Last Days in Aberdeen

We kept our last two days in Aberdeen fairly low-key as far as sightseeing went because we needed to get ready for the last leg of our journey. Sunday was spent mostly doing church things, and for the first time ever Walter was so upset that he had to be carried out of both church services. He very strongly objected to the Episcopalian Church that Pippa & Andy go to and demanded to leave as soon as we entered it, so I spent the entire service in the nursery. I was very thankful that they had a nursery, including one with age-appropriate toys. As a responsible parent I wanted to see if Walter would play with age-appropriate toys, since he doesn’t have any of his own. Apparently I’d made the right decision in not plunking down a lot of cash on infant toys since he completely ignored the baby gym and spent his time staring at a garbage pail and shrieking at it with glee. 

Unimpressed with the baby gym

Post-Episcopalian-Church there was a pub lunch with a load of Aberdeen University Theology PhD students who all seemed to have a connection with Princeton. We went to a pub and discovered the many ways you can eat haggis—haggis nachos (which I really regret not trying), deep-fried haggis balls (strangely delicious), and haggis-burger-topping (which I thought would be good but since it consisted of a deep-fried haggis ball atop a lacklustre meat patty it wasn’t that great). Then it was off to the Winter Gardens which proved to be the loveliest set of glass houses I’ve seen thus far. It was fun watching Walter try to interact with plants, and the look he gave us when we tried to help him toss a penny into the wishing well was priceless. He often wears a look that suggests “my parents are idiots but I will humour them if it will get me more milk”.

In the evening we went for our second church service of the day, this time a Catholic Mass at the university. It was held in King’s College Chapel. After appearing to be in his normal state at Mass, ie relatively sleepy and relaxed, Walter launched into an epic meltdown, screaming so loudly that I could hear him even after David had taken him out of doors. Fortunately Pippa was with us so she was able to watch him while David & I went up for communion. The Bishop of Aberdeen was visiting so we got him to bless Walter afterwards. By the time we got back to Andy’s Walter was somewhat more settled. Still, thus far he’s behaved at 7/8 church services :)

On Monday I figured out how to get us from Andy’s place into town, and Walter took his first trip by bus. The trip in was to run the last few in-town errands before leaving but we managed to finish early and thus had time to view a few more touristy places. We started at the St Nicholas Kirk graveyard, where I enjoyed looking at the lovely old tombstones and David enjoyed the giant granite stone, erected by a granite merchant for his desceased wife and acting more as an advertisement (it even had his giant logo on it!) than has a memorial.

A monument at the foot of Union Street

From the graveyard we went to Provost Skene’s House. I normally love museums but the name of this one kept putting me off, as it just sounds incredibly boring. It ended up being great—it’s a really old house full of various period rooms, clothing, and knicknacks. It was an interesting view into Ye Olde Scotland, particularly as a lot of the history is tied up with civil war etc. The best part of it, however, is “the painted gallery” which is a room that still retains its medieval wall & ceiling paintings. There’s been some iconoclastic damage but not enough to destroy the room and it was just incredible to view medieval painting in situ. 

Outside of Provost Skene's House

Ye Olde Scottish Dining Hall

Victorian Nursery

East Coast to West Coast in a Day

Our Saturday in Scotland was the highlight of the trip for us. Andy was pretty keen to drive to the west coast so after a few discussions of how to best manage that with Walter we decided to go for it. We began our trip by leaving Aberdeen via the east coast, since Andy was very insistent that it was important we see both coasts on the same day.

Walter managed the three-hour drive to Inverness quite well, by obligingly sleeping until the moment we pulled into the Inverness Tesco for fuel & caffeine. After a half-hour break of changing & feeding he was ready for the road again and we set off through the highlands towards Ullapool. I was very excited, as we had been planning to go to Ullapool last New Year’s with Pippa & Andy until my first-trimester exhaustion made us rethink any plans that involved me having to be awake past 8pm.

Ullapool is a small village with a saltwater loch on the west coast. The harbour area is quite beautiful and Andy suggested we lunch at the Ferry Boat Inn where we could enjoy our meal from a table overlooking the water. The food was excellent (chicken on a bed of haggis with a creamy mustard sauce) as was the whiskey. After lunch the two gents went off to a bookstore while Walter & I browsed in some gift shops and a small market before meeting up with them. I had wanted to find something special for Walter to commemorate his trip to Scotland and at the bookstore I found a little kid’s book in Scotch Gaelic. David is learning Gaelic and thus will read the book to Walter and translate it for him. I really enjoy the idea of Walter having a book in a language he doesn’t know to commemorate a trip he doesn’t remember. The woman at the bookstore did not seem impressed with either of us or our plan for the book :) I suppose it is not every day that a Super Linguist comes into her store and so her seeming dubious at David’s ability to just “pick up” her language is fair enough.

The harbour in Ullapool

From Ullapool we drove to the UK’s most remote bookstore, Achins, which is relatively hidden in the highland hills. More book browsing and the purchase of another book in Gaelic, this time a collection of folk songs for us to add to our folk collection. We enjoyed a coffee break in the bookstore’s coffee shop and then pressed on north, to do a circuit alongside the west coast.

The long hill up to Achin's Bookshop. I have no idea who the woman in the picture is -- instead of moving out of shot when she saw I had my camera out, she posed and gave me a huge smile...

View from outside Achin's, looking over the highlands.

Our drive along the west coast was a highlight of the trip for me. It is a single track road, relatively deserted by car-traffic but fairly well used by the highland sheep which disdain to distinguish between hill & highway (and the crofters who disdain to use fences!). The landscape was unlike anything I had ever seen before. With mountains leading down to an ocean whose horizon was broken by the odd island it sounds as if it should resemble the views we’re used to on Vancouver Island but the way our coasts were formed are from two different geological events and thus they look completely different. The hills and mountains were a rainbow of green, brown, and purple because the heather was in bloom. The coast-line curved in and out, sometimes embracing small islands and sometimes appearing lonesomely stoic. Tall mountains rose up here and there from the hills, but there was no uniform chain. It had a wild, haunting beauty which I normally associate with my own west coast. 

The West Coast

Highland hills lit up with heather

As darkness descended we returned to Ullapool and back to the Ferry Boat Inn for supper. Fortunately they have an extensive dinner menu, as I didn’t fancy having the same meal twice in a day, so I indulged with an option a little closer to home and got a cheeseburger. It’s worth mentioning because finding a decent burger in the UK is a difficult feat but the FBI managed to pull it off. David had bbq’d pork chops which had a sauce that’s good like back home but that great English pork which Canadian pork products just cannot match. Walter spent his time eating and making big eyes at crowds of older ladies, thus meaning we could enjoy our meal in relative peace.

We ended up back on the road much later than planned, but I excused myself and took a nap when Walter fell asleep, since I knew I’d be awake before everyone else but Walter on Sunday. Thus the drive back was a lovely blur for me, although I’m assured that we made it to Aberdeen in record time. 

West Coast of Scotland

East Coast of Scotland

Exploring more of Aberdeen

Towards the end of the workweek both Pippa & Andy had to attend to their day jobs, which meant we took time to explore the city. We were able to meet with Andy one morning for a tour of campus, including the new library.

The new university library is modeled on an ice cube (seriously) and thus is a big square glass building that really does vaguely resemble a block of ice. Because it’s glass the interior is full of light. And because it’s seven stories high and atop a hill, one is able to get a remarkable view of Aberdeen, right down to the North Sea, from the top floor. Thus it’s definitely worth a visit, and the view really does win one over to liking the giant cube (as do the friendly staff).

From the library we went to King’s College & Chapel, which in no way resembles the Cambridge one. The chapel has quite an interesting history, which I won’t go into here, but it was neat to look around and see the mix of old carvings (including the first scotch thistle) and iconoclasm.

First thistle depictions are at the bottom

Then it was off to the Law Faculty where we got to see Andy’s office (with an enviable view of a lovely garden) and introduce Walter to the various staff members & professors who came by.

From the university we decided to walk into town, which was a somewhat ill-advised plan of mine considering I had forgotten to switch from “car” to “walk” on googlemaps when I planned out our afternoon the day before. An unplanned two-mile walk, after a morning of walking around, while still not quite recovered from giving birth, was not the best thing for me. But I survived and we managed to find downtown Aberdeen and run some errands that needed attending to. Then we managed to locate a pub so that I could satisfy my haggis craving. And then, with only 1.5hrs to spare before closing, we took off for the Aberdeen Art Gallery.

The gallery was our first experience of taking Walter to a museum/gallery and unfortunately it was a very quiet afternoon so we couldn’t blend in with the usual crowd of UK-middle-class parents & their noisy offspring. With his infant love of all things black & white he went a little insane in the Ravilious exhibition, staring intently at the engravings and then shrieking and shouting his delight to David. The room was deserted, so this wouldn’t have been an issue for us except that there was an upstairs annex which was the gallery’s library. It was one of those times where I very quickly repented for all the times I’d ever been annoyed at a hyperactive child in a gallery!

Very intent on a Ravilious engraving

Fortunately Walter’s memory is short, so by the time we left the Ravilious exhibit he forgot that there was anything interesting around and began his general “I want to nap now” fussing. By the time we’d found a gentleman to take us into the lift for the top floor Walter was slowly going to sleep and for the most part we managed the rest of the gallery without his interruptions! This was a blessing for us because the gallery has an amazing collection. One of the things I love about the UK is that the art galleries usually have a fantastic treasure or two just hanging out in an unassuming position. So along with seeing some great art by artists previously unknown to us, we also ran across several paintings by Sargent and two gigantic paintings by Waterhouse. Our best discovery, however, were the paintings by William Dyce. They are in the pre-Raphaelite style but the figures have a beautiful softness to them. We both got really excited by being able to add a new artist to our repertoire of art-we-love.

A painting by Dyce

In the evening we went back to Pippa’s for a delicious dinner of turkey stew (made by a Brit so it was full of leeks, bacon, and potato and thus very delicious). Eventually Andy arrived with his parents, who had come up to see him that evening, so we built up a peat fire, made chocolat chaud, and sat around enjoying each other’s company while we had our dessert. They had brought Walter a lovely blue & white cardigan so he managed to throw some charmingly big-eyed looks towards Andy’s parents as a thank-you.

The next day we decided to take as a day of rest, so we didn’t get up to much until dinner time when we drove to Catterline for dinner. This included a very brief stop in the now-ruined village where some of Andy’s family once lived. He was able to take us to the ruins of a stone cottage where some great-great-ancestors of his lived. It was neat to walk around the slightly-ghosty town before heading off to the inn where we were going to have dinner.

Dinner was an interesting experience, in that the food was excellent but the Walter was not! He managed to slightly behave over our starter of crab soup, but by the time our main courses arrived he was reaching meltdown state. David and I spent a lot of the meal passing a grumpy Walter between us so that we could each enjoy a bit of our meal (mushroom & asparagus wellington on a bed of couscous for me; haddock & chips for David) while trying to figure out what to do with Walter. We tried taking him outside but as we were right on the edge of the North Sea the air was too cold. Thankfully the only other diners in the restaurant came up to us and said that they weren’t bothered by him at all and that if we were taking him outside for their sake we shouldn’t bother. After that we could relax a bit and work on getting Walter comfortable enough to settle down.

Following our meal we went for a walk down to the shore. The night was freezing and I was certainly envying my baby who was snuggled up in layers of blankets and protected from the wind & cold by his pram’s rain cover. However, once we got onto the long bit of dock that went out into the sea I could see that the cold walk was worth it. Out in the country there were no city lights to interfere with our view of the moon & stars. We had the luck of a full moon and the moon-path over the ocean shone bright & clear, leading our eyes alongside the cliffs. It was so beautiful:

Deeside

On our third full day in Scotland the general consensus was that it was time for us to explore Aberdeenshire. This meant that us Porters got to spend a relaxed morning at Andy’s while he went to work, and in the afternoon he obligingly took us for a drive “Deeside” – along the banks of the river Dee.

The drive was beautiful, taking us through many small towns and also across the Balmoral Castle Estates. After stopping for lunch at a little cafe (steak roll with blue cheese & fried onions ftw!) we pressed on to the village of Braemore, where the Dee shows itself to be a river with attitude (or at least a river with big rocks and waterfalls and thus much different from what we had grown accustomed to with the Cam). I went off to browse in tourist shops while the boys went off to the “Plus 55 Club”, which is actually a nice hotel not of that name near to the river. It just happens that most of the regulars are over 55 years of age. When I finished my browsing I found Walter, David, and Andy all enjoying their drinks while various elderly Scottish ladies came over and admired the wee Wattie. 

Such polite signs

Once the drinks were finished we drove on to the Linn of Dee. This is an area where the Dee comes rushing down into a deep cauldron pool and then swirls out again. It also happened to be Walter’s first introduction to a forest and he loved it. We strapped him into the mei tai and took our first family hike. He spent a lot of time looking at the trees and chattering at them. We went for a bit of a walk alongside the river, where it was lovely to see the hills coming down towards the river, which we could glimpse through a screen of Scotch pine. It almost felt like home. 

Our walk continued until it began to rain, which Walter really objected to considering his parents were unable to locate his hat. We hastened to a woodsy area and did some responsible parenting: a Gore-Tex cocoon was created out of David’s jacket and Walter was swiftly bundled into it, with the added bonus of my Gore-Tex hood to cradle his head. Fortunately the worst of the rain held off until we were back at the car, as the baby was now wearing the best of our weather-proofing protection!

Shortly before the rain :)

The drive back to Aberdeen in the growing darkness was a bit long, especially for the boys as they were feeling a bit under the weather. Fortunately I’d spent the morning preparing a stew for the slowcooker, and we were able to eat a deliciously hot & filling meal almost as soon as we walked in the door. I’d tried to follow my mother-in-law’s stew recipe as well as I could and it came out tasting pretty much just like I wanted. She makes the most delicious stew I’ve ever had, with beef, squash, and homemade dumplings. Mine was lacking the dumplings, unfortunately, but other than that it tasted pretty much like home.