9/12 10.40pm glenelg chalets
Sep. 18th, 2000 07:26 pmwell i did get my only pair of shoes wet. but i had fun. i would have enjoyed myself more if i hadn't walked around barefoot on gravel for the rest of the day. getting eaten alive by midges while doing archery put a damper on it too.
so yeah, i was in the group who hated hiking, originally referred to as the "short hike group" which soon evolved into us dubbing ourselves the "short bus group". we saw the remains of a village that had been cleared in 1840, one that looked more run down that the remains of the brochs built by the picts several hundred years earlier. the thing is, while standing in the ruins, you can clearly see modern houses not a 15 minute walk away. anne martin, who was guiding our tour and who did a presentation on gaelic song the night before, said that when she was learning songs, they told stories about all sorts of things, including lots of songs about the clearancies. but there was absolutely *nothing* from this ruined village. she could see it from her doorstep growing up, and yet it was as if it had never existed. what probably happened was that the government and the landlords (macdonalds, i think, but it might have been macleods) shipped every inhabitant of that particular village off to australia, effectively silencing all their traditions, although i'm sure that wasn't the point.
there were other cleared villages where the people left on their own. there's a song about a village in which 3 fishing boats left one day and never returned. well, that's the first few verses, at least. so there are now no men of working age left in the village, cause the boats containing them were all lost at sea. in the following verses, a flu strikes the community, killing all the children and elderly. so this village that used to be doing fine now has no one left but a handful of women, and they had no choice but to leave. it's a song, but a true one.
anne told us another story about a tiny island, just big enough for one (cleared) village. it was fairly common for people to die off until the community was no longer viable (as in the song), and that's what happened here. but there's a graveyard on the island, and 5 of the gravestones are for men who died in world war 1. now it may not sound relevant, but just think: if those 5 men, or even 4 of them, hadn't gone off to war and been killed, would that have made the difference in keeping the community going? with 5 more men, might the village have been able to survive and grow enough that today it would be a crowded island instead of another set of ruins with no one left who knows their story?
...if i was feeling better with words, i'd write an essay or poem or short story about it. if anyone else is inspired by that, i'd like to see the result.
so yeah, then we went kayaking and got wet and went around in circles a lot.
and then we came back and had lunch. at every meal, i realize how *good* the soup here is. there are all sorts of cream of vegetable variations that are the best thing i've ever tasted. (yes, all of them are the best. and don't try and chop logic with me, cause i have a bigger knife.)
then we tried to hit targets, which was pretty boring.
and came back to glenelg for dinner. i need to shower. i actually rinsed my legs down after kayaking, which felt really good. i wish i'd had time to take a shower at the columbia center, cause they had really soft towels and a rather posh shower stall. at one point i said, "why do they need showers that big at a christian retreat center?" and someone (rather snidely) responded, "they're handicapped shower," and i was like, it was a *joke*. funny, laugh, no logic chopping or i'll chop your fingers off.
er, right, where was i? i think i was about done. eddie's supposed to be looking for his play manuscripts, and if it's not too indecipherable, i might try translating tamlane. with his permission, of course. we're doing our little "work experiences" tomorrow and Thursday. i get to work at the inn/restaurant/bar, supervised by the lecherously risque bartender, accompanied by a girl from our group who has been known to hit on the guy when she's drunk. oh, boy. ceilidh Friday, though.
oh, i love kiki. remembering the strip where she has a scary dream about professor crabtree and spazzes at riff until she gets distracted by a pretty shell.
i miss my ferret.
so yeah, i was in the group who hated hiking, originally referred to as the "short hike group" which soon evolved into us dubbing ourselves the "short bus group". we saw the remains of a village that had been cleared in 1840, one that looked more run down that the remains of the brochs built by the picts several hundred years earlier. the thing is, while standing in the ruins, you can clearly see modern houses not a 15 minute walk away. anne martin, who was guiding our tour and who did a presentation on gaelic song the night before, said that when she was learning songs, they told stories about all sorts of things, including lots of songs about the clearancies. but there was absolutely *nothing* from this ruined village. she could see it from her doorstep growing up, and yet it was as if it had never existed. what probably happened was that the government and the landlords (macdonalds, i think, but it might have been macleods) shipped every inhabitant of that particular village off to australia, effectively silencing all their traditions, although i'm sure that wasn't the point.
there were other cleared villages where the people left on their own. there's a song about a village in which 3 fishing boats left one day and never returned. well, that's the first few verses, at least. so there are now no men of working age left in the village, cause the boats containing them were all lost at sea. in the following verses, a flu strikes the community, killing all the children and elderly. so this village that used to be doing fine now has no one left but a handful of women, and they had no choice but to leave. it's a song, but a true one.
anne told us another story about a tiny island, just big enough for one (cleared) village. it was fairly common for people to die off until the community was no longer viable (as in the song), and that's what happened here. but there's a graveyard on the island, and 5 of the gravestones are for men who died in world war 1. now it may not sound relevant, but just think: if those 5 men, or even 4 of them, hadn't gone off to war and been killed, would that have made the difference in keeping the community going? with 5 more men, might the village have been able to survive and grow enough that today it would be a crowded island instead of another set of ruins with no one left who knows their story?
...if i was feeling better with words, i'd write an essay or poem or short story about it. if anyone else is inspired by that, i'd like to see the result.
so yeah, then we went kayaking and got wet and went around in circles a lot.
and then we came back and had lunch. at every meal, i realize how *good* the soup here is. there are all sorts of cream of vegetable variations that are the best thing i've ever tasted. (yes, all of them are the best. and don't try and chop logic with me, cause i have a bigger knife.)
then we tried to hit targets, which was pretty boring.
and came back to glenelg for dinner. i need to shower. i actually rinsed my legs down after kayaking, which felt really good. i wish i'd had time to take a shower at the columbia center, cause they had really soft towels and a rather posh shower stall. at one point i said, "why do they need showers that big at a christian retreat center?" and someone (rather snidely) responded, "they're handicapped shower," and i was like, it was a *joke*. funny, laugh, no logic chopping or i'll chop your fingers off.
er, right, where was i? i think i was about done. eddie's supposed to be looking for his play manuscripts, and if it's not too indecipherable, i might try translating tamlane. with his permission, of course. we're doing our little "work experiences" tomorrow and Thursday. i get to work at the inn/restaurant/bar, supervised by the lecherously risque bartender, accompanied by a girl from our group who has been known to hit on the guy when she's drunk. oh, boy. ceilidh Friday, though.
oh, i love kiki. remembering the strip where she has a scary dream about professor crabtree and spazzes at riff until she gets distracted by a pretty shell.
i miss my ferret.