Skye, mainly.
Thank you all for your condolences and hugs on my last post. It is still difficult to believe there will never been any more phone calls going "It's Dorothy!" and often continuing "Do you still have the recipe for..." or "Have you thought about...?"
Tonight I have some carrot cake in the oven for catering at church - Dorothy sent me the recipe years ago when I was saying it was difficult to know just what was, and wasn't, right for carrot cake; it came from The Times, she said, so was bound to be right. And I've used it ever since, receiving a lot of compliments for it. I've also just put the fruit, cider and sugar to soak to make another cider and orange loaf - and this was one of my recipes that I know she cooked regularly...
Some time I will write a little more about her - like why she reminded me of Haldir(!), but in the meantime I am going to post more of the pictures I took on 'her' island a couple of weeks ago.
These first ones were all taken in the gardens of Dunvegan Castle...
(That tree has a branch that grows out from the trunk at right angles at just the right height to sit on. Those of you who remember this chapter of The Winter Tale will realise why it made me smile!)
I really enjoyed walking around the grounds - but D-d is a bit of a Philistine about gardens - at one point we saw a sign to 'The Round Garden'. She was ahead of me as I had stopped to take a picture (the one of the tree). She turns around says "It's round. It's got flowers in it. Now can we go and get a cup of tea?"
As we approached the castle itself she noticed the McLeod standard before I did -
Yes - it is quartered with our Three Legs of Man. As we went around the castle we found that this is because the founder of the clan, Leod, was a younger son of the King of Mann and the Isles - and they are proud of this heritage. When we visited the Clan Donald Centre they mention, as a sort of aside, that their clan was founded by someone who rebelled against the King of Mann and the Isles - and then made peace by marrying his daughter. This seems to have been the same King and so actually the founder of Clan Donald was married to the sister of the founder of Clan McLeod - but they don't actually mention it!!
We didn't take pictures inside the house - they ask you not to, but this is the view from their walls -
It looks out over a sea loch - a good defensive position.
And later I drove a little further along the road past the castle - this is what it looks like from outside -
And here are a couple more views of the loch -
In both of those the open sea is to the right, the castle to the left.
Finally, this is a picture of the loch to the landward side of the castle, taken from the small village of Dunvegan -
I noticed something when I took that, and zoomed in onto the little cove at the waters edge to see -
Yes - those are, indeed, sheep, cropping right down at the edge of the salt water.
I would guess their meat would have a distinct flavour.
I do still have a few more pictures, mainly of Portree, which I will post sometime in the next few days.
Tonight I have some carrot cake in the oven for catering at church - Dorothy sent me the recipe years ago when I was saying it was difficult to know just what was, and wasn't, right for carrot cake; it came from The Times, she said, so was bound to be right. And I've used it ever since, receiving a lot of compliments for it. I've also just put the fruit, cider and sugar to soak to make another cider and orange loaf - and this was one of my recipes that I know she cooked regularly...
Some time I will write a little more about her - like why she reminded me of Haldir(!), but in the meantime I am going to post more of the pictures I took on 'her' island a couple of weeks ago.
These first ones were all taken in the gardens of Dunvegan Castle...
(That tree has a branch that grows out from the trunk at right angles at just the right height to sit on. Those of you who remember this chapter of The Winter Tale will realise why it made me smile!)
I really enjoyed walking around the grounds - but D-d is a bit of a Philistine about gardens - at one point we saw a sign to 'The Round Garden'. She was ahead of me as I had stopped to take a picture (the one of the tree). She turns around says "It's round. It's got flowers in it. Now can we go and get a cup of tea?"
As we approached the castle itself she noticed the McLeod standard before I did -
Yes - it is quartered with our Three Legs of Man. As we went around the castle we found that this is because the founder of the clan, Leod, was a younger son of the King of Mann and the Isles - and they are proud of this heritage. When we visited the Clan Donald Centre they mention, as a sort of aside, that their clan was founded by someone who rebelled against the King of Mann and the Isles - and then made peace by marrying his daughter. This seems to have been the same King and so actually the founder of Clan Donald was married to the sister of the founder of Clan McLeod - but they don't actually mention it!!
We didn't take pictures inside the house - they ask you not to, but this is the view from their walls -
It looks out over a sea loch - a good defensive position.
And later I drove a little further along the road past the castle - this is what it looks like from outside -
And here are a couple more views of the loch -
In both of those the open sea is to the right, the castle to the left.
Finally, this is a picture of the loch to the landward side of the castle, taken from the small village of Dunvegan -
I noticed something when I took that, and zoomed in onto the little cove at the waters edge to see -
Yes - those are, indeed, sheep, cropping right down at the edge of the salt water.
I would guess their meat would have a distinct flavour.
I do still have a few more pictures, mainly of Portree, which I will post sometime in the next few days.