St. Swithun’s Day, And Other Musings

Happy Swithun’s Day. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s kind of like a reverse Groundhog’s Day — basically, whatever the weather is today, is the weather it’s supposed to be for the next forty days. So, let’s see. This morning it was foggy, and then, at about ten, it started pouring. By eleven thirty, the sun came out, and by noon, it was raining in full sun. By two o’clock, it was purely sunny, followed by periods of rain. And, here it is, five thirty, and the clouds are closing in again.

Yep, that’s about what we can expect for the next forty days or so.

Before you have a good laugh and think how ridiculous it is that a the UK has a patron saint for drought (!), think again. We have a groundhog, people. We’ve got nothing to laugh about, although I do admit it was amusing to discover that the Hogg beast bit the mayor of New York this year. At least St. Swithun doesn’t bite. As far as we know.

You know how sometimes you’re so happy, you have to stop and say, “Right this minute, I am …perfect,”? (If you don’t have those moments, you should have them. Acknowledge the gift when it is given, people, seriously.) We had a lot of those moments this past weekend on our little jaunt to Oban and Mull.

We’ve determined that we need to be near the sea in order to be happy. Sunshine helps, sometimes, but the sound and smell of the sea is a must. Oban (on the coast) and Mull (an island), have both of those in spades. Of course, rain was forecast, and we were amazed at how sunny it was on Friday when we drove out. The lochs were dead calm, and glassy; Argyle Castle was gorgeous and dollhouse-like; and we found our housing in Oban to be perfectly situated, right on the esplanade. After we walked through the town for a couple of hours (and ate a vegeburger at a truly strange restaurant called The Pancake Place, which put marinara sauce on tortilla chips and called it nachos), we sat outside and watched sailboats and ferries go by, until T. realized that her forehead was …hurting.

Since we all know (and if we don’t know this, let’s just pretend we do) that people with dark skin can burn the same as pale people (it just takes a little longer), we all know it would have been smart for T. to have used sunblock. But… we’re in Scotland, and she’d forgotten that the sun exists. She had a hat… and it was tweed. She had to buy a sun hat. She was chagrined. At least she has a bit more Vitamin D in her system now!

We walked through the village until the sun went down, stopping for a bite to eat and to watch a mackerel boat cast off and chug off into the sunset. It finally got a little chilly and breezy around then, so we hurried back to the guest house and turned on the heater before relaxing for a quiet night.

We caught the nine o’clock ferry to Mull the following morning, and climbed to the very top (and froze) for a forty-five minute ferry ride to the isle of Mull. Unbelievably, the sky was still clear, and seagulls floated above us, vying acrobatically for the chunks of bread the ferry riders tossed to them. From the ferry terminal at Craignure, we took a short hike across town to what has to be the world’s smallest train. The Isle of Mull Railway is, in short, adorable. And also short. We accordion-ed ourselves into the tiny cars, and took the fifteen minute trip up the Mull Sound to Torosay Castle. There was much amusement to be had in watching some of us get in… and get out.

Since the group we traveled with was made up of University students with families, there were a fair number of kids on the trip. Actually, we could have started a preschool with the group of toddlers along. Our youngest trooper was three months old. The kids made it a bit more fun at times — and they were good entertainment when, at the end of our short time at Torosay, the bus to take us to our next destination was an hour late! We really enjoyed interacting with the families this time — unlike some of our other trips, the parents were fully invested in making sure their kids had a good time, and didn’t just leave them to their own devices. Overall, it was a really awesome group.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, Torosay Castle is actually less a castle and more of a “stately home” type of thing. The family still lives there, the grandkids’ pictures are on the wall — granted, they’re paintings, but they’re true enough to life that when we saw one of them ripping around the grounds we recognized him — and the whole place is all really low key, which is nice. There are signs inviting you to actually sit on the furniture, which is never done in the other stately homes we visit, and some of the kids actually felt free to play the grand piano in the drawing room. It was nice to feel welcome.

But the thing we enjoyed the absolute most about Torosay Castle were the gardens and the farm. There is a walled garden, in which there is a central fountain and a tiny bench, and climbing roses, there is a walkway with a bunch of white (and somewhat creepy) Italian statues; there’s a folly, which is basically an empty domed structure; terraces galore; and twelve acres of walks and flowers and lawns. We explored until we were ready to fall over, then had a cool drink at the teahouse. There are ‘airy coo beasties (and other strange animals) at Torosay, and there’s even a bog garden, though sadly, we did not have time to get there (although, if we’d all known the bus was going to be late…). Next time!

We have nearly seven hundred photographs of our trip, and to prevent you from feeling like you’ve been invited to the neighbors house to look at slides…for hours… we invite you to just click through the Flickr pages, and we’re also going to break up our posts. Next time, we’ll recap the wild roads (er, tracks?) of Mull, the colorful village of Tobermoray, and highlight a bit more of our time in Oban. But for today, we’ll leave you with the walled garden at Torosay. (Please ignore T. it’s really TOROSAY, not Tobermory. Also, bear with the really bad filming; some of us are just learning.)

– D & T

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