Saturday, August 30, 2003
Doctor's Blog
Stardate 23.08.2003
*****
Boldly going where this doctor has not gone before
sector : Scottish higlands.
Where does one begin? Have you ever felt compelled to pen everything you see to paper, in case you forget any of the hordes of potential memories overwhelming you?
That is precisely, sitting in bed gazing out my window at Loch Ness, how I feel now.
En-route
The train departs from King's Cross station, a huge, dilapidated remnant of the once-upon-a-time glory days from the past. Overcast grey skies with an incessant drizzle complement the smog and dirt of the city. My home.
The Flying Scotsman grounds wearily on and on, and I fall asleep to the uniform grey slate of England's skies and fields, waking briefly to watch Stevenage, then Peterborough go flying by and changing at Retford for "engineering works". (Or, knowing London Transport, doesn't-work.)
I awake to warmth, and sunshine on my face. The terrain, save for the clear blue skies looks reassuringly familiar. Almost. Something is subtly different here. Then I realise that its the clouds - flying at altitude instead of hugging the ground. We have crossed into Scotland.
We pass a sparkling blue lake upon which a flotilla of swans cruises. I have never seen thirtysomething swans swimming in formation before. We cross a large structure I could swear is the Golden Gate Bridge, only grey. We definitately ain't in Kanses no more.
Edinburgh
is large, and reminiscent of London. Only cleaner. Everyone here speaks with a posh Scottish accent. They sound like a consultant I once had.
I tread my way cross platforms to my transfer and get on.
Highlands
The landscape is rugged. Far more textured and much less agrarian than England. Strange trees and shurbs struggle to stifle out their more ordinary cousins, which form a sea of uniform grey-green on the face of the English countryside. The land is a canvas of untamed, rolling hills and the occasional open field. Heather, a deep shade of purple bordering on blood-red colours in the blank spaces on the hills, and gives the air entering the stuffy train a faintly sweet scent, like expensive perfume.
Forests flash by, crowding out the light. We pass in between two steep inclines, and it gorgeous. I wince at the pathetic pun.
I briefly make the acquaintance of a Japanese girl who slides apologetically into the seat beside me and presses her leg firmly against mine for want of space, since her bag is almost as large as she is, and mine is the size of a malnourished milk-cow. We talk briefly, establishing that she is Japanese and I am, whatever I am. She's rather pretty, except when she smiles. Some people can, some people can't.
Inverness
A big city basking in the warmth of sunset. No time to waste, I hop onto the last bus to get to my bed and breakfast.
Drumnadrochit
I alight at the base of a small mountain, opposite the crumbling ruins of Urquhart Castle. It's still teeming with tourists in the last rays of sunlight. A short climb up the hill and I am there.
The B&B turns out to have a spectacular view overlooking the loch, and the hills on the far shore from my bedroom window. It's been a long time since I've seen terrain so open that objects in the far distance appear faint, indistinct, and pasted-on from another photograph. I wipe my spectacles, then take them off entirely. It looks much the same.
I make the acquaintance of my host, who ironically, has a heavy English accent and two insane bordercollies, before heading downhill to the castle ruins.
Castle Urquhart ruins
Urquhart, interestingly enough, means By the Forest in Pictish.
The site seems disapointingly small to me. This was the largest castle in Scotland? But as I wander through it reading the inscriptions on various wall-mounted plaques, I catch a glimpse of how tall and forboding this castle must once have been, and how grand. The Great Hall must have seemed pretty cavernous, standing at five floors in height. The tired ruins today barely reflect their tumultous past, of countless sieges during the Battles of Independence, the battered walls changing hands as often as an ambidextrous ping-pong player. They are finally laid to rest at the hands of a regiment of English-ruled clansmen, who blow up the gatehouse to stop it falling into enemy hands.
I look again at the ruins, and can almost see in my mind's eye the forboding walls towering around me, the moat bristling with sharpened stakes. The castle-towne being overrun by frenzied highland raiders fiercely (and brutally) reclaiming their heritage. I can almost hear screams of the embattled horsemen and villagers, and the thwocks of hundreds of arrows being loosed from bowstrings, and the creaks and cracks of ballistas and trebuchets hurling their payloads of oblivion over and into the castle walls with jarring crashes, the rock and plaster splintering under the force of 100 kg rocks, and the occasional cow / renegade clansman, travelling at 120 miles per hour. An Italian tourist wanders by gabbling Trebuchet! Trebuchet! excitedly, waking me from my reverie. He tries to prime the trebuchet, which took up to twelve men to do in days of yore. An American man and his girlfriend look up sheepishly at me from their embrace inside the towne corn-kiln, a structure some fifteen feet deep and ten feet wide wide, and I wonder what they were about to do. And then I decide maybe I don't want to know.
Dinner is at Fiddler's inn, after a forty-five minute three-mile walk to town under one of the most magnificent and expansive multihued sunsets I have ever seen. My dinky disposable camera won't be able to even come close to doing this justice; neither apparently does my vocabulary. So I don't bother.
Haggis, rabbit stew and a dram, to the sound of, surprisingly enough, a Fiddler. I am happy.
Stardate 23.08.2003
*****
Boldly going where this doctor has not gone before
sector : Scottish higlands.
Where does one begin? Have you ever felt compelled to pen everything you see to paper, in case you forget any of the hordes of potential memories overwhelming you?
That is precisely, sitting in bed gazing out my window at Loch Ness, how I feel now.
En-route
The train departs from King's Cross station, a huge, dilapidated remnant of the once-upon-a-time glory days from the past. Overcast grey skies with an incessant drizzle complement the smog and dirt of the city. My home.
The Flying Scotsman grounds wearily on and on, and I fall asleep to the uniform grey slate of England's skies and fields, waking briefly to watch Stevenage, then Peterborough go flying by and changing at Retford for "engineering works". (Or, knowing London Transport, doesn't-work.)
I awake to warmth, and sunshine on my face. The terrain, save for the clear blue skies looks reassuringly familiar. Almost. Something is subtly different here. Then I realise that its the clouds - flying at altitude instead of hugging the ground. We have crossed into Scotland.
We pass a sparkling blue lake upon which a flotilla of swans cruises. I have never seen thirtysomething swans swimming in formation before. We cross a large structure I could swear is the Golden Gate Bridge, only grey. We definitately ain't in Kanses no more.
Edinburgh
is large, and reminiscent of London. Only cleaner. Everyone here speaks with a posh Scottish accent. They sound like a consultant I once had.
I tread my way cross platforms to my transfer and get on.
Highlands
The landscape is rugged. Far more textured and much less agrarian than England. Strange trees and shurbs struggle to stifle out their more ordinary cousins, which form a sea of uniform grey-green on the face of the English countryside. The land is a canvas of untamed, rolling hills and the occasional open field. Heather, a deep shade of purple bordering on blood-red colours in the blank spaces on the hills, and gives the air entering the stuffy train a faintly sweet scent, like expensive perfume.
Forests flash by, crowding out the light. We pass in between two steep inclines, and it gorgeous. I wince at the pathetic pun.
I briefly make the acquaintance of a Japanese girl who slides apologetically into the seat beside me and presses her leg firmly against mine for want of space, since her bag is almost as large as she is, and mine is the size of a malnourished milk-cow. We talk briefly, establishing that she is Japanese and I am, whatever I am. She's rather pretty, except when she smiles. Some people can, some people can't.
Inverness
A big city basking in the warmth of sunset. No time to waste, I hop onto the last bus to get to my bed and breakfast.
Drumnadrochit
I alight at the base of a small mountain, opposite the crumbling ruins of Urquhart Castle. It's still teeming with tourists in the last rays of sunlight. A short climb up the hill and I am there.
The B&B turns out to have a spectacular view overlooking the loch, and the hills on the far shore from my bedroom window. It's been a long time since I've seen terrain so open that objects in the far distance appear faint, indistinct, and pasted-on from another photograph. I wipe my spectacles, then take them off entirely. It looks much the same.
I make the acquaintance of my host, who ironically, has a heavy English accent and two insane bordercollies, before heading downhill to the castle ruins.
Castle Urquhart ruins
Urquhart, interestingly enough, means By the Forest in Pictish.
The site seems disapointingly small to me. This was the largest castle in Scotland? But as I wander through it reading the inscriptions on various wall-mounted plaques, I catch a glimpse of how tall and forboding this castle must once have been, and how grand. The Great Hall must have seemed pretty cavernous, standing at five floors in height. The tired ruins today barely reflect their tumultous past, of countless sieges during the Battles of Independence, the battered walls changing hands as often as an ambidextrous ping-pong player. They are finally laid to rest at the hands of a regiment of English-ruled clansmen, who blow up the gatehouse to stop it falling into enemy hands.
I look again at the ruins, and can almost see in my mind's eye the forboding walls towering around me, the moat bristling with sharpened stakes. The castle-towne being overrun by frenzied highland raiders fiercely (and brutally) reclaiming their heritage. I can almost hear screams of the embattled horsemen and villagers, and the thwocks of hundreds of arrows being loosed from bowstrings, and the creaks and cracks of ballistas and trebuchets hurling their payloads of oblivion over and into the castle walls with jarring crashes, the rock and plaster splintering under the force of 100 kg rocks, and the occasional cow / renegade clansman, travelling at 120 miles per hour. An Italian tourist wanders by gabbling Trebuchet! Trebuchet! excitedly, waking me from my reverie. He tries to prime the trebuchet, which took up to twelve men to do in days of yore. An American man and his girlfriend look up sheepishly at me from their embrace inside the towne corn-kiln, a structure some fifteen feet deep and ten feet wide wide, and I wonder what they were about to do. And then I decide maybe I don't want to know.
Dinner is at Fiddler's inn, after a forty-five minute three-mile walk to town under one of the most magnificent and expansive multihued sunsets I have ever seen. My dinky disposable camera won't be able to even come close to doing this justice; neither apparently does my vocabulary. So I don't bother.
Haggis, rabbit stew and a dram, to the sound of, surprisingly enough, a Fiddler. I am happy.
