Friday 7 October 2010 - Sunday 17 October 2010
I have recently received some heavy criticism about the blog. I won't be able to disclose the name of the complainant at this stage but it was alleged that the blog is "only about you, your big belly and football and not enough about me or my shoes". So despite the fact I was going to tell you all about the cloning project Hearts football club has going on at the moment (the have put a Latvian wood-chopper in a football jersey, cloned him 10 times and called it their first team) or the fact that I almost got away with Inverness Caledonian Thistle's Division 1 trophy, this blog is going to be all about two blokes called Jimmy and Manolo.
We kicked off our Scottish roadtrip in Edinburgh, ticking off number 14 off our List of 28 in the process. We checked in at The Edinburgh Residence and met up with our dear friends Hugh and Lesley. In between buying shoes, we managed to squeeze in some nice restaurants, starting off with Ondine, where Em had the hand-dived Scottish scallops as a starter and the chili-squid risotto as a main. In order to comply with the new editorial guidelines of this blog, I won't bore you with what I had that night.
The next day we did what we, or at least some of us, came for: shoe shopping. This basically means that two guys called Jimmy and Manolo take turns at plundering my bank account. Today it was Jimmy's turn and he managed to convince Emma to part company with a small fortune, equaling the GDP of a medium-sized African country, for some, and I quote, "elegant black heels which are the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen". After this purchase we have been forced to change the name of our blog to The List of 27. Best thing about the new shoes is that they are so precious it would of course be a waste to actually wear them.
We said goodbye to Edinburgh in style by having dinner at Kitchin. Tom not only served some fantastic game, scallops and lobster, but also a soufflé which was more than a worthy competitor to Angela Hartnett's one when she was still cooking at The Connaught in London.
From Edinburgh we moved onto Gleneagles, now officially passing the halfway line of our List of 28 as this was number 15 on our list. Gleneagles is a fantastic place, with some great restaurants, an amazing golf course and a delightful spa. As Em spent her time in the spa, I went out for some introductory gundog training. Ptar was the lucky black labrador who got a morning of exercise. Ptar is probably the most excited living being I have ever met. And stopping mid-track was clearly not his forte. But Ptar loved running around and getting those rubber duckies out of the water must have been his favourite activity. If Ptar would have been human, he would probably have been the perfect General for the US Army: shoot first, ask questions later.
The Gleneagles experience wouldn't be complete without some good food. So we kicked off our dinner with the whisky smoked salmon as a starter, had the chateaubriand as a main and finished it all of with a vanilla brulée as a dessert all accompanied with some Pouilly-Fumé, Chateauneuf du Pape and a Port. In one word: fantastic.
From Gleneagles we drove our rental car all the way up to the Isle of Skye. Although I thought I did a good job driving around Scotland, somebody, who will again remain nameless, labeled my driving style as a "freakjob". Besides that little incident, it was a beautiful ride through the Scottish Highlands with some absolutely stunning landscapes. On the Isle of Skye we found the perfect get-away, the Skeabost Country House Hotel. OK, it needs a lick of paint, but what a perfect get-away with beautiful views over the loch this is. Here we had a go at fly-fishing with the local fishing guide, or ghillie, Derek. Derek, a lost Englishman from Oxfordshire, came to the Isle of Skye six years ago to build a house, but ended up acquiring a 20 year lease on the Snizort river instead. He also provided us with his fantastically cheesy fishing mantra which is "The way to a fisherman's heart is through his flies".
Fly-fishing was great fun, but we were absolutely rubbish at it. We managed to swing our line everywhere except into the Snizort river. No fish were hurt or caught in the process. After a morning of unfruitful fishing, Derek introduced us to his girlfriend who had just moved in with him - having arrived from Australia only a couple of days earlier. Annie was lovely, although she did look remarkably similar to Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous. Fortunately Jimmy and Manolo had missed the Isle of Skye in their bid for World Shoe Domination so no further purchases were made, a fact we celebrated in one of the nicest restaurants on the island called The Three Chimneys.
After a couple of days on the Isle of Skye we made our way over to Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, where we were welcomed by Frank. We have had our fair share of guides over the last couple of months, whether it was Claire in the Grand Canyon or El Gato on the Inca Trail, but Frank was definitely the best researched and most dedicated of them all. He took us around Inverness, showed us Loch Ness (ex the Monster), got us to the Culloden battlefields in one piece, dragged us to the Tomatin whisky distillery (which happens to be owned by a bunch of Japanese, don't ask) and even organised a tour around the Inverness CT stadium for us (where Frank and I almost got away with the Division 1 Trophy they won last year). We loved Frank and he is without a doubt the best guide we have had so far (anyone who adopts a duck and calls it "Crispy" is a legend in his own right). We may have to tempt Frank out of retirement and off the golf course with a knock-out bid for his services and take him with us on our upcoming trip to Australia, NZ and Japan.
One story worth telling is about a bloke called Steve who we met at Dores Beach on the shores of Loch Ness. 19 years ago, Steve left his girlfriend, sold his house, quit his job, and pursued his dream to become a full-time monster hunter on the shores of Loch Ness. He bought an old mobile-library van as his new home and sells little statues of Nessie to fund his "Nessie-sery Independent Research" activities (as true tourists we are currently the proud owners of one of these statues). Steve told us he hadn't seen the Loch Ness monster yet but he had "definitely seen things that were not fish". Well at least we have some more inspiration regarding what to do after we have finished our sabbatical.
After two days in Inverness, we checked out of the Rocpool Reserve and drove up to Aberdeen where we handed in our rental car. Here we reached full circle as we caught up with our friends Hugh and Lesley again for some relaxing and to show off the newly acquired Jimmys. This concludes a beautiful 10 days spent in Scotland, an absolutely stunning country, even more so in the Autumn.
Next stop: Destination number 16: Oz
