Last Tuesday we rented a tiny little car, jammed it full of three women, a heap of camping gear, and a six week old kitten named Grandpa Hamish.

I was relegated to the back seat for the trip, because I was the only one who didn't get car sick. I was also the only person who could read in the car, so I was relegated to the Reading Princess Bride Aloud.

It was easiest to keep the kitty in the back seat, so I spent most of the trip looking at this ^ view. This was the look I got just before Grandpa Hamish leapt up and bit me in the crotch.

We drove towards the Isle of Skye. We got a bit of a late start (due to Kelly and my propensity for sleeping late) and so only drove for a few hours before we decided to locate a camping spot.

We found a beautiful copse of tall, old, moss-covered trees covering a small hill, next to a river. Stags roamed the grasslands around the hills, all majestic and antler-y, which would explain the hunting tower at the top of the hill.

There is nothing quite like cresting a beautiful rise, surrounded by this beautiful grove and glossy green rhododendren bushes , looking out on a field of grazing deer and the Scottish highlands, and taking a big ole wee.

However, that being said, upon waking in the morning, I discovered my first and only nemesis.

MIDGES.

Later on that evening, I counted my midge bites. I had two hundred and thirty-two midge bites.

Let me rephrase that.

I HAD TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO MIDGE BITES.

Midges are tiny insect that resemble a fruit fly in size and wing span. They get everywhere. They come in swarms. At least mosquitos are more or less solitary. And visible. Midges cover every last inch of visable flesh as soon as you expose it. There is nothing that stops midges, except apparently a very particular moisterizer that Avon sells.

Both Kelly and Amber barely got bitten, those bitches. I have the blessing of having a very nice complexion and pale skin. I am also cursed or blessed with skin that marks up very easily. Ergo, my expanse of midge bites looked precisely like I had a very terrible case of the chicken pox. When ever someone caught sight of me for the first few days there, they'd slow down, stare, and ask very quietly whether I'd gotten bitten by something. Upon hearing it was midges, they'd grimace, wince, and shake their head in wonder, and exclaim they'd rarely seen someone bitten so much.

We discovered a sale of outdoor equipment in the townhall of Glencoe, and a sweet little old lady sold me the Avon moisterizer, and a midge net that covered my head. I wore in immediately, despite being indoors.

I also saw this lovely house all covered in marigolds. The picture just doesn't do it justice.

The air here in Scotland is something else. It's very clear and bright, blue-white (as opposed to Calgary's yellow light), and sharpens all the colours something fierce. It's just beautiful. Much like Vancouver, only better, because it's Scotland.

We headed farther north, stopping at Eilean Donan, the castle that was used in the Highlander movies (which I haven't seen). It was a neat castle, and my first real castle of my trip.

We could not go inside, as it had been turned into a museum, I think, and was closed. But we did run around it, giggling like morons, and yelling things like: "THIS IS A CASTLE!" and "I'M IN FUCKING SCOTLAND!" but not in the earshot of anybody else, in accordance with ladylike behavior that my mother so dutifully taught me.

North, north, north. Shortly after that we crossed the Skye Bridge, saw another castle in the distance (but didn't stop), and careened our way up the narrow, bumpy roads of Scotland toward a hostel that Amber knew about. They allowed camping in the yard for a small fee, and had hot showers, which we were all thinking about rather longingly. I personally was hoping to boil the midge bites from my flesh.

The woman who answered the door of the hostel office was old and bent and sweetly Scottish, took our ten pounds, and stared at me in shock before asking quietly whether I'd been bitten by something.

The next morning, after the hottest shower I could stand (causing my midge bites to turn fiercely red), we hopped in the wee car and trundled toward the town of Portree.

The road, much like most roads in Scotland, was one lane, with frequent passing pulloffs. It was such a rough and tumble road, I was worried we were heading to someone's farm, which wasn't helped by this lovely herd of cows, most of whom were pregnant.

But no, we safely arrived at little Portree. It was a sweet little touristy town with boat tours and gift shops.

We puttered around, looking at things. I shopped a lot, but didn't buy anything. I kind of wish I'd bought some of the orange hand spun single ply yarn one of the shops had for sale, but I didn't, and I kind of wish I had, for naalbinding. Oh well.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town and bought bacon and vegetables for dinner. (The Scottish sure love their bacon, I tell you. It's the easiest meat to find. You can buy packages of six slices in the gas stations.)

SIDE STORY TIME.

I can't remember at what point in the journey this was, so I will say it is now.

We crested the top of this hill and Kelly, in her gentile Kelly way, screams "OHMYGOD WE HAVE TO GO LOOK AT THAT!!"

So we turned around a found hundreds and hundres of stacked stones, pocked among the heather. It looked like a little slice of Nelson on a hilltop in Scotland.

We got out and poked around. It was a lovely view of the valley and I took a few shots, but I won't bore you with my scenery photos. Kelly and I stacked some stones, until Kelly, in her gentile way, screamed "OHMYGOD I HAVE TO GO LOOK AT THAT!!" and went bounding off out of the stones, towards the road.

She made some new friends.

(I think she was just using him for his car, which was the red convertable number on the left.)

His wife, who was wee and white haired and wearing a cap and goggles to match, was highly amused by the whole situation and Kelly made me take about half a dozen shots of her and the car. To hell with the guy.

END SIDE STORY.


How can I explain how beautiful Skye is? It is an olive velvet cloth, dropped into the ocean, all soft peaks and gentle folds. It is slate cliffs, black and bleak, and dustings of purple heather. It is the silence so deep you can feel it in your bones. It is rusted tin roofs and three hundred year old gardening sheds. It is fellows named Iain, out walking in gumboots with his dog, chatting up three Canadian girls on the side of the road. It's sheep humping in the middle of the road.

Except for perhaps the sheep humping part, I really like Scotland.

Oh, and I hate the midges.

Fucking midges.

(Only now is my skin starting to look normal, though I still look a bit like I'm recovering from the zombie plague.)

So we started heading back to Paisley, with the idea that we'd have a few days with the car and have beds without midges. We got about two thirds of the way home when Kelly realized she'd lost her iPhone. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with modern technology (hi, mom), an iPhone is probably The Most Expensive Phone on the market right now. I could be wrong, but it's definitely up there.

Needless to say, Kelly was interested in going back for it, even though it meant a lot of retracing our steps and staying on Skye for another night.

"Do you mind?" she asked.

I think I replied with something like: "I'M IN FUCKING SCOTLAND! WOOOOO!!"

So back we went. We got to visit Eilean Donan just after the sun went down.

With nothing for it, we made giant shadow puppets on the castle wall. We danced like harems girls, and those plastic monkeys from barrels. We tried to make a shadow of a giant rabbit and didn't do so well.

I wonder what all the people sitting in the parking lot, watching from their cars thought...

And from there, over the bridge to Skye, round and round the rickety roads, and back to the hostel.

No phone.

Then we slept.

And I will do our magnificent return trip tomorrow, because it is almost 2am and I am very tired...