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Wednesday 4 June 2014

Swan - Visiting the Scottish Highlands

 
Swan – Visiting Scotland - The picture shows a «Fascinateur» not a rare Scottish species

For the British Whitsun w/e as opposed to the French one, we visited Scotland for a family reunion and anniversary of the 100 years of my husband’s mother’s family living in the same house. We being, husband and I + elder son and his wife travelling by plane up to Inverness from London, us the French contingent, having arrived by Eurostar into Victoria Station, then the four of us made off to Gatwick airport to fly to Inverness. We picked up a car hire to take us to our final destination in the Scottish Highlands. Quite a long journey and only reported for the benefit of those who like planes and trains.


Inverness and beyond is the most far north I have ever been in the world ! I think next stop is the North Pole, at the very least we were on the coast of the North Sea and the locals say that on a good day one can see the Northern Lights, or at least be aware of the changing light in the sky. On a good day probably means that the Scottish mist lifts for a while. Yes Scotland is as beautiful as they say and the mountains are really purple with green gullies and glens. It’s easy to slip into the local vernacular and now I am going to write that the loch’s were in spate even at this time of year as a day without rain is rare even in the months approaching summer. 


On the subject of lochs we passed the famous one where Nessie supposedly lives. We drove right by Loch Ness, but there was no sign of her/him who must be very old by now. However, there may be a lot of Nessie descendants who might also be celebrating their family reunion in a monstrous way. Now I’m getting “twee”, it’s catching !
 

We stayed for three days in total and on the great day of the "Open House" party the sun came out and there was no rain. The 50 +/- family members whose ages ranged from approximately 2 years to 90+ were able to survey the vast oak forests planted over the last 55 years by the great uncle who lives there. His oak tree plantation is his legacy and vision to replenish the de-nuding of oak trees during WW2 and the lack of re-planting. An impressive and noble project, one of which Great Uncle can and should be very proud.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Anne,

So pleased you had a lovely time in those beautiful Scottish highlands.

Was thinking of you Sunday night as I attended a masquerade masked 50th birthday party for a Brazilian ex-ballerina friend of mine. She went as Black Swan, as per the Natalie Portman character. It was so much fun masking up and I did so enjoy watching those magnificent brazilian dance moves !

I hope you are enjoying the evolving warmer weather and the joys of that new season,