the Highlands

The term Scottish Highlands refers to a vast area of Scotland, covering the northwestern third of the country. Mountains dominate, inhabitants are few. In fact, it's among the least densely populated areas in Europe -- 8 people per square kilometer. Culturally, it is a world apart from everything else. Traditionally Gaelic, with a modern language that is English, but a Scottish English. With Gaelic overtones. Many will say that the Highlands are closer in character to Ireland than to Great Britain. Though the region is more rugged, mountainous, isolated.

Probably for reasons of geographic convenience, the islands off the western coast of Scotland (including my beloved Islay and the awesome Skye) are also included in the Highland designation, but honestly, they seem to me to be removed and in a universe of their own. 

Ed and I did a hike that cut right through the Highlands: from Fort William in the west, to Inverness along the eastern coast. It was magnificent! Along Loch Ness. It took five days as I recall. We pitched a tent (Scotland has a law -- Free to Roam; you can pitch your tent just about anywhere), except when the rains came and I begged for a dry room. At night, we picked off sheep tics from our tired limbs by the light of a falshlight. We learned that where there are sheep, there will be tics. We were so much younger then! (The year? 2009.) Me, a mere 56, Ed also still in his fifties. The hike seemed remote, but the trails actually links two of the largest cities of the Highlands: Inverness with a population of around 50 000 inhabitants and Fort William, coming in at 10 000. You've probably not heard of any other town from this region. They're all tiny.

 

Today, I arrived in Tongue, Scotland.

The parish of Tongue has about 500 people. Tonight, on this longest day of the year, I will join their ranks. Sunset in Tongue today: 10:30 pm.

[It's not the northernmost point I've been to. Iceland tops it by a mile. Or more like 500 miles. Oslo, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Talinn -- they're all closer to the Arctic. My great desire was not to reach the northernmost regions of our beautiful planet, but to reach the northern most regions of the Scottish Highlands.]

However did I get here? Well, the easy answer is I flew! From Minneapolis to Amsterdam...

(sunrise in Amsterdam today happened at 5:18 a.m.,  long before we came in over the North Sea, as seen below; sunrise in Tongue will have been at least an hour earlier than that...)

 (breakfast at Amsterdam airport)

 

... then three and a half hours later, from Amsterdam to Inverness. 

 (landing in Inverness)

From there, I needed a car. It is technically possible to take a couple of local buses, but the connections are such that it would take me forever. Almost as long as a flight across the ocean, even as the distance is... small. (Today's flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam: 7.5 hours. Today's bus from Inverness to Tongue: 5.5 hours)

I'm not a fan of renting cars in foreign countries because it removes me from any feeling of immersion. It's me in a car. Period. Don't like it. Nonetheless, some places force this on you. Tongue really does require a car.

But, but, but, why Tongue? Oh, it's simple: I love Scotland, especially the wild and beautiful bens (Celtic for mountain), craigs (rocks), and dales that form the country's Highlands. And if the Highlands are wild and beautiful, in my mind, the coastline to the north, from all I've read, seems even more remote, more stormy and wild, isolated, perhaps beautiful? If I were to write a mystery, I'd set it right there, in a parish much like that of Tongue. There's something about the fierceness of the land that must instill a fierceness in the people too, no? I wanted to find out. To talk to someone who actually lived here. I could have picked another of the three or four villages along the coast, but Tongue had something else that appealed to me -- an inn, a very small one, that opened up recently. It's in a 19th century house and yes, it gives a big nod to its history, but it is furnished simply. They proudly say -- in the Danish style! I had a very hard time finding this place, but once I did, I was hooked. It's called Lundies House (managed by Wildland, which, in their words is "Scotland's most ambitious private conservation effort").

So that's the backstory! Let me roll back to my arrival in Inverness. In shockingly decent weather. None of this "four seasons in a day" stuff that Scotland is famous for. I asked for a small car, not only because I dont like or need a big one, but also because half of the drive to Tongue is along a one track road. Meaning you drive head onto the vehicles coming from the opposite direction. When you see a car, you have to backtrack or zip forward to an extra lump in the road that's used for passing. Whether you zip or backtrack is a mystery to me, but this is the way it's done. Of course, you have to do all this on the wrong side of the road. So, little car, please! (It's not that small. They're never give you the really small ones!)

The first half of the journey-- to the town of Lairg is, thank god, along a normal road, so I get used to the Scottish driving habits without the need to do this single lane stuff. Here's the one town I pass through: Lairg, population 891.

 

But then the road narrows. For 35 miles, it winds up and down, with a single track. And interruptions, not only from motorists.

 

 

It takes more than a full hour. And the distasteful part is that you have to do sudden stops because around the bend, there will be a car coming at you (my stomach doesn't like that!), and you have to keep your eyes glued to the road because it is VERY NARROW. I shift my gaze to pick up my water bottle (still with that cough!) and the wheels veer off the paved surface. Thump, swerve, oh! Careful! I do this twice, and then I finally slow down to a crawl, thinking I'm just too tired to trust my sense of the road in this new to me and not very small car. I do not want a flat tire here, in the middle of nowhere.

Though it is a beautiful middle of nowhere.

 

 

I am thrilled, thrilled when I finally see the Kyle (the strait) of Tongue. It's been a very long day!

The Lundies House is well hidden. You cannot see it from the road. I know, because I passed it twice before I convinced myself that I need to go through that gate, and follow that dirt lane to find it.

 

And my room.

And the views all around us.

And it is all so beautiful! I sit down with a pot of chamomile tea and give a huge exhale. The longest day, on the northern coast of Scotland. A dream....

 

I eat dinner at Lundies House. It's part of the deal here. I would eat absolutely anything they served. (Again, by their words: "locally sourced produce from land and sea... foraged along the shores and in local woodlands"). Not fussy. If it's fresh and honest, I'll eat it.

There is a Britishness about the dinner, in that those staying here (I counted 7 besides me) gather before the start of the meal for a drink, maybe a snack, and some guest mingling (in one of the two living rooms here for guest use).

It's always interesting to meet fellow travelers, especially when they end up choosing, like you, to stay in this unique and frankly well hidden spot. But today I got extra lucky -- I met a pair from San Francisco and they were delightful and I'm not just saying that. We continued those early friendship questions and stories well into dinner and I may have been tired, but I loved the mix of quiet on the outside with sweetness indoors.

Our dinner? Today we had local scallops with roasted cucumbers, a fresh pea dish, a very well served and adorned  strip of beef and a citrusy dessert. There were plants, flowers, mushrooms accompanying the foods on our main plates. I'll just post the pea picture because these peas, served over a cheese, were so delicately delicious that I felt we really were had crossed the bridge from late spring to early summer.

\

So comes the end of summer solstice. I take a brief walk when the sun's still out (9:30 pm), down the hill from the inn...

 

 

... through the church yard, past the sheep meadows, gently sloping toward the Kyle of Tongue...

 

 

Magic. Beauty. Adventure.  

With good wishes for a beautiful summer solstice to all us northerners, and, well, yeah, winter solstice to those in the equally beautiful southerns regions of our magnificent planet. With so much love...

I'm off!

Yes, I've been wanting to do some version of this trip for a long time now. On the one hand, it's to a country that I know almost too well, after so many repeat trips there -- with family, alone, with Ed, alone again. But on the other hand, it is to a very remote corner of the country. One I don't know at all. The older I got, the more I hesitated. Remote? Alone? Is this a good idea? 

And still, the tug has been great. In January -- a month when I churn out a great bulk of my travel ideas, I finally shut the door to my trepidations, and I booked this trip, in a very "now or never" frame of mind.

I leave today.

Hey, flowers, I appreciate your impatience given the heat outside, but maybe we can halt the rush toward flowering just a little? A handful of days maybe? I'll be back by the end of the month!

(this true lily is really ahead of the pack...)

(most of the day lilies are still in bud form... here's an exception!)

Hey Ed, I think you may have liked this trip! Well, maybe not the complicated travel that it entails. And maybe not the overnights. They're not under the canopy of a tent after all... Still, aren't you tempted? (He is not. But he will miss me and I will surely miss him.)

My departure is very methodical. I packed my suitcase yesterday (just a carry-on, which was a challenge, considering...). Today, I just need to do the backpack, and water the plants -- outside pots (there are 32 of them, plus another half dozen on the picnic table, plus five on the porch -- I know all this because Ed asked me to count how many he should look for, when he takes over in my absence -- they're scattered everywhere!), and inside pots. And I need to drive Blue Moon (the car) to the body shop. It finally will be fixed (following the crash of May). Well, there's also a load of laundry to finish up -- the cats, oh those cats! Their blankets are filthy! Oh yeah, a camera to clean, shoes to de-mud... Travel is all about detail. Always. And about spacing the preparation -- especially as you get older and crave that more contemplative approach to the day.

By 11, Ed is driving me to the airport so that I can catch my flight to Minneapolis. I do beat the storms, and have plenty of time to then catch my next flight, and the one after. But I'll post from here -- the Minneapolis airport. I'm not sure when I'll next be online.

And as I sit here waiting for this long imagined trip to finally get started, I do have to wonder -- am I at the tail end of my travels yet? Do I really want to be away from an increasingly older Ed, and increasingly older young families? And do I really want the anxiety that has accompanied several of my most recent trips, as I traveled soon after getting over Covid, and soon after getting the flu and now, with a cough that is the most embarrassing thing you can take on board a flight with you these days? The answer is that for now, I'll take these challenges and do my beloved trips to far away places. For now. 

Okay, I've got another flight to catch.

With so much love...

last wisps of spring

Well, it's a hot ending of a season. In the winter, we freak out at the sound of the forecaster's words Arctic Blast. Now, toward summer, we get sweaty at the mere suggestion that we'll be under a Heat Dome. Wisconsin has always been subject to the extremes. No mountains halt the onslaught of cold air from the north, and of course, the heat comes right at us from the southwest. We're sitting ducks for everything! 

But of course, it's still spring. A heat dome in spring counts as not fair! Too soon for readings in the 90sF (over 32C).

I go out early to take stock, to feed, to do a good walk through.

(I planted a few climbing vines by the big stumps. Delicate and pretty!)

I see some tree limbs have come down, the radishes have grown to be monster radishes (I had forgotten all about them!), the meadows are lovely, the cherries are nearly all gone, the blueberries need weeding. 

(monster radishes)

And the lilies are holding off still, which, on the one hand is good, on the other -- I bet they're waiting until I go away and then boom! Behind my back, they'll start opening up. Well, never mind. You can never time trips perfectly. You do the best you can with what information you have.

Breakfast.

And then we do some outdoor clean up. Flower fields (that's my job! if I gave Ed this task, he may well pull out a flower "by mistake"), the blueberry patch. This is the more interesting part of the morning. Of course, there's also going to be the tedium of stupid stuff. For example, calling the airline to change flight tomorrow. "To beat the storms!" -- I tell her. Dont worry, if you miss your flights, we will rebook you then. Oh, how I do not like that answer! In the end, perseverance pays off: I hang up and try repeatedly to do it online. The tenth try's the charm! I'm now flying out earlier and outside the storms' path (I hope). 

The other stupid stuff concerns my cough, which continues to sound as if I am a closet smoker, going at it with maybe two packs a day. No, I did not have pneumonia last week or on the weekend. No I didn't have Covid then either. Or the flu. Nonetheless, I need to make sure that I am not heading out into the wild with some contagious disease that will kill all those within my range, me included. For once Ed agrees. So once again I make my way to Urgent Care and once again I have a great doc, who once again screens and xrays and checks and then tells me -- you're good to go!

What a relief. At home I check in on my newly changed flights for tomorrow, then head out to pick up the kids.

This summer, the older two chose to go back to the place where they attended preschool for their half-days of summer camp. (They have a summer program for older kids.) Call it nostalgia. Both kids were ripped from their preschool programs in March of 2020. Suddenly, and in the case of Snowdrop -- permanently. When schools reopened one year later, she was a public school kindergartner. I have to think she chose this summer program in part because it creates a bridge for her. Familiar stuff, known entity. Lots of field trips! (I ask -- do you play in the school's playground? She replies -- no gaga! That's for little kids. We walk to nearby parks.) Her brother is thrilled to go to a summer program along with his big sister. And Sandpiper, who is still at that preschool, was bedazzled by the sudden presence of his two sibs at drop off!

Snowdrop and Sparrow are with me most of the week this summer after camp, but of course, not this week. Just today. And I know they want to go swimming in the nearby community pool, and it's the weather for it, but I feel things are just a little too tight for it (she has Girl Scouts in the eve, and I hate rushing through the afternoon. So I say -- no, not today.

Snowdrop's disappointment is huge. (Sparrow is okay with going, but he doesn't remember the pool and being a cautious dude, he's also okay with not going.)

She tries to convince me that there's time for it.

Let me think about it -- this is from me. I really do want to think this through.

That always means no!

Not always... Well, just most of the time.

We go for ice cream...

Then to the farmhouse. 

Where Snowdrop cajoles Ed into letting her play her favorite Cat Game (??) for a few minutes...

And in the end I cave. That longing was so great. (You're not going to be here! I wont get to that pool for weeks!) And the kids were so cooperative and helpful, that we did it all: snacks, play, pool, showers, and a punctual drop off at Girl Scouts.

 

And now it's evening. Hot, humid, but ever so beautiful! How I love this sweet spot, with Ed doing his thing, with me doing mine, and the flowers ready to burst with the joy of a very pulchritudinous last wisps of spring.

with love...

inching toward midsummer

Yes, we're getting the heat wave here as well. Not quite as bad as elsewhere in the country, but still, our AC is on. Temps outside today? 90F (32C) and humid. Definitely summer-like weather, even if summer is... four days away!

I have always thought that summer solstice is sort of magical. That "longest day" designation really speaks to me. I love early dawns and late sunsets. I love the perceived power of all that daylight. Run and hide from the dark, embrace and blossom in all those beautiful daylight hours. 

This year, solstice falls on June 20th. Because most years it falls on the 21st, I tend to associate that date with the longest day and I did think of the 21st when I made my plans for where to be on that first official day of summer. Fortunately, I'll also be at the same spot on the 20th, albeit in one tired state! In any case, I'm leaving for my somewhat northern destination the day after tomorrow and so I absolutely have to tidy up everything here at home. I dont have kids today, but I do have them tomorrow, so this is the moment for hurried tidying. In the hot and humid weather.

A walk to the barn, spot weed picking, a check on the strawberries by the peach orchard. Water needed for the berry tubs. I'm on it!

A glance at the meadow -- looking good!

Then breakfast. Inside. I have empathy! Ed had been working outdoors for a short while and he comes in drenched. We stay in the cool kitchen. And we try the second batch of jams and they are less runny and equally delicious!

Now comes chore time. Dig out some invasives (outside). Finish a photo book project I'd been postponing since March. Spring is not a good time for photo book projects, that's for sure. Spot watering (outside). More weeding (outside). Errand hopping -- salt for the Steffi House water softener, returns to Fed Ex -- are you excited yet? What can I say -- it's not unusual to have scores of chores before travel.

I did have a somewhat interesting and reflective moment when picking up salt bags at the grocery store. Those sacks weigh 40 pounds each and though I think of myself as having reasonably okay upper body strength, especially for a 71 year old, I found lifting each sack into the grocery cart to be not easy. After I heaved the first one in (you have to be careful not to rip the thing, so you lift it high over the cart railing, or you'll find yourself spraying salt pellets all over everything), a young woman -- my daughters' age -- came up to me and asked -- can I help you with that? And then, without waiting for an answer, she deftly lifted the next bag and the next and placed them in the cart. That was a first for me! I was wearing huge sunglasses, so she did not see wrinkles around my eyes. Nor was I dressed in old lady attire. Shorts and a tshirt -- my go to summer wardrobe. So... do I act old? Or was it enough for her that I was clearly older than her? In any case, it struck me that most people dont see opportunities for random acts of kindness and yet there are so many! I would never have asked for help, so long as it was physically possible for me to do the job, but when offered, and with such determination (I'm going to do this, so dont bother saying no thanks), I wasn't going to back away from it. And I was so grateful! Forty pounds, lifted high, is a load! There she was, seeing the challenge and jumping in to save me from my own self.

 

And now I'm home again. With Ed. Beautiful home, which is about to burst into color with lilies -- earlier this year unfortunately. Just when I'm heading out.

Where to? I'll just repeat -- somewhat north. I've been wanting to do this trip for a long, long time. Yeah, somewhat north.

with love...

Let's try that again

My daughter gave me this book for my birthday:

There are people who are chocoholics. There are people who love sugar in any form. There are dessert folks, cookie lovers, ice cream nuts. In small doses, I do like something sweet at the end of the day. But I'm not a sugar fiend. A chocolate nibble is very satisfying, but here, too, I'm not crazy greedy. Both Ed and I may like a jammy croissant for breakfast, but we rarely eat a full blown dessert in the course of a day. 

Nonetheless, I love fruity, jammy baked goods. My girl did not realize (or maybe she did?) that she hit just the right note with this book: baking with preserves sounds about as delicious as desserts can get.

We are right now in my favorite weeks of fruits: berries, peaches, cherries, at peak flavor. Two weeks of June, two weeks of July. It does not get any better than this. Sure, we are spoiled rotten and eat berries all year long, but flavor-wise -- this is the month to really go wild.

You could say, therefore, that this is the worst time for me to travel. To be away. To miss out. Except that I don't miss out! Places that I go to are more or less in the same growing season as we are here, in south-central Wisconsin. What I can eat here, I can also eat there. Moreover, when I travel, I do tend to sample more desserts, just because I want to taste stuff baked by others and what better chance to do so than when away. It's where I learn, too, about different varieties of fruits -- of berries, for example. Sample, taste, bring home ideas. So yes, I'm going away next week, but I wont leave my favorite fruits by the wayside.

 

Okay, stormy morning, wet buggy walk to the barn, to the meadow. Pick flowers, hurry home.

Eat breakfast on the porch with Ed. We defrost a croissant so that we can taste some of the jam we made yesterday -- me with hardly enough strength to hold up a wooden spoon! 

And we proclaim the jam to be absolutely delicious. More intense strawberry flavor than I have ever tasted in a jam. Fabulous.

But...

... it's just a bit too liquidy. I dont like pectin congealed jams. I like them to be on the loose side, but not too loose.

This is when I reach for my Jam Bake book. 

It's not that I have never made jams before, it's just that I've rarely done it and haven't gone back to it in years. My long run of oatmeal/granola breakfasts meant that jams usually sat in the fridge until they sprouted mold. What's the point of making more of rarely eaten jams?

But, things are different now. Croissants are my BBFs (best breakfast friends), ever since I discovered that freezing them fresh does not take away from their awesomeness. And, secondly, Ed is into making jams with me.

I open up the book to a strawberry jam and note that their recipe isn't that much different than the one Ed found on line. Great minds think alike! And then I have to laugh. Camilla Wynne, the book's author writes: "Despite strawberry jam being one of the more difficult jams to master, it's often the first thing novice preservers try their hand at." Indeed! Because we all go to strawberry u-picks and come home with too many berries!

You probably know why strawberries are so hard to jam correctly: they are low in pectin and so they don't "congeal" unless you hit the sweet spot. Either with an addition of store bought pectin, or with a combination of lemon juice and cooking it just exactly the right amount of time: Not too long (this is where most jammers err) but not too short either.

You can't measure jam doneness with a thermometer. A berry picked after a rainy season will have more moisture than one picked after a sunny spell. The thermometer wont account for that. You have to use your senses: a ready strawberry jam looks, feels, smells right. And you do have added tricks at your disposal to make sure it's ready to go into a jar (the drip test, and the freeze it for two minutes test). 

We begin work on our second batch of jams. [Ed: we have to use up the berries! Nina: I agree... Ed: should we try it with pectin? Nina: no! Let's learn to do it right, without the aid of pectin! Ed: are you sure? Who will eat all that jam? Nina: we will not worry about that. Let's  work on getting it perfect!]

I'm greatly aided by having my sanity with me again. Still coughing, but I slept well and so I can now pause and think through all that I know and read about preserving. We go with the Jam Bake book suggestions, using her's and Ed's recipes, but using too all our senses that allow us to be smarter jam makers.

We wash the berries and leave them out to dry...

 

And then we go out for a bike ride before it gets too beastly hot.

(Ed: Want to split a small beer at Christie's?  Nina: Sure!)

(like a swallow has learned to fly...)

Back to preserving. Berries go into the pot. Today I add the step of macerating them for a while with the sugar and lemon juice. Then I mash it all up with my bare hands and I set the pot to a boil. We test the jam on a frozen dish. Nope, not yet. Still running together. Boil a bit longer, then boom! We are done.

We now have way too much jam and here I am already scheming on how I can do some more. Blueberries next time maybe?

In the evening, the young family is here again for Sunday dinner. Both daughters along with families returned from their Mexican vacation (with other grandparents) late last night and we have very many stories to catch up on! Very many!

It's good to see them all happy and playful and full of that special joy you have after a good adventure, knowing too that you are now home again and with your old and familiar routines. I know that feeling well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is father's day of course. 

 

 

Do you know a father out there? Maybe send him a greeting? Maybe think about all that life threw his way when he became a dad. Maybe smile a little at the thought. Maybe. 

If you yourself are a father, I hope your day was happy!

with love...

 

a bag of small pebbles

That's how my day filled -- quite like someone pouring pebbles one by one into a sack. Little things piling up. Little pebbles. No big boulders, just little pebbles.  And suddenly the load seems great -- far more than any of us can handle.

It's a fairly pleasant day: bugs, yes, but not out of control. Sun, yes, but not excessive. No storms, no rain. A walk to the barn, to the meadow -- all good!

 

Breakfast, with Ed, on the porch. No time for market today. No new flowers. We eat leftover croissants.

 

 

And we discuss our ambitions for this day. They aren't overwhelming at all. We have a date to pick berries at Tipi Farms (our CSA guys, maybe 25 minutes south of the farmette). We do this every year, always picking far too many berries, always meaning to bake with them, always not having the time for it. Still, it's fun and any picked berry is going to be ten times better than ones you get at the store (and twice as good as those at the farmers market because we will have chosen the best ones! They're top of the berry heap)! So, berry picking... But wait: I get a call from the residents at Steffi's House. The internet installer has arrived. There are issues. Totally not their fault. I hurry over to give various permissions to fix this problem, that problem.

Okay, berry picking. We are off!

Even though I am very very tired. Not so much because yesterday was crazy busy, but because I slept very few hours. That cough! And it isn't getting any better. Hmmm... I test. Not Covid. Well that's a relief. I try to ignore it. But it does sound awful. And voice? What voice? I've lost mine... 

Well, so be it. We pick.

(Ed: can I borrow your cap? I forgot mine and you dont have a bald spot!) 

(Ed: hey, how come you have three times as many as I do?)

(Nina: Honestly, I think it's more like four times as many...)

(Ed: you want to give me  some of yours? Nina: I do not.) (In the end, of course, we pull them all together.)

We return with lots of berries. What to do? Well, Ed is itching for us to make freezer jam. Now, this is maybe a little fun when you have what I do not have -- all the time in the world. There are plenty of superb jams out there, but Ed totally believes that we can improve on them by making our own. I leave him to find The Perfect Recipe and I go off, masked, to Steffi's House once more. The washer & dryer are being installed.

I dont linger. The Polish doc is so pregnant! No one wants to be around a coughing person when they're about to deliver their first child. 

But I dont immediately return home. I drive to the clinic. I need some wise and sensible person to tell me whether it really is possible for excessive dust exposure to produce such a monumental bronchial inflamation.

Short answer -- yes it is. You know how docs these days always hedge their bets and rarely tell you they are sure about anything? Well this one (in Urgent Care) was absolutely sure. Take this, do that. This too will pass. And now let's talk about travel! (He is near retirement and he cannot wait to take many trips each year! He was very curious where I'm going, where I've been. I almost gave him a link to Ocean.)

Relieved that I'm not contagious, I go back home, where Ed has found a "Perfect Recipe!" I haven't slept since maybe 2:30 a.m. and the idea of making jam is... well, hard to get excited about at the moment. But he is so happy with the plan that I dont have the heart to put him off. We'll need more lemons. And more sugar. I'll go get some right now! Yep, totally fired up.

He comes back from the store, my eyes are closing, I have nothing prepared for dinner. But we make jam.

And we pour it into jars and there you have it. Ready for those winter days where a bright red berry jam can really spark your croissant morning!

 

 

I dont have great ideas for anything else today. Leftover pizza, salad for supper, a few hours on the couch, then upstairs to sleep. Full day. Full of those small pebbles.