible. This is to minimize the share the angels take through evaporation. I wonder now, though I didn’t think to ask Andrew in the moment, why they don’t just pressure wash instead of painting. I may never know. 

Kingdom of Lothian

I’m a Sauceror  but playing KOL was a long time ago and I haven’t cooked anything in days. Never mind that, the food here in the ancient Kingdom of Lothian has been remarkably good. Rick Steves says it’s the French influence, though I just think it’s more the ready access to lots of great farmland. And raw hares. 

We’ve visited a huge castle with a tiny chapel and some shiny jools. 

Or maybe it’s just the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. 

I think the Scottish National museum is more interesting and accessible than the British in London. They present the objects as parts of a story, rather than just stuff sorted by time. I especially admire that when it comes to the ancient Picts, basically all the displays admit variations on “Hell if I know,” even though there’s a pretty decent amount of archaeological material. Just no one ever wrote down much about them. 

We saw bog butter. Mmmmmmm bog butter! I’m glad we could not smell the bog butter. (The interiors of Edinburgh Castle smelled really good, though.)

And the Romans were really into peen. 

The crew at Hertz gave us the most painful rental car pickup ever. We won’t let that spoil a delightful road trip starting tomorrow, and transpiring entirely on the wrong side of the road. 

Wishlist

From when we started planning this trip, Rowan has been asking if we could ride a double decker bus, “like the Knight Bus in Harry Potter.” Well, today we did, right in the front. 

While congratulating ourselves on how brave and savvy we felt for jumping into unfamiliar public transit (thank you, Google Maps, for your excellent data), we enjoyed a top notch view of Edinburgh. 

After one or the other of us had exclaimed some variant of “it looks just like in Harry Potter!” I had the epiphany that, by golly, they made it that way in the movies on purpose. Duh. 

Art imitates life and we sometimes forget that, until life experiences remind us of the truth. Soon enough we were enjoying the sights on their own merits, not in comparison to some fictional ideal. It takes time to fully inhabit a new place, to cease viewing it through the filter of preconceived notions. 

Edinburgh

Soooo we're in Scotland now, or so we're told. City of Edinburgh  (ed-in-burr-uh) near the main waterway called the Water of Leith. Which I assume is what you drink  when you want to become the Kwisatz Haderach. In any case,  it leads to the botanical gardens which are lovely and partially in large glass buildings which seems sufficient to convince the cacti that they are not in fact in Scotland and otherwise totally fucked.

Most everything is made of stone here which is smart both from the perspective of fire control and tourist appeal. You could probably just shut down a couple of streets here and film a period movie from the middle ages to WWI and not have to change or add anything digitally. 

Let's look at some pictures.

Preppers

It’s a week until we leave; back to the auld sod. Rowan is beside himself. He’s just sure that when we visit Loch Ness we’ll find Nessie, and bring back an egg for him to raise in Rimrock lake. He plans to introduce himself to the locals by his FULL name, which I’m sure will make us some friends. 

He’s just got his first pair of headphones, and he’s practicing using them for the plane.