The Clan

Jeremy will probably post about this as well but I thought I'd put in my thoughts on this last weekend as well.  Friday we all headed back north to the former swamplands of Scotland.  Gwendolyn although a good traveler was not as pleased for another long road trip quite so soon but Jeremy pacified her with a few stops at McDonalds along the way.  She's even gotten good at pointing them out to us by now.

We arrived before too late at our destination which was a very old estate turned into a hotel, but it was very nice other than the low ceilings in our room.  Even I had to duck in places.  We determined on our last trip that the Scottish people are a bit more petite than Jeremy.  As a reference his distant relatives we met the next day referred to him as the giant.  Gwendolyn quickly selected her bed, the largest in the room and when Jeremy laid down next to her she switched over to the twin in our room until I joined Jeremy and then she pushed him out of the bed and snuggled in the sheets for the night.

The next day we met the clan.  We met some from Minnesota at breakfast and ended up taking one of Jeremy's really distant relatives who only took his bike with him over to the meeting house up in the village near the Sorbie Tower where it all began.  Gwendolyn decided the meeting was boring so she and I went out and played on the beach with more distant cousins who were 8 and 4.  Gwendolyn charmed her way into getting a short canoe ride by the shore by a very sweet fisherman and his grown son.  She was so disappointed that he didn't take her fishing with him and melted on the shore when he eventually paddled away.

After the meeting and lunch we took a short drive to give Gwendolyn a chance to rest and take a nap before we all needed to meet at the Sorbie Tower.  We found the tower without too much trouble and found you could smell it long before you saw it.  It was surrounded by wild garlic.  Granted my nose is more sensitive these days but it was potent!  Brian would have loved the place.  The tradition is a parade to the tower lead by the clan piper who played a rousing rendition of "Return to Sorbie," among other pieces.  That was pretty much it.  Everyone milled around the tower and socialized which is very boring to a toddler who kept dashing for the nettles with me hot on her heels.  She did get coaxed into the tower by her distant cousins she met on the beach where she enjoyed climbing around.  The tower is basically a fortress.  Very fortified and thick walls and currently in great disrepair.  Apparently Jeremy's ancestor who built the tower was a bit of a hothead and ticked off his neighbors often.  The tower therefore was necessary and came equipped with a moat, also necessary to slow down his angry neighbors when they came after him.  If the garlic was there centuries ago I would have thought that was part of their defense too but there's no record of that in the history at least that we have heard.  Maybe the smell was part of the neighborly issues?

That night was the formal dinner and dancing which meant a lot of booze.  Honestly we were impressed people were still standing by the time we finally called it a night which was a couple hours before the festivities ended and probably the drinking.  They were definitely a jolly bunch that night.  Gwendolyn was too excited to eat despite her cousin's best efforts to encourage her to do so.  The hotel had toys that they brought out for Gwendolyn and the four year old by to keep them entertained and out from underfoot for the servers.  After dinner and the auction they started the dance.  Gwendolyn made friends with the drummer prior and he let her play on his drum with him a bit while the accordion player played "Scotland the Brave" along with her drumming.  She has an impressive sense of rhythm. All good things must come to an end and she eventually needed to be escorted from her new friend so he could play the pieces he was hired to play for the dance.  She was bitterly disappointed till her daddy asked her to dance at which point everything was right in the world again.  She danced with her daddy, her cousin the 8 year old girl who adopted her for the day and tried to dance with the girl's brother but had no success so she grabbed me and danced her final dance before we waltzed her off to bed.  Jeremy even grabbed me for a reel on the dance floor.  As soon as we got to her room she quickly got undressed and leaped into bed and crashed without complaint.

The next morning we headed back and stopped in Preston for church which was a much needed and appreciated break in our journey and then drove over to the Preston Temple to show Gwendolyn the temple.  Jeremy explained what the temple was to her before we continued on our way.  She seemed calm and enjoyed just looking at the building.  We were greeted that night by our slightly pudgier kitties who seemed happy to see us home and happy to have a chance to go outside again.  Our cats are emotional eaters we've discovered.  Too many weekends away may not be too good for them.