22 April - Back in Edinburgh

After a long day fishing on the Saturday, Stephen cooked up some of the caught trout for dinner and 2 huge duck breasts for the younger participants who eat a substantial amount.  The trout tasted lovely and fresh as you'd expect. Finished off some more wine and cheese, another 2 episodes of Physical100 and earliesh night, ready for a long drive home.

Completed tidying up of cottage with a military precision the next morning and on the road by 8.30am.  Only a couple of incidents of driving rain on the way home.  Drive includes going through the Cairngorms which is a lovely stretch of mountain ranges and of course a stop at the House of Bruar - The "Harrods of the Highlands".  Only added another jumper, handbag, some food and a scarf to the haul from there. I only contributed a handbag so the 2 young ones replaced the wine in their bags with clothing going back, oh and some Hydrolite which we were asked to pick up for them in Sydney, the UK ones 'not being up to scratch' (bit like their coffee I am told).

Dinner was at one of our locals - the RoseLeaf pub.  Very nice seafood pasta and we also all shared some gin cocktail which came served in a rather large teapot.  Even Will was nearly defeated by the volume as it was decided we also needed a bottle of wine. Cute place and a good pick after a very long drive.  Fortunately for me, Will decided he was going to do all the driving in the 2nd car so I just got to enjoy the scenery with Stephen, occasionally referring to google maps to ensure we didn't inadvertently end up in Glasgow. 

Finished the morning on Monday with Will and Em visiting one of our hole in the wall coffee places on Leith Walk.  Coffee apparently is generally much better in Edinburgh than London and substantially cheaper.  Although it sounds as if everything is substantially cheaper than London.  They left the coffee place clutching 3 bags of coffee beans and Stephen and I made a new friend to get our coffee from. 

Deposited Will and Em at Waverley Station for their late morning train, also loading them up with sandwiches from a local bakery in Leith.  We hear they arrived safely and like us are doing a week's worth of washing from the River.  We have a washing machine in the flat but no dryer so having to peer at the TV through a load of hanging clothes.  They will actually dry overnight as flat is very warm.  Found we have a large heater at the front door which we assumed didn't work but is an old style heater that comes on off peak, heats up a bunch of bricks in it then releases heat slowly. Can see would be nice in the middle of Winter.

I hesitate to say but weather is slowly warming up.  Sun is shining (It's actually Tuesday morning as I write this - 23 April) and we are off to get some travel cards for the bus/tram.  Our apartment has a few additional bottles (featured below), crowding out the IT section of our flat. Also included some photos of the hill loch area they fished in, some more photos around the cottage, a photo of Will in our Edinburgh flat and Stephen enjoying some wine at the fishing cottage  (or the fishing bothy).

Did some research on the Big House at the River Halladale.  The Big House was built for a Louisa Mackay in 1765 and is a former home of the Chieftains of the Bighouse and Sandwood Chieftains of the Clan MacKay. It has an unusually large walled garden behind it which I saw when I stood on the paddock above it (avoiding the dangerous cow). The MacKays were all over that area.  The history consists of the Clan MacKay fighting with other clans but mostly fighting with the Sutherlands (the English) - a fight which lasted over 4 centuries.  The history is as usual a confused contradictory bunch of facts with the MacKays siding with the English against the Jacobites but ultimately losing their lands to the English (the Sutherlands) with the Highland Clearances.  Sheep replaced people in 1815 and the Mackays handed over their land in 1829.  They apparently also had some title - Lord Reay which was created for them back in the 1600's. They still have the title. Either way they lost and the direct line disappeared although I do remember one of the Mackays who lived in the Bighouse had 21 children, the lodge area next to the Bighouse was called the Barracks but the better view is it housed servants, not soldiers and had a large kiln for drying grain.  That is all still there.  Not sure about our little fishing bothy but it looks old - possibly 1700-1800's. No toffs ever lived there clearly so not featured in any history notes.   They ended up with the Lord Reays going to Dutch nobility.  Although there is a decommissioned nuclear power station named for them - Dounreay.    The latest clan chief is an Aeneas Simon Mackay, 15th Lord Reay who is also a Dutch nobleman, British financier, living in London, admitted to the House of Lords etc etc.  We all had a bit of a giggle at his picture, name and CV. We got the picture.