June 15, Sunday

Leaving Nethy Bridge this morning had us pass by House of Bruar for the third time, so we stopped to get the makings of another Skyrim dinner.

In front of the grocery store they have a small local farmers’ market set up.  Last time we bought some truly outstanding strawberries and raspberries.  This time, in addition to the strawberries and raspberries, they had the best selection of heirloom tomatoes I’ve ever seen all in one place.  With visions of caprese salad dancing in my head, I decided to go buy the cheeses and stuff first, then hit the farmers’ market stalls on the way out.

Big mistake.  In this particular store, the candy section is situated by the front entrance.  The kids get stuck in there and it’s tough to keep them moving.  I was so busy trying to herd them out of the building that stopping at the produce stalls completely slipped my mind.  I didn’t even notice until dinnertime when I went to get the strawberries out and realized we didn’t have any.  I was planning to keep the seeds from the best tomatoes, too, so I could try growing them in Georgia when I got home.  I blame the kids.

The roads from Nethy Bridge to Loch Long are hilly and winding, and some of the prettiest we’ve ever seen.  The landscape in this part of Scotland is stunning.

Isabella suddenly started to feel carsick, though, and asked to stop for a few minutes so she could walk around and clear her head.  The nearest spot on the narrow road with a pull-out just also happened to have a couple of friendly horses.  Score!

The horses came over to be petted, and I rummaged through our food stash to find some treats.  I came up with a banana.  The brown horse took a small bite, and clearly wished he hadn’t … lots of lip pursing and tongue thrusting ensued in his attempts to spit it out.  The banana had already been crushed, though, and didn’t spit out well.  It was stuck to his tongue and the roof of his mouth.  The rest of the banana was soundly rejected, and Holden ended up eating it.

Back to the car for me to look for more acceptable treats.  We had a box of muesli (oats, sunflower seeds, raisins, etc.) and a handful of that proved much more to his liking.  He was so happy with muesli that the white horse finally decided to mosey over and see if there was anything he could get in on.

Yeah … muesli is worth walking over to the fence.

The above picture shows how much taller Isabella is than I am now.  She is standing a tiny bit uphill from me in this one, but she’s definitely got more than 2 inches on me these days (maybe even more than 3 by now.)

Last night Adam needed to put a new memory card in his camera and discovered the last pictures he’d taken on that card were of our trip last summer at the Grand Canyon.  There is a photo of me braiding Isabella’s hair, and she’s clearly several inches shorter than I am.  Her face looks so much younger and kid-like, too.  What a difference a year makes at that age!  I can’t see it happening in person from day to day, but the photos make it clear that changes are taking place at a rapid rate.  Children are little for such a brief time.

Ahhh, nostalgia.  But back to this summer in Scotland …

Nothing but rolling green hills and valleys as far as the eye can see.  Even in foggy weather it’s gorgeous.

We found lunch at a resort on the banks of Loch Tay.  This is a fresh water lake that clearly is a resort area for summer recreation.  The overall feel of the place is much like Whitefish Lake in Montana, although it doesn’t really look the same.  It just has a similar vibe.

Isabella, enjoying a peaceful moment of solitude before having to crawl into the back seat again with Josie and Holden.

A little further down the road is a quaint village called Killin.  I spotted a promising-looking antique shop as we drove through town and pleaded with Adam to turn around and go back to it.  This was no minor request — Adam has a tendency to drive by things with a firm grip on the steering wheel and say, “Oops! oh well we’re past it now no going back.”  Luckily for me, there was a really convenient place to pull in and turn the car around.

This antique store (Killin Gallery) is one of the coolest I’ve ever been in.  The proprietor was an elderly man who loved to talk about the history of all the items in the shop and he knew about everything.

The one painting that really caught my eye was a pastoral scene depicting two cows, painted in a loose, impressionistic style.  The artist was Andrew Douglas (1870-1935), a painter who has exhibited at the Glasgow Institute, the Royal Scottish Academy, and the Royal Academy, London. He was elevated to full membership in the Royal Scottish Academy in 1933.  So, he is fairly well-known in the art world of the UK.

We decided to buy it.  The proprietor of the antique shop said he thought this painting was probably a study Douglas did in preparation for a much larger work that was eventually shown at the RSA a couple years later.  (Ours was painted in 1912, I think … I can’t remember what’s written on the back of it.)

The old guy left us in charge of store and wandered away next door to find packing material.  He joked, “If you sell anything while I’m gone, you can have a commission.”  Adam and I could hardly believe he’d just leave a couple of total strangers in his store, alone.  This town must not have much in the way of crime.

Once we got back on the road and had driven a couple of miles, Adam said, “Do you suppose the painting is actually in the box?  He left us in the store but when he went to go pack it up, he was in that other building.”  The box he presented to us was taped up tight.  I said, “Surely he wouldn’t have switched paintings on us or anything.  He trusted us with his whole store.”  Adam said, “Yeah … and wouldn’t that just be the perfect cover?” That thought got us paranoid so when we checked into our new house, we opened the box to see if we’d been swindled.

Nope!  Here is the painting.  The old guy was a straight arrow after all, and he really was that nice.  (And we’re mistrusting old cynics.)  If you are ever in Killin, go buy some of his stuff.

Loch Long in Arrochar (G83 7AH).  If you look at a map of this lake, you can see that it’s connected to the ocean.  The lake is salt water and has tides.  The owner of the property said that often seals and porpoises swim in and you can see them right from the deck.  Back in the olden days, it also had Vikings.  They could enter this Loch from the ocean and then carry their boats to nearby Loch Lomond to perpetrate murderous raidings.

This house has a solarium that really takes advantage of the views.  Here Josie is exploring the new digs, and you can see me (sort of)  in the window admiring our new painting.

The frog pond right outside the solarium.  There are hundreds of tadpoles in here, and one really big carp.

This eagle was carved directly into the stump … it is one big piece of wood.

We’ve now had our first experience with midges.  People in Northern England kept warning us, upon hearing we intended to spend part of the summer in Scotland, that the midges will eat folks alive and that we needed to get some good bug repellant.  We hadn’t seen any midges yet and started thinking those Englanders were full of it.

Now we get it.  Midges are little bugs similar (maybe the same?) to no-see-ums and they are horrible.  At least with a real mosquito you can see them coming.  The midges are tiny ninjas, striking in silence.  You don’t know you’ve been bitten until the itching starts.

Josie checking out the lake with binoculars.  She’s safely in the house looking out the window.  The midges got her so badly her arms look like she has chicken pox.

Josie, embarrassed to be caught playing with the dollhouse.  She played with this thing for hours but didn’t want anyone thinking she was a baby.  It’s a really cool dollhouse … it even has electricity and little chandeliers and lamps that light up.

June 16, Monday

I had a hard time sleeping last night.  One weird thing we’ve noticed on our travels to the UK is that people here don’t seem to believe in bedding layers.  Every bed we’ve slept in has a bottom (fitted) sheet and a thick comforter … and nothing else.  No top sheet, no lighter blanket, no additional throw.  This house is no exception.

On our bed at home, I’ve created the perfect sleeping environment.  Multiple layers of bedding have been carefully chosen to allow the sleeper to adjust the temperature according to changing needs throughout the night.  We have a top sheet, a light blanket, a slightly heavier light blanket, a quilt, and a down comforter.  During the night, one can peel off layers or pile them on without having to get up.  It’s wonderful.

There is no such layering going on over here in the UK.  Your choices are two:  Sweat Lodge (under the comforter) or Walk-In Freezer (no blanket at all.)

But on to more important news:  this house has a kitty!! The owner gave us a fishing pole and some mackerel to use as bait, and as soon as Adam got the fish out and started cutting it up … here comes kitty. Of course we (“we” being Josie, Isabella and me) cut up nearly half of one of the mackerel and fed it to the cat, because how could we not? We’re calling this cat Sushi.

Shots from Adam’s early morning walk.  The weather is much better today.

One of the things Holden wanted to do most this summer is go fishing.  This morning Adam took Josie out in the boat first because she didn’t care much about fishing and her boat ride was going to be much shorter.  Holden was so full of anticipation for his turn he was about to wet his pants.  Imagine his profound disappointment when Adam returned with Josie and said, “I’ll take you out in a little while, Bug.  I want to have a cup of coffee first.”

Possibly the saddest, most pathetic sight we’ll see on this whole trip … Holden “practicing” in the boat and waiting for Daddy to finish selfishly drinking a cup of coffee.  This guy is going nowhere, but that’s not stopping him.  He’s ready.

For a little more perspective: this is how far he was from actual water.  So, so sad.

Finally!!!  You are looking at one happy guy right now.  They didn’t even get a nibble, but who cares?  A boy and a daddy in a boat, one of the best things in life.

At noon the restaurants in the village open, so we headed in for lunch.  Adam sat at this table saying, “Ahhh!  Now this is the life!”  We all needed to marinate in midge spray, but thankfully they didn’t ruin the al fresco lunch.

After lunch it was Isabella’s turn in the boat.  We saw a porpoise earlier today and she was hoping to see another one close up.  Didn’t happen, but she had a great daddy/daughter time anyway.  The scene was so moving that I finally tried to figure out how to work Adam’s Leica camera.  It’s old school — no auto focus, which is a handicap for someone like me with not-so-good faraway vision.

A view of our solarium.  I was toying with the idea of adding one of these to our house in Georgia, but after today I’ve given up on it.  This thing heated up like a sauna today, and it’s not even hot out.  In a climate like Georgia’s, you’d have to air condition it year-round just to make it non-lethal.  Never mind.

Boating is over now, so it’s time to hit the swing set …

…. and then the hot tub.  Holden’s face says it all.  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhyeah, that’s the stuff.”

Upon closer inspection of the water, I saw a jellyfish.  They are moon jellyfish — frequently used in aquariums because even though they have venom and sting their prey (mostly small fish) their cnidoblasts aren’t powerful enough to penetrate human skin tissues so they are relatively safe.

Off to get the frog net.  I caught the jellyfish and was very surprised at it’s texture once taken out of the water.  I was expecting it to look like a wet piece of toilet paper, but it looked more like a 1970s Thanksgiving jello salad.  We took a good look at it and then released it back into the water, completely unharmed.

In this photo, it’s just been released … you can see it as a white spot just a few inches to the right of the pink net (above the white handle.)  The jellyfish is hard to see because it’s almost completely transparent.   It was pretty big though — I’d say it was a good 8 inches in diameter, about the size of a dinner plate.

We’re not sure what we’ll do tomorrow.  Our original plan was to drive to the nearest grocery store, which is 28 miles away, but the road to that town is closed for the next 4 weeks.  We’re running out of food and Arrochar’s kwik-e-mart doesn’t have much to offer. We may have to go exploring.