July 8, 2018 — Inverness

Clan MacDonald of Glenside gathered at the kitchen table to eat a breakfast of kippers, cereal, and toast and to plan sightseeing for the day (weather forecast:  20 degrees, mostly cloudy, and chance of rain).  After doing ablutions, chores, and lunch, we set out for Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness and beside Drumnadrochit-Lewiston.  Lewiston and immediate area being where Laurel's forebears lived, we felt a faint claim to this being "our" Scottish Castle (who knows? ...perhaps our long-ago relatives had worked at the castle? ...in any case, it certainly was a landmark and familiar sight for them!).  At the castle, we learned that, throughout its history, this castle had been fought over, raided, damaged, and rebuilt numerous times — it was even attacked centuries ago by MacDonald, Lord of the Isles and plundered by the infamous "Back Donald."  Along with a zillion other tourists, we scrambled about the ruins while a bit of rain fell briefly.  Our visit concluded with an entertaining and informative open-air presentation by an "Officer of the Jacobite Forces." 

Next stop was the pub in the old Benlevan Hotel in Lewiston, on Kilmore Road (Kilmore Road being a family birthplace from the late 1700's).  A very large shady tree with a hugely wide trunk, in front of the hotel, may have been a sapling when the MacDonalds lived here.  We soaked up the local atmosphere while having a pint, then returned to Inverness, where we capped off our day out by tapping our  toes to a live band performing traditional Scottish music in the Gellions Pub (was this turning into a pub crawl?—supper at the Caledonian Freehouse left no doubt!)

Back in our accommodation, the ladies enjoyed a water-colour painting session, thanks to our resident artist (Cheryl), who led us all in producing pretty pictures of Scottish flowers.

July 7, 2018 — Road Trip: Gardenstown to Inverness

Sadly, we have to move on from scenic Gardenstown ... we waved goodbye to our rustic harbour-side cottage and maneuvered our car up the narrow windy lanes as the seagulls screamed their disappointment (I guess they were sad to see us go!).  At the same time, we eagerly looked forward to travelling back to Inverness to meet up with the Clan MacDonald (Laurel's mother—Betty, two brothers—Dusty and Allen, and their wives—Cheryl and July) and begin searching for their ancestral roots.

As we drive up and away from the coast, we decide to take a detour of a couple of miles and take another look at Tillybo, the farm where our nephew Chris has determined that great-great-great-great-grandfather John Edward Lawrie was born in 1762.  It was mid-morning, so we decided to drive into the yard and talk to the owner, who turned out to be a 75 year old Irish woman named Lynne.  She was very gracious and talkative and guided us around her property to take pictures and then invited us in to look at the deeds to Tillybo because she was sure that a Lawrie had owed the farm this century.  She was right!  In 1959, a William Lawrie and his wife, Christina, purchased Tillybo and then sold it again a few years later.  We can't be sure, but  there is a very good chance that this William Lawrie is distant cousin.

Lynne told us that Tillybo has been a going concern for many centuries and that the name is of Doric origins (tilly = water; bo = cow), meaning place to water cattle.  The house was "new," it had been rebuilt in 1861, but the bothy (labourer's quarters and livestock shed) are original and still standing.  It was all very special and we thanked Lynne for her time and kindness.

We drove back to Inverness following a different route, along the famous and scenic "Whisky Trail."  I'm not sure that sampling a dram at a dozen or more distilleries would be advisable, considering it was hard enough keeping a car on the winding roads, stone cold sober!  

Our accommodation in Inverness is a classic five bedroom stone manor called Woodbourne House and when the clan arrived, we tucked in to a supper of sandwiches and cullen skink, a soup from the Lawrie cookbook (potatoes, leeks, cream, and smoked haddock)—mmmm.  After assigning rooms (Scottish lottery), we all went for an evening stroll along the River Ness, lit by a beautiful sunset.

July 6, 2018 — Moray Coast and Aberdeenshire

Last night we watched Bill Forsyth's wonderful Scottish movie, Local Hero. The movie is a gentle comedy in which the Scottish coast is as much a character as it is the setting.  Throughout the past week, we have intersected many of the movie's filming locations: Fort William, Mallaig, and the Ship's Inn Pub in Banff.  Today we are heading to our neighbouring village of Pennan, the main setting (Ferness) in the movie.  A single row of stone houses wedged between cliffs and a rocky coast with a small harbour, hotel and an iconic red phone booth make up this picturesque village.  We had a cup of tea with scones on the harbour wall and then gritted our teeth for the steep, narrow, winding drive back up to the Aberdeenshire countryside and onward down the coast to Fraserburg.  After a disappointing walk through Fraserburg (drab and dreary), we headed back up the coast to MacDuff for fish and chips, which we devoured while sitting on the rocky shore beside the aquarium.

We explored the Moray coastal paths around Portknockie and strolled the expansive sandy beach of Cullen before returning to our cottage in Gardenstown.    On the way home, we made a detour to the farm of Tillybo, the birthplace of one of Jim's ancestors. We will be sad to leave Aberdeenshire and the Moray coast.

July 5, 2018 — Moray Coast and Aberdeenshire

On the hunt for traces of the Lawrie family history — Jim's mom's maternal side of the family tree, whose roots have been traced back to Banff from the mid 1600's!  Amazing!  Thanks to excellent research done by nephew Chris, we had a lot of info to refer to . . . the Lawries were weavers in Banff, until about 1750 when they moved to Fortrie and elsewhere in Aberdeenshire; a daughter in the 1800's married a Lothian and lived at Alva near Stirling.  Our accommodation being just a few kms from Banff and Fortrie, we were soon following road signs leading us to Fortrie.  There's no village there, but a "smiddy" (blacksmith shop) and a few farms with nice old stone houses and barns are present.  The countryside is pretty with hills, treed areas, sheep and cattle grazing, various crops (wheat, hay, canola, potatoes), and the Deveron River flowing through.  A friendly local lady, who was pushing a child in a stroller along the road, suggested that we check out the nearby country church, Inverkeithney; we found it picturesquely situated along a shady lane, beside a farm and a sheep pasture.  The graveyard surrounding the church has many old markers, but none visible with the surnames we sought.

Next, we proceeded to Banff, a town of 4,000 sitting on the coast where the Deveron River enters the Moray Firth.  Remains of an ancient castle wall and many old buildings constructed of black stone made for an interesting stroll.  Unfortunately, the museum is presently closed for renovations, but luckily a stop at the local library and assistance from the friendly librarians was a treasure trove of information about the history of Banff (including "The Annals of Banff" that records incidents such as "1653 — William Lowrie fined 10 pounds for blooding ilk with James Ardes, i.e. fighting to effusion of blood" and a few more Lawrie transgressions; these have also been outlined by Chris in his family history book).  We were thrilled to also find, in the library, an annotated listing of gravestones in the old, old cemetery next to the harbour — woohoo, the Lowrie name appeared (variation of spelling)!  We made a beeline there and, following the graveyard map, easily found the one Lowrie headstone.  It's a very old one and much weathered, so would have been impossible to find, let alone decipher, without the info from the library, which had documented the headstone in the 1800s as reading:  "This stone is erected by James Lowrie, shoemaker in Banff, to the memory of John Lowrie and Janet _____, his father and mother, and John Lowrie, his son, who died October 1755? aged . . . "   Not a direct forebear, but certainly must have been a close relative to Jim's great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather who also lived in Banff in that same time period!

A block from the graveyard, along the shore, we spotted "The Ship Inn" and stopped in there to drink a toast to the Lawries in the pub which has been operating since the 1700's and, no doubt, they also frequented. 

We finished the day by getting groceries, looking around the cemetery in MacDuff (town immediately right beside Banff; no relevant names found), going home for supper, then back to MacDuff in the evening to the library there (lots of interesting reference materials but no "new" information that we found).

July 4, 2018–Gardenstown

We awoke this morning to a ruckus of seagulls on the roof of our cottage and the scent of salty sea air, but it was what we didn't hear or smell that really roused us.  No bustling in the kitchen, no scones, no sausage, no eggs or grilled tomatoes . . . we stared at each other, motionless, as the cold realization that there was no hot breakfast waiting for us sunk in. Laurel won this Mexican standoff and I thumped down the stairs to plug in the kettle and look for the toaster.

Coffee and toast, could that really be enough? Where would the other 2,000 calories, that we had grown accustomed to, come from?  I made some sandwiches to carry in our pack to sustain us if we got hungry later in the morning.  We are on step 1 of a 12 step program—eliminate second breakfast and elevensies—don't eat again until noon.

Our plans for the day were not too ambitious: 1. Do the laundry; 2. Hike up to St. John's Kirkyard; 3. Have supper in the local pub.  St. John's Kirkyard is the ruins of an old stone church and cemetery whose origins date back to 1004.  It seems that St. John the Evangelist answered the prayers of some fiery Scots, under the leadership of the Thane of Buchan, to dispatch 600 or so pillaging Danes to a permanent resting place referred to afterwards as the "Bloody Pits."  The church had a few renovations and rebuilds over the years and the current ruins were originally built in 1513.  It appears that the Scots mastered the construction of walls and foundations very early on, but struggled to design a roof that would last more than a couple of centuries!

The cemetery has headstones visibly dating back to 1733, but many were worn smooth or too encrusted with lichen to read.  Only one or two McDonalds rest in the large graveyard, where Ingrams are the majority.  Jim has been specifically looking for Lawries, his Scottish roots, recently researched by his nephew, Chris.  No luck in St. John's Kirkyard.

On our way back to town, we stopped on the beach under the shade of the sandstone cliffs to eat the sandwiches that Jim had made this morning. Two of our three things to do today were done—siesta until supper!

The Garden Arms was a quaint pub that met every expectation, including colourful regulars who provided a wonderful atmosphere.  We decided to only have a drink and to eat supper back at the cottage after a stroll to Crovie, the next town down the shore. 

The MacDonald Clan are starting out today on their flights to Scotland.  Siubhal sàbhailte!

July 3, 2018–Road Trip: Inverness to Gardenstown

We poked our eggs and let the yolk run between the baked beans and sausage and then stared longingly at our grilled tomatoes and small pork chops (Scottish bacon)—our hike was now complete and so we would soon be on our own with no landladies to pamper and nourish us. After today breakfast would back to toasted bread and point!

Inverness was a wonderful maze of bridges and streets that we wandered for a couple of hours while our stomachs settled. Leakey Books on Church Street and the Old High Church next door easily passed an hour on their own. Used books and antiques prints, extracted from antique books, were the main source of income for the fascinating, cavernous store that looked like it had been stocked and displayed by a society of meticulous hoarders. The Old High Church cemetery was striking on its hill with bright blue skies above and the River Ness below. Frasers got top billing at this venue (its amazing any survived at all!), but enough MacDonald had perished in the 18th and 19th centuries to keep us busy. We picked up a rental car at the train station and drove white knuckled back to our B&B to get our luggage. Driving on the other side of the road will take some getting use to!

Laurel programmed the GPS for Gardenstown and away we went. With frequent reminders to stay on the left hand side of the road and one or two revolutions though a few of the hundred roundabouts we encountered along the way, we made it to our destination after a short pit stop in Nairn.

Gardenstown is a picturesque seaside village built on steep hills of the Moray Firth. We're settled in to our cosy little harbour-view cottage, for the next four nights. With a harbour, a sandy beach, a local pub, an ancient stone church and graveyard on the hill nearby, and coastal paths to explore, it will surely be a relaxing and scenic stay.

Rock on!

Laurel: Part 2 of Bonnie (= Rocky) Scotland 

Scotland Rocks!

Laurel:  I can see why the Scots invented curling — they had to keep thinking up more ways to use alllllll the rocks they have!