Loch Carron, Snake in Eden, Heron Stooshie, Eilean Donan
Chapter 5

Morning Life

Falling in Love at Last

After a happy breakfast of porridge and Mallaig kippers (bringing to mind the Fawlty episode of the kipper and the corpse), we lounged around the waterfront waiting for the clan to assemble.

Enter the new (now lost) love of my life, an irresistable Brittany spaniel.  What a darling!  This is a guy who has total, total commitment to Play.  This made us a big favourite with him, since we were the ones he could count on to be up at dawn and provide him with playmates at such an hour.

Quite an agile little guy, he would race back and forth along the top of the sea wall if we ignored him, enticing us into a little game of fetch.  Whenever he succeeded in catching our eye, he would drop into a coiled-spring crouch, ready for Action, imploring with every cell in his body that we should enter the fray.

He brought anything he could think of from the low-tide sea bed and dropped it at our feet, hoping we would become as interested as he.  Once, he even brought me a large, wet leaf and plopped it down in front of me, whereupon I suggested to him that this wasn't maybe the very optimal object to use.  He didn't care, he positively shivered with excitement and anxiety, so I threw the wet floppy thing, and he went into a frenzy of ecstasy and brought it back to me.

He liked best if you threw things into the water, so that he could go charging into the water and get sloppy wet.  This was so exciting that he sometimes would crunch the stick into oblivion out of sheer joy.  I had to remind him that, had it been a bird, I'd have been quite annoyed.  He was unrepentant.

A Heron Stooshie

Then I was distracted by a major heron stooshie.  At water's edge of our little island, one heron of a would-be threesome took exception with another heron, and they went at it quite fascinatingly.  At this point, my clanmates arrived, so I never found out who won.

Farewell New Friends

The only bad thing to happen this day was we had to say goodbye to Kirsty and Paul, who had to go back to the real world.  No sooner found than lost.  But there was no doubt in my mind that we'd stay in touch.

Loch Carron

We embarked on what we now know to be a normal Brian outing - fearlessly over hill, over dale, covering a major amount of ground.  So I can't tell you where we went, except that it was lots of places, and all of it very beautiful.

Early on, we found a lookout point where we could look down on Loch Carron (and probably also Lochcarron).  Donna and I amused and saddened ourselves choosing dream houses - "I could live there!"

Eventually we scaled the very pinnacle of a mountain and I added to a little cairn there and we enjoyed a wild and weird view.  We then stopped at a creek where Rory and the gang ran up in their kilts to support Hamish in Wee Jock's Lament.

Going down was as hair raising as going up, and we had to stop while Brian's brakes cooled.  This turned out to be great good fortune, for Donna made the find of the day -- a snake!  He was a cute little thing, and very unhappy indeed to have a bunch of incomers peering at him up close & personal.  Brian told us they're called "slow worms".

Eilean Donan Castle

Next stop, the exquisite Eilean Donan castle.  This is the castle you see in the BBC self-ads, and was featured in many movies, including the recent Entrapment with Sean Connery.

I was immediately captivated by an exhibit put on by historical society volunteers of olden culture and crafts.  A woman carved intricate Celtic symbols into wood as we watched, and a young couple demonstrated foods and food preparation methods.  As they pointed out, the foods weren't that different from today - fewer additives.  I sampled the brambleberries, of course, though I'd already decimated the plentiful supply in my cottage's garden.

In the visitors' centre, gourmet products were on display.  I had a lovely chat (and a few wee drams) with Alistair Robertson of Tallisker (Tallisker is the festival's host) and compared ̉ban against Isle of Jura.

At another table was a show stopper display of a giant salmon decorated for serving, and another table had samples of smoked halibut and smoked salmon, which I ravaged through like a Yellowstone bear.

Eilean Donan Photo Gallery

Another Loss

After all that, you wouldn't have thought I'd find room for Skye skate in lemon butter and capers, spicey mussel soup, and brambleberry crumble - but I did <big grin>.

But then the sad truth, this was Rieko's last night.  We hated to see her go.  She passed around her card and address, and once again we had to say a goodbye.

Plockton Photo Gallery

Furry Companions Photo Gallery