The Road and the Door
Jun. 27th, 2022 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootWe were pleased to find Windhaven. After dolphins and birds at Dunnet Head, the world grew very quiet. The wind blew bright and rainy, and all we saw were bikers exhilarating along the empty roads, while every hostelry seemed shut.
So did Windhaven unless one checked on the door, where hung a poster saying Yes! We are open! In we leapt, to a cheerfully offered pot of tea and cake amid knitted orcas, plushy puffins and local art. We fell slightly in love with the place.
Driving on to find the world ever more mountainous, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in the village of Tongue, Ben Loyal looming high above it. This would have been the perfect pic, and for sure I should have taken it there and then, but was enjoying myself too much just looking. Is it possible for somewhere to be too beautiful for the camera to capture? Later I took loads of photos, and there's not a single decent evocation of the place among them.
We checked into the Tongue which was everything you expect from a traditional highland hotel; tartan carpets, stuffed animals, warm welcome. The rooms were spacious, the food was good, but unusually the service was incoherent, a couple of waitresses who didn't know what they were doing. It was understandable given the pressures of lockdown on the hospitality industries, but not quite 4 star. Doubtless things will improve as tourism gets back up on its feet. We gave a little gentle feedback before leaving.
There's nothing to do except walk and look around the Kyle of Tongue, but that's surely enough. We weren't ready to trek the sides of Ben Loyal, so instead we took the simple path up to Castle Varrich. Some say this is the ancient seat of the MacKays, but I find that unlikely unless it is part of a larger complex as yet undiscovered. It looks like the remains of a watchtower to me; its views are grand and the standing stone nearby is suitably mysterious; I can't find any details on it at all.
But this is when one finds oneself on the story road, and on that road there stands a door. If, having poked your head through it, your question is along the lines of But is it real? You can't really think... Surely you don't believe... All I can advise is to close the door and walk on, lest you find yourself frustrated. I may wave my hands a bit and insert words like pareidolia, and that is the nearest I will come to being rational, because today I am not in the business of clarification or indeed, of making any sense at all. What follows is a tale from a land of magic, and out of that, make what you will.
I pointed him out to Russ, who looked suitably surprised at the sight. There, hanging green about a tree, stood a Good Neighbour. He was large and thick and squat and gorilla like, with huge long arms and a very marked scowl indeed. No, of course I didn't take a photo. What a faux-pas that would have been! I was guilty of a slight misdemeanour; I did audibly use the F word. Uh-oh! He moved not a whit but we did. And though I will happily laugh and smile over the patterns of trees and bark and all sorts of things, yet I'll tell you this for nowt; I wouldn't have wanted to meet this vision in the dark.
On we walked, not looking back for he didn't seem like the kind of character who travels far from home, and thus the door closed. I have encountered far more bizarre than this, but we take the stories that find us. Wanderers will see strange things and the more one walks the more it is bound to happen; you never know, on a curious day you might meet a woman of the roads who will tell you tales unaccountable and possibly pointless. She may claim kin to lost folk, but you can tell by the look of her, she has kin everywhere, or possibly nowhere. Though she is of many places and travels far, yet you are most likely to find her on Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, along the story road. On that road, you may see a door standing there. Walk around it and it seems perfectly normal, just a door. It is only when you go through it that everything changes.
So did Windhaven unless one checked on the door, where hung a poster saying Yes! We are open! In we leapt, to a cheerfully offered pot of tea and cake amid knitted orcas, plushy puffins and local art. We fell slightly in love with the place.
Driving on to find the world ever more mountainous, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in the village of Tongue, Ben Loyal looming high above it. This would have been the perfect pic, and for sure I should have taken it there and then, but was enjoying myself too much just looking. Is it possible for somewhere to be too beautiful for the camera to capture? Later I took loads of photos, and there's not a single decent evocation of the place among them.
We checked into the Tongue which was everything you expect from a traditional highland hotel; tartan carpets, stuffed animals, warm welcome. The rooms were spacious, the food was good, but unusually the service was incoherent, a couple of waitresses who didn't know what they were doing. It was understandable given the pressures of lockdown on the hospitality industries, but not quite 4 star. Doubtless things will improve as tourism gets back up on its feet. We gave a little gentle feedback before leaving.
There's nothing to do except walk and look around the Kyle of Tongue, but that's surely enough. We weren't ready to trek the sides of Ben Loyal, so instead we took the simple path up to Castle Varrich. Some say this is the ancient seat of the MacKays, but I find that unlikely unless it is part of a larger complex as yet undiscovered. It looks like the remains of a watchtower to me; its views are grand and the standing stone nearby is suitably mysterious; I can't find any details on it at all.
But this is when one finds oneself on the story road, and on that road there stands a door. If, having poked your head through it, your question is along the lines of But is it real? You can't really think... Surely you don't believe... All I can advise is to close the door and walk on, lest you find yourself frustrated. I may wave my hands a bit and insert words like pareidolia, and that is the nearest I will come to being rational, because today I am not in the business of clarification or indeed, of making any sense at all. What follows is a tale from a land of magic, and out of that, make what you will.
I pointed him out to Russ, who looked suitably surprised at the sight. There, hanging green about a tree, stood a Good Neighbour. He was large and thick and squat and gorilla like, with huge long arms and a very marked scowl indeed. No, of course I didn't take a photo. What a faux-pas that would have been! I was guilty of a slight misdemeanour; I did audibly use the F word. Uh-oh! He moved not a whit but we did. And though I will happily laugh and smile over the patterns of trees and bark and all sorts of things, yet I'll tell you this for nowt; I wouldn't have wanted to meet this vision in the dark.
On we walked, not looking back for he didn't seem like the kind of character who travels far from home, and thus the door closed. I have encountered far more bizarre than this, but we take the stories that find us. Wanderers will see strange things and the more one walks the more it is bound to happen; you never know, on a curious day you might meet a woman of the roads who will tell you tales unaccountable and possibly pointless. She may claim kin to lost folk, but you can tell by the look of her, she has kin everywhere, or possibly nowhere. Though she is of many places and travels far, yet you are most likely to find her on Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, along the story road. On that road, you may see a door standing there. Walk around it and it seems perfectly normal, just a door. It is only when you go through it that everything changes.
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no subject
Date: 2022-06-27 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-28 03:12 pm (UTC)You are also too kind about the photo. Yes it's my face, but I don't really look like that...the angle, cropping, black and white etc all struck me as the closest I had to appropriately goblinoid!
no subject
Date: 2022-06-28 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-01 06:00 am (UTC)