Author: David T. Macknet

Thing 1’s parents live in a converted church, and his father A., an industrial designer and artist, was most happy to give us all the details on the building, the grounds, the loch and the history thereof. The building itself was built in 1844, and was a major renovation of an existing church. With a bit of ingenuity, Thing 1’s dad A came up with a plan to convert the disused church into a home.

To the left are the models A. built, to show how he wanted the house. The builders constructed his house from these models, basically just putting their signature on the drawings A. had also made up and calling it well enough planned to build from. After all, this wasn’t construction, really – the church outside wasn’t really changed, with the exception of adding windows and doors – it was, though, a major undertaking, constructing a living space inside the shell of stone.

To their pride, A&F’s belfry is home to one of the largest colonies in the UK of long-eared bats. They have both long-eared and common Pipistrelle bats (one roosts in the belfry, the other in the attic), as well as swallows (who happily share space with the bats in the belfry).

We were truly impressed with the house, and want one of our own! Now, we just need to find a stone church constructed 150 years ago….

-D & T

Last week was quite a busy week! We spent the week “glamping” in a lovely caravan-camper in the village of Appin while jetting about with Thing 1 and J. The upper highlands are one place where one REALLY needs a car, as the villages are tiny and separated by miles of windy road, so we were especially chuffed to have a friend on hand, who was happy to drive us to all of his favorite places, and to some he’d never visited before. We headed – in one remarkably long day – out to visit Iona Abbey and Staffa Island. In order to do this, we first had to take the ferry from Oban to the town of Craigmure on the island of Mull, which takes about 45 minutes. We then took a bus via single-track roads (yes – one lane, with places to pull out and let opposing traffic pass – it’s not a joyful thing at all) all the way across the island, which takes about an hour. We then took another ferry over to the island of Iona. You can check out all of the pictures here.

From Iona, we then took a wee tour boat out to Staffa island – to see puffins! Along the way, we got to visit with a friendly pod of dolphins, who were quite happy to play along in the boat wake. We were quite sorry to see them fall behind, as our boat accelerated, but they were joyful to see in person, in the wild, playing in the water.

Staffa Island is interesting, from a geologic perspective, with columnar basalt formations, caverns, etc. It is also quite steep, full of peat bogs which want to suck off your shoes, big rocks in the middle of the trail, and steep cliffs. For us, though (well – for D), Staffa was mostly a convenient place to visit with the puffins. These little birds – and they are quite surprisingly smaller than you’d think – have pretty much no fear of people. They’ll happily waddle around a few feet away, looking quizzically at you if you’re where they want to be. It’s a bit of a slog through marshy ground to get there (UNDERSTATEMENT! – t), but well worth the hike. Check out all of the Staffa pictures here.

When we say it was a busy week, we mean it. We are well exhausted, from long drives and lots of walking/hikes, but we had such a good time, and T. looks back at high hills and cliffs with a sense of satisfaction from having climbed them (though her thigh muscles are still faintly protesting). We walked out to visit Glenfinnnan (of Harry Potter train-bridge fame), pottered about a bit in Glencoe, and took a gondola ride up to the top of Aonach Mor. Not to mention getting to visit with Thing 1’s parents and oler sister, eating loads of good vegetarian food, playing rowdy games of Cranium and Articulate (we will be purchasing that one – it’s awesome fun), and visiting the “Hollow Mountain,” aka Cruachan Power Station – the first “reversible” hydro-power station in the world (when the need electricity, they let the water run out of their reservoir; when they can buy electricity during off-peak usage times, they reverse the turbines and pump the water back into the reservoir). A good time was had, but we’re most grateful to be back in the land of fewer “midgies,” as they call the voracious mosquito, and more internet connectivity!

-D & T

Not really. Actually, we went to see Calamity Jane at the Perth Concert Hall for its last night.

We love the Perth theater, not least because we sang a perfect concert there, ages ago – the Rossini in 2011 was FLAWLESS, and it’s just not often that you can say that about a concert – but it’s a bright and well attended space, and there is a lot of variety there. We thought we’d enjoy a bit of town polish whilst on vacation, so we got ourselves to the theater… and noticed a big, big group of screeching, giggling women taking selfies on the stairs to the balcony. Of course they were seated right next to us. OF COURSE THEY WERE. They were having a hen party, complete with pink, sparkly, plastic, cowboy hats. They were very …enthusiastic, as was most of the rest of the audience, really: clapping, “yee-haw-ing”, whistling, stomping their feet. It was like …theater as we’ve never experienced it. Ever. It was an event. Having never seen the performance before – D. had never even really gotten the gist of the plot – we were a bit … left out. What with the lack of sparkly cowboy hats and all.

Despite our bemusement, it was quite a well done performance – even the accents could have been from… well, Australia-by-way-of-Canada, if not the U.S.. The players had an amazing amount of musical talent – there was a cellist, a bass, two flautists, three violinists – fiddlers – and a couple of really wonderful trumpeters, a sax player, and some great pianists – as well as the ubiquitous guitarists, harmonica and banjo players – all moving and dancing and managing to never miss an entrance or a pitch. And then there was the stompy, enthusiastic hootenany-ceilidh dancing, aka square dancing… which reminded us an awful lot of the square-dancing at our friend Axel’s wedding, actually… while we may never (please, T. says) go see a Western musical again, it was a lot of fun to do something so drastically different, on holiday.

Should you visit this fair (well, sometimes; mostly it’s drippy just now) country, you should know that every trip to Scotland must involve a trip to Stirling Castle. This is just the way of things, because it’s a fabulous castle (Historic Scotland maintains their offices there, saying it’s the best example of a Scottish castle).

You’d think we’d be over visiting Stirling, since when we lived in Hayford Mills we were literally ten minutes away from the castle, but no. This time, we visited because they’ve been renovating the residential section of the castle the last 10 times we visited (OK, maybe it wasn’t 10 times – but the whole 5 years we lived in this country, it was closed). Anyway, they’d been renovating, and had had weavers in making tapestries using traditional methods (by hand, for years and years).

The tapestries are now installed in the residential section, which is completely redone to historically accurate specifications – including the somewhat garish colorings of the plaster walls and the ceiling. (We read awhile back in the Smithsonian Magazine about all the Italian statuary and castles which were probably bright and full color — when all that plain white marble is restored, it’s amazingly bright and whimsical looking). Together with the ceilings, the tapestries are quite magnificent, seen as a whole, rather than just randomly hung upon the walls in other sections of the castle. They represent thousands of hours of labor, with multiple people sitting down and weaving in pieces by hand, one thread at a time. They really stand out now, and add quite a lot to the castle as a whole.

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We ended our time in Glasgow with the best of all things, and the worst of all things — Sunday, we had brunch with some of our dearest Scottish friends, and met some new and brilliant friends at a supper given for us — those were wonderful. The less-than-amusing Glasgow incident – typical for us, it seems – meant another noisy neighbor, and another all-night party Saturday night we couldn’t interrupt for love nor money. Though he apologized – upon being forced to – we’re happily done with the city, and now on to gorgeous, green Perth.

We’ll always remember this time in Perth – for a number of reasons, but because here we braved driving for the first time in the UK (What is this we, T???) — fine, D chanced driving, whilst T. gripped the dash board and prayed — ! It’s a challenge, because the car seems ridiculously wide and having the wheel on the side closest to the lane where other drivers are seems… odd. D. tends to drive wide of the center line, but with a little more practice, he should be fine. Even so, we’re staying off of major roads, and only got the car so that we could get to some of the more far-flung locations out in the country. (Because such great swaths of land are privately held in this country, the trains just don’t go East to West, because it’s private land and ostensibly the Lairds said no when the railroad came knocking.) At least it’s an automatic, so D. isn’t shifting with his left hand on top of everything else!

We are now staying at a newly renovated guest house as its second guests. We are quite happy for the modern conveniences, though there’s no gorgeous Georgian ceiling and crown moldings… it doesn’t leak, and it has all modern conveniences and it still smells faintly of fresh paint, it’s so new. It’s central to another group of friends, and some lovely historical places further in the country, and we’re looking forward to wringing all we can out of this pleasant location.

This week, we should make our way to the Crannog Centre, the gorgeous little town of Pitlochry, Dunblane, and to Scone Palace (rhymes with “spoon” – not the biscuity thing you eat with jam and cream). We’ll visit with L and the Weasels, and generally be tourists.

And now, it’s time to settle in with a pillow or two and a book. Half of our holiday has gone, and we must make the most of this leisure time.

-D & T