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All those worries about navigating in big cities, and then I head for dinner without really noting the name of my B&B, or having anyway to get sensible help or contact anyone. I guess I was thinking that the streets were too simple to mess up. Not so, when it's become dark and there's a fork you don't remember. What should have been a simple 5-10 minute walk became a terrifying half-hour. Fortunately my memory had grabbed a few useful things -- not the name or the precise appearance, but "en suite" on the sign and gravel, which combined with feeling like the right location led me to check it out. And the expensive flashlight known as my smartphone let me read the signs in the back that confirmed my guess.
Brrrr.
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Slept perfectly well, though. No earplugs, no nose strips, no waking up in the middle, no other people snoring, 7-8 hours straight. Totally quiet.
Odd dream of a couple of men, Homes and Watson like, using Lovecraftian math and rocket math to fight squamous horrors. Or a dream about such stories, because a woman insisted they should learn to give up Lovecraftian math for real math and she was missing the point of Lovecraft.
Which beats one of my last hostel dreams, as I was drifting in and out of consciousness and only weird dreams told me that I'd been asleep. Like "remembering" my mother be worried that famous actresses like SMG were rutting naked on Survivor-style TV for attention. With dream visuals even, rather unattractive naked rutting.
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Skye pop 11 thousand, 2500 in Portree. 70% are in tourism. Heather looks like crap most of the year, then the island turns purple in August.
Dead heather emits oil into soil, which after a bit of fossilization turns into peat. Picts made peat beer, which you can still get. Locals take fairy stuff seriously, which I've heard about Iceland. Skye is the biggest of the Inner Hebrides; later we got to see the Outer Hebrides across the water.
Old Man of Stor story and minor hiking up a heather-garlanded spring. Water did taste good.
It's actually a nice day today. All praise to the little people.
We saw a red kite (the bird) hunting, though all we could see was a silhouette.
Yes, we've seen sheep. Also deer yesterday, which is supposedly unusual for this time of year. Red deer and roe deer.
Passed Kilt Rock, basaltic basal columns with rectilinear fractures.
Village of Staffin, 400 people, 4 churches. Sabbath taken very seriously. Along with the fairy belief.
Passed black and white border collies trotting along the road oon their own. Smaller than I thought.
Claims Pictish face paint was anti-mosquito or antiseptic, not war paint.
Picts, Scots, Anglo-Saxons, Britons, and Vikings. King Kenneth united Picts and Scots against Vikings; somehow wiithin 60 years, by the end of the 9th century the Pictish 80% of the population had been absorbed.
Whiskey lecture.
Old Macdonald castle, abandoned because chief's baby was accidentally dropped, that's a bad omen, even today no one will work on it.
40,000 people were forcibly removed from Skye in the Highland Clearances.
Ranriks? Strips of land rotated among tenant farmers every two years.
"Rob Roy" was a more accurate movie. This came as we passed some hairy coos, hairy cows, originally black but turned ginger when Vikings brought their own breeds. Claims blackmail was coined by Rob Roy, cattle thief, meil being the old Gaelic word for money, after he offered landowners to not steal their cattle for money. Well, and to steal their cattle back if someone else stole them.
Much the road here is single-lane or 1.5 lanes, needing passing protocols. Often has cattle grids too, to keep them in. I wonder if those work on sure-footed sheep.
There are buses on Skye.
Stopped at some museum of "black houses", with modern additions like chimneys. Authentic ones would have residents dying of bronchitis from the smoke.
Oh, Edinburgh Host told me the clifftop trailer park would have been summer vacation homes.
Driver got really excited about seeing a golden eagle, hadn't seen one in 4 years. I still wonder if this "low animal" bit is faked enthusiasm to make us feel lucky... Maybe not, since he followed up with how there are only 300 pairs (in Skye, or Scotland?), and how large raptors had been persecuted by gamekeepers and egg collectors.
Mussels for lunch.
Note: I'll respond to comments back in civilization. Hope you have notifications.
Brrrr.
======
Slept perfectly well, though. No earplugs, no nose strips, no waking up in the middle, no other people snoring, 7-8 hours straight. Totally quiet.
Odd dream of a couple of men, Homes and Watson like, using Lovecraftian math and rocket math to fight squamous horrors. Or a dream about such stories, because a woman insisted they should learn to give up Lovecraftian math for real math and she was missing the point of Lovecraft.
Which beats one of my last hostel dreams, as I was drifting in and out of consciousness and only weird dreams told me that I'd been asleep. Like "remembering" my mother be worried that famous actresses like SMG were rutting naked on Survivor-style TV for attention. With dream visuals even, rather unattractive naked rutting.
=====
Skye pop 11 thousand, 2500 in Portree. 70% are in tourism. Heather looks like crap most of the year, then the island turns purple in August.
Dead heather emits oil into soil, which after a bit of fossilization turns into peat. Picts made peat beer, which you can still get. Locals take fairy stuff seriously, which I've heard about Iceland. Skye is the biggest of the Inner Hebrides; later we got to see the Outer Hebrides across the water.
Old Man of Stor story and minor hiking up a heather-garlanded spring. Water did taste good.
It's actually a nice day today. All praise to the little people.
We saw a red kite (the bird) hunting, though all we could see was a silhouette.
Yes, we've seen sheep. Also deer yesterday, which is supposedly unusual for this time of year. Red deer and roe deer.
Passed Kilt Rock, basaltic basal columns with rectilinear fractures.
Village of Staffin, 400 people, 4 churches. Sabbath taken very seriously. Along with the fairy belief.
Passed black and white border collies trotting along the road oon their own. Smaller than I thought.
Claims Pictish face paint was anti-mosquito or antiseptic, not war paint.
Picts, Scots, Anglo-Saxons, Britons, and Vikings. King Kenneth united Picts and Scots against Vikings; somehow wiithin 60 years, by the end of the 9th century the Pictish 80% of the population had been absorbed.
Whiskey lecture.
Old Macdonald castle, abandoned because chief's baby was accidentally dropped, that's a bad omen, even today no one will work on it.
40,000 people were forcibly removed from Skye in the Highland Clearances.
Ranriks? Strips of land rotated among tenant farmers every two years.
"Rob Roy" was a more accurate movie. This came as we passed some hairy coos, hairy cows, originally black but turned ginger when Vikings brought their own breeds. Claims blackmail was coined by Rob Roy, cattle thief, meil being the old Gaelic word for money, after he offered landowners to not steal their cattle for money. Well, and to steal their cattle back if someone else stole them.
Much the road here is single-lane or 1.5 lanes, needing passing protocols. Often has cattle grids too, to keep them in. I wonder if those work on sure-footed sheep.
There are buses on Skye.
Stopped at some museum of "black houses", with modern additions like chimneys. Authentic ones would have residents dying of bronchitis from the smoke.
Oh, Edinburgh Host told me the clifftop trailer park would have been summer vacation homes.
Driver got really excited about seeing a golden eagle, hadn't seen one in 4 years. I still wonder if this "low animal" bit is faked enthusiasm to make us feel lucky... Maybe not, since he followed up with how there are only 300 pairs (in Skye, or Scotland?), and how large raptors had been persecuted by gamekeepers and egg collectors.
Mussels for lunch.
Note: I'll respond to comments back in civilization. Hope you have notifications.