Tuesday night dinner in Oban...

Mary and I asked to share a meal because the portions in Britain are HUGE!. They said NO. Oh well... Dad had fish and chips. He was happy. So far he has had Hagis, he had fish and chips (they were really good). I had sea bass (it was really good). Mary had steak, but it wasn't good. Oh well.

THen we decided to walk back to the B&B in the wind and light rain. We walked along the water front. Dad said he could do it, but he was huffing and puffing after 5 minutes. It took Mary and I about 10 minutes to walk it early in the day, but took us almost 25 minutes with Dad. He made it. I think this was a good thing.
We went back to the back house and Dad went to the kings room!
Mary and I actually liked Iona, the owner of the the guest house. We walked to Dad's room earlier in the night with a bottle of opened wine, and she said, "excuse me, no alcohal allowed." Mary jumped in surprise (and probably in dismay). I laughed knowing it was a joke especially since she looked already a little tipsey herself.

We woke Dad up early after a rainy cold walk in the morning around the town. We had breakfast around 8 and Mary and I went into town to look for another sweater for Dad in his size... nothing! So we bought hankies for him. He "needed" them.

Then at 10am, we drove towards Fort William on route to Grantown on Spey. Dad loves the car travel. Mary and I feel antsy.
We saw so many things on the way. Any opportunity to get out of the car was welcome.
When I hired Mike, I told him that there were only two things (besided Whiskey) that I wanted to do. One was to see Stalker Castle. (I am sure Lise and Hans are getting a good laugh on that one). It is a castle I have seen over a dozen times photographed and loved it from a far. It is privately owned and on a small peice of land in the water. We stopped there and took a lot of photos. Even Dad walked with us.
I have to say at this point that I am thrilled that Mary is on this trip. It is helpful to have someone to talk to at the end of the day about Dad's funny things.
He knows all about everyone after talking to them for 5 minutes.

We got in the car once again. We drove to Glencoe and saw the statue remembering the masacure of 1692. King William took the throne and had all Scottish clans swear allegence to him by a certain date. The Macdonald clan was reluctant so they decided to wait until the last minute. He road out to pledge his support and when he got there realized that he was in the wrong place. He missed the deadline. IN the meantime, King William had anticipated a rebellion or two so had postiioned military near those clans including the MacDonalds. Scots might be cheap in some areas, but not in their generosity of hospitality. When William got the word about the MacDonald clan he had his men massacure the clan. This is awful!
We drove on a little detour out the road through glencoe and the mountains. It is very desolate and empty of people. This is part of the Scottish way which is a series of walking trails over Scotland. I would LOVE to do that. And actually people can go from B& B to B& B. It is also an option to have a sherpa lugging your stuff from place to place. It had a very strange and ancient energy that made me want to get out and breathe deeply inhaling the air and appreciating the love of the land that my ancestors loved.

We went then to the National Trust Visitor Center and bought a few things. On to Fort William where we had a light lunch (light is a relative word).
On the way we ran into an accident on the side of the road. A japanese tourist flipped his car. He was okay and someone had called emergencey services, but it made us apprecaite the driver's skills on the narrow uneven roads.
We drove by mountains (ski resorts), lochs, tiny villages, castles, sheep, cattle and stone houses.
We got to Grantown about 4 and decided to check in to our B&B before seeing family. More in next blog.