Sweaters in the Scottish Isles: Scotland to Iceland 2023 #9

Iona abbey

On our circumnavigation of Iceland, on the small island of Grimsey in 2019 I bought my favourite sweater. It was a rainy day and the air had a chill in it. There was a small gift shop next to a cafe that served tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Walking into the gift shop, I saw all manner of knitted pieces of clothing, mitts, scarves and, of course, sweaters. There were sweaters of every colour combination imaginable and I began my search by trying on the ones with the colours I liked best. There was one I really liked but it was too big so I settled on the one that has been my trusted companion ever since. I debated about whether to take it to Scotland or not and, in the end, decided not to so I could have room to carry sweaters that I hoped to buy during the trip.

I knew we would be visiting many places in Scotland where I could buy woollen goods. I looked around in Edinburgh when we were there and there were a few sweaters that looked promising but I held out for the Scottish Isles. Once we left port we visited Islay, Staffa and Iona, Skye, Lewis and Stornoway, Foula, Orkney and Faire Isle. I kind of had my eye on Faire Isle as a purchase point, although the prices were reputed to be quite high.

There were many things to see and getting a sweater took a back seat for a few days.. On the visit to Staffa and Iona we saw a variety of bird life and were fortunate to have a Scottish ornithologist with us. Dolphins swam alongside the ship as we moved between islands, and although the sea was too rough to get into Fingal's Cave, we did get as close as we could to the entrance on one of our zodiac excursions. On Iona we paid a visit to the abbey, which has been restored by a group of dedicated people and is now used as a retreat centre. The carvings on the pillars drew my attention and a fair number of pixels on my camera and phone.

column detail Iona

On our way back to the ship we stopped in front of a tiny shop in whose window was a lovely turtleneck sweater. I pointed it out and my friend urged me to go in and have a closer look. I asked if I could try it on. It must have had my name on it because it fit perfectly, and even though I had forgotten my wallet on the ship, the shop was equipped to take tap payments In amounts that allowed me to complete the purchase with my phone. I returned to the ship quite pleased with myself. I know a lot of people can’t wear wool and I went for a lot of years wearing fleece and cotton instead of wool. Recently, though, I have gone back to wool sweaters. There is something cozy and comforting about a wool sweater. Maybe it reminds me of the many sweaters Mum knitted for me when I was a kid. I know when I put on the Grimsey sweater It’s like a nice warm hug. The Iona sweater is a bit itchy at the neck, possibly because it is so high. I can fix that easily by wearing a neck tube underneath it. Richard was also struck by Iona and he composed a song for ukulele called “Isle of Iona.” I need to practice it more regularly so I can play it without stumbling over my fingers. I’m very fond of the song and it, along with the sweater bring back good memories.

Iona sweater

It was definitely sweater weather on Lewis when we visited Gearrannan, the black house village. These houses had thatched roofs, thick walls, and low doors. I’m not that tall and I had to duck my head a few times. The black houses got their name in the late 1800’s when newer houses, those that separated people from their animals, were called white houses.https://www.isle-of-lewis.com/information/history/ We also visited the standing stones at Callanish. These stones are older than Stonehenge and one legend says that the stones are men who were turned to stone by an enchanter while another suggests the men were turned to stone because they did not adopt Christianity. https://scotlands-stories.com/fascinating-stories-from-the-calanais-standing-stones/

The main attraction on the island of Foula was birds and I saw a number of different species. On the second last sailing day we visited Orkney. It was a full day with visits to Kirkwall, the main city; Skara Brae, the settlement built underground; the ring of Brodgar, and the Hall of Clestrain where John Ray lived. John Ray was the man who acquired news from the Inuit about what happened to the Franklin Expedition. He was shunned in Britain when he returned with information that Franklin’s men had likely resorted to cannibalism. That idea was completely unacceptable to Lady Franklin as was the idea that Franklin had failed to find the Northwest Passage. John Ray is responsible for mapping much of the northern Canadian archipelago.

Skara Brae

When we landed on Fair Isle I got distracted from my sweater hunt by puffins. The ornithologist instructed us to go quickly past the nesting puffins to a place higher up the hill where the juveniles hung out. There, he told us, we could watch them to our heart’s content which is exactly what I did. It was one of the most memorable stops on the trip. The puffins were unbothered by us and some of them came up to investigate people’s boots as they sat on the grass. I have no award winning shots of puffins but I have fantastic memories of the time I spent among the less-than-graceful little birds.

Puffins!

Eventually I realized that if I was going to make a visit to the community hall where the Faire Isle crafts were being sold I was going to have to leave the puffins. I packed up my camera and headed inland.

When I got to the hall it was clear that a lot of the sweaters had already been sold and there was nothing that really jumped out at me. Then I saw a couple of vests hanging on a rack. I wear vests. A knitted vest would be a good insulating layer under a wind shell and the vests had the advantage of being about half the price of the sweaters. The vest I settled on didn’t have all of my favourite colours in it. In fact, it had a mustard yellow in it that I wasn’t fond of at all. It did have a blue and a raspberry shade in it so I figured it would go with most of my clothes. I tried it on and the woman who made it pointed out that it was a little big in the shoulders. That didn’t bother me particularly so I added another item to my island collection. Fair Isle was the last stop on this part of the trip before we landed in Aberdeen to offload the folks from the Scotland Slowly trip and to pick up the folks for the next trip that took us to the Faroe Islands and on to Iceland.

Scored a Fair Isle vest

A crazy idea

    I don’t know when I got the idea. Clearly it was before the beginning of January 2023 because in January 2023 I started to post one photo a month of me with a cup of tea on the deck. We call it a deck. Some people have said that it is more properly a porch because it is on the front of the house. Whatever you call the space, it’s a lovely place to sit and enjoy a cup of tea and since January 2023 I’ve been doing just that. It's fun to pick a day, generally near the beginning of the month, when it’s not too cold, too wet, or too windy to sit out for a few minutes and enjoy the surroundings. I post my ‘tea on the deck’ photos on Facebook and I’m always amazed at how many responses I get, usually close to 50. Apparently these monthly photos are fun for other people as well.
    I’ve been thinking of ways to make each photo a little different. After all, the deck doesn’t change, my face stays pretty much the same and I only have so many mugs. Come to think of it, I could be a bit more intentional about which mug I use because I do have a variety. So far I haven’t settled on anything. Today a squirrel provided me with the perfect bit of local colour. As I stepped out onto the deck and got my phone camera turned to selfie mode, I noticed him at the top of the tree preparing to jump. I pushed the button and hoped for the best. When I looked at the photo there he was in mid air his limbs spread as if he was a flying squirrel. Sometimes you just get lucky with the push of the shutter. I know this photo in the tea series will make me smile when I look over the sequence at the end of the year. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this going. It’s a small and easy thing to make a cup of tea and step out on the deck, and, it entertains me.

Isle of Islay: Scotland to Iceland 2023 #8

This is another excerpt from my trip notes. These are about the first stop we made once we got underway on the Ocean Endeavour.

Saturday June 17, 2023 Isle of Islay

We are the bluebells. Dawn the botanist thought we should learn some of the names of the local plants rather than just being in a colour group.

It was a pretty good day today. We got to Islay later than expected as we couldn’t quite make the speed they hoped for. We got another packed lunch and, once we landed we ate our lunch in the square. It wasn’t dumping rain but it was grey and spitting.

If it had been a nicer day I would have pulled out the drawing equipment. There were lots of interesting things to try to draw but I didn’t want to get the notebook wet. We had quite a while to wander around the town before we took another bus, (we’ve been doing that a lot lately) to Finlaggan an ancient seat of the Lord or the Isles https://www.finlaggan.org/

We walked through a sheep pasture and managed not to get too much sheep poop on our boots. Once we had listened to a talk on Finlaggan and taken some time to poke around there on our own, we took the bus back to town. There wasn’t anything else we really wanted to see there, having visited the church and the church yard right after lunch, so we took a zodiac back to the ship.

I opened up the chocolate chilli chai that I bought in Glasgow and made myself a cuppa. It’s a good thing that I made it half as strong as the stuff I get from David’s tea because that is some spicy! I coughed and sputtered for a while and then, eyes watering, proceeded to enjoy it. It’s nice to have my own tea this year because in the dining room they interchange the pots they coffee in with the ones they put hot water in for the tea and the tea tends to taste a bit off. There’s always hot water in the library so I’m not restricted to tea at meal times.

Our group is in the first group for Fingal's cave at 7:30 tomorrow morning. https://www.wildaboutargyll.co.uk/blogs/how-to-visit-fingals-cave-and-why-you-need-to/

I liked the title of this eatery.

Main street of Bowmore. There is a distillery there. We didn't visit it.

Nice view from the main building

Taking our time among the ruins

Other links

Bowmore distillery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowmore_distillery 

A walk in the frosty neighbourhood

A frosted gate

I was feeling grumpy yesterday so I decided to go for a walk. It was a grey day and fog had covered all the trees in frost. One of the photographers I follow just loves to shoot in mist so I thought I’d haul out my phone and take a few shots. Such photos are fairly pointless because I’may not look at them once I’ve taken them. I like the process of deciding what to photograph and how to photograph it and that was a good enough reason yesterday.

One of the first photos recorded the beginning demolition of a block of houses. That’s going on a lot lately. We have one empty block with the big machines drilling holes for pilings. There’s another block where the houses have just been demolished and even the concrete stairs, the last things to go, have been broken up and hauled away. Instead of half a dozen family homes with yards on that property there is going to be a six storey building with 92 units. The homes that are coming out in the other property are being replaced with another 6 storey building with over 100 units. That certainly will densify the neighbourhood but I can’t help being a little sad when I see homes the same age as ours reduced to rubble.

The last few days of this house

After photographing the demolition site, I turned my attention to the frost and the trees. There is an intriguing black and white quality to the landscape in these conditions and I walked and snapped for just over half an hour. When I came home my mood had improved considerably. Even though there are many things I love to do indoors, nothing is quite the same as getting outside even for a few minutes. I wonder if I’ll be smart enough to remember that the next time I’m out of sorts.

Dark berries, white frost

This spot feels like countryside

A visit to New Lanark: Scotland to Iceland #7

Another bus ride

On June 16, 2023 it was another bus tour, this time to the world heritage site of New Lanark. https://www.newlanark.org/ New Lanark is a working woollen mill that was part of a community founded by Robert Owen. He had a vision of a better life for workers and the possibility of schooling for all the children in the community.

It was a very interesting tour complete with a virtual/ actual ride narrated by one of the workers in Robert Owen’s factory. Let me explain that. The ride part was actual. We got into a gondola that wove through the exhibits where there were movies and still photos of the various goings on at the mill and in the community.

Boarding the gondola

Sometimes the people in the movies spoke directly to us and sometimes we watched them going about their tasks.

Life in New Lanark

The only downside was the wait times to actually get a gondola. When you have a ship load of people all descending on the facility at once it creates quite a long lineup. I was a bit disappointed that the machinery wasn’t actually working the day we were there.

Apparently it had been the day before. I did, however, avail myself of the extensive gift shop and picked up a lovely pair of heavy wool socks to wear around the house.

When we arrived back at the ship we got the word that we were to sail in the wee hours of the morning. Because we lost two days in port, one stop was cancelled and two stops that were scheduled for consecutive days were combined into one. Finally the beginning of our trip to the Scottish Isles was in sight.

Last sunset before we sail 10:40 pm

It's time

I’m looking through photo albums from 35 years ago. They are full of photos Mum took on her various trips. This morning I’ve been looking at a trip she took to Britain. The labels are neatly typed and beside some of the photos are details like the photo of the donkey trained to walk on a wheel to pull a bucket up from a well. Mum tells me in her comments that the donkey’s name is Jenny and when Jeny sees the top of the bucket above the top of the well she steps off the wheel. There is a photo of “Oliver, a chocolate point Siamese who came out immediately to share Dorothy’s prawn sandwich.” These photos and their captions make me smile.

Oliver the lunch-sharing cat

There are photos of Mum, only a few years older than I am now. She wasn’t much for photos of herself. I can imagine the fun she had selecting the photos, typing the captions and putting them into albums. She, like me, relived moments of the trip as the albums went together.

Mum middle, her cousin Berta right

Perhaps that is the reason I’ve been so hesitant to get rid of the albums. I know they meant something to her and that she relished every trip she took and the memories of each one. In her later years she was fond of saying, “Well, I did it when I could,” and she did a lot!

I’m going carefully through each album, taking out the photos of Mum and the ones that will be good for drawing practice. The first album I did I took all of the pages out and salvaged the cardboard pages with sticky strips on them. I thought they might be good for book covers. I’ve used a few of them but they warp more than other types of cardboard and I don’t think it’s worth my time to scrape the captions off. So I’ll take out the photos I want to keep and the rest will go out. If I have seen the places she photographed, I have my own photos and memories and if I haven’t, they really don’t mean anything to me. It’s a bit sad to be disposing of all the hours of work she put into them; however she would have been the first one to advise me to get rid of them if they have served their purpose.

She spent years cleaning out my dad’s stuff and was determined not to leave me with the same task. By the time she died she had very few possessions and enjoyed the ones she did have. I know I have way too much stuff and I’m starting to go through what I have. I’m not at the point of being absolutely ruthless yet but I am making a start by sorting through the albums. After all, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’

What now? Scotland to Iceland 6

When I last wrote about our Scotland to Iceland trip, we were in Greenock port with a hole in the hull of the ship. Adventure Canada is extremely good at changing plans on the fly so they got busy and arranged a couple of tours of the local area for us.

On Thursday June 15 we boarded buses and headed for Stirling Castle. It was another scorcher and the heat radiated off the cobblestones inside the courtyard of the castle. I didn’t feel like taking a tour so I wandered around on my own, did a couple of drawings and tried to stay relatively cool. There were many interesting exhibits but the one at which I spent the most time was one on musical instruments of the time. There were various mock-ups of instruments that you could play and buttons to push that gave brief snippets of music played on the historical instruments. There were several young kids there and we politely took turns at the various stations.

I wandered the gardens and climbed up to the top of the castle for a view of the surrounding countryside. Not being much of a history buff I’ll leave it to you if you’d like to learn more about the history of the castle. https://www.stirlingcastle.scot/discover/about-the-castle/

We returned to the ship, cooled off a bit and then watched some delightful Scottish dancers. The dancers ranged in age from 5 or 6 to teenagers. I enjoyed watching the younger ones who were simultaneously having fun and regarding their performance as a very important occasion. We were hoping to be able to sail that night but it was to be another day of land based adventures before we actually cast off.

Seeking shade

Musical exhibit

Shaft of sunlight underground

Rose in the castle gardens

View from the top of the castle