A Holiday Up North Part 2
Reading over my notes from the trip to the North West Highlands of Scotland that my family and I embarked on over a month ago I'm struck by how pretentious I sound. Now as a disclaimer, I can barely read the almost illegible knot of shapes that I wrote after half a bottle of red wine and far too many beers.
The second entry in my notebook corresponds to day two of our quest through the back of beyond here, on our very own island. On this day, we walked near to our little house on the banks of Lochcarron. I remember my family with had the preoccupation of getting to the top of the jagged, molar-like hills that encased the loch. The pretentiousness makes me cringe when I read sentences like, "Why do we have to do ordinary things like getting to the top of a hill? Just enjoy walking through the alpine trees and jumping over babbling brooks!" Fuck that's bad, who did I think I was? Michael Palin?
In hind sight, I think that could be the point of a trip to the Scottish Highlands, just enjoying the surroundings. In England, getting to the top of a hill is pretty much the best thing you can do in the countryside. You find yourself (relatively) remote from other people and the sound of a town or busy road is barely conceivable. But in Scotland, and especially in this desolate haven, there is that level of isolation from the moment of waking. So maybe doing the "normal things" lilke walking up a hill aren't that necessary. Or maybe I'm just being pretentious again and reminiscing about how much simpler the life seemed to be in the Highlands than it is studying chemistry at Imperial College.
Later that night, we enjoyed taking the time out to wait for a shooting star (and yes the half a bottle of wine and far too many beers were an excellent alcohol shaped jacket). If no body has done this, do it. I'm finding it dificult to describe how awesome it is to wait, listening to silence and looking into darkness for a brief one or two second window in which a light streaks across the sky. I especially recomend it to those who live in London and live with the daily curse of having to fight their way onto a bus with fifty other barbarians in business unifrom to make sure the boss is kept happy with an early arrival at work. Even more awesome is realising that this light is from the disintegration of a piece of rock, millions or even billions of years old, plummeting to earth at speeds of up to 250 times that of a speeding bullet. That rock wasn't going to fall to earth just for you to see, it fell to its own trajectory and the act of waiting to see this special event just rocks. Sorry for the pun!
The second entry in my notebook corresponds to day two of our quest through the back of beyond here, on our very own island. On this day, we walked near to our little house on the banks of Lochcarron. I remember my family with had the preoccupation of getting to the top of the jagged, molar-like hills that encased the loch. The pretentiousness makes me cringe when I read sentences like, "Why do we have to do ordinary things like getting to the top of a hill? Just enjoy walking through the alpine trees and jumping over babbling brooks!" Fuck that's bad, who did I think I was? Michael Palin?
In hind sight, I think that could be the point of a trip to the Scottish Highlands, just enjoying the surroundings. In England, getting to the top of a hill is pretty much the best thing you can do in the countryside. You find yourself (relatively) remote from other people and the sound of a town or busy road is barely conceivable. But in Scotland, and especially in this desolate haven, there is that level of isolation from the moment of waking. So maybe doing the "normal things" lilke walking up a hill aren't that necessary. Or maybe I'm just being pretentious again and reminiscing about how much simpler the life seemed to be in the Highlands than it is studying chemistry at Imperial College.
Later that night, we enjoyed taking the time out to wait for a shooting star (and yes the half a bottle of wine and far too many beers were an excellent alcohol shaped jacket). If no body has done this, do it. I'm finding it dificult to describe how awesome it is to wait, listening to silence and looking into darkness for a brief one or two second window in which a light streaks across the sky. I especially recomend it to those who live in London and live with the daily curse of having to fight their way onto a bus with fifty other barbarians in business unifrom to make sure the boss is kept happy with an early arrival at work. Even more awesome is realising that this light is from the disintegration of a piece of rock, millions or even billions of years old, plummeting to earth at speeds of up to 250 times that of a speeding bullet. That rock wasn't going to fall to earth just for you to see, it fell to its own trajectory and the act of waiting to see this special event just rocks. Sorry for the pun!
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