Do you like it here now. Are you settling in?
Well that's a couple of months since the Viking Queen, princess and I took up residence in deepest Ross-shire, so perhaps it's time to take stock.
No doubt about it, Strathpeffer really is a gothic wee place. Not the people, no nothing gothic about them. Lots of good MacKenzie and MacDonald stock, direct descendants of the Knockfarrel Picts I have no doubt. No, its the architecture that gives this place a Hammer horror feel. All those flying buttresses, towers and spires.If Stephen King was ever going to be looking for a home in Scotlandica this would definitely be the place. Oh and all those huge trees all over the village. Great clouds of billowing greenery which have been a source of fascination for the Viking Queen. She reliably informs me of a time when required to sketch a tree for art class she had to resort to copying one from a book so rare the sight of the real things in Shetland. This does partially explain why she was stuffing her pockets with leaves before returning to Lerwick last autumn. At least I think it does.
Other points of interest in this neck of the woods;
Red Kites - quite numerous and very easy to spot. Their mastery of air make the local buzzards look like flying bricks by comparison.
Rain - there's a lot more of this than I'm used to! That sunny microclimate of Moray really does exist. However there's probably less of the wet stuff here than in Shetland, so on a rain to head ratio it must be working out about the same between us.
Pipe bands - now I don't mind these. I even enjoy the odd rendition of Highland Laddie stirring my blood. But a pipe band playing in the square every Saturday evening for five months of the year? This amount of stirring may leave me shaken. Time will tell.
Tourists - There are lots of these. Masses of them. Coachload after coachload. A blue rinsed tide ebbing and flowing around the place to the pull of the hotels' deep fat friers.
Still they're all tucked up in bed fairly early. Perhaps they don't fancy being caught out on the streets after dark, when the bats start flitting around all those spooky spires.
No doubt about it, Strathpeffer really is a gothic wee place. Not the people, no nothing gothic about them. Lots of good MacKenzie and MacDonald stock, direct descendants of the Knockfarrel Picts I have no doubt. No, its the architecture that gives this place a Hammer horror feel. All those flying buttresses, towers and spires.If Stephen King was ever going to be looking for a home in Scotlandica this would definitely be the place. Oh and all those huge trees all over the village. Great clouds of billowing greenery which have been a source of fascination for the Viking Queen. She reliably informs me of a time when required to sketch a tree for art class she had to resort to copying one from a book so rare the sight of the real things in Shetland. This does partially explain why she was stuffing her pockets with leaves before returning to Lerwick last autumn. At least I think it does.
Other points of interest in this neck of the woods;
Red Kites - quite numerous and very easy to spot. Their mastery of air make the local buzzards look like flying bricks by comparison.
Rain - there's a lot more of this than I'm used to! That sunny microclimate of Moray really does exist. However there's probably less of the wet stuff here than in Shetland, so on a rain to head ratio it must be working out about the same between us.
Pipe bands - now I don't mind these. I even enjoy the odd rendition of Highland Laddie stirring my blood. But a pipe band playing in the square every Saturday evening for five months of the year? This amount of stirring may leave me shaken. Time will tell.
Tourists - There are lots of these. Masses of them. Coachload after coachload. A blue rinsed tide ebbing and flowing around the place to the pull of the hotels' deep fat friers.
Still they're all tucked up in bed fairly early. Perhaps they don't fancy being caught out on the streets after dark, when the bats start flitting around all those spooky spires.
posted by Ajax MacKindlers at 8:10 AM
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