Back from Scotland

[prolium]

I spent two weeks in Scotland, a day in Glasgow, a week and a bit at a distant cousin's croft on Harris and Lewis (Outer Hebrides, NW Scotland), and a few days driving about the Highlands with my father

Comments

[charlotte_webb]

Sounds like an amazing trip. Here's hoping I'be beaten off every bug incirculation as I prepare for mine ...

Speaking of the Hebrides, have you read Woolf's To the Lighthouse?

[prolium]

I read something by Virgina Woolf half a lifetime ago for a college English lit class. Is it set in the Hebrides? (I guess I would have remembered that if I'd read it.)

[dragonwoodshed]

Isn't Woolf referencing Godrevy Lighthouse in Cornwall? I was always led to believe so. Mind you I was also told there would be seals. And that it wasn't going to rain.

[it_is_personal]

The pictures are great! What amazes me is how much the weather and the landscape reminds me of cape breton - although CB seems to have more trees.

I think I'd like the weather there. I like it when weather doesn't change much, so if it's going to be cool and grey, or bright and super hot, it remains as such. I'd simply move countries when I want a change of weather. Assuming a life conducive to such things.

[prolium]

The weather included everything everyday (sun, wind, rain, cloud), but their wasn't so much rain to make it a nuisance and it's kind of funny to have it pouring rain where you are and see bright sunshine everywhere you look. For traveling, 11C to 17C is actually a nice range.

I don't know why there aren't more trees. The ground is very wet, but maybe too wet, and the peat doesn't make a very firm base to hold up a tree in the wind.

[d_willrobinson]

There are no trees because they finished cutting them down in the 1700's and they haven't been able to grow back.

Looks like a great trip. I found the 'big sky' aspect of it to be a bit disorienting. I kept feeling like a I wanted to fall over. Or, maybe it was the ale, hmmm...

[prolium]

I seem to recall some trees being planted on Uist (south of Lewis and Harris) when I was there in 1992, but that there was some resistance to changing the open landscape. Plus in order to live as a crofter you have to keep sheep which probably need open moor for grazing, not forest.

[lieseldenver]

Glad to have you back!

That picture of you as sick boy is the cutest thing ever. And the pic of your dad at Annie's is marvelous. What a goodlooking family you must be!

How connected do you feel to Scotland?

[prolium]

I've only felt good looking the last few years. Whatever the reality has been is another question; this is just a statement about self-perception

[lieseldenver]

God, no wonder you feel Nova Scotian -- I had no idea your family had been there so long! I can't imagine what it's like to feel like you have deep roots in a place -- so much of my family history is lost. I mean, I assume we were in Eastern Europe for centuries, but we really don't know anything before the 1880s.

Although, I am proud that my great-great-grandfather was one of the first Jewish pioneers in Israel. He lived in the mystical city of Tzfat (Safed in English) in the mid-19th century. But the life was too hard and he moved back to Russia where the rest of my family was born. It always bummed me out -- I had this fantasy of what it would be like if I were a sabra (native Israeli).

Re: Good looks. Maybe you're improving with age? And even if you aren't ... wouldn't it be a nice thought? I have some newfound, hard-won confidence in my looks as well, and I'm finding that axiom to be true -- people think you're better looking if you believe it too.

[gothamasian]

Verdant!
Free health care!

Sounds like a good time.
I was wondering where you'd been.