Nessy, Cawdor and the HEAT, my god the HEAT! July 12, 2013

Some left overs from yesterday that I wanted to post... a pic of the front of the train that we were finally able to get, and a picture of the footbridge in Inverness.  When you walk across it, it bounces, it's like walking on a trampoline and sometimes it's coming up as your foot is coming down..

Between the four of us we kind of naturally stagger our wake up time – we set alarms, but we’re typically up before them.  I went to bed fairly early last night, 11:00 (many times up til 1 or 2) because we’re tuckered out; after a drive and a tour of a town, and possibly a sugary alcoholic beverage like a Bulmer’s cider?  I’m ready for bed.  I get up about 5:45 and Patti isn’t far after me – we go ahead and shower since all 4 of us are in one bathroom here – I get a blog posted, and we’re all up and ready for breakfast at 8:30;  we got this down.  J


Our host had showed us the lounge and the breakfast area the night before, and I head down to the lounge to do the blog stuff and have coffee to get out of the way of others getting ready – and then we all go in for breakfast.  We’re sitting at separate tables (separation anxiety sets in) – and 3 out of 4 of us get the full Scottish.  She’s a little surprised that we like the black pudding (I’m not really sure what’s in it, but I know it involved pig’s blood)..   AND Patti has found an orange marmalade on the table that doesn’t have the “shred” – it’s shredless marmalade, so I guess that we’re not the only ones that don’t like the zest in there.  It’s ok – I don’t hate it – but I won’t waste my time with it when there is black current or a nice jam on the table too.   There is also a lemon marmalade, and Patti, the lemon FREAK doesn’t want to try it.  It does have zest in it, but I think lemon is different than the orange because the zest isn’t bitter like an orange.  She gives in and tries it – she tries things – and it’s ok.  Nothing she’s going to crave.   The fresh berries, however?? OMG - the blackberries are the size of thumbs!  We will miss that fruit..

 

 

We’re still not really clicking with our host here – I don’t even know her name to tell you.. and that’s unusual in our B&B experience.  She asks us our plans and we tell her that we want to a place to look at the lake, but that we don’t need to go ON the lake.  We figure, it’s a lake…(and we can’t help saying it like the Donger from 16 candles every time…”Lake… big lake”… ).  She looks confused (the Scottish language barrier goes both ways), so I tell her again we don't need to go out onto the lake, but we want to have a spot where we can see it and get good pictures.. So she says "There's a boat..you can go out onto the lake..” and she gets the pamphlet and tells us where to get the boat.  Hmmm.  I also ask her about the MacBeth stuff, and whether this is their area or not, since Inverness Castle is here, and Cawdor is 10 miles away, and I literally get a blank stare, like she’s just waiting for me to stop talking so she can slip away.  I wasn’t really going to try and go to Cawdor even though it’s one of MacBeth’s castles mentioned in Shakespeare’s MacBeth (“All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! Second Witch 49 All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”)

, just because I had looked it up and it wasn’t really his castle – it wasn’t even built at the time that he was alive, but he was Thane of Cawdor, and the Thanes of Cawdor do NOW use that castle… so it’s not like I would go there and feel his ghost walking the halls.  But after the lack of MacBeth love everywhere, I’m really just looking for some place that has a connection to it, and I figure given the popular reference to it that the castle (and the gift shop) would have a few nods to MacBeth.  Plus it’s only 10 miles away – so why not?


After breakfast I decide to do research on our own to see where to go to enter the lake – the shops don’t open up until 10 and we want to go back, so we have a little time to relax and make a plan for the day before going out..  We had kind of planned to see it on the east side as we were driving down to Doune later today, but I look and there are just no real access to the lake on that side.  I do google street views and see a lot of tall shrubbery blocking the lake.  Again – marketing.  If I lived on the east side of the lake, and there are several towns there, I would mow down some shrubs.  So if we want lake views we have to go back down the west side of the lake, the way we came up.  I talk to the others about going to Cawdor, and they’re in --  so we pack up the car, and walk back down to the shops to pick up some more tartan scarves for people, and Brittany finds this little hidden city (felt like it) as we walk by this place that just looks like a door into a shop, but as you enter it opens up into this maze of shops. 

The little door that looks like nothing..

 

While Dana and I are looking for MacBeth tartans (I got orders to get more), Patti and Britt are food shopping... and they find HOT packaged hotdogs and sausages, ready to eat in a food bin... YUM!!

We get the shopping out of our system and then we head out to Loch Ness.   We just find a place to park next to it and get a few pictures – it’s another nice clear, sunny day and it’s a perfect day for pictures.   The edge is steep and there are prickly bushes all around, so it’s a little funny to watch Patti maneuver.. she doesn’t do well with either.
 

On the way down they all spotted a likeness of Nessy at the Loch Ness Lodge, so we pull in and grab a few pics.  We are becoming the masters of the photo opp – get in, get it, get out… There are instructions next to Nessy, NO TOUCHING, so we do our best to get pics with him without touching, and then the ladies that go next are just all over him (after listening to our conversations about how we couldn’t touch)… mavericks!   

NO TOUCHING!!

 We’re back on the road and on our way back north along the lake to Cawdor, Castle of Thane MacBeth!  I can’t wait!  Just to be inundated with all the MacBeth stuff….. I didn’t really think that I needed to pay to go inside the castle because it wasn’t really his, but when we get there, it’s all one price to see the grounds and the inside, so we do it.   I get lots of pics outside of the castle – and I love the castle crest with the motto “Be Mindful” that hangs over the entrance (and again larger in a courtyard).  Once we enter we see the gift shop and I want to go in now and get my disappointment over with.   And sure enough – no MacBeth stuff.  There are three books – two of which are Shakespeare’s play, and the other I figure I can find on Amazon about the real story of MacBeth.  I get a couple of things that say Cawdor Castle, like the letter opener (“is this a dagger I see before me??”… nope, just a letter opener)..  They don’t even have the “Be Mindful” crest anywhere.  Again – marketing.  What they do have is this picture of this Scotsman in his kilt, from behind, with the kilt blowing up just enough to get a nice glimpse of his posterior… it’s in the woolen shop before you enter the castle (on like 3 different sized cards), it’s in both castle gift shops… his bum is everywhere, and I purchase one just because it’s so ironic to me that they have this, but nothing related to their own crest or link to MacBeth.   The lady at the gift shop is confused about why I would expect to find MacBeth things here… um, because that’s how people have heard of this castle…

 

 

 

And... what we saw everywhere

   Anyway, we go through the castle, and I’m most surprised by the fact that someone actually lives there, the current Thane of Cawdor lives here with his family, so everything we’re looking at is just their house.  But they winter there, or something – they’re not home now, so it’s open to us.  The gardens are beautiful and we get some pics on the way back to the car.  The sun is beating down pretty good, and while it feels fine in the shade, it’s a little brutal in the sun, and we’re north, heading south.  So we’re dreading what the temps must be like down there.  Brittany is walking back to the car and says she has “little bitty stabby things” in her shoes… Patti and I turn to her, “You mean, ROCKS? Is that the word you’re searching for?”…  Yes.  Brittany is tired.  We get some ice cream to cool off and have some silly laughs... not sure what they were doing here... selfies with the Dana face??

 

We have a long drive to Doune, about 3 hours.  The place we’re staying is kind of combination of hotel and B&B – and we’re all in one room again.  They have a restaurant like a hotel, but everything else feels very B&B – we give them our breakfast times and orders, and that’s included in our stay.   It is HOT here.  We’re not joking about the heat wave anymore.  It wins – we’re hot.  Again, LOVELY outside; at home this would be a perfect night to sit outside and chat over drinks.  But inside?  It’s an oven with no ventilation.  We have dinner there (another order of haggis please!), and Patti and I think that a nice super cold beverage sounds good – she gets a Tennents (remember that pub that wouldn’t let women in? They make a beer) – and it’s really good!  And I get a Bulmer’s…  and that was a huge mistake.  A little alcohol in the muggy heat? Yuck.  We’re like steaming, I can feel the heat just coming off of me.   And our rooms are no better – this is going to be a looooong night, it’s very still, no breeze, no ventilation… hot and sticky.

With nips and tatties...

Patti's lasagna with American type of cheese...hmmm

 

Brittany goes downstairs and asks them if they have any fans, and thanks to Brittany (who insists that she doesn’t ALWAYS get what she wants… just 98% of the time) we have not one, but TWO fans!  It’s still bad.  We all use wet towels on us and our heads to cool off -  it is so hot.  And our wi-fi only works in the reception area – but we’re used to lies about wi-fi, so we take that in stride, and it’s actually cooler downstairs so I hang out down there some and cool off.  We’re trying everything possible to get it to cool down, we have our door open hoping that it will create some kind of ventilation and people walk by and see our fans… we know they’re jealous.  When we decide to try and sleep, I close the door and it actually seems to get a little cooler, and by morning it feels great in the room (the temp drop overnight helps), so we end up sleeping a lot better than we thought.  Britt even has a cover on by morning.

Patti will kill me for this pic... but it shows our misery

Britt making the "Patti full breathing" face ...

Tomorrow the Highland games!!  Real Scotsmen in kilts!!