Tweet
Highland cattle
Is there any other animal with such a magificently truculent "**** you" attitude? They just sulk by roadsides with their ****gy red coats and horns, clearly failing to give a **** about absolutely anything. "Yeah? I'm standing in the road. Wanna make something of it?". I witnessed any number of misguided foreign tourists attempting to hand-feed these brilliant animals, only to be met with a contemptuous stare and snort of disgust.
Climate
While England sweltered in record temperatures, I spent a happy fortnight in an area where it never got over 20 degrees C. That meant lots of cosy nights in front of an open fires and drinking loads of obscure malts to stay warm.
Rain in the Hebrides is weird. I think that the Hebrides is technically a desert because no rain touches the ground. It just goes past horizontally at 80 mph.
Midges.
Jesus ****ing christ almighty. I've encountered my share of insect bastards in my time (including Arctic mosquitoes and Tsetse flies) but I swear nothing is quite so infuriating as Scottish midges. For the benefit of those lucky enough to have never encountered them, they are tiny flies, like pinpoints with wings, that have an appetite for blood that Christopher Lee could never have got near. They are small enough to crawl through mosquito veils in their thousands and bring you up in so many itchy lumps that you're left resembling a braille edition of "Clarissa". In terms of pound-for-pound evil, they are the devil incarnate.
Harris, Outer Hebrides.
God's rockery. To describe it as "rugged" is a bit of an understatement- it has boulders like other places have blades of grass. Clearly when all those boulders were still in situ, Harris must have made the Himalayas look like Belgium. It's also got the most beautiful British beach I've seen (Luskentyre) where mountains just fall into ivory sands and crystal clear north Atlantic water. It's practically deserted too.
Harris also has the most inbred people I've seen outside of Norfolk. I was listening for banjos all the way.
Gaelic.
Weird language, with totally random spellings. How the hell is "Poit dubh" pronounced "Potch goo"? It's oddly attractive when spoken, in an earthy way. While Romantic languages resemble the stately whirl and gleam of a noble's waltz, Gaelic sounds like two bodies slapping together in their own sweat and juices. Or wet laundry slapping on a rock. Pick the simile that fits your mood.
Roadkill.
Any city-dweller knows that a pigeon, when properly flattened, covers an area similar to your average 12-inch pizza. After Harris, I can report that a single adult sheep can cover an entire carriageway in fleecey red goo.
Animals
Seals, otters, Sea Eagles, buzzards, porpoises, Minke whales, Red Deer, rabbits galore.
Lewis, Outer Hebrides.
An immense peat bog. With earth temples and stone circles looming out of it. Callanish is amazing- it's Britain's Taj Mahal and Notre Dame all rolled into one. It's a complex of 5000-year old stone circles and even older earth temples in one of Britain's most desolate and isolated corners.
Heather ale
The drink of the ancient Picts- it's fermented barley flavoured with heather flowers. It tastes great- not unlike Bass. The people who market this primitive beer got carried away and brought out another one flavoured with pine needles that tastes ****ing rank.
Surviving.
Everything shuts on a Sunday. It's Sunday, we're miles from civilisation, it's freezing cold and we've no peat for the fire. However I've found a blunt cleaver in the shed.
It takes a peculiar type of mindset to cut down and chop up a 20-foot+ Sitka Pine with just a blunt cleaver, but I'm English, damn your eyes. Job done.
Drinking
Yes.
Drugs
Them as well.
Dunvegan Castle. Isle of Skye.
If you ever get the chance to go, don't. It's crap. I can forgive the owners for wanting home comforts. I can overlook the fact that the arrowslits were replaced by sash windows. I can turn a blind eye to the great hall being converted into a series of sitting rooms with 1950's decor.
What I canot forgive is the fact that some **** took a look at a brooding medieval border fortress and thought "Hey! Let's get it pebble-dashed!". In one stroke, an ancient castle was transformed into an overgrown coastal retirement bungalow.
European tourists.
Why in God's name do they attempt to hand-feed sheep? They approach, with handfuls of grass, making encouraging sounds. The sheep take one look and bolt for the hills.
Souvenirs.
Cask-strength Caol Ila. 12-year old Poit Dubh. A lump of 3,000,000,000 year old Lewisian gneiss (Britain's oldest rocks) from the Callanish area.
Holiday beard.
Grew one. It looked stupid.
Is there any other animal with such a magificently truculent "**** you" attitude? They just sulk by roadsides with their ****gy red coats and horns, clearly failing to give a **** about absolutely anything. "Yeah? I'm standing in the road. Wanna make something of it?". I witnessed any number of misguided foreign tourists attempting to hand-feed these brilliant animals, only to be met with a contemptuous stare and snort of disgust.
Climate
While England sweltered in record temperatures, I spent a happy fortnight in an area where it never got over 20 degrees C. That meant lots of cosy nights in front of an open fires and drinking loads of obscure malts to stay warm.
Rain in the Hebrides is weird. I think that the Hebrides is technically a desert because no rain touches the ground. It just goes past horizontally at 80 mph.
Midges.
Jesus ****ing christ almighty. I've encountered my share of insect bastards in my time (including Arctic mosquitoes and Tsetse flies) but I swear nothing is quite so infuriating as Scottish midges. For the benefit of those lucky enough to have never encountered them, they are tiny flies, like pinpoints with wings, that have an appetite for blood that Christopher Lee could never have got near. They are small enough to crawl through mosquito veils in their thousands and bring you up in so many itchy lumps that you're left resembling a braille edition of "Clarissa". In terms of pound-for-pound evil, they are the devil incarnate.
Harris, Outer Hebrides.
God's rockery. To describe it as "rugged" is a bit of an understatement- it has boulders like other places have blades of grass. Clearly when all those boulders were still in situ, Harris must have made the Himalayas look like Belgium. It's also got the most beautiful British beach I've seen (Luskentyre) where mountains just fall into ivory sands and crystal clear north Atlantic water. It's practically deserted too.
Harris also has the most inbred people I've seen outside of Norfolk. I was listening for banjos all the way.
Gaelic.
Weird language, with totally random spellings. How the hell is "Poit dubh" pronounced "Potch goo"? It's oddly attractive when spoken, in an earthy way. While Romantic languages resemble the stately whirl and gleam of a noble's waltz, Gaelic sounds like two bodies slapping together in their own sweat and juices. Or wet laundry slapping on a rock. Pick the simile that fits your mood.
Roadkill.
Any city-dweller knows that a pigeon, when properly flattened, covers an area similar to your average 12-inch pizza. After Harris, I can report that a single adult sheep can cover an entire carriageway in fleecey red goo.
Animals
Seals, otters, Sea Eagles, buzzards, porpoises, Minke whales, Red Deer, rabbits galore.
Lewis, Outer Hebrides.
An immense peat bog. With earth temples and stone circles looming out of it. Callanish is amazing- it's Britain's Taj Mahal and Notre Dame all rolled into one. It's a complex of 5000-year old stone circles and even older earth temples in one of Britain's most desolate and isolated corners.
Heather ale
The drink of the ancient Picts- it's fermented barley flavoured with heather flowers. It tastes great- not unlike Bass. The people who market this primitive beer got carried away and brought out another one flavoured with pine needles that tastes ****ing rank.
Surviving.
Everything shuts on a Sunday. It's Sunday, we're miles from civilisation, it's freezing cold and we've no peat for the fire. However I've found a blunt cleaver in the shed.
It takes a peculiar type of mindset to cut down and chop up a 20-foot+ Sitka Pine with just a blunt cleaver, but I'm English, damn your eyes. Job done.
Drinking
Yes.
Drugs
Them as well.
Dunvegan Castle. Isle of Skye.
If you ever get the chance to go, don't. It's crap. I can forgive the owners for wanting home comforts. I can overlook the fact that the arrowslits were replaced by sash windows. I can turn a blind eye to the great hall being converted into a series of sitting rooms with 1950's decor.
What I canot forgive is the fact that some **** took a look at a brooding medieval border fortress and thought "Hey! Let's get it pebble-dashed!". In one stroke, an ancient castle was transformed into an overgrown coastal retirement bungalow.
European tourists.
Why in God's name do they attempt to hand-feed sheep? They approach, with handfuls of grass, making encouraging sounds. The sheep take one look and bolt for the hills.
Souvenirs.
Cask-strength Caol Ila. 12-year old Poit Dubh. A lump of 3,000,000,000 year old Lewisian gneiss (Britain's oldest rocks) from the Callanish area.
Holiday beard.
Grew one. It looked stupid.
That's kids for you.
Comment