last Islay day

At breakfast (for a change, I revert back to my home favorites: porridge and fruit)...






... I ask Andrew -- so, what's the weather like here in the summer? It's drizzly and misty now and though the maps promise a dryer afternoon, I'm skeptical.
Andrew turns to one of the guests -- you're a Scotsman, you tell me -- what's a good weather month here?
The man laughs. You know they say in Scotland you can have four season in just one day.










Oddly, I haven't minded the weather at all. Sure, I cut back on hiking when it rains, but I've never felt cold. It could be the warmth of the Bowmore Guest House (in all ways). Or the whisky.

The Scotsman continues -- you show me a place that has guaranteed sunshine all seven days of the week and that's the place I don't want to be!
I think about that. In March, I'm drawn to sunshine. Now -- I'm less certain.

Still, it's not hiking weather and so I pick up an umbrella from the hallway and set out for a walk around Bowmore and because the drizzle is coming at me from all sides, I open the blue door of the Celtic gift shop/bookstore/cafe and go inside to browse. Books first. For a young one.






I read a bunch of them on the spot. Lucy and Tom, Katie Morag -- I'm surprised to see these titles. They're British books I had read to my girls when they were just about to go to school. Snowdrop is too young for them for now, but Slinki Malinki looks good for maybe winter reading!

I spend a while in the store. It's rather big -- on two floors and though I'm not in the buying mode, I think about how so many items here evoke the island - from whisky soaps to woolen scarves (and woolen everything else) and thistled mugs and sheep on plates. It's pleasurable just to look and to think yet again what it means to be from Scotland and especially from the Hebrides. Islay has a total population of 3200. That sounds small to me, but in fact, only the Isle of Skye (at 10,000) is more crowded and Skye is very easy island to get to: it's linked to the mainland by a bridge.

Islay is one of the islands where a good number still speak Scottish Gaelic fluently (about 25%). When they speak English, it can be so heavily accented that I feel like the foreigner who can't quite grasp what is being said. I've asked more than once -- could you repeat that please?

Because it never really gets very warm here, you tend to think of the island as having a tough and cold winter, but that really isn't so. The summer high is about 60F. The winter high is about 45F. There is no hard frost here. And so I look at the very warm sweaters in the store and I wonder if people feel colder than we do in Wisconsin because they never quite warm up in the summer time. For being so far north, it is a very mild climate (blame it on the Gulf Stream: central Scotland is considerably worse off).







As I leave the little shop, I make the decision to drive to Portnahaven. It's really just a small little hamlet, but it's exceptionally pretty, I think. It's located at the western most tip of the snaky N road of Islay and though it's only about 18 miles from Bowmore, the last handful are along a single track road, so the going can be slow. And even on the wider stretch of the road, you do have to share the road with these guys.



(on the way there)






(on the way back)



I take a few lazy person's photos: through the windshield, between the swipe of the wipers as they brush away the raindrops.






I'm wondering if Prince Charles managed to land his plane without issue.

But by the time I leave my car in Portnahaven, the rain has stopped. Well that's a nice surprise! I can take a walk along the shore a bit. I've done it before, but it bears repeating.












I head up a little path that Alison had once described to me. Oftentimes you can hear the groans of seals on the rocks jutting out at sea, but today I see only a handful of the seals and they're quiet.

What I do find and in great quantities is the typically elusive wild orchid.






It's so small, so very delicate and yet so beautiful! Okay, one more Islay photo on a timed release. Right at the meadow's edge, before it drops down to the sea.












And then, as I turn back to retrace my steps, this wonderful thing happens -- in the words of my Islay pilot on the flight here - the skies have opened up!






I didn't bargain for a sunny day!






If there is one thing you can count on here it's that the weather will surprise you. Within that modest range, there is a lot of variation! (As many weather patterns as there are cow varieties out in the Islay fields.)






It's time to return to Bowmore. Pack my bags, make sure the details of travel are in order. Tomorrow I fly out early and pick up a train to Edinburgh, where I'll stay for three days, to come home to the farmette on Tuesday.

But the island doesn't let me hide inside the Guest House for long. I look outside. Still sunny.






Come out, come out! 
Well okay. One last walk, just behind the Bowmore Distillery and up that shore path.






The wind is brisk, the air has just a touch of the sea. The skies stay light and gently blue.






I turn back to town and stop at Taste -- not for dinner, but for an afternoon tea, with a scone and clotted cream.






Later, much later, I look outside at the skies again. Cloudy. Then not cloudy. Then mostly not cloudy. It is like a performance and you never know what the next act will be.





Andrew booked me a table at the Harbour Inn for dinner. This is Bowmore's special restaurant and I've never been here for an evening before. It's usually quite busy, but the Scottish ferries are on a 24 hour strike and many weekend visitors have cancelled their bookings at the various inns and restaurants around the island. So I decided to splurge on this, my last night here. (It's in the price range of a Glasgow restaurant, as opposed to an Islay pub.)

It goes without saying that I eat well. Very well. Islay scallos and crab, followed by sea bass with North Sea mussels.






Perhaps my most delightful moment comes toward the end. The older sisters (Mary of Yorkshire and Cathy of Wales) and their husbands come to dine here just as I'm finishing off. There is something about some people that just exudes warmth. (My hosts Andrew and Alison are the finest example of this.) It just is within the fabric of who they are. These sisters are that way and of course, we compared notes on our day.
You passed us in that snappy red car! -- one says laughingly.
No, I'm usually the one pulling to the side so that I am passed. I like to go at my own pace and take the occasional photo. Besides, I'm driving a gray car!

We talk in this way for a while, and then regret the fact that because of my early departure tomorrow, we will not run into each other again. Then one mentions -- almost by chance, in the least entrepreneurial fashion you could imagine - you know, both of us run b&b's.

Now, you have to know that I've talked about my trips to the UK and how I've not been to Wales and only know Yorkshire a little. They did not push their rooms then. But in the shyest of ways, they mention their own small businesses (both are on working farms) now. Cathy's is here and Mary's is here.

My thinking on this is this: anyone who loves a stay at the Bowmore Guest House is a friend of mine.






I would not be surprised if you would be reading a post from Wales or Yorkshire one day.

I blame Islay. It's a place of great magic.

gray, with a splash of color

After waking up to a thinly sun splashed morning...






... I arise to what was fully expected: a day of rain.

I am so grateful for it! the excesses of life have caught up with me and I want a day that's slow and not too focused on any ambition. No great walk, no great writing, no great anything, in fact.

Well, I do have a very fine breakfast...






With it, Andrew pours me a wee dram of Laphroaig 16 and I tell him thank you very much, I like it, but now I am thoroughly confused. I feel myself to be such slow learner! I had already determined that if I'm going to love this week of whisky, I'll favor peaty and smoky over something mellow and mild which, to me, almost feels like simply pouring alcohol down your throat. Then, someone poured me a sample of a bourbon cask peaty smoky and I added that to my check list: the sweetness of the American bourbon perfectly complemented the Scotch whisky flavors. But when Andrew then poured a sherry cask peaty dram, I was back to square one because that one, too, was intensely flavorful -- very Islay evocative.

So I am back to the same question that I had presented to my host the day I arrived: if I am to buy one bottle that is THE most peaty smoky flavorful evocative, plus only available for purchase here (or at least only on this side of the ocean), what should it be?

He gives me the same answer as he did the first day: go to Ardbeg, buy their 200 birthday special edition distillery release. It's remarkable. And you can only get it at the Distillery.


As I linger over breakfast, two very friendly older sisters sitting at a nearby table (and their equally nice husbands) ask me about my Islay visit. It seems they have traveled to the island before -- when they were young. They have memories of play on the empty golden beaches of the island. It was a magical time.

Then they fill me in on a little secret that they learned in the village.
At the grocery store! The local boy there was telling everyone, even though it's a secret. Prince Charles is coming to the island!

I smile at that: I seem to be crossing paths with royalty on this trip. I tell them about my encounter with Princess Anne at the Royal Highland Show.

Later, I ask my host, Alison, about the Prince's visit.
I did hear something about that. It's nothing to us. Famous people come and go. Life goes on anyway. She thinks for a bit. Maybe if the Queen came, maybe we'd take note. 
So, no idea what he's doing here?
No, all I know is the last time he came to Islay he flew his own plane here and he crashed it on landing. That was twenty years ago, but people still talk about it!

I'm on my way to the Ardbeg Distillery, which is on the eastern most end of the snaky coastal road. (The big three are all there: Laphroaig, Lagavulin, then Ardbeg, all along the rocky coast of the Atlantic.)

But I do want a short walk, so I pull into a golf course that's at the water's edge, just a few miles south of Bowmore. It's raining, but I'm thinking of the five month old yesterday -- if she could take a light shower on her young face, so can I.

Just past the golf course, the dunes rise above a majestic expanse of golden sand. This is the island's longest beach -- maybe seven miles total -- and I wonder if this is where the sisters once played.






I don't stay. The rain is intensifying and I am without adequate protection. (How long does it take to dry the wool on a rain drenched sheep?)






I continue toward the town of Port Ellen -- this is where the big ships come in to take the whisky to the mainland. The town has always struck me as almost making a statement to the world that passes through this way: we are not fancy. We are island people. Life is not rich or princely for those who stay and make a living here.






On to the distilleries. It's all very close, really. From Bowmore to Ardbeg (the farthest of the three) it's all of 22 miles. I notice they have completed a several mile long paved walking path from Port Ellen to the distilleries. A brilliant idea. You don't want people driving after they take whisky tours, which always include a lot of drinking. A few brave souls are walking and I almost stop to give them a lift, but then I think about the value of a brisk hike and I continue on my own.

At Ardbeg, everything looks freshly painted and lovely.






I hear that much effort has gone into polishing the place for its 200 year birthday.

Inside, there is a cafe place where a number of people are eating lunch. At one table, a local woman, one who once worked at the distillery, is celebrating her birthday. It's a warm scene, a lovely scene really.






To the side, a girl -- daughter of a cafe guest, wanders over to a mirror. I smile at this: Snowdrop now loves to look at herself in the mirror. Or does she still? I've been away so long!






I ask to sample the whisky Andrew recommended for me. Oh! It is the best. Absolutely magnificent. I make my purchase.


And then I drive home (past a wet and windy landscape) ...






... and take a nap.

Lovely day, rainy day. I don't have to go outside and play. I don't have to.

But I rouse myself in time to make one more shopping visit. To the Islay Woolen Mill (about four miles up the road)...






...where they still use the old weaving machines...






... to make these:






My daughters love these blankets! I no longer need Islay reminders for myself back home. I have my photos, I have last year's sweater and mug with little jumping sheep on it. But if I take Islay things  home to them, I am passing on my love of the island. I like that.

As I make my purchase, Gordon, the mill owner asks me where I'm from. He is a great story teller -- I remember this from last year. I apologize for coming in so late (it is near five, almost closing time), but he grins and tells me -- I'm afraid to go home. We're doing some work on the house and if the new carpet hasn't arrived today as it should, the wife will be mad.

I smile. I tell him that we're having a patio door put in at the farmhouse and when I come home I'm hoping -- so hoping! -- that by magic it will be in already!

Gordon seems happy to continue chatting...






... so I ask him if he's heard that the Prince is coming.
Aye. I'm invited to the festivities tomorrow at Ardberg Distillery. He's here to celebrate their big birthday. (Laphroaig is also 200 years old this year and Prince Charles will be cutting over to them as well. If he manages to land his plane safely!)
Is your wife going too? That's exciting!
She is. Me, I've met the Prince before.
When he was here twenty years ago?
Yes. You know, he and I share a hobby: we're both fox hunters. 
I ask if he has to dress up for the lunch festivities.
Aye, I was instructed to be "well suited and booted." 

As I leave the Mill with the throw blankets, I think -- maybe I should make one more stop. I'm right by it  -- Islay's very secret, very beautiful co-op garden. Last year, spring came earlier and I visited later. The secret garden (it really is quite secret --  few people know about it) was beautiful, but in an understated sort of way.

This year, it's incredible.






It's really not primarily a flower garden -- vegetables are grown here and you can purchase these if you want, though I still don't know how that works, as there's never anyone there. But the flowers that do grow here are in fact breathtakingly beautiful, especially on a gray and wet day like today.






Tonight, I'm eating dinner with Andrew, Alison, their two daughters, Eliza and Lily and their grandma. Andrew has made spicy meatballs with tomatoes and peppers and as I wait for the food to be ready, I join a conversation of three new guests -- two older men, brothers as it were -- and their friend. They've just made the long journey by car from England and they're enjoying a Bowmore whisky. They've come for the weekend, and this is by no means a first for them. They do this every year. For the distilleries.

As the men talk, Alison reminds her girls that they need to practice their dances. Tomorrow is their last day of school, but on Saturday, they have dance exams. The girls not only study Scottish Gaelic in school, they also have dance classes that teach them the Scottish highland steps.

I am enchanted by the scene before me. Three friends (and Andrew), enjoying a wee dram of Bowmore, two girls, going through their dance routines.



(can you tell there had been a face painting party earlier in the afternoon?)


It is indeed a splash of color. Of a different sort. A wonderful sort.

counting sheep

Every shade of sky has its own magic. This morning, the gray clouds bring out the beauty of the gray slate roofs on the village houses of Bowmore.






I glance at the weather charts. They say rain, but not until the afternoon. I was going to not move that much if the weather was poor, but now it looks like I can't use it as an excuse to lay low.

Breakfast, splendid as always, this time by the bay window. Alison and Andrew rotate this best seat in the house and sooner or later, I have my morning meal here.






You'll note the wee dram that they offer for breakfast. It really is wee for me, as anything more would make me feel nappish rather than adventurous. But it surely is an excellent complement to the plateful of eggs and salmon. Today's selection: Bowmore Distllery's Enigma.


Now for the hike.

There are many corners that I have yet to explore on this island. One such corner is again toward the north (as was yesterday's hike), along the coast of a slip of land that juts out into the open waters (the sea to the west and a bay known as Loch Gruinart to the east).  The tip of this tongue is called "Ardnave Point" and it's supposed to be quite lovely. You can make a circuit of it by starting at a family farm that stands at the tongue's base, picking up the path along the coastal sand dunes, and turning in toward the farm again where the "tongue" merges into the Islay landscape again. The estimated distance for the walk is 5 miles, so surely it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.





Quite a bit of the drive is along a single lane road, but you know, after a few days here, you begin to drive with a certain bravado, or at least indifference to the troubles that may ensue when, say around a corner or over the hill you come face to face with the headlights of another car. At home, driving head on toward oncoming traffic seems rather insane. Here, it's part of the everyday. Shrug your shoulders, crank your vehicle into third or fourth and move along.
 


I leave the car by the Ardnave Farmstead. There is a sign that welcomes the occasional hiker. It asks you to close animal gates and explains that birds are frequent visitors here, many of them loving the dung that farm animals leave behind. It also warns that there are cows and those can be dangerous, so please steer clear of them.

But as I begin my walk, all I see are ewes and lambs. Lots and lots of ewes and lambs. So many ewes and lambs that their loveliness (nearly) ceases to make an impression on me. I can tell I've been in Scotland a while now: the sheep have become wallpaper for me. Lovely -- yes, of course, but merely background material. It would be a rare sheep indeed that would cause me now to stop on the road now and take out my camera.






Still, you will see lots of photos of sheep on Ocean today and here's why: they are such excellent props for the scenery! Take a photo of the famed Jura Paps and you'll have gray hills against a gray sky. Yawn. Bud the sheep make everything come alive!






Walk with me through the meadows of English daisies and buttercups. And sheep.


















The land across the bay is where I'd hiked the previous day (parallel to the coast of Jura). You can see the northernmost point here:






And again in the photo below, though what's interesting there is that the black faced lambs are with their white faced mum and the black faced ewe is with her white faced lambs.






How can you tell which ewe belongs to which lamb? This way:






Above, the sky is alive with the racket of the oystercatchers. They're tough to photograph without a telephoto lens, but these guys stayed around for a few seconds, just long enough for me to snatch a quick shot.







On other cliffs, you'll find... sheep.






Toward the end of the coastal walk, I run into a problem.

Cows.

Now, I grew up around cows. I spent nearly every summer of my childhood with my grandparents in rural Poland. Cows roamed the meadow and the riverbanks where we played. But the farmers in Poland used to loosely tie the front legs of cows with rope, presumably so they couldn't run away. They could move, but not great distances, or at least not with great speed.

Remembering the sign's warnings, I make a huge circle to avoid the Islay herd. As a result, I find myself once more ankle deep in mud. My new lesson is this: where there are yellow irises, there will be mud.






I try to keep my distance, but I cannot resist getting a little closer to this cow -- who seems to act as a bird rest...






Near the very end, I have to face the music. This cow has decided to stand right by the gate. I need to pass through that gate. Oh, how she laughed at me as I "nice bessy" my way past her! I'm sure of it.






I had been amused to read on the notes to this particular walk that navigational skills are required. I thought about this for a bit. Do I have such skills? I don't carry a compass or a GPS device. And again I shrug off any concern. It's a loop around the coast of a tongue, for God's sake! How can you lose your way?






Easy! Put in a few hills and plenty of sand dunes, lace the meadows with paths that go nowhere and you may find yourself walking endlessly along a coast, missing the turnoff for the farm and the place you left your car.

(I also blame the daisies and the buttercups: so playfully distracting!)






Speaking of flowers, I searched for the wild orchid... and I found it!






In the end, I only take a few (yes, a few) wrong turns, but they surely add many minutes to my hike and I am lucky that I do stumble upon my car only minutes after the rains begin to come down on the hills of the Isle of Islay.

In the parking lot, another car has pulled in next to mine. A mother gets out with her baby to change a nappy. Instinctively I ask the age of the little girl.
Five months, the dad tells me. He then proceeds to ask about the hike and we talk about it for a while. It's drizzling steadily now, but he thinks the rain may pass and in any case, they've seen rain before. I think about my own 5.5 month old granddaughter and what she'd make of these cliffs and meadows with sheep on them. Would she like a bit of rain on her face?


Back at the Bowmore Guest House, the afternoon sprinkles keep me indoors, though I do brave them for a quick saunter over to the Bowmore Distillery just up the road a bit. Having completed the master tour with Eddie the Master Distiller last year, I have risen to the status of a "known fan" there and so it feels good to poke in and admire (and sample, because they always are generous with showing off their product) their whisky selection for this year. I make a purchase or two. I am loyal to Bowmore.






And you'd think this would have nicely capped my Islay day, but in many ways, the best is yet to come.

Tonight is the night that Andrew, with the great assistance of Alison, cooks up an Islay seafood dinner for his guests.

I join three Americans for that meal of all meals. In addition to squash soup and plateful of veggies, there is Andrew's famous potato casserole.











Then we are treated to Islay crab claws...






... and sea bream, and scallops, and that wonderful, wonderful Irish Sea treasure:






Andrew and Alison join us for a while and we talk of travel and its vicissitudes...



(everyone around this table loves travel to distant places)


... and the real experts among us (I'd probably be near the bottom of this lot) discuss the finer points of whisky.






It is an extraordinary evening and I am immensely lucky to be in great company of people who are passionate about what they see and do on this planet.

Sleep comes easily on this night. I think I gave into it somewhere on the last few steps of the walk up to my corner room at the Bowmore House.