A town called Malice...

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As co-pilot while we have been touring the Highlands, it has been my responsibility to read out small snippets of information and history to my dealy beloved driver as he does his best to avoid walkers and sheep around the skinny lanes.  

The husband has found the bits of history very interesting, but struggles a little with the pronunciation of the Scottish town names.  There is one place that we have been through several times now, and ten days in, it is still proving tricky.

The name of this 'town' is Gairloch.  So far, this is what we have had...

Gary

Gareth

Grockle

Goulash

Garish

...and my personal favourite, which sounds so much like it, I can forgive him...

Garlic

The tricky thing is that we have met very few actual Scottish people, so you don't get the opportunity to listen to the musicality of the language and embed it in your head.  Most of the people we have stumbled across are either English tourists like us, or people who have moved up here to live permanently.  

I can really relate to that, and have already started looking at houses for sale. There don't seem to be any estate agents as we know it, so there's been a lot of looking for places like 'derelict cottage for sale 15 miles from Loch Torridon with a telephone box outside'. Of course, this is but a pipe dream, as I am sure that the kids would kill us if we headed for the hills, but as my mum says, it's ok to look at the menu as long as you don't order.

As well as estate agents, there are also no supermarkets, no WiFi, no phone signal, no restaurants open after 4pm, no watery bacon (even the stuff we have bought in tiny village stores has been exceptional - Tesco, take note) and no traffic.  The nearest we have had to a traffic jam was three bolshy sheep on a single track road near Red Point yesterday.  This was easily resolved with firstly, patience, and then secondly, a brief bib on the horn.

Deserted beaches, beauty everywhere you look and reminders that life can be very simple if you decide to live it that way.

No wonder so many people choose to live here...



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