It’s been a hectic couple of weeks as family have been up to visit for the last two weeks. Dean’s mum, sister and her husband drove 600 miles in one day to get here and have only just gone back to Oxford.
We have been out with them on our days off and visited Ullapool, Inverness, the Corrieshalloch Gorge and many more besides. The weather has not been kind to them but we had days where the rain held off for a few hours so we could go sight seeing.
The local Ceilidh nights have been on every Wednesday since July and now our rota days have changed we were all able to go on their first Wednesday here. It was a great night out and you were able to get up and dance if you wished as they had a ‘caller’ telling you the dance steps. A raffle is held every week and we were fortunate enough to win a ‘veggie box’ from Good for Ewe, one of the local crofts who grow their own organic vegetables and salads.
Before they came up we warned them all about the midges and they came prepared with plenty of repellent cream. What we hadn’t mentioned were the Clegs (horseflies) up here…
On one of the rare days of sunshine, they had all been sat outside admiring the views across Gruinard Bay when Amanda leant back on her chair, squashing a Cleg in the process. Needless to say it took offence and promptly stung her on the arm. Once the searing pain had eased she didn’t think too much about it, only to find the following morning her arm had swollen and you could see it was infected across a 15cm spread. By the time she had arranged an appointment with the doctor the next day, it had swollen to twice the size and weighed twice as much!
Sadly, the abiding memory she will be left with of Scotland is not a happy one! They decided to leave a day early as the journey here was such a long one. Amanda couldn’t drive (at least not for very long) so John had to drive the whole way home. We told them about the journey along Loch Ness, Spean Bridge (Commando Memorial) and the Pass of Glencoe, ending along the banks of Loch Lomond so they had some wonderful scenery on the way back. Then it became motorway all the way to Oxford.
It was lovely to see them all and we think they enjoyed it, although we’re not sure about Dean’s mum as she admits she’s a Townie. She couldn’t get over how much space there was and how far away your neighbours were.
