Wednesday, August 27, 2014

What's so special about these rocks and shells?


Scottish rocks, mostly from Arbroath

Disclaimer: this post is not about Scotland.  Well, okay, the rocks and shells were collected in Scotland, but that's just incidental.

It's hard to tell from a picture what's special about a rock.  You can see, in my amateur photograph, that some of them are nicely shaped, or maybe that they have a nice coloration, or that they have a unique feature, like the hole in the center rock that has trapped a small white shell.  These are the things that initially draw me to a rock - its shape, its color, its uniqueness.  But what leads me to put the rock in my pocket rather than just examining it and throwing it back (preferably toward the water, to hear the satisfying "clink" as it hits other rocks and "splash" as it makes its way into the sea) is the feel of the rock.  A rock I keep is one that I'd like to carry around in my pocket like a talisman. The round grey rock in the center of the small rock arrangement is a carry-around rock.  It's smooth, small, round. I think Claire, even though she's only 3, has inherited some of my rock-feel tendencies. She picked up the large grey rock at the top left of the photo in Abroath, and refused to part with it.  I could relate. Even though it's too big to be a carry-around rock, it has the same feel to it.   

Shells from Gairloch

I am similarly attracted to shells, not so much for the feel, but more for their aesthetics. I like unbroken shells with unusual colors.  Claire was attached to the pink shell at the top, so we brought it home - I might have thrown it back because of the extra calcification.

After we collected shells at Gairloch and Arbroath over the summer, I decided that I wanted to display the shells.  This was tricky, because small children and "shells you want to keep whole" don't really mix.  So I hit on the wineglass solution - it's not like we really drink wine anyway, so no one will miss them. In the wineglass, the tiny shells are visible but harder to crush.  The sea glass mixes in nicely too.  If I was crafty, I'd make sea glass jewelry.

Tiny Gairloch shells and a few bigger ones from Arbroath
More Gairloch shells
I love the fragility of the shells, and the robustness of the rocks.  But when I pick them up by the sea or the river, I know they'll never quite be the same as they are in that moment.  Freshly washed off shells and rocks glisten in the sunlight.  Small clam or mussel shells or periwinkles hang together as a pair.  Different colored rocks assert their uniqueness against a background of brown and grey. When I take them home, inevitably they dry off and become duller.  The pairs break apart, and the rocks that looked so brightly colored on the beach pale in comparison with some of my shiny stones at home.

Yet my windowsill is filled with rocks and shells, collected recently, and even a few that I picked up a long time ago that I secretly snuck in a box last year to be shipped all the way to Scotland (shh, don't tell Paul).   In the middle of the dark Scottish winter, I can look at (and hold) my rocks and shells and be back on the coast, poking around through piles of gifts washed in by the latest high tide, searching for perfection to slide into my pocket and take home.     

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Mull, Iona, and Staffa: Visiting Western Scottish Isles

The weather was with us.  And in Scotland, that's really everything. 

Crazy Americans that we are, we decided to do the all-in-one-day approach.  So we sailed from Oban on the 7:30 am ferry to the Isle of Mull. Hoping to make the ferry to Iona before 10 am, we drive straight across Mull to Fiannphort, which was a bit of a shame.  The clouds were clearing as we drove, and Mull looked amazing: lush, green, with ferns, hills, waterfalls and lakes everywhere.  We kept saying, "Wow, that's amazing!" and occasionally pulling over to the side of the (one lane...single track, they call it here) road to snap a picture, or twelve.

Mull, the Land Before Time, with ferns


Gorgeous lakes and clouds on Mull

It took us an hour and twenty minutes to cross Mull, and we pulled into Fionnphort about 10 minutes ahead of the ferry departure.  By now the weather was totally clear, giving us a fabulous view across to the Isle of Iona.
Small ferry to Iona. You can take a car on this one with special reservations,  but it's mostly passengers.

Iona ahead!
Once we got to Iona we walked on the white sand beach for a few minutes before heading up the hill to the nunnery, abbey, and Iona community.

The Nunnery on Iona

Iona abbey altar with sun

St. Martin's Cross, Iona Abbey grounds

Iona Abbey from the Hill of the Abbot, possible site of St. Columba's writing hut

View, Sheep, Remnants of the Bishop's House
We wandered around the grounds of the abbey for quite a while with our audio guides, and Paul even tried to take a tour (while juggling Claire, who wanted to go with him). Audrey preferred to read gravestones in the graveyard, so we went off to do that, listening to audio about history and the local environment along the way. After a while we wandered back down the hill and ate lunch on the beach, and got ready to board the boat for Staffa. What we didn't know when we boarded was that Staffa was a 50-minute boat ride away, most of it across open ocean.  

The boat to Staffa
It was a nice, calm day.  Really, couldn't ask for better.  But a tiny boat on the open ocean still meant a very rough ride.  The girls kept saying, "It's like a teeter-totter!" And it was.

Staffa, the basalt island with caves

On top of Staffa

Inside Fingal's Cave, Staffa
Staffa was quite cool, made of basalt, like the better-known Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. We spent about an hour exploring it, then got back on the tiny boat.  Fun as the Staffa trip was, we can't say we were sorry to get back to the much larger Isle of Mull, and to drive back onto the much larger Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferry that took us back to Oban, 14 hours after we'd begun our adventure that morning. I don't think we'll be going back to Staffa (at least on a tiny boat!) but we'd go back to beautiful Oban, Mull and Iona anytime!

CalMac ferry, opening up for cars and buses (this was a BIG ferry)


Sunday, August 3, 2014

A Manner of Speaking: Four Curious English and Scottish Expressions

I admit it. I am a native English speaker.  But even that qualification has failed to prepare me for some of the expressions I have run into over the past 10 months in Scotland.  These expressions have ranged from funny to apt to utterly unintelligible, requiring translation by a native speaker. Below are a few of my favorites: first, two heard from my English work colleagues, and then two Scottish expressions.

"It's like an octopus in a string bag!" This one was funny, and seemed a very fitting way to describe the reorganization of University administration, which is what the speaker was doing when I overheard her. I just conjured up a mental picture of all the higher level administrators being tossed into a string bag and reaching out, wreaking havoc all around.

"He's got short arms and long pockets." This from another colleague, describing someone who always seemed to be short of money (despite being well-paid) and never reached for his wallet to pay for coffee or lunch.

"Have a blether" This from our singing tutor (i.e., the woman who runs the singing group I am a part of, who is originally from England - Yorkshire - but did fool me for a long while into thinking she was Scottish) about what we ladies can do during the break halfway through the class - meaning have a chat or gossip amongst ourselves.

"That's mingin" I was first introduced to this expression by my English boss who has spent many years in Scotland (similar to the singing tutor above) when we were trying to re-hang a rolling blind in our office that had gotten stuck.  The reason it had gotten stuck was partly because it was sticky, and well, mingin.  I later heard it in a play - when the parents kissed, the kids squealed "that's mingin" and I was proud to know what it meant. According to the online resource the Caledonian Mercury, the word originally meant bad-smelling but has morphed into a more general gross, disgusting kind of meaning.