We were of course now in Scotland, in the small town of Aberfoyle to be precise. Sometimes it takes me a few days to realise we’re in a new country, but with Scotland it was obvious. For starters our carpet was plaid, and the very helpful lady whom we had rented our apartment from had left us a packet of Scottish shortbread with terriers on it. Then of course everyone in town had that lovely, broad Scottish accent. I’m a sucker for accents.
While Aberfoyle is a small out of the way place, it has a reputation outside of the local community. It is regarded as the home of fairies. A reverend at the local church named Robert Kirk wrote a book The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies in 1691. Shortly afterwards the reverend went missing, and is said to have been kidnapped by the publicity-shy nature spirits he wrote about. My parents went walking to the place where he was supposedly taken, although they unfortunately returned.
You might recall last post I also mentioned I was getting sick of walks through forests. I had decided this far too soon. It was unfortunate really. You see, the reason my parents had decided to stay in Aberfoyle was that it was near Loch Lomond and the Trossochs National Park, and apart from that there’s not a whole lot to do. Basically that week we did nothing but walks through forests. Great.
Being no expert on forests, this post I suspect will not be up to the review standards of the serious forest enthusiast. But here’s how the week went from my perspective. A couple of hours walk through a forest, pretty views, ooh there’s a a lovely loch. Next day couple of hours walk through a different, yet strikingly similar forest. Pretty bridge, little stream, some statues dotted around the place, one of which was made of mirrors and in the shapes of people which was freaky if you’re not expecting it. Few days later another walk, this one many hours up and down hilly bits, pretty foxglove flowers everywhere, walked through an area that looked like the Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter. Another walk, very very long, around a lake.
The were only two non-tree-related excursions during the week, the first was to a nearby village called Callander. There was not much of note there really, we just went there to drop some stuff off at an op-shop. However on the way back we did see some highland ‘coos’, which we were VERY excited about. Dad let me borrow his camera again, which was of course a big mistake on his part. 624 photos later…
The second excursion was down the road to The Scottish Wool Centre, which seemed to be a popular stop for tour buses, although we weren’t really quite sure why. It was essentially just a very large souvenir shop. Mum also identified that some of the ‘woollen’ products were actually made of acrylic. I was embarrassed there for two reasons. First of all someone mistook me for a member of staff AGAIN (third time on this trip) even though I looked as daggy as can be (old sneakers, yoga pants, hair barely brushed; you get the idea). Second of all I bought a semi-nude Scottish men calendar, which Dad then proceeded to write about in his blog-
“Anna bought a calendar featuring young men dressed only in kilts (for a ‘friend’ apparently).”
While some might get stuck on the fact their Dad was trying to embarrass them in front of the whole Internet, the issue was it actually was for a friend (shout out to my loyal friend and reader Anna Haberley). She also reads his blog and immediately knew it was for her. Well done Dad.
The last walk I did that week I did alone to try and make things a bit more interesting. I thought the threat of being lost in the wilderness might spice things up a bit, and I added another element. Dad was doing another walk of a similar length and we were having a bit of a race to see who could get back first. Although he had a headstart, I was quite determined to win, so I powered up all the hills (the first half was all hills) and even ran parts. I really enjoyed the walk, which is quite something coming from me. Maybe it was the fairies working their magic on me, or the beautiful scenery atop the mountains. Or possibly because it was the first time I’d gone somewhere without my parents in six months. No, that couldn’t be it.
Nearing the end of the walk I called my Mum to see if my Dad had returned back yet, which she said he hadn’t. I realised I might be in with a chance of winning. Despite my exhaustion from walking up and down steep slopes for the past few hours, I felt a new rush of energy and sprinted the whole way back. Ten minutes later, with all the life sucked out of me, I arrived to find Mum standing there waiting for me, with Dad by her side. Turns out he had gotten back just after our call, and my ten minute dash had been for nought.
After I recovered from my appalling defeat (it’s okay, I’m over it) we went to a bird hide, where we saw all manner of species of birds, including some rather strange ones without wings, that had large bushy tales. These were of course the elusive squirrels we had been hoping to see for weeks. On this occasion I wasn’t the only one who went crazy with taking photos. With each of us fighting over the camera, we ended up having about twenty photos of each bird from every angle, and hundreds of photos in total. Triple woops.
Our next destination in Scotland was the Isle of Skye, almost 200 miles away (more than 300km) or to put it in perspective half the length of Scotland. Madness? Sure. But more about that later.
Anna Fay On Holiday 