When my daughter was in college she spent one summer working in Scotland. I joined her for the last three weeks of summer and we travelled Scotland, Wales and England, riding the British Rails and staying at various Beds and Breakfasts. The trip was one of the best of my life. I wouldn't have gone if not for my daughter, because I am normally afraid to fly, and flying is kind of necessary to get the Britain these days, but happily I made the flight.
One of the most memorable days of the trip was in Inverness, Scotland.
We signed up to go on "Gordon's Loch Ness Tour". Gordon was a retired biologist with a large van. He loaded up two American's (my daughter and I), a Canadian family of three, two Japanese and three Italians and drove us out to the Loch. Once there Gordon served us tea, kept hot in a couple of thermos jugs.
(I kept confusing the British by asking for "hot tea", because the British can't even imagine drinking tea any other way but hot. They don't drink iced tea. They don't drink iced anything.)
Once tea was served, Gordon asked if anyone wanted to swim, and offered his collection of bathing suits for our use. No one wanted to swim in the cold lake, but Gordon said he would. Then he calmly removed all his clothing on the beach and put on a pair of swim trunks. Now the Japanese and Italians took no notice at all of the brief public nudity. The Canadians looked vaguely uncomfortable, but kept talking, while the Americans dropped their mouths open in amazement and didn't know where to look. Americans just don't do nudity in public. I think most of them don't even do nudity in private. Maybe it's the Puritan in us.
After his swim, Gordon led us on a hike up the mountain above Loch Ness. It was a three or four hour hike through the trees, with a stop for sandwiches, and up to a glorious meadow of heather. The view from the top was spectacular, and well worth the climb. Getting down the mountain was actually harder than getting up, but the whole trip was exhilarating, and I am grateful to Gordon, and my daughter, for making it possible.
We didn't see the Loch Ness monster, we saw a little more of Gordon than we bargained for, and we saw some interesting cultural differences.
My Picture Left In Scotland
I now think love is rather deaf than blind,
For else it could not be
That she
Whom I adore so much should so slight me,
And cast my love behind;
I’m sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest He
That sits in shadow of Apollo’s tree.
Oh, but my conscious fears
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundred of grey hairs,
Told seven-and-forty years,
Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace,
My mountain belly and my rocky face;
And all these through her eyes have stopped her ears.
Ben Johnson
