Scotland
THURSDAY, 5/20: 7:28: Car calls at 6:26: downstairs in 3 minutes. I pack and REPACK, still 33#. Car comes at 6:31. Atlantic Avenue and Conduit to JFK at 7:05, quick check into TWO aisle seats (one "because I can handle emergency exit"---hope it has a WINDOW) and LONG walk to gate 7 at 7:26, WITH two carryons ("Checking?" "No."). Should board in AN hour. Start boarding 8:15. Board 8:30. Pee. 8:40 someone shouts "One more." At 8:50 we move. Change watch to 1:50AM!
FRIDAY, 5/21: Off at 2:03, 4:40 flight. GREAT Coney Island and Long Island and Long Island Sound. Try Actualism, but at 2:50 take 2mg Rohypnol and glass of wine. Jupiter (?) sets at 5:05AM, 3 hours into flight. Moon sets at 5:20AM. Sky lighter and it's rose in the north. Movie was "Simon Birch" then "Waterboy." 5:35: NOT Greenland, just odd clouds; Greenland TWO hours from Iceland, so just before Jupiter set--Earth dark. Sunrise 5:46AM! To LEFT of plane, about 11 o'clock. Waves were calm and visible, but "dawn bumps" and sun make CLOUDS. We're at 33,000 feet, HIGH clouds (about 20,000 feet?) lit at 6AM. 6:15: landing in 25 minutes. temperature 3°C = 39°F in Reykjavik. Total clouds 6:20-6:36, snow! Flat and featureless landing at 6:40AM. Snowed yesterday. #0 6:50AM Snow mountain from airport. #1 6:56AM: Keflavik Airport. But board says "Gate 4," which is back where I'd COME from (Gate 1). But clock says 6:07, and I set watch back. Get information on 2, 3, and 4-day stays in Iceland on my way BACK from Glasgow: 6/10 seats available. Check in at Glasgow Airport as WELL as hotel! Trip's coming together! Now 6:40, less than hour to Glasgow flight. Back to Gate 4. Drink lots of fluids. Feel pretty good, SLIGHTLY woozy. Bags heavy. FEW seats; lots on floor (some lying down). Check in GLASGOW to stay 3-4 days in Iceland on way back. Seats ARE available. 1:45 flight! Move 7:43, off 7:50, into clouds to (#2 Keflavik) 8AM, solid clouds below. 54° in Glasgow, good breakfast 8:30-8:50, ask re St. Kilda. Very white-cappy water and GREAT clouds (#3 clouds, #4 Outer hebrides) 9:10, landing in half-hour. 52°F in Glasgow, 9:20, clock to 10:20. Clouds. Land 10:40. Through #8 pix of Glasgow. To Servisair and it will COST me to stay in Iceland on return. To Information for MORE places on Renfrew CLOSER to Buchanan Bus Station. Leave train 11:30 (75, for change to Iceland!) and bus (3,) leaves 11:35. To town at 12:40, walk Renfrew in COLD to Willow, charging two nights for 50, to 12:30. Charge battery, lay tired til 1:30, unpack to 1:50, and out to Information to check 1) Freedom of Scotland details, 2) St. Kilda for Oban numbers, 3) tickets, 4) map. It HAILS at 1:58! Army's LEFT St. Kilda. #9 City Chambers and MOON, #10 Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Arts. Reserve for One Devonshire Gardens for Sunday 1PM lunch, but don't go. To George Square Information for lots, out in rain, through Buchanan Gallery; at 4 phone for NO St. Kilda space, dine BACK at George's Counting House. To room to record at 4:20. Guy said no Galway ticket and I went to the Royal Concert Hall and GOT one! Make Ubiquitous Chip reservation for 5:30PM, by taxi, venison haggis (NO stomach) with liver, heart, kidney, and "mutton to make it less gamy," and "neeps" (sweet and white potatoes). GET menus---44, total. Tea and water (needed) and sugar and milk and two custard-strawberry puffs and GREAT tiny brownie with chocolate spritz. Leave 7:20 and walk across Ashton Lane south to University Avenue, green-wooded Kelvin Walk (nightingale?) to (AHA!) Sauchihall (Saki-Hall) Street and home TIRED at 8PM. Sit and write this and throw stuff on floor. My BACK went out yesterday and is still poor! Still BRIGHT out at 8:30, sun NOT YET SET. TV to 8:55, eyes closing. Sun SEEMS set and bed.
SATURDAY, 5/22: Wake 1:15AM, aftertaste in throat, and pee. STREET lights outside. Up at 4:15 to shit. Start Actualism 5:15: 1) Look for MORE CENTRAL room, 2) GET "Aida" matinee ticket? 3) Call MORE St. Kilda tries, or do it MYSELF, 4) Wash "sore" right-side of right eye, 5) Tear off small flesh-tab from left thumb-near nail-base. Sun's up---ALMOST cloudless! Up at 7:05, 10 hrs!! Dream of climbing rock-steps 1) past a hole with a nest of bees, birds are mating, 2) breaking off a dead branch that pins two scrawny rabbits to ground, and ONE picks other UP in arms to carry reproachfully away! Decide to 1) Buy pass and 2) take bus tour. Sort things into BAGS and dress and out to breakfast at 8:10AM, ready for day! Dining room quite stiff: juice, scrambled eggs and sausage and bacon and toast and no hot chocolate, only tea. Out 8:40, wait OUT rain (#11 Buchanan St.) to Information at 9:05, get VOUCHER book, 1.5, off for city tour, 3.5, for tour, and 54, for Heritage Pass. Onto bus in SUN (some buildings grow MOSS) at 9:30. 10AM #12 Gallery of Modern Art---built as private house in 1792. (#13 Queen Elizabeth 2 in Gallery of Modern Art entrance). Stop at 10:03 and start again 10:18, changing camera batteries, OLD ones NO good! (#14 Hunterian Museum: bee's nest left, 22-foot termite height-record at 800 termites high; Petronas Towers at 1476 feet only 246 humans high. To #17 in Hunterian. To 12:30. #19 and 20: Glasgow Art Museum at 12:35. To 2:30, HUGE! Museum of Transit (boats, bikes, motorcycles, trains, and disasters (Lockerbie) and football to 3:30. Bus at 3:40: Late! Pass up near-hotel Tenement Museum and get off at Counting House---order at BAR when you HAVE a table! Hungry at 4:15 with a pint of dark and fish and chips. Barman "6, and 5p." So I give a 20, note and 5p, then give him 1, coin. Barman "You don't need to." Me "I've got too many already," and he STARES as he subtracts one laboriously from 16 and gives me a 10, and a 5, note. Poor apple and "blackberry" pie for 2.2,, out at 5:15 to walk Argyle St. and river looks forbidding and it starts raining so I sit in St. Enoch Center arcade-mall, shop BookWorld (junk), and watch The Nut Co lock up shop til 6:35 (#28 Seagull on top left Travel Centre). Come out at END of street the hall is on, and it's RAINING again so I walk up and HALL is open with at LEAST three foyers of art: photos of conductors and ships, paintings and sketches and watercolors that (with a pee; ALL areas have DOUBLE and TRIPLE doors!) last til hall opens at 7:15 and I sit at 11 o'clock on "usual" view of stalls. MANY men MORE casual than I. Starts at 7:37 and he gives NICE talk, first piece to 8, second to 8:24, not THAT great, ends 9:46. Back to the Willow at 10PM. Brush teeth and watch "John Carpenter's Village of the Damned" (1995) til 11:50PM!! Bed at 11:55 and to sleep quickly.
SUNDAY, 5/23: Wake at 5AM and pee. Toss, doze, up at 7:50 and find a Sunday tour! 10:30: WHAT a hassle: PHONE Cameron tours to Loch Lomond and get a machine. Breakfast to 8:40 and to Information at 9: it's not open til 10! Across to Copthorne Hotel and porter tries and tries: 1) STILL Cameron message, 2) Luxury 35, tours sold out thru Thursday, 3) No address for Cameron, 4) Other tour starts only on 5/31! Across to Information to worker who says they DO stop here! Wait til 10 and Cameron left message: he's AWAY on tour Friday-Saturday-Sunday! THEN guy comes up with TRAIN tour to Brodick on Arran Island for 16,. I left Freedom of Scotland Pass in hotel. Taking ferry is 12.25,, so I PAY and my British Heritage Pass WILL let me into castle and rhododendron gardens. I just pay for BUS. Write to 10:37, tired already! GREAT Central Station under omnipresent glass ceiling. Food-junk left on many seats, and 20p to piss, so I hope they get a pisser on 11:15 train. Piss at 11 on board first three cars, Gate 11, HEATED. Sloppy streets and floors and station is PROMPTLY cleaned. Leaves at 11:15, arrives in rain at ferry at 12, lots of brochures, ferry leaves at 12:30. 1, listening-wand, 1:25 arrive. Onto bus 324 at 1:35 for 90p. Rhododendron COLORS: red, white, yellow. 4:37: seal on rocks. 4:45: THEN it dawns on me: SOUTH island schedule goes ALL the way around! Sheep and lambs and goats and---antelope? Must have been horses. 6:15 Roll 2: #4 Plodda light and ?? isle. INCREDIBLE Brodick rhododendrons, garden, CASTLE, paintings (Teniers, Clouet!, Gainsborough, Watteau, Veronese) and FURNITURE and PEACH rhododendrons! #7 7:20 Brodick Castle from ferry. 6.6, for mediocre steak pie and awful peas and carrots and fries and yogurt and "Cadbury" hot chocolate. Kids running and girls necking. Most important paintings and drawings IN 2.95, book. 3, for bus "day pass" around island. WHY did those I questioned seem to think I might NOT make it around? Trip magical til a young smoker comes on, smelling up the place, and protesting "It's OOT," showing the stub. Dim sloppy evening, Ardrossan at 8:15, Glasgow at 9:15, to hotel and shit and look at schedule and put HEAT on and SHOWER 10-10:30, GREAT! 1983: Burt Lancaster, Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Chris Sarandan, Craig T. Nelson in an AWFUL Sam Peckinpah film "The Osterman Weekend," Peckinpah's final "confusing" film. to 11:45.
MONDAY, 5/24: 5AM pee. Dream of touring "barrack-type" home of an architect who puts his trash out for taking, with lots of index-card boxtops. Make bad joke to old woman with a kid "Oh, the train LEFT already." Up at 7:35 to worry about 1) train schedule dated May 30 on, 2) Icelandair change, 3) 4th St. Kilda number, 4) Ullapool meal. Repack. To breakfast at 8, kitchen in chaos. Depressed feelings this morning: all this PLANNING and UNCERTAINTY and questions. Only on 5th day! 8:40 back from breakfast. Shit. My right EYE didn't hurt yesterday at ALL and my back is MUCH less troublesome. Now to quiet my MIND. Pack to 9. Try phoning Oban, maybe GO there? Change Icelandair for 75,---LAST time THROUGH Iceland! Watch TV, wash face [first British Pass: Brodick 5,]. Phone Scotrail---IS 11:55 next. TV again to 10:45. Banging in hall, decide to walk to station in sun and warmest air yet. VAGUEST tough walking, but to Information, get my ticket validated---just take it ON! To Inverness 3:15 and only north at 5:15. What to do? Queen St. messier and more crowded than Central. 11:30 raining like mad. Board 11:35 and 3/4 seats are RESERVED in the two cars. Take LAST LEFT seat. BRAT KID CONSTANTLY SCREAMS!!! RABBITS and fields, and lots of gulls. At Perth an old backpacker gets on with a barking DOG! A wild pheasant outside! Seats about 90% full, nowhere to move. One john FULL of paper, with LINE for second. #6 snow on Grampion Mts, just before Drumachardor (?) Pass, highest in Scotland (?). #7 Lock Ericht just before Dalwhinnie, and brat mercifully gets off there, at 2:25 (18 minutes LATE? and we SPED?)---as does dog! Sunny! Late into Inverness at 3:34. Ask for restaurant: Johnny Fox! Check bag for 2, and out to BRIGHT river---no MEALS. They say "Gunsmiths." To Church St. and second right: not there. Ask at Church St. and he says two blocks down. Not THERE. Ask in butcher's: one block over---on Union, the regular main street from station! Noisy, but downstairs OK, and order lentil soup, scampi. Lentil is great: a peppery vegetable-mulligatawny-lentil and a GOOD hot roll and butter, and scampi and potatoes to waiter's "Never asked for THIS before" and McHugh's 80/ [shilling] draft beer---from Ubiquitous Chip sauce? Scampi mediocre but four buttered thin-skin potatoes good and salad has SPROUTS. 7.93 and 65p tip and back to tell "accommodations" who GUESSES Gunsmiths from my description and says "TRY reservations (for train, just in case it's crowded)." Reservations must be TWO hours ahead, but "no problem" and at 5:02 the FIRST carriage is about 60% reserved but SECOND only about 25% full and NO reserves. Wouldn't you know? A girl (aged fearsome 4, not terrible 2, like the brat) sits TWO seats in front! Hm: notice that seat ONE on last train was at END, but here HIGH numbers at end. We'll go out and TURN?? But "second" (my) coach IS "coach B." Card-withdraw SECOND 50,. THIS MONEY is Clydesdale Bank! First was Bank of Scotland. 4-5 rainbow shots. #12 yellow omnipresent, BRILLIANT sun and clouds. AWFUL giggly girls with a guy and an AWFUL fag fatty tries to pick up his acned 15-year-old seat-partner. Gigglers get off at 6:43 in Invershin, just as I cased out MOVING my seat. "Share a room, or sum'thin" comes from fat fag to fifteen. Now SQUEAKS come from service cart, and it's rainy and dark. #13 Golspie 7:17PM. Four antlered BUCK on river! Then a herd of HUNDREDS!! Just before Kildonion, on east side of track! See on return trip after Kildonian. Then 5-6 more, and one (last?) seated female. Georgemas Junction 6 minutes early. Wait five minutes for only john JUST before Thurso. It's RAINING! Into construction shed and there IS no station! It stops raining soon and I pass Lover's Lane to right and set out down what appears to be a main street. The Station Hotel is first: into hall, look around, into bar, "Is there an office?" It's outside main door, lower half of dutch-door labeled "reception." "Sorry, we're full: a tour (bus parked in front)." "B&B?" ""Janet Street, two blocks down." Walk to FIRST block and see "B&B" for "Damalka"---they're full, but she'll call Ann, who has room, and husband drives me and refuses "a pound or two?" They know NOTHING of ferry, but one may be at 6AM and other at noon; bus to Scrabster leaves "around corner from lights." She leads me up to room, gives keys (same cap for main door), and says "Outside door locked at midnight, and you have no key for it, Cinderella!" I laugh. She recommends Pentland Hotel. I take scarf and umbrella after seeing that Caledonian-MacBrayne "Islands" schedule DON'T include Orkneys and Shetlands, for which I have NO schedule. Cross river at 9:30 and see that Information has NOTHING in window for me and opens at 10AM. Starts raining! Around "lights" corner and there's NOTHING! To Pentland Hotel and hostess tries to find a P&O brochure, is SURE it leaves at 12, says TAXI to Scrabster is only a few miles, and there MAY be a bus, but check Information first! NO meals, only sandwiches and a young Ron Howard shows me menu and I select "salmon and mayo" for 1.60, and "special hot chocolate fudge cake" is 2.50! and pint of Foster's stout is 1.60, a total of 5.70 so I tip him 50p and eat 3/4 sandwich when cake, HOT and GOOD, with CREAM, appears, so I eat that, drink, and have 1/4 salmon for dessert. TALL SEXY guy sits directly and solidly on his PROSTATE on small square stool! He MUST be a kick. Leave at 10:15, sky clears, no rain, little traffic, and porch light comes on AUTOMATICALLY and I piss and get to room at 10:45 and shut drapes and write this to 11:03, hoping to sleep to 7, at LEAST there ARE trees and "broom" even up HERE! Pee in sink, bed 11:15 ALMOST dark in room.
TUESDAY, 5/25: Wake at 5, light. Pee. Doze. Actualism 7-8. Shower in LOVELY bathroom: maroon fixtures, mirrors, wooden grate and heat in water and shower stall. PERFECT fried (microwave?) eggs and 3 rashers and juice and Weetabix and SIX pieces of toast. Quiet couple from Germany and saucy sparrows. REALLY FULL by 9:05. 9:45 brushed teeth, repacked, WAS sunny now clouded and threatening. Euphorbia; Fire-glow, triangular orange-red and poisonous-sap; Aqualegia. Granny's bonnet with pink "spurs" and yellow centers. Solomon's Seal: white bells; Bergina; elepant's ears, purple flowers at BASE; the blue are bluebells; gorse is the yellow, which is longer-lived than broom; dutchman's britches LIKE bleeding hearts; gram, bright orange: Mrs. Bradshaw, white bachelor's buttons; London Dream: succulent. #14 and 15 10:30 To and from Ulbster Villa. "Clearance Monument" in Arran refers to "highland clearance" in 18th and 19th centuries when clan estates cleared off people and burned homes for raising SHEEP! 11:40 #16 Thurso from Scrabster Ferry. #17 Ferry nose-up and lighthouse and HOY (with WHITE SURF!). Woman says they came EAST of Hoy on the way over, and MAY miss Old Man of Hoy going BACK. Girl who remarked about the trouble that the bus-driver from Glasgow Airport gave me chats me back up. SEAL head appears and vanishes. My battery's GOING! Sail at 12:10, clearly to WEST of Hoy, which is not the NEAR island but the FAR one. Sea is VERY rough and I feel AWFUL, battery runs OUT and I find purser who'll accept my double-prong plug, but searching my bag in close bag-closet REALLY makes me sick! Sit at window in SWEAT for 3/4 hour to 1PM, when Old Man heaves into view and I get RECHARGED battery and film and click OK, thankfully. Into channel it calms, and land in Stromness at 2:10PM. Information is VERY helpful: two nights at 17, at Venus Hourston's, BACK for Kirkwall's Thursday night reservation, PLANE for 78, to Shetland Friday-Monday! AND PM tour tomorrow and standby for tomorrow morning's tour. I'm feeling VERY odd! Out at 2:45 and Hourston's is RIGHT near the dock: VERY chintz-covered and PERKY, and "fill out breakfast card by 6PM" and puts up dark DRAPE for sleeping. I FALL into bed at 3, cold, and maybe even DOZE, breathing heavy, deciding I need to EAT, and up at 4, feeling better (but not great) and out at 4:15 (Eye-on-Britain guide has NO Orkney information) and to dock to see "coffee shop" and enter at 4:20 to SIT, but GROUP comes in and orders at COUNTER, so I jump up and order 3.75 vegetable cobbler and 1.85 Dark Island beer and GRAB my bag from chair at table the group TAKES, and sit and write this as cleark TAKES orders from next table, and a girl looks at me blankly as I SHUT door she left open behind me, and at 4:46 I'm STILL not served (this place CAN'T close at 5!) and HUNGRY! #29 Victoria Street, Stromness. 5:40PM Get beer by ASKING for it ("Sorry!") and vegetables are TOPPED with dough puffs, like raw cauliflower. Out at 5:05 and make Kirkwall reservation to 5:25 and set off on walk, and it starts RAINING at 5:40 as same TRIO (two gabby women and totally silent guy) passes and chats! 8:25PM sign on diving boat: "Remember when diving was dangerous and sex was safe?" Rains TWICE on shore, me protected by walls facing against wind. Nice waves, a seal, cruising birds, and pass Oakleigh Restaurant at 8:05 and say I'll dine at 8:45. Walk docks---boat from Fort Worth! Return at 8:35, have not so good vegetable broth, but Guiness Steak Pie is good with HIS chips and have "Bob's Dessert" of 6 sorbets (mint, kiwi-lime, grapefruit, orange-lime, apple-something, one more) and eight ice creams (avocado-almond, rum raisin, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, coffee, two more). They charge 11.80 and I leave 2.20 for 14, meal and say I'll be back tomorrow! Out at 9:55 and back COLD! Put on floor heater which works AT LAST and electric pad, which does not. Finish this, stuffed but tired, at 10:20, bed and sleep quickly.
WEDNESDAY, 5/26: wake 1:22AM! Pee, up at 5:10. Doze. 7:05 intercom buzz. Forgot PILLS last night! June 15, 1998 National Geographic for tomb, written by Ohioan! She's very decorative: fur wrap around wastebaskets, false flowers everywhere, with stuffed animals and plastic fruit and photos by "W. Hourston." Bread squares around awful potato waffle and too-soft (phony?) scrambled eggs decorated with two sprigs of green (chive?) stem and 2 triangles of tomato and LOTS of bread! And second glass of orange juice. Out at 8:10 and shit and sort things and to Information at 8:45 to find NO cancellations for morning tour. Taken to Kirkwall by 9:35 and all 15 places taken, but he'll pick me up at 1PM "or so" to return me to Stromness. I check Information for OTHER tours, phone-machine again and say to a cab "How much to "Tomb of the Eagles"?" "25," "OK." "No rush," about 10AM. Talky: Barriers replaced ferries, good to get out of town. Frost September to April, later spring, day brighter and clearer. To Stone Age house for HANDLING beads and stone tomb by daughter of finder, who scooters ahead of cab to house with "Three hours to fill oven, 3 hours to heat stones, 3 hours to boil water, 3 hours to cook twenty pounds of mutton." Cute quirky talk, more tools and refuse heap and water source and "cat flap." Then he points to walk to Tomb, LONG bare walk to top of cliff and turn left, but sidetracks at paths below. 2, book (and 1, entrance) shows what I'm looking for, and I FIND it, crawl in, video, and GAL finds lights and skulls! Out and back to taxi as BUS pulls up---what a CROWD to get in and out! Back to cheery driver and ride back with "wreck" photo and in at 12:05, giving 25+2=27, and he REALLY THANKS me! TOUR was 12, this PM's tour 9,. Sit in BRIGHT sun in front of busy street in front of cathedral, write to 12:30. Schedule: Kirkwall to Burwick to John O'Groats in MAY: 9AM and 5:45PM. St. Magnus Cathedral to 12:55, look at Watergate (can get UP it!) and wait for bus 1:05-1:17, and quick ride back to 1:50, but Royal Hotel CLOSED to lunch at 1:45PM, so I end up on BALCONY at Stromness Hotel, good scampi salad and warm mushrooms and pint of McGregor's. Read: Orkneys are 67 islands, 13 inhabited, 20,000 people. Maes Howe took 100,000 man-hours to build, to 4PM. Stennis Stones from 3050BC WERE only 11 (not 12) and five left, and ditch around took 12,500 hours to dig, 5000 man-days to build. Shaped by nature 360 million years ago. Elliptical circle. "Original" dolman (center) put up in 18th Century. Brodgar, from 2550 BC, 67 original, 27 left standing, diameter 341 feet, 80,000 man hours. Long line of 6 1/2-14 1/2, 1+1. Leave Maes Howe 4PM, Brodger 5PM, and Scara Brae 6:15PM, too late to do HOUSE. To Stromness 6:25. I shit and two mirrors fall off wall. SO TIRED 6:40PM. Lie down til 7:20, watch TV, out at 8:10 to Oakleigh, disappointing. Melon and grape starter (honeydew!), chicken-mushroom stroganoff on rice, profiterolles with WHIPPED cream and too little butterscotch. Home at 10, shower, bed at 11. Then look in mirror: broke blood vessel in left eye on right HALF of WHITE! AWFUL!! And THROAT is suddenly sore!
THURSDAY, 5/27: Wake at 2 and pee. Wake at 5:10 and doze and think. Check watch at 6:20 and 6:50. Pee. Tired! Fearful! Health is SO fragile (eye-pink, tooth ache from fudge-sugar, sore throat (not MORE this morning), arthritis (hard putting on NEW socks). WHEN to Kirkwall? What to see? Pick up plane tickets? Count days---this is 8th, past 1/4. Count breakfast rooms: Saturday, Sunday, Monday in Glasgow; Tuesday in Thurso; Wednesday and Thursday in Stromness; Friday in Kirkwall; Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in Shetlands; more than HALF (12) through Scotland (23). Shirt smelly, did REFRESH camcorder battery last night---thank God for SHAVER two-prong outlets. MISSING things: no Scara Brae Museum, no HOUSE there, extra-big PILLOW I'd WANTED found in closet only NOW! Breakfast 7:30 and EACH bacon-and-egg roll has TWO eggs! Find all-day tour next WEEK if not full! So uncertain! To Information at 8: NO ONE booked for Thursday tour! "May be, come at 9." Pack 8:45, no one at Information. Read New Yorker to 9AM. He comes in: "YOU again?!" I ask. "Since he asked SO nicely, I guess I'll DO it!" at 9:20. Lots of war ruins at Yesnaby---CALM! 10:20 to Skail House. 10:45 to Scara Brae Museum, leaving 11:05, some interactive video. To Brough (at low tide!!) at 10:25AM. Reel 4(?) #0: Brough walk 12:15PM, #2 Earl's Palace in Birsay. #3 Eynhallow, Atlantic to LEFT of ripple, North Sea to RIGHT. #5: 12:50: What the "Peephole" represented. Broch of Gurness (one of FIFTY-THREE) 1:05PM "Quern stone" (grinder, not john). Drops Tina off in Stennis at 1:40 and me at Delora at 2, OVER 4 1/2 hours and asks 25,! I say "I don't tip," and he says "30,." INCREDIBLE! John Grieve in Westray, so no tour. I look at map for tiny lunch and tour stops, lunch at 2:25, HUNGRY. Get lost, ask directions of car-driver, twice, and pass Ridgeway's Travel: "Where can I eat?" "Albert Hotel," but they only serve til 2, and sign says "Trenabies," where I get a ham and curried chicken mayonnaise toasted sandwich for 1.40 (double fill) and a large orange squash for 45p, total 1.85, CROWDED place with SMOKING in back and she'll BRING me my sandwich when it's "toashted," now at 2:55PM. They only ice cream on top! (Huh?) To 3:10, back to Ridgeway's, no information. To Information. 4:10 #18 Earl's Palace Great Hall and fireplace. Leave Palace at 4:40 and of COURSE the Museum closes at 5! Out and see Queen's Hotel Dining Room and look back to huge Kirkwall Hotel. To room and schedule breakfast at 8:30 (latest) and taxi BOOKED for 10:15AM, and LAY DOWN at 5:20. 5:45 almost sleep. No good. Down to TV lounge and watch two "Simpsons" and "Quantum Leap" to 7:30. Try Queen Hotel and it's full. Next door to Kirkwall Hotel and the BAR is full, but "Could I have dinner?" gets "In the restaurant?" with a smile and I say Yes and choose cream vegetable soup for 1.50 and Yesnaby chicken for 7.95 and 1/2 bottle of Piesporter for 4.50. And FINALLY at 8:03, someone ELSE comes in. ALL food is served REALLY HOT. Others look and leave. Sweet old Leeds couple for Esperanto Convention chat with me, and cheesecake is hugely filling, using Visa to "check rates" here. 16.20 and 1.60 tip. Back at 9:45, watch TV to 10:50. Bed.
FRIDAY, 5/28: Up at 4:50 to pee. Up at 5:30, then 6:30. 7AM shit. 8AM shower after SHE shows me power switch on OUTSIDE wall. HUGE breakfast (#29 and 30) by "Lady of Normandie" and repack pills by 9:25AM---RAINING and cloudy, but CALM for flight? Pack to 9:50. On a hunch, have her call airport; it takes THREE calls: "Call in an hour; plane is in Glasgow, held by FOG in Inverness!" Go to TV 10:05: "Black Holes." 10:50: Flight only TOMORROW! OK---today is a "rainy day." Read "Life in the Orkney Islands" and "Shoal and Sheaf" which states: Old Man of Hoy...450'...St John's Head, highest sheer cliff in Britain...1140 feet." So NOT St. Kilda! That BIRSEY ruin is a SECOND Earl's Palace. Some landowners BROKE tenant's quernstones to FORCE them to pay to use the laird's mill! Stromness: "Ness projecting into the rapid stream." WAS Hamnavoi, Norse for "Haven Bay." Kirkwall, from Norse "Church Bay." 12:30: move to Room 3; TV news. 74 CAPTURED German warships SCUTTLED 6/21/19. In 20s and 30s over 30 were re-floated and taken to scrap. Still there (for diving) are three battleships, 4 cruisers. 1:20PM: "Images in Time" Volumes 1 and 2. 2:15 "New Zealand, North and South Islands." TV to 3:10. To Trenebies for soup, pork roll, lime milkshake for 2.95. To museum 3:50, out at 4:55! Home in PELTING rain, having RESERVED at Queen Hotel (LONG list) for 8:30. Back to TV at 5:15 to dry out. Sexy shorts comes in, biking to Norway, junk on TV. Partner comes in and leaves. I leave 7:35, bored. No SINK in Room 3! Read New Yorker to 8:10, shit. To Queen's Hotel, stilton in walnuts on grapes, celery and salad, pork medallions in creme fraiche with chips, carrots, and broccoli, with roasted red onions and "Danish dough with pecans and pudding, warm" for 18.05+1.95=20, even. Cute husband with another guy with BROAD shoulders, and out at 9:45 in DRIVING rain and back at 10 to pee and read and warm up. Brush teeth and go to bed at 11:15, tired from doing nothing. Pink eye slowly clearing up, throat not sore.
SATURDAY, 5/29: Up at 5:30 to pee; up at 7:15 with dream: Joe Easter and Charles and I are visiting Chicago and we're renting a car. Joe: "I learned how to drive." Me: "But you did BEFORE." Then we're in a room filled with curious rats and they won't CHASE away, so I take my dinner knife and FLICK them away, wondering if I'm getting GERMS from them, and marveling at their TAMENESS. 7:45 up to shit. 8:05 to shower and breakfast 8:30 (He knocked up the two guys) (who partied to 1:30AM) with two GREAT talks of trip to USA for six weeks and about Australia. Up at 9:35, taxi coming at 10:15. Plane GOING! Piss. Pack. Pay 17,. Use Odor-Null on shoes and get told I can buy "fruit" to de-odor shoes. They leave, not signing book. 10AM: Plane is IN air on way from Aberdeen. Taxi at 10:10 and at airport at 10:20 and fare is 4.90! NO tip! Check in big bag, 12 7/8 kg=28 pounds! 36-seat plane, window-seat 10A. OVERHEAD wing! Nine windows, four across. Estimated 20 minutes late. Read Shetland books: Stay DOWN for Jarlshof, MOUSSA overnight and then to Lerwick? 11AM: airport BUSY, plane ARRIVED. Pee, DATE pass 23/5--22/6! Pick up GREAT "Orkney Islands" brochure NOW! EVERY place has "popcorn effect:" the more you SEE, the more you find you HAVEN'T YET seen! About a six-year-old boy is a constant whiner. Board 11:20 for 12 rows THREE across. SEE my bag in luggage. Forty minute flight: no video when "Fasten seat belts" sign on. Two propellers. Start 11:24. #31 out of Kirkwall. 20 in cabin. #32 heads. Shapinsay is the farthest? Off 11:30, ten minutes bits and pieces of flat islands, then clouds. #34 Sanday is next-last island? Lighthouse on "last" island at 11:43. NO boats! 11:45 "starting down," temperature 9°C! #35 11:50 Fair Isle "bird sanctuary, fewer than 100 people" says fellow across aisle. One boat. 11:55 Shetland coast ahead, leaving "Fasten seat belts" NEVER off. White birds (about 50) flying below. Foula dim in west. Land 12:02 at Sumburgh. Some "Berra" boat sunk off-land, but no real pictures. 5:30 bus. 12:35 bus stops AT Jarlshof "Hotel" which would keep bag, and I can tour THAT and get 5:30 bus at the SAME stop. Out at 12:15 to wait for 12:35 bus. Sit on luggage cart 12:20. When I'm IN process, things are fine; it's only BEFORE and between when I FRET and WORRY that things turn sour. 12:35 BIG bus: 50p to Jarlshof, off at 12:40. Bag left---Leask's GOES to Moussa on Monday! SUNDAY sails to NOSS at 10AM and 2PM, for 20,. But booking is 2.50. Shetland VIDEO at 1PM. Vikings called Shetland "Ultima Thule." Sir Walter Scott named this "Jarlshof" in his novel "The Pirate." 1:50 #36 overall view. Reel 5(?) #0: 2PM smithy at Jarlshof and lots of both shots, GOOD guidebook. COLD and starts to rain. In to read to 3:15. Then to Sumburgh Hotel to pee and order lentil and bacon soup for 1.60, a smoked salmon sandwich for 2.60, and Orkney Dark Island beer for 1.80. Finish at 4 as Leask's bus pulls in with FOUR passengers, and I ask if I can come to Lerwick with THEM, and he says OK. I walk around a bit, but it's cold and there's no clear destination. Sit WITH them and they FINISH at 4:20, but only to go to Jarlshof! Pity. I sit, look at postcards, and read maps. Leave at 5:10, down side roads for the birders, and other couple TALKS. Into Lerwick WITH Vista Mar liner. Information closed at 4PM! Across to Leask's: "Go to BOAT 7:45AM and pay maybe 17, at purser's office for full-day tour tomorrow!" NEAR B&B is 30,, and stop at Queen Hotel for 62,! UP ROUGH hill and find Church St. at 6:40. "Vacancies" in window, but fat kid says his sister's out for a TIME. Watch TV, then at 6:55 down to an en-suite for 23,, right on (actually UNDER) street---but wide BLACK shades. Watch TV---Bloopers fun. Then "Edward VIII: Traitor" to 8:30 and to Kveldsro Hotel for rollmops, langoustines, LOCAL AND FABULOUS, and Shetland lamb (poor) and Concha y Toro white and red glasses and trio two tables away speak FAROESE! My banana fritters and vanilla ice cream have NO butterscotch sauce, error on menu. My Manchester/New Zealand waitress suggested tea in the viewing-room! 24.80 in all, great meal. Out at 10:30, bed 10:56.
SUNDAY, 5/30: Wake 1:50. Pee 4:10. Pee 5:45. Up 6:23, shit, shower, to breakfast at 6:50. She comes in promptly (a kid?) and I ask again for french toast. It's good with butter and blackcurrent jam. NO talk of price or "tomorrow." Leave at 7:25 and it's a LONG walk to boat, but get in at 7:45 and buy 16, ticket and board bus at 8AM. #6 8:25 voe(?). Peak on hill #7 8:54 lamb, geese, sheep, waiting for Yell Ferry. #9 9:22 from South Yell. 10AM Stop at "Kaffey" for 30-minute wait for ferry to Unst. UIST in Western Isles CLOSEST (50 miles) to St. Kilda, which DOES have highest cliffs at 1400 feet. Buy three cards: mail to Pope, John and me, and STILL not got them by 7/4! #9 10:23 Ferry from Unst coming into Yell. 10:40 land on Unst. Give my card to tall handsome Belgian who kept LOOKING at me. #12 salmon factory: they're all BORN female, and at maturity 1/2 BECOME male. Video of ponies in Unst. 11:05 #13 Muness Castle: started 1597. #14 11:25 Muness Castle from NorNova where I bought the GENUINE Shetland wool (picked up white and gray samples, too) sweater for 10,. Bargain! #15 BROWN sheep on top of hill---looking NORTH! #16 12:10 Muckle Flugga! NOT to be seen from top! 12:25 video of "the Clapper" and "Yell Stacks" and "The Wee Skerries" on line with Foula (hidden). Video of SKUA flying. 12:50 Norwick SANDS. 1:10 mail cards. 1:20 BaltaSound Hotel (most northerly) lunch of pint of McSomethings and tuna melt for 3.60. End at 1:45 and out. 1:50 #24 BaltaSound Hotel. Sit and sort wool to 2:15 and get (first) into bus. 2:45 onto Yell ferry, to 2:55. 3:15 "What's on in Yell." Let's LEAVE! 3:50 to last ferry. Back on mainland 4:20. #19 4:35 Sullom Voe terminal. #20 Oil refinery, right building covers two football fields---biggest building in Scotland. Then "express" ride back to ship at 5:30 and I ask if he's going toward town. "Where?" "Information office." "OK. My terminal is in the OTHER direction," and he drops me AT Bonavista at 5:40! Now I gotta find a cash machine. They didn't TOUCH my room! Leave 5:50, back at 6PM: first try worked! See end of "Jungle Book" and START of Danson's "Gulliver's Travels" to 7:55. To Kveldsro by 8:05, urged to have table d'hote in BAR with view! Pork and pate terrine, duck breast with 1/2 carafe of red. Home 10:20, people more interesting than food. Watch "Rear Window" to 12:50!
MONDAY, 5/31: Pee 4:40. Shit 6:30. 7:40 up to shower to 7:50, cereal to 8:05 and off to Information for Noss boat at 10 for 20,--dress warm! Get 100, MORE to feel safe and back to THREE people eating, and I'm back up at 8:30. Great oceanographer to 9:15 and pack and pay 42, and brush teeth and watch awful TV. Out at 9:45 and Dunster II pulls up to street at 9:55---BIT rainy and cold---I'm wearing sweater! He gives out oilskins and trip across is WET! Seals, puffins, skuas, guillemots (like PENGUINS but "unrelated"), and gannets. No porpoises. GREAT cliffs and LOTS of pictures and WONDERFUL activities. Back at 1, Information closed! To Leask's: 2:15 bus stops at Annabrae Court, just half a block from Bonavista. Climb to museum to 1:30. Pack and eat two bananas and a shredded wheat and get to shelter at 2 and driver picks me up going IN and we chat. Tour missed "Boat exhibit" in Unst! (Or is he pulling my leg?) Leave terminal at 2:15, pick up few, clouds out, to airport at 3 exactly, seat 9A after CHANGE from 10B, directly into lounge at 3:05 and IMMEDIATELY boarding, writing this at 3:12! For a 3:20 takeoff schedule! "Thirty minute flight, Kirkwall CLEAR at 13°C," 55°F, NO sweater needed! Off at 3:20 exact, #10 and 11, but into CLOUDS at 3:25. Out to SOME small bits of land, but OTHER side (which I SAW) is better. Land at 3:50. Onto taxi to Ridgeway Travel but I don't have the nerve to ask to leave bag. Ask at Information and they show me a "luggage left" spot about three blocks away! To museum at 4:15 and pee and later shit and look at Eric Linklater stuff, his daughter "Head of Drama at Colombia [sic] University in New York." Out at 4:55 and write this to 5, as museum caretaker locks up beside my bench. Lots of people. Eat cookies from Bonavista to 5:10. Long-nosed guy from Oakleigh's in Stromness passes! Interesting their both (Kveldsro and Oakleigh) SECOND meals were disappointing. 5:15 starts to rain! Backpacker couple (she's about 40, he's cute 24) go under tree. I go to SWEET guy in Palace ticket office and talk til 5:30, then get nervous and go out (rain stopped). 5:38 #14 Palace tower---did I GET this before? There was a "day" John O'Groats tour, leaving BEFORE bus, for 31,. 7:40 #14 and #15 John O'Groats point/town. Land at 7:50 and there's NO place: John O'Groats Hotel CLOSED, try shop; Seaview is 16,! COUPLE drive me there: no room! Across to Caber-Felidh (Caber-FAY)---no room. Down street? She's closed. Down ROAD 1-2 miles! I leave bag, saying "dinner" to first DISTANT place, and IT'S full. Help! He DRIVES to "Willows," BACK for bag, BACK to Willows, BACK to Caber-Fee, and REFUSES 5,. Robby! Ham and cheese sandwich, soup, beer, and gloopy fruit crumble for 7.40, tip 60p. Call taxi: Johnny. He HAS fare to Thurso, which is BIGGER than Castleton---NO way to Cape Wrath. He picks ME up for Duncansby Head at 7:30, breakfast at 7. All this above happens about 9:15. I go SIT in back and watch surf on Stroma and sunset and two SEALS! In at 10:15 and shower (put BATTERY in NEXT room when this outlet doesn't work) til 10:50, and get to bed 11:05.
TUESDAY, 6/1: 3:40 pee. Dream of store manager perversely wrapping bananas and a chicken in PAPER bag. 5:40 up and think WELL of trip so far and coming days! Up at 6:20 and dress and pack and research day's trip. Breakfast GOOD 7-7:30, but SHE charges 22, when HE'D said 14, last night! Taxi prompt. To Duncansby 7:50-8:25, sitting through first rain and standing through second sprinkle. Pictures and videos. He takes me to Worth Hill 8:40-8:55, good panorama. SOME sun over sea. He talks of hated "white settlers" (British), "She rooked you, the cunt." Past Mey Castle, owned by 99-year-old Queen Mum, Sandra's aunt the housekeeper. Through tiny Castleton and villages to Thurso at 9:45, and he finds Sinclair's for my bag and charges "10?" "I'm giving no tip, say what you want." "15?" "OK." For over two hours! Walk to Information and buy 20p guide. Try Swann Galleries, but they've only local watercolors and not open til 1PM. Ask for museum and up "lane" and "turn right on Traill." Up FIVE blocks, past Lady Thurso's Garden with bright pink rhododendrons, and ask at church, "Oh, down by lights." Down to church and ask one woman, who asks another woman, and I'm ON it, it's an extension of Princes! "Museum?" "Oh, go through the precinct(!) and before large car park and Woolworth's." Through mall and there's old stone museum--25p for OAP: Old Age Pensioners, and Mrs. (she gave me CARD for a slide of her photo!) Gunn [hunk (ala skater Paul Martini(?)) passes with wife and two kids] poses for me and tells of "No passing on stairs: bad luck" custom and her aunt OWNED Ulbster Villa! Good stones and Stone Age and costume exhibit, and two MORE books, agreeing that Lairg is my best bet to Cape Wrath. Cky clearing! Out at 11:05 and write on bench to 11:25, preparing for bag-lug! Hunk passes second time. Paraplegic in chair, with mumbling, begs for change. Gulls squack. Stroll to bag at 11:30, leave second bag and stroll back for 79p Cadbury dairy milk and 30p Max lemon ice. Oh, Traill turns into SINCLAIR, which is name of shop with bag. He takes ice-stick (he let me pee, before), wishes me good trip. I trudge Sinclair, turn right, turn left at Princes and study sign as guy says "12:10." Get into first car at 11:55 and leave at 12:12. #27 COLORS of CLOUDS! Helmsdale at 1:30---I CLEARLY slept since Kildonan at 1:14! #28 1:42 gorse in sun. Only three deer, panicked along fences. NOTHING in Lairg! Ask for way out and see sign "Lairg 2!" Phone 0800 600 900, then 0800 192 192, and ask for "Lairg taxi" and there's NONE! "Try Lairg Tourist Information Center 01549 402 160. Call 192: only SIX digits needed. "I don't know what to do." "I'll phone you back; where was the bus?" "I'm coming from the north." I got off at 2:28 and RESISTED impulse to get back ON when I pointed to "Way out" and asked train driver, "What does that mean?" He said "That road to town." To Information "Can I get a taxi?" "No." she calls back (sound of a baby in the background, is she at home?) "Nearest taxi is in Bonner Bridge, 12 kilometers away." "I'm trying to get to Cape Wrath." "I'll see what I can do. I'll call you back." Now 2:40PM---sunny and WARM, thank God! 2:47: "Mrs. Hayhurst, Loch View, 20, en suite. Go THERE, leave your bags off, and come HERE." Lairg Post Office opens at 9AM. I have two rooms and TV, go to Post Office at 5:15. Highland bus from Inverness at 8:20. 8:25 Durness to Lairg about 10:50. Nothing leaves Durness AFTER 11:15AM! Taxi about 70-80,? Takes to 4:10 to sort out---bust started only YESTERDAY from Durness to Ullapool. Check number of Altnaharrie Inn in Ullapool: 01854 633 230, asking for single room and dinner at 7PM. For the reservation I have to be AT the Information office; leave at 4:28 and leave Information at 5:09. Back 5:21. Coppicing is cutting off tops of branches grown after CENTER shoot is removed. Altnaharrie NOT in their system, booked MONTHS ahead, so she gets me a single with a TAXI number. Dash to undress and wash face and put on different clothes for FIRST time since Friday 5/21 at Ubiquitous Chip . Down to be told I can BUY beer, and up to don shoes and get two pints of Guinness for 1.98. Back with three road workers for roast beef and horseradish and Yorkshire pudding, after tomato-vegetable-onion soup, and mashed potatoes and frozen peas and corn and fresh carrots and turnips and a GREAT slab of lemon meringue pie. Out to sit at Loch-Shin-side 6:15-7, midges out, and in to read guidebooks and sort things out and take down bag of laundry at 7:30 that SHE insists on doing! Ulp--my skidmarked shorts! Oh, well, I'll NEVER see her AGAIN, and she HAS raised four sons---talked about "not being able to get out yellow (piss!) stains!" Up feeling VERY tired, but write this to 8PM, count pages left: 4/day through 6/17! This is HALFWAY day and I only used SIX rolls of film and still have TEN left, and not even FIRST videotape used, GOOD! Sort stuff MORE to 8:35, and watch TV. 9:55 she knocks with WONDERFUL, fresh-smelling, FOLDED LAUNDRY! Glorious!! Off TV at 10:30, bed at 10:45.
WEDNESDAY, 6/2: Wake at 4:15, pee. Wake 5:15. Fret. Up at 7. Shit, shower, and pack to 7:42 and down for breakfast. Black pudding ("You don't want to know) is pig, haggis is lamb. I'm STUFFED and lethargic ALREADY, at 8:15AM. Bring stuff down and wander out back to look at loch: big HERON ("Cranes are much bigger") on loch, in at 8:30 and pay 32,. "2, for services" includes PHONE and laundry and she's sure she wants no more. Lug luggage to Post Office at 8:45 and two busses wait, my bag in back, I get front seat and catch up. #30 9:50 Ben Horn (3000'+) on right, Ben Loyal on left. Leave 8:55AM and GREAT sunny clear day and pleasant chat with driver (5.50 but he has no change so he takes 5,). In at 10:45 and he stops in shop for woman who keeps my bag and DRIVES me for 3, the 2 kilometers to ferry point, where about TEN people wait for TINY "ferry across way" at 11AM. Pee in open and wait with two piping kids---MIST on hills now! Chat with London couple who'll drive me to Ullapool! Ferry at 11:30? Minibus seats 12? We're about 15! 12 only on boat at 11:45, but bus just LEAVES, so it's an hour's WAIT for bus. Three kids, natch, get on next to me. Three who HAD been waiting for the bus go BACK. Two, waiting since 9:30, stay. Ferry comes BACK at 12:35 with MORE people and NO second driver. 12:50 our bus finally leaves. #32 12:52 Sea mist. ROUGH road, arrive 1:20PM, sunny and GREAT! 3:05 bus FINALLY arrives to take us back. Sadly, the KIDS are on behind us. Climbed hill, went around. Shot pictures to east and south, missed a jet buzzing BELOW cliff-face, heard 3-4 SHATTERING bomb-sounds, had some chocolate, and chatted with Janet and Michael about their many British trips and one to Australia. Kids TOTALLY out of control. Leave 3:14. Arrive 3:47, ferry over. Land precariously at 4:05PM after third try---thought we MIGHT not MAKE it. Back to shop to pick up my bag, go to johns, and Janet buys a floating rock from Lotte Glob and I get a tuna-mayo for 2, at 4:48. Mountain-rock-tree-river drive to Ullapool by 6:40, NO more room at Travel Lodge for them. My Room is 16, Indian kids SCREAMING in halls. Small, warm room at 7PM. 7:33 Janet and Michael, whom I meet QUITE at random on the street, KNOW a cash point, and it WORKS for 100,, but no PRINT, so THIS is record! To Argyle Hotel (they'd been before) for mushroom soup, 10, carafe Liebfraumilch, haddock and chips, and pecan-nut pie taste, PAYING for them: total 43.35,: I said I would for waiting for me after the bus they WOULD have taken LEFT Cape Wrath. They tell me that a cork-board is for BATHMAT, NOT floor, of shower! Watch langoustine and shrimp tails off-loading from fishing boats (and seal) and back to hotel at 10. Ferry to Stornoway, on Lewis, at 9:30. Pee and wipe myself, tired. Bed at 10:15.
THURSDAY, 6/3: 1:30 pee. Wake 4:40. 7:05 dream: I'm in Army, camping in barracks with newspapers over water puddles, then cruising park and GREAT cock cums in my mouth and I spit what looks like applesauce into sink. Debate not going back for last four nights, like trip! Up at 7:45. Shower to 8:10, feeling foreboding! It's raining, travel has been DIFFICULT; bag is too heavy and ALWAYS must be carried SOME DISTANCE, NOT using either "bargain" card enough, going into ENTIRELY NEW area with ferry to Stornaway: does pass pay for busses? How FAR to bus stop, how far does it GO and WHEN does it go? SHOULD meet ferry, but I've been BURNED and now shy. Not hungry: have orange juice, grapefruit, and order vegetarian breakfast of eggs, mushrooms and beans, TIRED after 9 1/2 hours in bed. Raining! Uncertainty! 8:25 and still no breakfast: no time to brush teeth after? Do get to brush and rubber-tip before leaving at 8:51. Trying one driver who's going other way, but was EASIER with heavy bag over LEFT shoulder, over BUTT. Get to terminal at 9:04, NO rain, thank God. Ferry unloads and Janet and Michael arrive at 9:05. Board 9:12, leave 9:32, and #19 10:06 lone farmhouse with hills and clouds, leaving Ullapool. SMOOTH ride, bus south on Lewis at 2:20. Bus station NEAR ferry station! #20 12:06 Stornoway, land at 12:13PM, to bus station and find no busses, and taxi is 20,, which I agree to pay half of. It comes at 12:35, we get there at 1, video in black-house, pictures of Callinish, buy 3, book, pee, leave 1:20 and back to ferry PRECISELY 1:45 for their 2PM ferry. I get 100, from cash and buy 1.50 chicken salad (which means chicken AND salad, not chicken salad) sandwich and 55p Tango raspberry, and 20p for pee, and onto Tarbert bus 2:05 to GABBY woman. People paying driver at 2:20? Raining lightly. LOTS of roadwork. #31 2:33 stone bridge south of Stornoway. Into Tarbert 3:33. LONG time in Information (St. Kilda Saturday??) and out at 4:05 and bus is GONE! Girl drives me to catch UP with bus. "Do you do that often?" "We leave at 4." "You said you'd WAIT!" And after SCHOOL stop, music BLARES on bus. 4:55 to Leverburg, pay 3.75, and ferry is raising its PLATE!! I WAVE frantically. It lowers and leaves at 5PM. SCHEDULED from 5-6:10. Off at 6:06 and bus "is coming in 10-15 minutes, a lorry held up traffic." NO one around AGAIN. Guy in car did NOT offer a ride. 6:25 ferry leaves, seafood-pickers leave. Birds call. Wind blows. I'm totally alone. Shelter DOES have PHONE, at least! Captain Murphy's "Cuma" boat, from Uig, Lewis. Alistair picks me up at 6:28, tells me of a FOUR-day trip for 248,---good accommodations! The Anag is good too, he says. HE takes me to Johnny's Dad's bus, and I transfer bags, but then I have to go to Johnny's bus! Arrive 6:55 at Old Courthouse (1827) and SPILL to poor lady---dinner in 15 minutes. Choose smoked ham and mustard over fish. Captain calls: IF weather's good, he's willing to go about 11AM tomorrow (7.5 hour trip EACH WAY!) for two days for 300, or $480 American. He'll call 7:30-8AM tomorrow. Cream of vegetable soup, ham, croquettes, brocolli, carrots, and apple-elderflower juice, and a banana split with pear, cherries and currants. Dine 7:15-8:10 and dress warm to go out. Walk to 9: loch side, hilltop, dock, down "Hut of the Shadows" road to dirt and two white horses and old ferry slip, and cemetery(?---turned out to be plastic cylinders protecting new trees from deer) across from Uist Outdoor Center. Drizzling slightly and nose-dripping cold. Starting with a pulled-out dresser drawer, topped by the cork bathmat jammed with a plastic bag, sided by my jacket on a hanger overhung with a folded towel secured to the hanger with a safety pin, another plastic bag trapezoided above that, the smaller towel on the left held down by a book---the whole shebang will probably collapse with a crash in the middle fo the night, breaking a pane of glass and getting me thrown out. Now 9:22 and I'm ready for bed. Looked into what MIGHT be a TV-room window on the ground floor between the doors, and mein hostess huffily gets out of her private-sitting-room chair! Look through "Western Isles" folder to 9:45, no MENTION of St. Kilda save on two excursion listings. Bed 9:55. 10:45PM, swallow. 11:58PM UPswallow; and up MORE after! So ends 6/3/99---numerological ill?
FRIDAY, 6/4: 1:30AM Reflux! 3:20 dream: Threatened by someone in pain, I put my foot on his chest and demand "Chill out!" and he does. Lie and think about St. Kilda. Pee. 5:40 wake. 5:55 pee. Actualism session. Up at 7:22 to shit for 7:30-8 call, ready at 7:40. Repack to 7:55, still waiting for call. Raining now. Call at 7:57: he has FIVE PEOPLE!! Be at the Anag at Boreray Harbor by 10AM! FANTASTIC!! Leave by 9:15 OK. White pudding and fruit pudding: BOTH for breakfast, can't BELIEVE my good LUCK!! Now to find Dramamine!! 42.40 bill (12, for dinner!) and tax, at 8:50. Finish breakfast at 8:25, up to shit AGAIN, brush teeth, wash face, NO daily shower, this at 8:35. Last picture on roll of 1827 sign. First (BEFORE zero) of garden and "Na Smoch." Ready at 8:48! [6:56 #29 Storage "cleet." #33 "House of the Fairies," from 500BC, "mystical."] Boat leaves at 10, LOANING me wellingtons, pants, and coat and cap. And seasick pills. I take second watch 12:15-12:45, seeing ORCAS that everyone screams over, and start feeling awful and VOMIT in pails. Rocks at 3PM that I IGNORE, but at 5:15 INCREDIBLE stacks with the "Explorer" sailing in and out til 5:45, then land at 6 and on-shore at 6:15 (peeing around corner) and guide takes us to 7:45 and I walk up a bit and SIT! Eat packed lunch and RECUPERATE! Lots of birds and bug-sounds. "Dune/Doon" is island on bay, Seoy in BACK, and DECIDE to climb to "dip" and INCREDIBLE cliffs below. Eat boxed sandwich and candy bars halfway up. Soda 3/4 way down at 8:30. Their land ran up in STRIPS, they smoked but didn't drink, were religious. 9:30 other three not back YET after we looked in at the dreary Puff Inn and bought map and postcards at Post Office for 3.30. Donald COMES to Puff Inn and we leave 10:50! Lamb and chicken and potatoes and vegetables for dinner, red wine seems GOOD to my stomach.
SATURDAY, 6/5: Bed 12:15AM and THEY go to bar until 4AM!! Pee in bottle at 12:30, sleep FAIRLY well til 6, doze, think, Andy sleeps across, up at 9:30 to pee in bottle, dress, and at 10 have banana, orange, and muesli. At 12:10 we leave harbor, but HUGE waves and flying spray and birds zigzagging in all directions and a trawler heels over FEROCIOUSLY to avoid us, and the foresail is flapping fatefully in the wind and they're trying to do something with the mainsail and not working, and ropes flying and "Bloody Hell!" coming from a frowning Donald, and I DON'T WANT TO BE THERE. At one point CLOSE to cliffs and foam and NOTHING would survive. THEN he says "Anyone against turning back?" NOT AT ALL! Huge turning in enormous waves and he says "gale winds" and I keep thinking morbidly of "The Perfect Storm." Finally into harbor at 1:10, relatively peaceful. I pee, eat a banana, doze, lie there while Andy reads "St. Kilda" book and others sleep. About 8PM Saya makes a GOOD vegetarian spaghetti sauce that "tastes like meat," and red wine from a box. Diane's eye is worse, but many messages between Anag and "Kilda Warden" establish landing is too rough EVEN at 10PM high tide, and a cold compress is all they can do. By Sunday PM her eye is normal! To bed about 10, knackered out but not really feeling sick, just numb, with sore chest muscles from vomiting.
SUNDAY, 6/6: Up to pee, winds still strong, Andy up at 6, Donald at 7, then Ann and Abby and even LOUISE eat before I can edge out of bed and dress and have muesli and pills and milk, bag passed by Abby again. Lie down, Saya invisible,; sit on deck in sun staring at St. Kilda and two ships, far, going west and one, close, going east. Saya pressure cooks potatoes (too long) and Donald opens Carnation milk for fruit, and we have lunch of leftover spaghetti about 1PM, and dress and leave at 1:50PM, saying it'll take 8 hours! Brace myself, feeling not TOO bad, but swells are ENORMOUS and spray pours over and we bob back and forth and I feel worse and worse, counting off SLOW hours, watching Kilda and the stacks VERY slowly receding, and finally about 4PM lay my head down, to be roused by cry of "Dolphins!" Small ones, fins visible, maybe 6-7 of them. Then DETERMINED to stay up, pass rocks of Hrongar and Hrothgar(?) and FINALLY sight of Outer Hebrides, MISSING the Cuma that PASSED less than 6 miles away! 1/4 way, 1/3 way, 1/2 way, 1/3 to go, and FINALLY it's calmer, though I CURSED the stop to put up both sails, after which we SLANTED along, ARMS tired from holding on, hands COLD, wet from salt spray, legs cramping from odd angles, left knee worst, agony agony NEVER again, FINALLY a lovely sunset, dock at 9:40, he only charges 150, for 2, not 3, days, but does NOT expect change when I give him $200 for 120, and 2 20s, so I leave it as "tip," and he does call "Mary" and gets me B&B, AND returned my scarf the next morning! To Mary's after she wonderfully PICKS ME UP and to her three cats (one "Rag doll," a rare breed) and horny dog Polo, and sandwich and good soup and a "sinful slice" of cake she baked on Sunday. SURPRISED to finish at 11:25, but MUST brush teeth, at LAST! Bed 11:45PM.
MONDAY, 6/7: 4:15 wake til 5:20. 7:30 dream of frustration in Japan: traveling with older man who's made plans for us. I try to get luggage from "Main department store" but it takes TIME to get there and go through luggage check. KNOW it's on floor 3, but can't get BACK to it from other floors: Floor 1 is being redone, Floor 4 has cars going BACKWARD because it doesn't go where they want. I have YMCA room, but have no idea how to get there. WOOZY as I write this! 7:45 shit; wish I could lie longer! This place is much too personal: radio downstairs, HER bedroom door ajar. GOT to shower at 8:15. Fill up last pills and repack to 8:55. Down to breakfast to 9:35, gabbing about Donald Wilkie, and she's Mary Macinnis with two chef-children. PANIC to find SMALL bills to 10:15! Left my SCARF on the boat! She drove me to GET it! To ferry at 11:10AM, THEY say 18, from Uig-Glasgow, and I have 22.69 IF they don't take pass. Ferry in late at 11:27, pee and sip some tap water and out to wait at 11:30 for boarding. Huge "Hebridean Isles" and LOTS of people, dogs, cars, trucks to board. [Islands were HASKERS!] Leave 11:35. Talk to woman leaving for Austria who got TOLD our story of St. Kilda at the hostel. #4 some of the trippers. She's going by train from Malleig, but only tomorrow. "North of Skye is BEST part, particularly Old Man of (?), from bus." Very windy and I'm still slightly nauseous, my chest STILL hurts when I cough. Down to lounge at 12:15. #11, 1:25, coming in to Uig. In at 1:50. Walk to Information, bus leaves 2:45. SYHA Hostel in Glasgow (MAY have room) at 0141 332 3004; Globetravel 204 5420, Blue sky 221 7880. Backpackers 332 2099. Book a bed ahead: Glasgow FULL!! LONG try, hostels, Paisley, small stops, then SHE suggests Fort William. So I say OK, and it's 9:50 (saving 6,) WITH pass. Bus leaves 2:50. "No cash for deposit." "Use VISA." #14 and #15 3PM Black Cuillains on right, RED Cuillains, under clouds, on left. CLEAR ten minutes BEFORE. #16 3:35 Hills across road. #18 4:20 Kyle BRIDGE, ex ferry. Try for cash in Kyle of Lochalsh DOESN'T WORK. Well, would have had to pay for bus from Fort William to Glasgow anyway! Three-hour ride. SHOULD have asked for Willows for Wednesday AND Thursday! Call quick! Make sure she GOT my credit card number. Lots and LOTS of back-packers here! Season STARTING! #19 Eilean Donan Castle 4:50 from bus to Fort William---and a room? This is NOT the railroad route, but a corniche drive. 5:10 rain! #20 5:13 rain and snow and clouds. Part of road to Spean Bridge LINED with rhododendrons at 6PM. Rain stops, into big Fort William, across to Alexandra Hotel for a 45, room for two nights: only Thursday left! Wander High Street til 7:40, dinner of duck liver terrine, sirloin steak, and peach Belle Helene and two glasses of red, ALL mediocre, for about 25,. There goes $110+! Information opens at 9AM, NO Glengarry tours tomorrow; "Notting Hill" and "The Faculty" playing ONCE, and 10AM bus to gondola lift, maybe the ONLY game in town. Sit 9:15-10:50PM watching sunset in drab colors (but RAINBOW earlier had THREE bands of violet at bottom!), then stroll High Street AGAIN til 11:20, having GOTTEN 100, in Strathclyde Bank, watched drifting backpackers with no place to go, and returned to write, having forgoten pen. Room STILL warm with NO heat on, opaque drapes? Watch TV, good "Rembrandt Self-Portraits" to 12:25AM.
TUESDAY, 6/8: Bed 12:30AM, wake at 4:30, dream of 1) sitting in front row of an amateur play and watching duo try not to laugh as audience applauds his "tic" of swinging his arm back and forth when she flirts with him, and 2) lots on streets when I have to leave a paper in my room, up the block, and take a shortcut through a factory-lot that I scan a plan of when a long-handled-ax-bearing "guard" swings at me and I say "You wouldn't want to mess up your area, would you?" and an official hints I may have "some kind of job," if I'd talk with him. Wake at 7:55 to wait for 8AM call that never comes, fret, still slight NAUSEA of turning head in bed and on arising! 8:30 down to breakfast. Depressed [also, forgot "A" dream: Mrs. Bloodheart, it's ME---it's ME!!!] Willows HAS no Thursday reservations. 9:25AM: No hope in Glasgow tonight. Trying in airport-area for Thursday, check at 10:30. WALK tour only at 11AM for an hour. Highland Museum opens at 10. ["A" dream: FIRST part forgotten, save it involved an older woman, SECOND part VERY melodramatic: climax had a few simple words from me reuniting an estranged older woman with her daughter, in such a way that when I woke I thought: "That would make a GREAT play." THIRD part involved a SIMILAR-looking older woman with a SIMILAR name ["Though now it sounds rather "Tales of Hoffman"-ish!] who takes off a white wig to reveal a face that's clearly the BASE for the other three, who proclaims me "the One, the Master, the Guru," echoing my "fantasy" that my sometimes-interlinking trips over time around the world form a significant RUNE or CHARACTER that has cosmic significance, either 1) for the peace and "salvation" of parts or the whole of the world, 2) for appreciation by some almost-omnipotent/omniscient alien observer for some inconceivable benefit for the earth (or at least as a TRANSMITTER of visual and written data for a remote viewer), or 3) as an actual MESSIANIC fate, even culminating in an earth-changing (or redeeming) DEATH for the benefit of (with concommitant appreciation FROM) the entire human race: nothing of much psychological significance HERE!] 9:40: as for my current depression 1) I DID plan to be in Glasgow but CAN'T go there, 2) I DO seem to have a nausea/ vertigo hangover from three days on a boat two days ago, 3) I CAN afford to simply stroll/watch TV/read my magazines/SLEEP if I want to, 4) ONLY a few days left before possible problems/trauma/unavailabilities in ICELAND with no prior planning or reservations (so it serves me right?), 5) AND it's cloudy and looks like RAIN! Back to hotel 9:40, shit, and feel MORE woozy! Into Museum at 10. Busses to Glasgow 11:15, 2:15, 7PM. Out 10:50, paid 2.5 for entry and book. 11AM walk was TOMORROW---maybe take it before 2:15 bus? 3PM walk starts AT "staircase," "Bus every 20 minutes." Pee in train station and sit at 11:17, waiting for 12 bus to gondola. Read "Things to Do" in Fort William (all awful) and "What's On" (nothing) and museum book to 11:48, finally ACCURATE time from TV in VERY busy (with OLD folks on tour with CANES) station. It WAS clearing, now CLOUDY again! Out to WAIT for bus. Oh, Shearings is a BUS company, not a chemical firm. "Double-decker at 12" says smiling driver to Glen Nevis. Starts to drizzle, get two 5, BRITISH notes to repay Spartacus. #41 is 3.80, but he accepts my 3.74 in change. NONE left for now. Return 2:15 and 5PM. Pleasant fifteen-minute ride past Castle Inverlochy Hotel. #21 Nevis Range gondola 12:26PM. 5.85 for seniors (6.5 other). Tuna and sweet corn salad and fudge pie and roll and Calibre pint for 6.85. Lunch to 1:30, it's clearing up! Full! Out to "thirty-minute" path to 2PM, sit at end for CLEAR Ben Nevis pictures to 2:30, when rain puts up umbrella, back to hut at 2:50. Read "New Yorker" to 3:30. Out to "twenty-minute" on LEFT and record THREE parasail takeoffs! Leave "left" at 4:07 and down at 4:40 to see ANOTHER against the sky. Tape 4th and 5th LANDING to 2:02 on FIRST videotape on this trip at 4:55PM, just before bus. To VERY end of tape #34 at 2:03:23 with flowers of 6/8/99 Scotland at 4:57PM. To hotel at 5:20, exhausted! TV to 8:15, including "Cardiff singer of the year" heldentenor Studebaker. Decide to go to McTavish's Kitchen, 8:30-10:30, not good, not bad. Home to TV to 11:40, watching "Gay life" to 11:55PM. Bed.
WEDNESDAY, 6/9: 6:20 dream of waiting in line with Joe Easter, and Frank Mungo sneaks up behind and tickles my foot. Both are with someone else, and when I try to amalgamate the groups, we get so confused we can't remember WHICH Italian restaurant we're supposed to eat at, but later he says "The Supper Club, on Bleecker, probably." GROGGILY transcribe this at 8:40; shit THREE times yesterday and TWICE already today! Maid knocks at 8:15AM! Shower to 9; change underwear. Breakfast in closing-down room, with sneezing waiter!, to 9:30. Pack to 10:45, watching "It Happened One Night." Fuss to 11AM with changing three to TWO glasses of wine with dinner for 114.60, charge. LOTS (about 15) of people WAITING at stop! Thankfully, ALMOST EMPTY bus shows up at 11:15, lots of backpack-luggage from 22 boarders. Go for 10.50, at 11:23, many "saved" seats---people got OFF. Off at 11:27. #34 Mountain south of Glencoe 12:03PM. #35 LAST of roll at 12:06. #before0, TRY at cirque into sun. GLUE camera case before it gets worse. No SHEEP here! Well, sheep ARE here. Along the length of Loch Lomond, and there's a waterskier! Transcribe names of people on St. Kilda boat: Abby, Andy, Ann, Bob, Diane, Donald, Louise, and Saya. My earplugs! Not in my pocket! Dropped out? No, in my EARS!! #0 1:15 Loch Lomond, taken on the FLY. #1 1:20 Tarbet bus stop. #2 1:30 BACK at Loch Lomond. Great castle (hotel?) just north of Balloch. #3 2PM Erskine Bridge. In at 2:35, walk to Willows to 2:50 and get TWO nights for 64, en suite! WHEW! Cab to Burrell 3:05-3:20 for 6.60,! #6 Nottingham Alabaster, early 15th Century Resurrection. #7 Cranach: Judith with the Head of Holofernes (purchased in 1995!) To shop 4:45 and buy book and pamphlet for 3.15,. Ask for bus and get TAKEN to bus stop. Bus 90p to George Square 5:15-5:45, NO Cameron tour, but another rail-ferry OK. 6PM start WALK tour for 4,. Phaeton IN Italian Center. Sandy Stoddard sculpture. #16 7PM The Corinthian (where six sexy naked men pose around EACH of four chandeliers). Gay Polo Lounge #17 on Prince's Square, off Buchanan. #22 Queen St side(?) #24 Greek Thompson LOWER, upper above(?) #27 "The Lighthouse" should have been open tomorrow, now scheduled for 6/25. Two INSIDE Council stairs. #34 Corinthian OUTSIDE (was a courthouse). Polo Lounge DOESN'T serve food and LOOKS and SMELLS grungy. Tour to 8:05!! INSIDE Corinthian: established MLCCCCDXXXXVIIII, and beef carpaccio is SEARED?! They charge 1, for "glass gun" and 20p for "dash cordial" and take off 1.10, to leave 23.52,, of which I leave 24, or $42 (actually only just under $39). How things turn out! Home by 10:20 and watch TV, ending of "From Russia with Love" and "one-shot" start of "Goodfellas." If I hadn't got 120, from machine, I would have been left with 3.55,! Forgot to cancel booking at Information, try tomorrow? Bed at 12:20AM, still stuffed.
THURSDAY, 6/10: 3:20AM fire alarm(?) for about one minute. Up 5:20. 6:40 dream: I'm in helicopter that MUST stay in traffic, not above a car, passing on hills like a car. Up at 7:50; NO more wooziness or chest pain. Breakfast to 8:30 (ONE egg; scrambled always microwaved); #0 and #1 Mackintosh School of Art on Renfrew 8:35AM. Gergiev conducts "Mazeppa" at 7:30 tonight! I'm first into Information at 9: "You paid deposit in Fort William, we can't refund it here." "I thought that was the idea of the combined system." "No." To Central Station and "Didn't you get a wee brochure with admissions?" when she didn't know if Heritage Pass got me into the gardens. 12:50, return. Onto first car 9:23, leave 9:25. Clouding up, and me with NO jacket. Ferry 10:20-10:45: cute guy on bus says "over there." Sign for Benmore Botanic Garden. 3, OAP, 4, adult leaves 10:55 and each hour after. #3 Dunoon on Cowal Peninsula from open top bus top 10:54. Mary Queen of Scots stayed in Dunoon Castle on left hill; Mansion House Museum. Leaves each 25-minutes past except for 2:25, his lunch. Entertaining bus to 11:30, ex 4000 US naval base. #5 Monkey puzzle tree. #6 Meconopsis Grandis from Himalayas. #9 Dactylorhiza elata (4 purple), #13 deciduous cypress. #14 formal garden 12:30. #17 purple-coned Korean fir. #20 Enkianthus campanolatus. #21 Chilean lantern bush. Or is it: I'm not blessing the place, the place is blessing ME! #26 Bhutanese glade under development. #27 1870 fernery ruins. #29 foxglove(!: IS in EB). Apple juice and pea soup 2:30-3:05, videoing FINCHES at chip-crumbs. #34 Castle turret in trees 3:12PM. And it's HOT! #8 Rhododendron cinnibarium (RED trumpets). Tell couple at 4:19 that I'm waiting for 4:25 bus: "Don't let him leave without me!" Try to shit, but don't. Bus pulls in AT 4:25. #10 Firth of Clyde 4:40. 4:50 ferry sails! I rush to driver: "I thought you were supposed to CONNECT!" "It left? Here's a SECOND one, run, you'll MISS it." "Yeah, it's a TOUR boat, but it goes to Courock." What if there WEREN'T an extra? And WRITING that, my TICKET fell onto the dock, ACROSS a waiting half-inch gap in planking, and I bend and GRAB it QUICK! Aboard 5PM. Now, will it make the 5:23 TRAIN? Go to ticket office, and he CALLS train, but says "The ferry ahead of us doesn't CLEAR DOCK until 5:20, so you just won't make it." Next train is half-hour LATER! So I'm in at 6:39! Not much time to buy a ticket and EAT. GORGEOUS sailing day after AM clouds! KID in car ahead, GIGGLERS behind. Off ferry 5:29, train leaving 5:46. Of course, my train stops at EVERY stop! In at 6:36, rush to box office and get 8.50, ticket by 6:50, to Burger King for double whopper with cheese and large Sprite (both are AWFUL) by 7:20. In, back out to buy 1.5, book, and everyone (orchestra and chorus) ENTERS at 7:32 for Tchaikovsky's "Mazeppa," lots of longeurs, but finale of Act II tremendous: Maria's sadness: da da DAAA da, da da DAAA da---WRENCHING and Gergiev WRENCHED it. Suddenly noticed Gergiev/Gurdjieff! Act II over 10:10, out AFTER 11:10! Standing ovation, out NORTH at 11:15 and home by 11:25, cool but not COLD out. Bed 11:48, feeling pretty GOOD.
FRIDAY, 6/11: Lots of wispy dreams. Wake 5AM, doze, do Actualism. Worry about Iceland. Up at 8:04. Shit. Breakfast 8:15-8:50. Remarkable: NEVER any real SEXUAL urges (except when seeing certain faces, like the flawless-skinned trombone-player in the Kirov Orchestra). Fire doors are BIG here: from dining room to my room: three sets of DOUBLE doors: SIX! TV (boring) to 9:15. Shower, brush teeth. Barbara Stanwyck's "My Reputation" comes on and I watch it while packing (telling maid I'll be out at 11) til 11:15! 85.72, left! CLEAR morning CLOUDS up, of course. VERY sobby story. Call taxi with 20p, waste! and stand outside at 11:20, waiting. 11:21 a BLACK cab shows up. They CAN be called! WAY around back for 2.60, and on airport bus 11:30 for 3,, getting an English, not British 5, note. Pulls out 11:31! Didn't even THINK (til now) of phoning to CHECK flight. Bus in 11:55. Servisair by noon. Big bag is 14 kg, checked. Check in---but to JFK and she takes BOTH tickets and I don't NOTICE until she wants to give me a seat assignment TODAY to NYC! Servisair put on wrong sticker, but my 6/14 flight still on! So good she NOTICED! Away at 12:10 and check duty-free prices and they're high for DOLLARS, let alone POUNDS, like 13, for Grand Marnier Cream and 12, for regular Southern Comfort. Get to gate corridor and lots of 10:30AM flights are leaving and gate #5 changed. Ask Air France about delays: "Weather?" "No, it's been fine, just technical problems." Check-in woman tells of flight of 300 delayed 13 hours: they had to be bussed up to PERTH for accommodations! Lounges jammed, except for Gate 32 at end, no one yet at 12:38 for 1:30 boarding, seat 6F. Finish reading my ONLY magazine in my carry-on at 1:15. WHY didn't I carry MORE? Start on HARD NY "Guardian" puzzle. People (and kids) gather by 1:35. Start boarding 1:40. I'm in last row of 4-across Saga Class! Great!! 2PM: 110 minute flight! MOSTLY clouded. Off 2:10. #12 and #13 Glasgow (and Armadillo)! Then CLOUDS. NO St. Kilda. GREAT Icelander next to me tells me of the Blue Lagoon (before hotel?) and four restaurants---and can visit Greenland? Good books from flight. STONED on wine! 3:25 clouds RISING from below. 3:30 put on Enesco's Roumanian Rhapsody #1 and with wine and food and photos and advice and book and maybe Greenland(!), TEARS of joy come to my eyes. Happy! Even WITH clouds, 11°C in Iceland is 52°F! LONG period in which we seem POISED in a cloud. Then 3:57 REALLY turn downward. Land at 4, in FOG. Watch back to 3PM. Down for luggage at 3:12. GET passport stamp. 3:45 WINDY wait for 700kr bus. 4:30 stop at transfer point, minibus to Salvation Army at 4:50, out 5:10 to Information, LONG way around. Three Greenland flights FULL Saturday, first day of service (but weather prevented their leaving ANYWAY, so HA!); Golden Circle Sunday, Vid Tjornina dinner at 6:15, hot smoked breast of Guillemot, fried lemon sole, glasses of wine for 600kr $8.50, AND Billie Holliday music! Gas station "Opid allan solarhringen" open all---year? Mokka-[could have been EIGHT k's]-sukkuladikaken okkar---chocolate cake $14. Home 8:45, exhausted; well, 9:45 old time. Two gay Germans across, cute Spanish (?) in black leather pants and pointed three-day beard. To 9:25 construct light-barricade: table (legs braced by shoe tops), A&K bag at top, jeans draped on one side, blue bag down other side to chair-pillow, tie, and two short-sheeved shirts filling in gaps. TV next door on ALL the time (I wonder if anyone's THERE, but an old man coughs). But I'm TIRED and probably NOW to bed, at 9:35PM.
SATURDAY, 6/12: 7:20 write this: wake at 12:45 to pee, again at 5AM, SAME degree of light seeping through window. Dreams 1) of a sex-scene with everyone (including Bette Midler) with three naked BACKS to the viewers, but after I move away and turn back, a LARGE group has gathered, and I look lengthwise to see naked male genitals being prodded and poked, and ONE guy with a Tom-of-Finland thick cock with a TAUT BLACK head is being teased so effectively that I wake with a hard-on. 2) I'm in a group and ask if anyone knows about John Walsh, or Welch, who the Dutchman on the minivan mentioned about---coming here to finish "The Training" with (from San Diego), and he and a shorter guy that I "recognize" raise their hands, then I'm in a basket hung from a helicopter being taken over a river, and he makes TIGHT turns that sends me over edge with shoulders looped around basket-ropes, but I CAN'T muster the strength to pull myself INTO basket. Then I'm on a stairway with a group of people waiting to descend and exit, but those below me start to sit, and I look out a window to see that it's raining and wake to find it IS pattering on my tin-roofed window loudly. Look at watch at 6:30 and 6:50 and 7:20 and write this to 7:30, starting to feel HUNGRY for 600kr ($8!) breakfast, TRYING to do a SESSION, on 50th part(?) at 24th day, decide to get UP at 7:35 [10 hours in bed and STILL weary!]. Dismantle window, stow stuff, down to breakfast at 8AM. Not bad: toast, tea, salami, bologna, cheese in strips, blue cheese, bacon-cheese spread, fish mousse, liver mousses, herring, corn flakes, yogurt, marmalade. To 8:25, cold out, wear sweater. CHECK "I'm still in room 315?" "Yes." Shit smally. Down at 8:35, outside at 8:40, inside at 9. Phone office on ticket: no answer. I find HOTEL office of Reykjavik Excursions: I'm not on THEIR list, but they'll send ANOTHER car for me! Check tonight at Information for tomorrow's tour to make sure! Write this at 9:21AM; it's still cold and cloudy and raining. 9:25 van comes, bus is 50km away: waiting. In Hveragerdi. Greenhouses at 10AM. #24 10:04AM, inside Eden. Leave Eden 10:22, group of SEVEN in BIGGER car. NO bus stops BEFORE Eden: "nothing to see." 80,000 horses, only wild mammals. Leave Holvanman(?) at 11:20, lunch boxed. Up to Glacier at 12:20, but prior group has ALL snowmobiles, so we wait one hour! Read "New Yorker" and eat lunch to 1:05, still raining HARD. Change to waterproofs and onto mobiles at 1:40. Total white-out, back to change, 2:40, to Sofgar Folk Museum 3:10-4:20. "Three Frenchmen" said to be a good restaurant, reservation tonight at 10PM for Mr. Robert made on car-phone. Also 7PM Sunday night with Watsons at Pearl. 5:55 #0 Sun on snow-hills and dots of cairns from 900-year-old road-marks for trans-island travelers: sticks up above snow. More pictures of sunny countryside. Watsons leave no tip, Swedish couple do, I don't (9 1/2 hours for 11-hour $160 trip?!). To hotel 6:30, out of wet clothes and hang EVERYTHING and spread out wallet contents and dress for dinner by 6:55. Read "New Yorker" to 8:50, leave 9:15 for [thorn]rir Frakkar Hja Ulfari. Order a Frosty rain: vodka, parfait amor, cointreau, creme de banana, citronusaf---but all in all bland. Mild fish soup was drinking an aquarium in cream. Whale steak IS beefy, except when a strong FISH taste takes over. Skyr-cake soft, on hard oatcake base. Complimentary hot toddy, 4890kr, and no tip. Out at 11:10 and #2 11:20 Reykjavik sky. Back numb, at 11:30, and put up window barrier and crawl into bed at 11:45PM, tired.
SUNDAY, 6/13: 1:10 pee. 3:55 reflux! Wake periodically at 5 and 5:30, and shit at 7, having to get toilet paper from woman's room! Two days left! 25-minute Actualism session to 8, thinking (not fretting---except about RAIN) and up to breakfast at 8:10. More: eggs and juice! Lots of people; I share table with Swedes. Finish 8:30 and rush up to pee and pack day-case and get down to sit at 8:40, hopeful. Others standing outside for colection? MANY smokers, ALL over, including during meals. BIG bus comes for Swedes, OURS at 8:50. To airport gathering, two Golden-Circle busses, one for English, one for Scandinavians. Kids ALL OVER---impossible to avoid! Off at 9:09. Iceland 270,000 people, Reykjavik means "smoky bay" and has 103,000 people. #3 9:15 mall on right. Stop in Eden 9:48 for "twenty minutes, to 20 past 10." Had MISSED the real greenhouse/nursery! Video, bus open 10:10 and people ON and AWAY by 10:12! Warm and sunny! Turn in before Selfoss. #5 10:35 Kerio crater-lake. Many SMOKE at all stops. #8 11:10 Skalhole Church and view. Mass in church: no entry. To 12:20PM, to #29 Goldfuss Falls---GREAT. Everyone's on and the driver and guide are chatting. No, ONE guy boards 12:25. 32 active volcanoes. Last eruption 9/98. #30 12:30 glacier from bus. Geysir went up 70 meters, dead for years; current only up to 35 meters. VERY hard to photo---try 12:35-2:02, NOT last on bus, and last on OTHER bus at 2:06. Through #6 on my next-last film-roll. Tuna sandwich and Mars-bar lunch. Horse-caravan on video. #8 3:10 Iceland rift and more to 3:30, leave Thingvallir for Oxaro Falls and Rift-zone to 4:04. Off at Rathaus at 5 and pictues and video INSIDE to 5:30 and pick up a TON of travel papers on Iceland, on the LAST day! More to carry. They DID replace my TOWEL in my room! Take picture of room! AND down to LAST TWO ROLLS of film! Camera case REALLY coming apart! Fix up stuff and leave 6:20, making reservations for tomorrow's tour. Taxi 670kr and I give him 30 and photo and video from Pearl, then down to meet Watsons' (who've traveled EVERYWHERE!) and I take Five-Course tasting of 1) smoked arctic char, 2) raw herring (with schnapps, BOTH with caviar), 3) mussels boiled in wine, 4) three fish: saithe Bocuse D'Or 99, plaice, and salmon, 5) cheeses---one's brown, muenster, brie, other, and had taste of his reindeer. 4890kr, or so, and taxi to their hotel to 9:30 and walk across to 9:45, EXHAUSTED, sit, numb, to 10, brush teeth, read "New Yorker" to 10:35, set up LAST window barricade to 10:45, read til 11:35. Last night 11:45, tonight SHOULD be 12:45, but I'm SO tired: home in LESS than a day---bed at 11:41.
MONDAY, 6/14: 2:10 pee and burp---sour. 5:45 pee. Up 7:35. #7 of light-barrier window. Sort stuff for packing and taking home to 8:25. Breakfast and pay 1800 (NO records kept) for three breakfasts and "trust him" (the boy) to have made reservation. 846kr left for lunch. Up at 8:50, breakfast was a CHORE: waking and thinking OK, but my STOMACH is all het up. Pack VERY neatly and compactly to 9:20; in last check, find dusty girl's SHOES long-hidden under chest. NOTHING more to do at 9:30AM---13 hours left! 9:35 sit in lobby. 9:47 deskman calls to confirm: "He's on his way." Cloudy and a faint misty drizzle. Comes 9:48, three OTHERS from hotel---the delicate kid and his Nordic parents. To a less-busy bus station (only two busses), but a JAM at the ticket-window as boarding is announced. Bag below: airport at 3PM! Seat toward back (all foreign-speaking) at 10:03---catch up. Off at 10:09. Through Hafnarfjordour, the town adjoining Reykjavik, and the "next point of land," and get to Blue Lagoon at 10:55. They say $3, but when I give them a $5, they give me TINY change of 112kr, for 250kr towel rent, but 312/5=72+, well, maybe it WAS OK. Anyway, now 958kr left! Pool nice, but can't see bodies! Out to cute kid with bumpy-ripplies and hairy legs who does NOT take off his pants. Out at 11:30, find it's a BIGGER area than I thought, even with ANOTHER, almost empty, dressing room. Slowly, slowly the bus fills, last FORGOT something, on at 11:59. Think I had Capelin roe last night. Grindavik exports cod. At restaurant just randomly selected a salmon sandwich with cucumber slices and 1/4 egg and tomato and asparagus and grape, carrot cake, and a hot chocolate which comes to 950kr, leaving me ONLY 8kr! 11 cents! LESS than 1% of my total wealth! All three not bad, but SHOULD be OK, for $14! And, I now see, they take Visa cards!. Grindark Coffee Shop makes out. Eat 12:10-12:45 and go to "Happy Hands" shop and do NOT buy Pope a "runelight" candle with rune inside for $12US. #15 1:10 rift, GREAT Reykjanes to 1:53, Hafnir Aquarium to 2:38, saithe only on video from a photo. To airport at 2:55 and SHORT check-in line. Bag is 15.3kr=34 pounds, and handbag is 5.7 kg = 12 pounds. Go to passport line and---don't have a BOARDING pass! Back and get seat 35F, LAST seat-row in plane, only window left. To passport at 3:05, through passport at 3:10. Read and throw away a New Yorker, start on 5/17 New York, HUGE line for plane at 4:40. I sit and read until last, at 5:15. Plane moves at 5:20, flying time of 5 hours 40 minutes, 340 minutes, STILL after 11PM MY time. Off at 5:30, through THREE layers of cloud. Look at duty-free catalog: 10x25 binox for $35! Toblerone $7! Ask attendant and he says "Cart will be coming down aisle," but I MISS it! Greenland 6:45-7:07 is WILD!! Then clouds close in and LOTS of pictures to #2 on LAST roll of film! Dine (fish and fish) 7:40-8:15 ALMOST halfway! 8:30 over NEWFOUNDLAND, which I HOPE produces GREAT polarized colorations! 10:35 "Starting to land in 30 minutes." Cloudy below. Land at 11:05 and told "Local time is 7:40PM." About 25 jets queue for takeoff, causing gridlock holding up on tarmac overlong. Move only at 7:23! Dock 7:25, off plane 7:33. 9A38 cab home at 8:30 for $26.60 + $3.40 tip. To 58:28 on videotape, to #17 on LAST film-roll. $12.80 to get EIGHT napkins cleaned for John! Only five blank notebook-sheets left. Finish transcribing notebook 1:35PM 7/7/99, and find that on 6/17, on NOTEBOOK - 12, I transcribed notes from just before ("told I'd be away" and "sleep schedule" and "things to do") and just after ("who I called when") trip. Sorted out all my foreign ATM slips, 11 of them, for a total of $1649.26. Totaled my "spent" list: 1) flights $488.29, 2) Freedom of Scotland $225.00, 3) B&H film and batteries $127.18, 4) Cash $152.56, 5) 5/27/99 Visa bill $418.88, 6) 6/29/99 Visa bill $1608.95, 7) ATM $1649,26, 8) Express mail/slides $15.75, total of $4685,87 for 26 days, $180.23/day. Took 26 pounds in bag and 12 pounds in A&K bag for 33 pounds, and returned with 33 pounds in bag and same in A&K for 45 pounds, TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS OF WHICH WERE PAPER!! Added figures on 7/5 to map-list, coming up with 21 longest trips of 1030 days for $117,959, or $114.52/day, but then added ALL trips and added 535 days for a total of 1565 days (4 years, 105 days) in 42 years, coming to 37+ days/year, or JUST OVER ONE DAY IN TEN on vacation! Yet to figure what I SPENT for flight, tours, food, misc on trip. Still have 14.42 English pounds and 72 Scottish pounds in cash. Monday, 6/14 got to bed 10:30PM, wake 2:45, pee; up 4:40 (for 6:10 sleep only); Actualism. Tuesday, 6/15 bed 11:10PM, wake 5:20, 6:10 again. Actualism, up 5:45. Wednesday, 6/16 bed 11:20PM, up 4:25 pee, up 7:30 for 8:10. Thursday, 6/17 bed 10:30PM, 4:30 pee, 6:45 j/o to 7:10, sleep 8:10 again. Friday, 6/18 bed 11:59PM to 8:10, again 8:10. Saturday, 6/19 bed 12:30AM, "back to normal." Saturday, 6/19 4:45AM SECOND dream: Trying to give MASSAGE introduction with problems shopping around in public for real garden-benches. Proofread (and corrected on file, NOT on print) through end of 6/1 on page 10 on Monday 7/5. Proofread through here by 2:55PM. Decide to print while I've GOT to have LUNCH! By 4:10 finish DREAMS - 97 SCOTLAND TRIP DREAMS. By 5:20 finish following two pages of FILM NOTES FROM TRIP. Then figure ROUGH totals of $736 for flight, or $31/day; $1096 for tours, or $46/ day; $840 for rooms, or $35/day; $172 misc, or $7/day; $698 for meals, or $30/day, which leaves a total of $31/day for "other," which isn't great, but it'll have to do since I have to leave at 6:10PM to meet Mildred at 7PM for dinner and "Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight." Then back at 10:20PM to finish the FINAL trip-summary page 23 by 11:30 printing it out and FINISHING! (Return to Journal 6/15/99).
SCOTLAND TRIP SUMMARY - 1999
THU,5/20: Fly Icelandic from JFK to Reykjavik on 4:40 flight starting 9PM.
FRI,5/21: Reykjavik two hours, reserving layover. 1:50 flight landing Glasgow 10:40AM. Willows B&B, check Information, dine at Ubiquitous Chip, walk back.
SAT,5/22: City Tour: Hunterian, Art, and Transit Museums; dine at Counting House, James Galway flute concert, "John Carpenter's Village of Damned."
SUN,5/23: Information for alternatives: Brodick Castle on Arran Island, bus-trip around Island, dine on Ferry, Peckinpah's "The Osterman Weekend" on TV.
MON,5/24: Train to Inverness, lunch at Gunsmiths, train to Thurso, driven to Ulbster Hall, lots of rain, dinner in Pentland Hotel, very late sunset.
TUE,5/25: Breakfast and flowers; Ferry past Old Man of Hoy to Stromness in Orkneys, two nights with Venus Hours(h)ton, plan Shetland flight, Coffee Shop lunch, beach walk with seals & cows & birds, Oakleigh Restaurant for dinner.
WED,5/26: Bus to Kirkwall; taxi tour of Stone Age House & Tomb of Eagles on southern coast, St.Magnus Cathedral, Stromness Hotel lunch; Maes Howe, Stones of Stennis, Ring of Brodgar, Scara Brae; dinner Oakleigh; broke eye vessel.
THU,5/27: Private tour to Yesnaby, Skail House, Scara Brae Museum, Brough of Birsay, Eynhallow, Broch of Gurness, lunch at Trenabies; Earl's Palace and Prince's Castle; Museum; dine in Kirkwall Hotel; TV: Simpsons & Quantum Leap.
FRI,5/28: Shetland flight cancelled; read 5-6 books, lots of TV; lunch at Trenabies, two bikers from Australia in, Museum again, Queen's Hotel dinner.
SAT,5/29: Fly to Shetland, photo Fair Isle, tour Jarlshof, lunch in Sumburgh Hotel, Leask's bus to Lerwick, stay in Bonavista, dine in great Kveldsro.
SUN,5/30: P&O ferry tour to Yell and Unst, photo Muckle Flugga (northernmost point), lunch in BaltaSound Hotel, Sullom Voe refinery, TV: "Jungle Book" and "Gulliver's Travels" and "Rear Window," and another dinner at Kveldsro.
MON,5/31: Noss bird-island on Dunster II: seals, puffins, skuas, guillemots, and gannets. Fly to Kirkwall, more Museum, bus to ferry to John O'Groats and great hassle of place to stay. Dinner at Caber-Felidh; watch surf on Stroma.
TUE,6/1: Duncansby Heads, Worth Hill, Mey Castle, taxi to Thurso, Museum, train to Lairg past wild red deer, panic of empty station before Ms. Hayhurst stay for dinner and laundry, repacking and watching TV and loch-life.
WED,6/2: Post Office bus to Durness, ferry to sunny Cape Wrath after sea-mist morning, couple drives me to Ullapool Travel Lodge, dine at Argyle Hotel for their treat, watch langoustine and shrimp-tails offloading from fishingboats.
THU,6/3: Walk to Ullapool ferry, past Altnaharrie Inn, to Stornoway; taxi to Stones of Callinish and black-house, bus to Tarbert, Information about boat to St. Kilda, ferry to Lochmady and taxi to Old Courthouse for dinner & rain.
FRI,6/4: Five more to St. Kilda, today! Orcas, seasick, "Explorer" around two huge bird stacks; guide on St. Kilda, drink in Puff Inn, late dinner on Anag.
SAT:6/5: Eat little, HUGE waves and "gale winds" drive us back to harbor.Nap.
SUN:6/6: Eat little, long trip back under sail, dolphins, and agonies. At last ashore and Mary Maciniss's B&B and gossipy dinner and exhausted to bed.
MON:6/7: Retrieve scarf from Anag, ferry to Uig; Glasgow full; detour to Fort William; roam High Street, dine Alexandra Hotel; "Rembrandt Self-Portraits."
TUE,6/8: Highland Museum, Nevis Range gondola for Ben Nevis in rain with parasails; McTavish's Kitchen for piper & dancer & dinner before TV:Gay Life.
WED,6/9: "It Happened One Night," bus along Loch Lomond to Glasgow, taxi to Burrell Collection, great Glasgow architecture-walk tour, dine in Corinthian, TV watch ending of "From Russia with Love" and start of "Goodfellas." Tired.
THU,6/10: Younger Botanic Garden by ferry and bus, miss train back, Gergiev conducts Tchaikovsky's "Mazeppa" after awful Burger King dinner. Cool out.
FRI,6/11: "My Reputation" on TV, bus to airport, 1:50 flight over Outer Hebrides to Reykjavik; Salvation Army Hotel 3 nights; Vid Tjornina dinner.
SAT,6/12: Meet tour-bus in Hveragerdi, snowmobiles in whiteout, Sofgar Folk Museum, dinner in [th]rir Frakkar Hja Ulfari (Three Crazy Frenchmen) good.
SUN,6/13:Golden-Circle:Selfoss/Kerio/Goldfuss/Geysir/Thingvallir;PearlDinner.
MON,6/14: Blue Lagoon; Reykjanes; Aquarium; 5:40 to JFK: GREENLAND & CANADA! (Return to Journal 6/15/99).
FILM NOTES FROM TRIP -1
Roll 1: 0 6:50AM Snow mountain from airport.
1 6:56AM: Keflavik Airport.
2 Keflavik. / 3 Clouds. / 4 Outer hebrides.
Through #8 pix of Glasgow.
9 City Chambers and MOON.
10 Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Arts.
11 Buchanan St.
12 Gallery of Modern Art---built as private house in 1792.
13 Queen Elizabeth 2 in Gallery of Modern Art entrance.
14 Hunterian Museum: bee's nest left, 22-foot termite height-record at 800
termites high; Petronas Towers at 1476 feet only 246 humans high.
To #17 in Hunterian.
19 and 20: Glasgow Art Museum at 12:35.
28 Seagull on top left Travel Centre.
Roll 2: 4 Plodda light and ?? isle.
7 7:20 Brodick Castle from ferry.
6(?) snow on Grampion Mts, just before Drumachardor (?) Pass, highest in Scotland (?).
7 Lock Ericht just before Dalwhinnie.
12 yellow omnipresent.
13 Golspie 7:17PM.
14 and 15 10:30 To and from Ulbster Villa.
16 Thurso from Scrabster Ferry.
17 Ferry nose-up and lighthouse and HOY (with WHITE SURF!).
29 Victoria Street, Stromness.
Roll 4: 0: Brough walk 12:15PM.
2 Earl's Palace in Birsay.
3 Eynhallow, Atlantic to LEFT of ripple, North Sea to RIGHT.
5: 12:50: What the "Peephole" represented.
18 Earl's Palace Great Hall and fireplace.
29 and 30 HUGE breakfast.
31 out of Kirkwall.
32 heads.
34 Sanday is next-last island?
35 11:50 Fair Isle "bird sanctuary, fewer than 100 people."
36 overall view.
Roll 5: 0: 2PM smithy at Jarlshof and lots of both shots.
6 8:25 voe
7 Peak on hill 8:54 lamb, geese, sheep, waiting for Yell Ferry.
9 9:22 from South Yell.
10 10:23 Ferry from Unst coming into Yell.
12 salmon factory: they're all BORN female, and at maturity 1/2 BECOME male.
13 Muness Castle: started 1597.
14 11:25 Muness Castle from NorNova where I buy GENUINE Shetland woolsweater.
15 BROWN sheep on top of hill---looking NORTH!
16 12:10 Muckle Flugga! NOT to be seen from top!
24(?) BaltaSound Hotel.
19 4:35 Sullom Voe terminal.
20 Oil refinery,right covers two football fields-biggest building inScotland.
Roll 6: 10 and 11, out of Kirkwall, but into CLOUDS at 3:25.
14 Palace tower---did I GET this before?
14 and #15 John O'Groats point/town.
27 COLORS of CLOUDS!
28 1:42 gorse in sun.
30 9:50 Ben Horn (3000'+) on right, Ben Loyal on left.
32 12:52 Sea mist.
Roll 7: 19 10:06 lone farmhouse with hills and clouds, leaving Ullapool.
FILM NOTES FROM TRIP -2
20 12:06 Stornoway, land at 12:13PM.
31 2:33 stone bridge south of Stornoway.
Roll 8: 29 Storage "cleet."
33 "House of the Fairies," from 500BC, "mystical."
Roll 9: 4 some of the trippers.
11 1:25, coming in to Uig.
14 and 15 3PM Black Cuillains on right, RED Cuillains, under clouds, on left.
16 3:35 Hills across road.
18 4:20 Kyle BRIDGE, ex ferry.
19 Eilean Donan Castle 4:50 from bus to Fort William.
20 5:13 rain and snow and clouds.
21 Nevis Range gondola 12:26PM.
34 Mountain south of Glencoe 12:03PM.
35 LAST of roll at 12:06.
Roll 10: before0, TRY at cirque into sun.
0 1:15 Loch Lomond, taken on the FLY.
1 1:20 Tarbet bus stop.
2 1:30 BACK at Loch Lomond. Great castle (hotel?) just north of Balloch.
3 2PM Erskine Bridge.
6 Nottingham Alabaster, early 15th Century Resurrection.
7 Cranach: Judith with the Head of Holofernes (purchased in 1995!).
16 7PM The Corinthian (where six sexy naked men pose around chandeliers.
17 Gay Polo Lounge on Prince's Square, off Buchanan.
22 Queen St side(?).
24 Greek Thompson LOWER, upper above(?).
27 "The Lighthouse" should have been open tomorrow, now scheduled for 6/25.
34 Corinthian OUTSIDE (was a courthouse).
Roll 11: 0 and 1 Mackintosh School of Art on Renfrew 8:35AM.
3 Dunoon on Cowal Peninsula from open top bus top 10:54.
5 Monkey puzzle tree.
6 Meconopsis Grandis from Himalayas.
9 Dactylorhiza elata (4 purple).
13 Deciduous cypress.
14 Formal garden 12:30.
17 Purple-coned Korean fir.
20 Enkianthus campanolatus. / 21 Chilean lantern bush.
26 Bhutanese glade under development.
27 1870 fernery ruins.
29 Foxglove.
34 Castle turret in trees 3:12PM.
Roll 12: 8 Rhododendron cinnibarium (RED trumpets).
10 Firth of Clyde 4:40.
12 and 13 Glasgow (and Armadillo)!
24 10:04AM, inside Eden.
Roll 13: 0 Sun on snow-hills and dots of cairns from 900-year-old road-marks.
2 11:20 Reykjavik sky.
3 9:15 mall on right.
5 10:35 Kerio crater-lake.
8 11:10 Skalhole Church and view.
To 29 Goldfuss Falls---GREAT.
30 12:30 glacier from bus.
Roll 14: 6 Geysir on my next-last film-roll.
8 3:10 Iceland rift.
Roll 15: 7 of light-barrier window.
15 1:10 rift, GREAT Reykjanes to 1:53.
Roll 16: 2 Greenland on LAST roll of film.
17 on LAST film-roll.