Scotland

The next leg of our journey took us to Scotland. We took the train to Edinburgh and hired a car with a Garmin GPS to travel the countryside. The primary purpose of going to Scotland was for Patrick to do some research on his great-grandfather Walter Richardson who went to medical college in Edinburgh. Patrick made an appointment to visit the school, but we went up a few days early to do some sightseeing.

I’d read about Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness and how beautiful it was there, so that’s where I wanted to go. We programmed it into the GPS and hit the road.

We’d set off fairly late in the day and didn’t drive very long before it started getting dark. But, being GPS travelers we just had Garmin search for a place for us to stay. (Garmin is the bomb!) It found us a place called the “Atholl Arms Hotel” in the little village of Dunkeld, out in the middle of nowhere. It was great!

One thing I noticed throughout our travels on this trip is that all of the places we stayed included in the price of the rooms a full breakfast. Not like American hotels with their “Continental Breakfast” of stale muffins and cereal in the lobby, in the UK you are seated in the dinning room and given a full breakfast menu. Your breakfast is cooked to order and your tea is brought out steeping hot in “proper teapots”. (Imagine that!) Patrick always ordered the same thing. Kippers! It was as if he’d died and gone to Kipper heaven.

After breakfast we continued on our journey, but Patrick insisted that we needed a map to go along with the GPS so we could plot our course and keep track of where we were and which way we were going. (It’s a man thing) Anyway, he bought a map and then made the mistake of trying to open it in the car. The map was bigger than the inside of the car. It was quite funny watching him trying to find where we were on this giant thing and then fold it down to the right section.

The drive was wonderful and the countryside was breathtaking.

Our next stop was the town of Inverness at the north end of Lock Ness. It was much bigger than Dunkeld, so we had a look around.

Another thing I noticed on this trip was some of the more… “unusual” things found in butcher shops there. Such as Haggis. (Yuck!) And yes, Patrick totally grossed me out by ordering (and actually eating) Haggis for dinner at the Atholl Arms.

Somewhere along the way he also ate blood pudding, which in my opinion was equally disgusting.

We made our way through town and just a short distance down the road the view opened up on the most famous Loch in all of Scotland, Loch Ness.

At 52 feet above sea level, Loch Ness is about 25 miles long, up to a mile and a half wide, and 755 feet deep. It is the largest body of water on the Great Glen Fault and contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. It’s also the home of “The Lock Ness Monster”, but he failed to make an appearance while we were there.

As we neared Drumnadrochit we saw the ruins of Urquhart Castle.

We were almost there, and I was very excited to see the castle. When we arrived we entered the castle grounds through the visitor’s center.

There, before going down to explore the grounds we were taken to a room to watch a brief movie about the castle, and how it was finally destroyed. It was actually quite interesting. The earliest history of the castle begins in the 6^th century, and throughout its life it had seen many battles. Finally in 1689 the castle was being held by troops of the Protestant King William of Orange against the Jacobite forces. They knew they were ultimately going to lose the battle, so instead of letting the castle fall into the hands of the Jacobites, in 1691 they blew up the castle and left. The castle was never rebuilt.

When the movie was over, the curtains opened to a view looking down on the ruins.

It was an absolutely beautiful place, and the green was greener than any I’d ever seen. The view of the Loch from the castle was just breathtaking. Considering all the rain we’d encountered through most of our journey I was very grateful to have such a beautiful sunny day at the castle. Though the wind blowing down the Loch was incredible.

Then it was off into the countryside looking for a place to stay. Our trusty Garmin found us another little place in the middle of nowhere called the Slaters Arms.

The next morning we got out the giant map and planned our trip down the side of Loch Ness and back to Edinburgh.

Before we left we had a look around Drumnadrochit and I had to have my picture taken with Nessie at the Nessieland castle muesum

The Loch was a beautiful sight from end to end.

Before we passed it all together, I just had to get my toes in the water. We finally found a place where we could climb down and do just that.

Riding back through the highlands the weather seemed to turn on a dime. One minute it would be sunny, and then clouds would come over the hills and pour down rain. Next minute the sun was out again.

Getting back to the vicinity of Edinburgh our beloved Garmin found us a room at the Woodside Hotel on the banks of the Firth of Forth.

The next morning we made our way back into the heart of Edinburgh. What a place! Patrick was scheduled for his meeting at the medical college in the afternoon, so we spent the morning touring the city. The most striking thing was the castle on a huge hill in the heart of the city.

Just outside the castle we encountered “Adam Braveheart”, who was collecting money for a children’s charity. What a character!

Then we roamed on around the magnificent old city of Edinburgh.

Finally making it to the medical college we were given a personal tour, and Patrick took a seat in the lecture hall where anatomy was taught, back in the day when Burke and Hare were supplying the school with bodies. Many of those bodies as it turned out met their demise at the hands of Burke and Hare.

After the murders were discovered, Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he agreed to testify against Burke, which he accepted. Burke was convicted, hanged and ended up as another cadaver for dissection at the school. His skeleton is still there in the college’s museum. 

Our last stop was the college library. The area we needed to go to view Walter’s school records was restricted, we had to fill out forms and get special passes. We also were not allowed to take anything in with us. But once in we were able to view the legers with his records and remarks from his professors. It would have been nice if we could have taken pictures, but that wasn’t allowed either. Much of it was impossible to read, of course it had all been hand written.

It was a nice tour and everyone there had been very helpful in researching and finding all the information they had on Walter.    

On our final night in Scotland we went out for a pint and a curry with Johnnie Leacock, one of Tim and Fiona’s sons who is currently studying at the University there. Tim and Patrick went to school together, and they were still on our list to visit in Dorset when we got back to England.

  

In all Scotland was an amazing place, and I certainly do look forward to going back some day.

The Med School Reunion in Oxford

Before setting off to Oxford for Patrick’s reunion we took a short trip down memory lane to Guy’s Hospital in London where Patrick went to Med School. My first reaction there was to wonder why all those kids were there. Surely they weren’t old enough to be students! But I guess the older you get, the younger everyone else looks.

I think Patrick was pretty excited walking through the door into the halls where he spent so much time.

The people there were very friendly and welcomed us in to have a look around. I think Patrick was a bit shocked to find that the area that was the main floor to the Doctors dormitory where he had lived during residency had been converted to… (NO, say it ain’t so), a McDonalds.

When we arrived in Oxford, just for a change, the sun was actually shining! Well, nearly shining. At least it wasn’t raining, for the moment anyway.

Oxford is a beautiful city, and of course home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Amazing old buildings.

Of course we had to take in one of the local pubs and have a pint.

Then off we went to Patrick’s reunion.

The reunion dinner was held at Trinity College, also an incredibly beautiful place. When we walked into the dinning hall that had been so beautifully set, except for the size of the room and lack of an enchanted ceiling, I felt like I was walking into the dinning hall at Hogwarts.

The dinner menu was very fancy, and dinner itself was like art on a plate.

  

There was lots of jolly conversation, lots of Champaign and wine, and lots and lots of “Remember When’s”. Not that they could all remember everything, but they had a good time trying!

We really had a great time, even though by the end of the evening it was again pissing with rain when we left to return to the hotel. And of course it continued through the next day and followed us back to London.