England and Scotland for Dad's 70th
Day 10 - Saturday - Scotland
(continued)
As we continue slowly down the road, we pass fields
of sheep with
little baby lambs, much younger than the ones we saw outside Edinburgh
(since we're more north, they're lambing later). And they're so
adorable!!! Tiny little knobby-kneed lambs running up under their
mother, their heads disappearing under her wool, and then their little
tails wagging mechanically left-right-left-right as they drink her
milk. Rod tells me I can't have one. We also see some
highland cattle, to Dad's amazement -- bovine with long red hair and
long horns.
And finally, we're there! according to Rhona.
We park in a
near-empty dirt lot where you can't see the beach, and we cross a
little footbridge, scramble through some sandy dunes loaded with sea
grass, and ta-da! The Local
Hero beach, where Mac and Danny took
their afternoon "Can you imagine a world without oil?" walks.
Rhona points to the green hills on the right and says that's where the
church was (there's a caravan -- mobile home -- there now). She's
disappointed that the cloudy sky has obscured the view of the Isles of
Rhum and Egg on the horizon, the signature of this landscape. I
find the cloudy sky perfect. Pictures, pictures, and I begin
picking up shells.
But this isn't Ben's beach, Rhona says, we
have to keep on for that, just over that hill. Rod's lost, what's
this Ben's beach thing? I gleefully explain with more Local Hero
quoting, "We've got a problem. Ben's beach. What's the
problem? The problem is it really is Ben's beach!" Rhona
happily ploughs onward, leading us up some more hills loaded with
tangley yellow gorse, carrying us to the portion of the beach where the
movie's namesake lives in his shack. She can even point to the
very place the shack rested -- unfortunately, some people who weren't
us
had the audacity to get there first and were just sitting there on the
site. We'll have to wait for picture opportunities...
We walk across the amazing white sand, climb through
some dark rocks,
and sit on a grassy patch jutting into the North Atlantic Sea.
It's so beautiful and peaceful. Aside from the few people sitting
on the beach, a couple of children digging holes with play shovels and
some more divers that have enraptured Rod's imagination ("They could be
spies…"), the beach is ours. Dad stands on the edge of the grass,
looking out over the water for ages. Rod and Rhona talk about
their sons, their oldest Christopher off in Barbados as a cruise ship
photographer or something, Alasdair finishing up at the University of
Glasgow after spending a year traveling around the U.S., and Jonathan
in Canada working on at a ski lodge and due at Stirling College this
fall. And we have a Mars bar break, which lures Dad from his
ocean viewing reverie. Rod and Rhona voice concern about spoiling
their kids with the travel, but they think it's valuable. I
comment how lucky I feel to have gotten my student trip to England and
Scotland which led to lots of great things. Dad said he got to
take a school trip to the World's Fair in New York when he was 14 and
his parents couldn't really afford it, and he thought of that when he
and Mom sprung for my school trip here.
More pictures! Me and Dad sitting on the
grass, Rod taking a
picture, me skipping rocks, Rhona and me standing on the Ben's shack
site and pointing at the ground. We head back to the car, me
picking up more shells, Rod and Rhona picking up any garbage they see,
and as we load up at the parking lot, Rod is thrilled to discover the
bag he picked up has a newt inside. "They're quite rare, you know!" he
exclaims, and carefully walks back down the hill to release it. I
tell him not to step on it on the way back.
We travel back down the road, stopping further down
the beach to pick
up some neat little pink shells Rhona thought I might like. This
beach is filled with tiny shells and shell bits, and she manages to
find one that she's talking about and gives it to me -- a tiny shell
rounded on top and curved in under on both sides. We continue to
look for more (bad time of the day and tide, most are gone, she notes)
and Rod hands me some snail shells.
"There you are!" he says
proudly.
Rhona tells him those aren't the shells we're
looking
for.
"They're pink!" Rod counters.
We skip some stones, snap more pictures, and then
continue back down the road, stopping at Arisaig
for dinner.
I think it was a hotel or something, but we sat in
the pub area around
a table not much bigger than a large dinner plate and enjoyed some
ale. Then we each ordered a fish and chip dinner (fresh haddock
caught in Maillaig just up the road), which was delicious.
Except
before I could take a bite, I flipped my plate from the edge rim of the
table it was trying to rest on, sending salad and chips to the floor
and Rhona into a fit of giggles. She could not control
herself. I saved the fish, which was all that mattered to me,
except Rod noted my colored cheeks, and Rhona, who just couldn't stand
it any longer, poured half her salad and chips onto my plate despite my
protestation.
During dessert, I ate my last bite from the caramel
spice pudding Dad and I were sharing and laid the spoon inches from the
edge of the table. Moments later, it slid off the table and onto
the floor, sending both Rhona and me into giggle fits. The huge
family sitting around two small tables near us left, and Rhona
commented on how well behaved the children were -- when my plate
flipped, she heard the mother tell them "Dohn't steeeare!" and they
didn't snicker. Unlike Rhona, I pointed out.
Back out onto the road home, and 140 miles to
Edinburgh. The sun
slowly, slowly set behind the mountains into the ocean, casting
gorgeous golden, orange and red light onto the hills we were driving
into. Huge dark patches of heather, too early to bloom, contrasted the
glowing grass and rock. Rhona kept looking back through the
window to see if the clouds lifted enough to reveal Rhum and Egg, which
they didn't, and telling Rod to please keep his hands on the steering
wheel while he's driving, which he wouldn't.
The increasing
darkness was strange, the sky still light enough to reveal all the
shapes of the landscape without the detail. Rod said it was
"gloaming," the time before real darkness. This far north and
this close to summer, it's very late before it gets truly dark.
Rhona said she and Alasdair were returning from a party one evening
that was far from the city, and they got to witness the brilliant
Northern lights, like glowing wide laser beams shooting from the earth
into the sky. As we neared Edinburgh, we saw fireworks from some
celebration. Then the brightly lit Stirling Castle and William
("Braveheart") Wallace monument, then the brilliantly lit Edinburgh
Castle, and home.
No need for tea. We've got another day ahead
of us tomorrow.
England and
Scotland for Dad's 70th
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