J&C Sept - Day 1

It has begun! We're on the path of Jamie and Claire in the late summer / early autumn glow.    The colours are changing from multi-greens and purple to golden yellow, soft purple, bits of red.  Amidst our Outlandish Travellers on the September tour we have our own Jamie and Claire, known better as Mike and Rhonda.  They are our cute couple, holding hands as they climb the hill together to visit the standing stones.

All the gurrls posing; Mike wondering what's going on

Bonnie:  Here we are staying at 2 lovely guest houses.  Had a beautiful drive through some of the  Highlands with a picnic lunch atop a high hill studded with standing stones.  A wee shower caught us on the way back to the car.  Now we are on the way to dinner.  Lovely

Mike: Still adjusting to achieving a long time goal of just getting here. Hilltop picnic and losing myself in the scenery. Out to group dinner and first time wearing my new kilt in public - nothing but positive comments so far. Being here with someone special makes it fantastic.

A special moment with the stones and the hills

Oh, it's about 4000 years old...

Rhonda: Spent the afternoon on a wee hillside, it was beautiful and sunny, Samantha read the passage from when Claire went through the stones while we all looked out over the mountains.  You could hear the sheep baahing and the birds chirping.  It was a very moving moment, to picture yourself where Claire may have been when she walked back in time.

Tour Day 2 of the Wee Folk

Meeting Stones and Water
Might be a good title for the day.  The guests are all in bed.  We wore them out, so there will be no words from them.  I sit by the fire (as seen in yestere'en's post) and recount the Tale of the day.

Aven has been joining us on our tour - in the blogosphere.  Nice to hear from you and know that you are with us, lass.  As many will know, our tours are a bit like a select club of followers, guests, friends.  Like the Cosa Nostra, anyone can join but they can never leave, so you are welcome with us Aven.  Send my regards to your quiet man, John.

To the day...

The posse, ready for mischief

We've been finding out about our guests.  That's Cee Cee in the front in pink.  She's too cute to be trifled with.  She sits in the middle seat of honour in the van, surveying the road ahead and bursting into song and great volume and enthusiasm.  "Dingle beh, Dingle beh, dingle aw duh ay!"

We went today to a place who's name I won't publish here, for the downside of the internet is that search engines can soon rack up a huge amount of publicity for a place, much more than the fragile beauty can cope with.  I'm thinking that if you're meant to find the place, you will.  It's one of Britain's gems and constitutes a huge collection of ancient sites in a fertile glen of Mid Argyll, named after a Celtic-Christian community of the 6th and 7th century founded on the teachings of Martin de Tour.  Nuf said?  You can work it out.

Samantha and I lived in this Glen for 5 years and I spent most of my time guiding visitors around it or with my nose in the archives researching it's history, so I know it quite well.  There are a large number of ancient burial chambers, amongst the many, many attractions.

Cee Cee and Charles make their own ceremony to raise the dead.  They sit in a burial ciste 4000 years old.  The ceremony involved Cee Cee singing, of course.  "Dingo beh, dingo beh..."

The stone circle with it's flooring of cairn stones

We went then to an even less visited place where the roofless dwellings of the families from the 1600s still stand, surrounding and caring for a sacred well that produces the most sweet water.  We spent much time drinking and getting close to this soothing elixir, playing with lampreys and tiny fresh water shrimps ("caterpillars" to Cee Cee) that inhabit the well, like water spirits.
Towering over a byre in the clachan (hamlet) is a most beautiful larch tree, and my favourite image of the day, below.

"Number 3, The Larch"

The final stop of the day was a castle, burnt out 350 years ago.  It's not in bad shape. We climbed two of its towers and gazed the length of the great hall.  Tonight after a wonderful meal from our host, I told the Tale of the man that built it and published the first book in the Gaidhlig language from the castle, to the grandson that lost the place to a bloody feud and vengeful MacLeans bearing torches and daggers.

Worthy of mention is our meal this night.  We are staying in a rather sumptuous estate house with Mathew and Yvonne.  It is a "Dinner B&B" which is a title that does it no justice.  We are staying in the home of two fine people, which we share with them.  Mathew is a most excellent cook.  He prepared a fresh four course meal which was enjoyed in his regal dining room.  Not bad for a man who left of pouring the concrete floor of his new shed not two hours before.  Busy and varied people are highlanders.

Tomorrow?  Oh I don't know, castles?  the ocean? the repository of wonderful creatures?  the capital of an ancient kingdom?
You'll have to follow follow follow...

September Inspires

Things to inspire....
Despite the sudden, but yet somehow quite typical, downpour that August has become, we are inspired by our lovely garden of wildflowers. I have been out of a night talking with the owls, who talk back of course. This expands the former early evening soiree of "singing to cows".
"The boys" as I call them live over the road and saunter up to the field head each night. Sometimes they even sing back.

Anyway, to the matter in hand: Outlandish Spirit, Ina. As you may remember, Little Miss Ina Sunshine was on the May Jamie and Claire Tour. So inspired was she by Scotland's beauty that she is coming back. Very soon.

She picked up on the existence of Calanais when here. I mentioned that I was thinking about offering a tour to these remote and remarkable standing stones as a further, off-book adventure to Outlandish Spirits, perhaps ones that had been on the Jamie and Clarie Tour and wanted to explore the Western Isles, which of course, Jamie and Claire do not get to.

So, we have timed a reconnaissance trip to the Outer Isles to coincide with her October visit. (Ina is also partaking in literary smuggling on the trip. Call her "mule". She will be smuggling in the hard copy of the newly released, yet not available in Europe, hard copy of Echo for us. If she is caught, then we will deny knowing her as we exit Edinburgh airport in a hurry).

Our trip (pilgrimage) to the Eileann Siar, will take two days just to get there (island hopping by ferry). It's a long way west and north. Makes Ardsmuir look like a downtown cafe. Well worth the trek though. The string of islands is a most remarkable place. Here are some photos Scot took in August 1996 when there. They have had NO colour enhancement or digital scullduggery.

The megalithic complex was originally 19 standing stone sites, interlinked across several miles. It makes Stone Henge look like a garden ornament. The landscape of the place is quite unnervingly beautiful, challenging, oppressive, inspiring... Scot's favourite stone ring in the whole of Britain and Ireland is there (and he's visited a lot of them). The Western Isles are a quite fantastic place too. They are not really part of Scotland, remote, bleak, pristine, windswept, Gàidhlig speaking, hard-living, a wonder of nature, half viking.

If you consider yourself an outlandish traveler and would like to come on this trip (some time in 2010), then help me create it. Get in touch via the Jamie and Claire Tour website and lets talk about what we would want to do on the trip, the best time of the year, cost, focus. I've put a wee Poll to the left for some basic opinion gathering. Only fill it in if you would consider coming on the tour.

So, Bonnets off tae ye, Ina, Outlandish Spirit that you are.