Sunday, July 08, 2007

The weather in Scotland defied reason and explanation--after the one misty day, we had nothing but sunshine. It brought out the colors of the sea, the sky, the heather, the grasses, the rocks. In short: just beautiful.

We found the bothy in the previous post on a trek across a headland near Gairloch.

Approaching the bothy near gairloch

The peat is a veritable sponge:

Headland near gairloch

We hiked off-trail across the peat...

walking on the headland

more walking on the headland

...to get to this reward:

Swatchy C and co near the beach

The hike back from the beach was pretty scary, actually, so we don't have photos of that bit--we were focused on staying on the cliff...

Near Gairloch, we stayed in an old lodge in Shieldaig, built as a hunting and fishing destination in the late 1800s. The only thing it lacked was a murder--it felt like an English movie. With a fantastic view:

another view

Here's the view from my room:

view from my window

The lodge had two grand sitting rooms for guests, one of which had a "boom box" and a collection of CDs (mostly classical with some other random bits here and there). I found the following:

whip my towdie

...(with apologies for the poor resolution). It says, "Whip my Towdies." We of course asked Angela, our Scottish authority, what that meant, assuming it was some Scottish folk CD or something. She didn't even recognize the word. We're somewhat alarmed...

3 comments:

Knittah said...

You had a room with a view! Seriously, I'm moving to Scotland.

noricum said...

I had to google "Towdies", and this was about all I came up with:

---------------------------------
JP: Norman McLeod and congregation recorded at Fidigarry in Lewis in 1955. Three hundred years earlier, many men and women died for their beliefs, and amongst them was the Reverend James Guthrie. He was hung on the scaffold at the Cross of Edinburgh in 1661, for declining the jurisdiction of the King and Council.

These are supposedly his last enigmatic words, which take the form of a series of bitter riddles:

Reader (Alan Riach):

“Great newes we lately heard from Court,
A ruler great was turned out:
Draw billets.

Another did succeed his place,
He lost his lordship and got grace;
Take time o’d.

The ladies that the Court resort,
Ye know for what they seek the sport;
Whip towdies.

JP: Whip my towdie was a well-known tune, and in those days, if not in ours, the ladies of the court were happy to have their towdies whipped.

Anon: Whip my towdie
Coronach
CD Whip My Towdie
CMF 005 Track 16
---------------------------------

I must admit, I'm just as puzzled as before.

EGJ said...

The "towdies" googling is just hilarious - I only recognise the word Coronach, which my personal Scottish authority (being a born and bred Scotsman) has in his e-mail address. Now that is a Gaelic word, but I would assume that "towdies" is part of the Scots dialect? Maybe a Scots-English dictionary would do the trick...

Great pictures btw. I'm moving to Scotland.

Actually, I am. ;-)