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t only this time it was part of the lunch i cheerfully could give up all desserts but sticky toffee pudding it is something you must try one day we spent the afternoon driving to the culloden battlefield and then to the clava cairns standing stones over 5 000 years old culloden was the site of the 1746 jacobite uprising which ended badly for the scottish it is a great field with high grass and you can feel the solemnity there it s quiet and i do want to say there s a holiness there but actually it s just a big grass field had it been a bit drier i might have gone wandering in the grass but i chose to go to the café instead i found a pepsi max they were out of coke zero and i made do because i believe drinking it will shave off a few years from purgatory for me and looked around the café to find a place to sit this time anne invited me to join her and we both talked about having been to culloden before and what we thought about the tour etc anne who will turn 60 in july had been really kind to me throughout the tour constantly checking up on me because i moved more slowly than the rest of them she was very afraid she might have overstepped her boundaries but actually it was quite nice i felt cared for and seen i even gave her my phone number and email in case she wanted to get together while i was in town so far i haven t heard from her but she might contact me yet clava cairns the bus tour guide rounded us up afterward and we went to the clava cairns which i ve also seen multiple times they re interesting but they are just stone mounds off the road anne told me she loves them and i tried to look at them through her eyes but i think by then i was really too tired to appreciate seeing the stones anew still i took a few pictures then wandered off to find a tree stump to sit on for a few moments we drove to our accommodation in nairn i stayed at the glen lyon b b which was charming and my room was teeny but the bed was soft and comfortable and i went to sleep early clava cairns standing rock cardhu distillery stills the last day of our tour we stopped at cardhu distillery i had also visited there before when i took rabbie s speyside whisky tour but it was nice to see the mash tuns and copper stills again this was especially nice because cardhu was in their summer break so the still room wasn t hot as hell i love the smell of malted barley and whisky it smells of honey and earth you can almost eat the air and at the end of the tour we tried a flight of cardhu whiskies and a whisky highball with ginger and johnny walker the cardhu workers were kind enough to deliver the whisky to me instead of my having to go up a windy spiral staircase to get to their tasting room i wasn t feeling very well so it was nice that i could find a comfy seat and have them cater to me after drinking three drams and a highball i was a bit tipsy so it was a good thing we still had to drive to one more place blair castle the seat of the duke of atholl the 11 th duke of atholl john murray lived with his wife in south africa they weren t exactly rich in fact they had been arguing over whether to buy a second hand car or take a 2 week vacation with his wife favoring the vacation but anyway he didn t know he was the heir in fact he was a second cousin once removed from the 10 th duke and when the 10 th duke died with no issue apparently the office of the deeds and titles called murray and said something along the lines of we have great news you re now the next in line to be the duke murray thought it was a prank call and hung up the office called back and said don t hang up but we want you to know you re the new duke after a few choice expletives he hung up on them again desperate to communicate they called back one more time and this time the wife answered they instructed her not to hang up too and then told her that her husband was now the duke and would have access to a castle and lands as far as the eye could see he would have his own private army and he would have 250 000 000 and that s when his wife called her husband over and said listen to this guy and don t hang up the duke of atholl was charismatic and helpful to his community and he gave much of his wealth away he became ill though and spent the last few years in a care home in south africa the 12 th duke of atholl and the murray s other children weren t too happy with the philanthropy but that s my little historical lesson about the atholl dukedom blair castle home of the duke of atholl as for the castle blair is a fairy tale white monstrosity but also a beauty with turrets and little spires the grounds have a deer park as well as trails and flowers including a 9 acre walled garden i went to look for the deer first but they were all crowded at the other side of the paddock under some trees and then after phoning mom to check in i went into the castle the very first room you go is deep dark wood with hundreds of various weapons on the wall because it s the entrance and they don t want people impeding entry you re not allowed to take pictures you have to wait till you go upstairs on the bridge and take photos looking down but it is impressive to see all of the weapons the various dukes collected next you re led into a hall of antlers and you make your way through over 30 rooms the bedrooms are sumptuous with their drapes and duvets and there are so many paintings on the walls the dining hall was a converted great hall and the elegant tableware looks as if it s awaiting a banquet i was very fond of the red drawing room which not only held lovely antiques but there were three women s dress forms wearing the kinds of dresses women of the 18 th century would wear they were film reproductions did i get the names of the films of course not but i think keira knightley wore one of them i enjoyed the trip but it began to feel a little long and repetitive and i was barely acclimated to the time zone shift i can t say i m any more acclimated now it is very hard to go to bed when the sun is still out there was so much to see that in a small way it kind of all runs together but i appreciated seeing new to me castles and gardens and seeing a few new places in scotland than i have before i know this was a long post thanks so much if you ve read this far stay tuned i ll be writing about the isle of skye next castle fraser dining room castle fraser dining room chandelier renaissance style dress blair castle dining room with wedding dress in the background a fancy ceiling at fyvie castle regency pelisse regency dress castle fraser gentleman s smoking room castle fraser library 18th century dress a thirsty baby moo another 18th century dress castle fraser bedroom with crib castle fraser morning room castle fraser governess suite castle fraser nursery a quiet little nook in the walled gardens at crathes castle an image of the green lady but the camera was doing something funky with the colors thunderton house our wonderful tour guide at fyvie castle the dining room at fyvie i think my tour friend ann is at the right of the photo more topiaries at crathes castle this might be a large poppy at crathes castle this obstreperous guy kept stealing the bread from the crows on the streets of st andrews 18th century men s fighting tartan uniform atholl nursery blair castle p s my pictures got scrambled when i uploaded them so i m a little uncertain about the provenance of some of the photos i might be telling you the wrong castle sometimes that s ok it just means you have to come over to scotland and find out for yourself p s 2 i actually have more photos from this trip but i can t seem to access them on the computer just the camera wha i ll try posting them another time although they kind of are more of the same share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest like loading posted in travel tagged blair castle cardhu distillery castle fraser clava cairns crathes castle culloden battlefield dunnotter castle falkland palace fyvie castle scotland st andrews leave a reply little house in the highlands posted on may 8 2026 by jc reilly reply it s the first week of may which means the spring semester is kaput i am always glad when i come to the end of the semester even though it means saying goodbye to my students after 16 weeks i am ready for a new challenge and ready to see new faces i will be teaching again in scotland this summer and we are reading four books of memoir and nonfiction helen ochyra s scotland beyond the bagpipes madeleine bunting s love of country deborah orr s motherwell a girlhood and jackie kay s red dust road which is a perennial favorite of mine i debated about teaching kathleen jamie s findings again which is really wonderful book and i ve taught it all past times i ve been to scotland and i think the students like it but i thought 5 books would be too much for 7 weeks and i wanted to have them read some new stuff which is to say i wanted to read new stuff too so we will see how the readings go and who knows i might slip a jamie essay in at some point scotland has become like a second home for me i feel so much myself there i wish that i could write a book of scotland poems but it surprisingly doesn t inspire poetry in me or it hasn t yet is it because i mostly stay in the city and i don t find cities that poetic maybe but edinburgh is so intriguing what with the old town and the new town and all the people constantly in transit you see them walking along the streets towing their suitcases as well as the locals who appear weary loaded down with grocery bags and bookbags and bouquets of flowers or bike wheels there are lots of things to catch the eye for certain but i think i might feel more like writing poetry if i could have blocks of time in nature to write instead of painting in plein air i could poem in plein air and that might be the inspiration i need i need to find a space in the greenery and see what happens i need to find some heilan coos just not be downwind of them mostly i just need time and of course there will be a lot going on this summer but there s always a lot going on sometimes i daydream about finding a cottage somewhere in the highlands that could be my home away from home maybe a croft that would be big enough for me to be able to hunker down for a month or so at a time so i could write and be i think i would love that in the mornings i could go on a ramble and then i could come home and write and eat lunch and take a little snooze in the afternoon and write some more that is the dream unfortunately that is not financially feasible i also looked into finding a little cottage in young harris ga but alas that didn t work out either apparently two room log cabins are not a thing i wonder what the allure of having a little writing house is i wonder if it s the idea that you re not in your everyday milieu and that somehow being alone in a cottage means that good writing would come because you ve eschewed the outside world or is that just a myth i mean don t you take your baggage with you no matter where you go and if you re struggling to write at your real home doesn t that suggest that you d struggle anywhere and yet i d like to be blessed with the opportunity to find out that reality for myself my financial manager asked me what did i envision for myself that if money were no object what would i want and i thought about it and then declared my desire for a little writing cottage and she said oh i m hearing early retirement sadly i don t believe early retirement is on my schedule either this makes me think about a person on our faculty who is retiring after this semester she has been on the faculty since 1981 she s given 45 years to this school and while i would not want to do the same 45 years in the same place i kind of worry that that s my future i feel like i ll work until i m dead and that would be fine if i were doing actual book writing and not the penny ante shit that makes up the bulk of my life don t get me wrong i am beyond grateful to have a job but i do think it s the dream of every writer to hole up and focus only on writing of course most writers have day jobs these days and that s nothing new think wallace stevens selling insurance of wm carlos wms being a doctor we can t all be steven kings or barbara kingsolvers who actually make a living at writing of course i also wonder if i really have the temperament to be a dedicated writer who deserves a writing cottage i think of poets like ted kooser who gets up at 4 a m every morning writes for 4 hours then eats breakfast and he s already put in half a day and then like stevens he worked in insurance in his younger life i am comatose at 4 a m hell i m barely awake when i roll out of bed at 6 my point is if i had the writing cottage could i genuinely say that i would have the writing stamina to maintain a consistent practice i wonder i ve tried writing every day it s what i tell my students to do but i m not very good at it i ve said it before and i m sure i ll say it again but the only way to build a writing practice is to write every day and not wait for the muse to strike haphazardly but to actively go out and court that bitch and make her show up for you i do think she might be more willing to show up though if i had a cute little cottage somewhere in the highlands i could offer her some tea and cakes and she could keep me company as i knocked out poetry book after poetry book share this email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on x opens in new window x share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest like loading posted in thinking out loud wednesday post on a day that s not wednesday writing tagged the muse books hopes and dreams scotland writing writing cottage leave a reply missing dad posted on december 26 2025 by jc reilly 2 it s the end of the year which means it s time to ruminate i was thinking about well a number of things but especially what it s like to lose a parent especially one for whom your past together was complicated now that dad has been gone a whole month i m beginning to feel sad about it when he first passed i think i was so relieved for him that he was that off those machines and out of pain and not in a drug induced haze anymore that i didn t really feel the loss personally but now it being the first christmas without him i m super melancholy there are traditions you have at christmas time even when you re not close dad always sent us swarovski crystal stars for instance and usually a sentimental christmas card we d talk on the phone and he d tell me what his wife made for dinner or he d tell me how they went out to see some dumb movie he disliked and he d give me the report on all the animals t...
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