Birdsong's Trip to the UK

Tuesday, Oct. 11 - Oban Distillery

Oban, Scotland

We four walked the mile to town each day along the harbor wall. Went to do a little shopping. Peg and George bought black cashmere sweaters. I bought Adrienne a pink cashmere scarf and Julian a baseball cap with "Scotland" and the royal lion on it.

Then we toured the Oban Scotch distillery. They are very small, so their scotch is not available many places. They are high quality, aged 14 years. Larry bought a bottle for $46. We finished the last glass of it the day before flying home from London.

Lunch at Coaster's Pub. Larry had some great chicken curry. Then dinner at a very modern, glass restaurant on the water called Ee'usk, meaning fish in Gaelic. Had salmon and shrimp mornay. Nightcap at The Lorne, nice old pub, little smoke. A local hangout.

People here call a sweater a "jumper." A toilet stall is called a "cubicle." Peggy read from Rick Steve some UK terms, such as "fanny" means vagina! We then made a lot of fanny jokes.

Wed. Oct. 12 - Isle of Mull, Iona

Peg and George's last day with us. Had a super breakfast. Great coffee. Took the ferry to the Isle of Mull. It was drizzly, rainy all day. After we got off the ferry, we got on a bus that took us down the entire length of the Isle of Mull.

The bus was very overheated, and Peg and I both had on our long johns!

The terrain of the Isle of Mull was quite unusual - rocky hills and mountains with minimal vegetation due to poor soil. There were many, many waterfalls creating streams - burns! There were some stands of conifers that were obviously second growth.

Our entertaining bus driver told us all about the island, where he was born. He had worked as a tour bus driver many years before, and then had a long career with the water company. A year or so ago he was laid off, but got his old bus driver job back.

Larry recorded his brogue. He pointed out a couple of deer, but I never saw them. There were a few sheep farms and B&B's along the route, and a tiny town or two, but the part of the island we saw was hardly populated.

We took a smaller ferry for the ten minute trip to Iona, an island of one by three miles. We walked to the old abbey established by St. Columba, an Irish, Benedictine monk who came there from Ireland in 563 AD.

He established Christianity in Scotland. He brought with him and completed on Iona the Book of Kells. I was so impressed. I had studied about that book in my History of Art class in college.

Had lunch next door at the St. Columba Hotel - lamb burgers and chips.

So often on this trip we thought of Di and Bill, mostly Di, who was sad after having just moved to Florida. I made a sign that said, "You are here!" with an arrow pointing down. We took a picture of it for Bill and Di just before getting back on the bus on Mull. On the bus trip back, highland cattle blocked the road and we got close-up shots of them.

Back to Oban, and the Lorne for drinks and dinner. Peg had tuna with scallops, George gambled on prawns (good!). Larry and I had steak and ale pie.

We said a sad goodnight to Peg and George outside our B&B room doors, as they were leaving very early the next morning. They were going back to London and then on to the Queen Mary II to New York.

Thursday, Oct. 13 - Oban, McCaig's Tower

A beautiful, sunny day! Peg and George should be able to see a lot more from the train than we four did coming up in the rain.

This needed to be a laundry day, so we packed all ours in a suitcase and pulled it to the only launderette. We expected to do it ourselves, but they did it for us.

We asked the gals working in the launderette the best way to get to the top of the hill to McCaig's Tower, a structure above downtown that dominates the skyline and resembles the Coliseum in Rome.

The tower was built in the 1890's by a local wealthy banker to honor his family and to give work to local stonemasons during hard times. The townspeople also call the tower McCaig's folly, because after the tower was halfway complete, he lost his fortune and his tower remains incomplete.

His plan was to place statues of the family in openings. We got some great photos on the clear, sunny day.

Dropped into the Tourism Office where they had Internet access and sent emails to Lori and Mark. We had dinner back at the Ee'usk, where the owner remembered us. Lobster for me, scallops for Larry, and dessert for him, a local favorite, clottie dumpling with cream. They put the sweet dumpling in a cloth in boiling water - tastes like plum pudding. (Yes, I had some, too!)

McCaig's Tower, Oban