Cold nose
October 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
As a follow up on the meaning of the name of our beloved residence, I received an email stating the meaning of the name of two neighboring places. The first is “Colbost”, the village you drive through as you leave Skinidin. The translation of “Colbost” is supposed to be “Cold Nose”. I’m not sure whether this is a literal reference to a cold nose or whether there’s a more symbolic meaning.
Second, “Totaig”… again a very small hamlet a couple of miles down the road, past Colbost towards Glendale. This is supposed to translate to “Ruined Bay”. Again, the origin of this name remains a mystery…
I tried to lookup references on the internet but found none. Any ideas among the readers??
The north route
October 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
As both our mums have to take on a serious journey to get to Skye, we pick them up from Inverness airport. You can get flights from Amsterdam to London Luton and then onward to Inverness.
The journey from our house to Inverness airport takes between 2.5 and 3 hours, depending on traffic. One has a choice of two routes. The north route and the south route. The south route is via Loch Ness and Drumnadrochit and we hardly ever take that one unless we fancy a nice fish & chips, as there’s a very good shop located just outside Drumnadrochit. The south route has much more tourist traffic (camper vans, caravans) making the whole trip a bit of a pain. Also the approach of Inverness from the south is more difficult, as you will have to go through the city center to get to the airport.
The north route on the other hand is quite spectacular and has a far better appraoch to the airport. It takes you past Loch Carron, which is truly beautiful. Lochcarron, the village named after the loch, is supposed to be the longest village of Scotland measuring two miles. Past Loch Carron you come through rough woodland and small villages, all with spectacular views over green hills and winding rivers. The road has steep ascends and descends, some up to 14%. As parts are single track it’s tricky to get distracted by the beautiful surroundings.
When we’re early - before 10:00 - we always spot deer and during one of the recent trips we watched them cross the road and gracefully jump the fences surrounding the fields. A magnificent sight…
To be honest, the above image was scooped from the internet. The next time we’re due west for Inverness, we’ll take some pictures of our own and publish them here on the blog.
Mixed bag
October 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
The past couple of days were a mixed bag of weather phenomena. First we had heavy winds on Thursday growing to a full blown storm during the night. This suddenly died of Friday morning, leaving us a beautiful and peaceful day with blue, sunny skies.
Then Saturday was rain at its worst. The whole day long, without a stop with again a supporting act of fierce winds. Right now, everything is extremely wet and soggy. The plot next ours is heavily flooded (as it always does during heavy rain) and the quiet little burn that runs through our land has turned into quite a roaring stream of water.
The above picture was taken on Thursday morning, during sunrise. Spectacular light effects…
Cleaning and chasing
October 23, 2007 | 1 Comment |
Today wasn’t a good day. That is weather-wise. In terms of planning it wasn’t too bad, as the house needed cleaning for soon to arrive guests from Holland. It’s definitely better to do your cleaning up with heavy winds and rain outside than with sunshine and blue skies. The job was done at about halfway the afternoon, at which point I decided to relax for a bit and watch some TV.
As I was watching I saw something moving from the corner of my eye. To my surprise, there was one of the brown hens proudly parading the lawn next to the house. In her wake were the other ones only visibly less comfortable and keeping a bit of a distance. Up until now they’d only come out of the hutch if I was outside as well. But of all days, today they decided to take that big leap of faith…
So at about 17:30 I decided to round them up and close the hutch for the night. That was much easier said than done. Having had a taste of freedom, the ladies refused to go in and to be honest I got the feeling they were taking the mickey. I could not leave them outside, as they would most certainly be killed by some nasty vermin roaming about during the night. There was but one solution. I had to catch them. The first one was easy. One of the blacks. They’re a bit timid and I could easily pick her up. Once I got her, I carefully took her under my arm, walked to the hutch and put her in. The others were not too difficult as well. But last one… the one that paraded the lawn. She was a real challenge!! I had to chase her all over the place but eventually I got her into a corner were she could not escape. Under very loud protest madame went under my arm and was put into the hutch. I was soaked and out of breath…
The harsh life
October 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Every now and then we visit Dunvegan Castle, mostly to accompany family or friends who visit us. It’s an interesting place to visit with loads of history and - due to famous movies like “Highlander” and spin-off TV-series - the name “MacLeod” appeals to the fantasy of people.
No matter how often we visit the castle, one thing always impresses me enormously. It’s the exposition of pictures of life on St. Kilda in the lower parts of the castle, towards the shop and the exit. The archipelago of St Kilda, the remotest part of the British Isles, lies 41 miles (66 kilometres) west of Benbecula in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The impressive story of St. Kilda and its inhabitants can be read on the website of St. Kilda. Definitely worth the time to read this!
After reading the island’s history you can only imagine how totally harsh life must have been there. Those were circumstances we cannot imagine nowadays. We get upset when we’re out of electricity for one day, or when our car breaks down during bad weather. The pictures at Dunvegan Castle show people with a glance on their face that has harshness written all over it. After some browsing around, I found a particularly striking image on the website of the Glasgow Museums, which shows St. Kilda women and girls in Main Street, St. Kilda. Notice the women to the rigth: they do not appear to wear shoes…
Currently St. Kilda is owned by The National Trust for Scotland and is maintained as a World Heritage Site. It’s certainly on our “have to see list”…
Huh? That’s a weird name!
October 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Sometimes people in Holland are a bit confused about our address. They generally can’t get their head around the fact that we live in a place where there are are no street names. Just a house number and the name of the village.
In Holland, no matter how small your village, there’s always a house number, a named street and a village, town or city name in your address. But, we’re not in Holland, so… easy enough!
Then what means “Skinidin”? If there is at all a meaning to the name… I decided to check the famous Google search engine for further clues to its meaning. I found a couple of interesting references to “Skinidin” on the internet:
Skinidin, meaning bleached dun, lies on the shores of Loch Dunvegan on the road from Dunvegan through to Glendale. Historically it is believed that there were three duns, or forts, in the area built to protect the peninsular.
From: Edinbane Self Catering
Skinidin (Skye), Sgianaidean.Norse name. The meaning of this name which is a plural is unclear, but may derive from Norse skjóna, “dappled horse”. Sgianailt in Lewis is “rough hill ground of the dappled horses”, and this may be related. Shirrabeg (Inverness), Siorrath Beag. “Little Shirra”, an unclear name which may contain ràth, “circular fort”. Shirramore (Inverness), Siorrath Mór.
From: PDF document posted on The Scottish Parliament
SKINIDIN The dun of the withered grass.
From: Welcome To My Scotland
By the way: note the difference in spelling in Gaelic according to the document from The Scottish Parliament as “Sgianaidean” and the officlal roadsign “Sgianaidin”!
Apparently a number of options here, with no unanimous explanation although all of them seem to refer to a fort-like construction which used to be here in days gone by. Today, in our modern times, there are no obvious remains as to where the fortresses or the duns were located. It could be that they were there to defend from attacks from the north (i.e. from the Nors) or to defend from attacks from the south (maybe attacks from other clans).
The end game
October 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
The highly anticipated final of the World Cup Rugby was upon us this evening. Overall, I found the match a bit disappointing with two teams playing very careful rugby and showing nothing like the vibrant match we had yesterday evening between France and Argentina. Obviously, in a final for the World Cup the stakes are extremely high and this has consequences for the game play.
Was the end result of 15 - 6 in favor of South Africa a just result? I think it was. Both teams were almost equal in strength. South Africa was very strong in the line out and the English team was a bit stronger in the scrum. However, in the first half, the English team gave away two penalties and were denied a try in the second half. I guess such things have an impact on the game play of a team. There were no sparkling performances by star players on either side: Johnny Wilkinson did not kick any drop goals nor did Bryan Habana surprise us with one of his famous rushes. Only Percy Montgomery’s boot did not fail to kick in the five penalties awarded to South Africa…
So, that’s it for 2007. I thoroughly enjoyed this championship and watched some exquisite matches. I’m already looking forward to the 2011 Championship in New-Zealand!
Oh, by the way: my end result prediction was pretty bad. I was right with the prediction of South Africa as tournament winner. Everything else was wrong…
The mystery of the big poohs
October 20, 2007 | 1 Comment |
One of the things we did this summer is fencing off the east side of the “garden part” of our plot. The reason was the sheep, as they were all over the place. Not only do they destroy every attempt to a garden but they also leave massive poohs. The place looked like minefield and you had 99.99% chance of placing your feet in sheep droppings.
Well, that fence was a success. However, lately we’ve been seeing big poohs again in the garden area. They were different from the ones from sheep. So we wondered… what animals are producing these droppings? Last night I found out. I had forgotten to bring back the bin from the road side. As it was a beautiful night, I got a flashlight and walked up to the roadside. Just about 10 meters in front of the gate I heard a rustling to my right and suddenly a group of 3 - maybe 4 - large deer crossed the access road and made their way to our neighbor’s plot. As you can imagine, I was startled!! My heart was pounding in my chest… That was quite a scare…. I had not noticed the animals at all, due to the darkness and they had been very quiet. They crossed the road so close to me, that I could actually feel the movement of air when they ran past me.
At least now we know which animals are producing those big poohs…
“Ich bin ein Argentinier”
October 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
I never was a fan of Argentinian national teams, especially not of their national soccer team. This probably has to do with a bit of an old grudge when they set our national Dutch football team aside in the 1978 Soccer World Cup final. However, this evening the Argentinian rugby team played such an incredible match against France in the “MINI FINAL” that only thing I can say is ‘chapeau!!!’. What a truly great rugby team they have…
When the final whistle sounded, the Argentinians had won the game with 34 - 10. As one the commentators said, this was within the realms of humiliation for the French. The French were just totally blown away by the sheer determination of the Pumas. A wonderful match, maybe one of the best of the competition and definitely a classic!
Blockage
October 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Today, moments before the weekly trip to Portree, we noticed that the toilet in the cloakroom had a blockage and would not flush anymore. As we will have guests in the house next week, this wasn’t a good time. Now, this specific toilet and its connection to the drainage pipes has been a bit problematic with blockages from the beginning. However, the problems had disappeared for over 7 months so we thought the problem had gone away, but it apparently had not.
I got on the phone to James MacQueen (our builder) and luckily got the chief himself on the phone. I explained the problem and he said he would come over immediately. And indeed, within the hour James was inspecting the drainage pipes and decided to use a special drainage spring to remove any obstructing material. During the build the pipes had been sealed off with special plugs. A possibility is that one of these plugs was not removed and was blocking the pipes.
After an hour the blockage was removed and the toilet flushed again properly.
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
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