With Verna’s folks, we took a quick 8 day tour of Scotland. We drove to Belfast then caught the ferry over to Scotland, then drove along the west coast for a bit before turning inland to head for Edinburgh where we spent 2 days. From there we headed up the east coast to Aberdeen (birthplace of Jim’s mother), then headed across the north to the west coast (all in the rain). We did see Loch Ness, but caught no sight of the monster (maybe he doesn’t come out in the rain). 

From there we headed over the the Isle of Skye for a few days, then down to Glasgow for a quick afternoon, then back to the ferry. Definitively a whirlwind tour, but it gave us a great taste of the area and whetted our appetites for a return visit. There is quite a variety of landscape, from the rolling fields in the southwest to the rugged coastlines, the moors and the mountains. 

At the end of our tour, we found a B&B near Ayr so that we would be fairly close to the ferry for the trip back to Ireland. For some reason, many of the B&B’s were not open, and after many stops we finally found a lovely home outside of town that had a vacancy. And guess what? The owner’s were Malcolms—Jim’s clan—and they informed us the next morning at breakfast that there only three Malcolms who have B&B’s in all of Scotland. And, we found one of them. They were extremely nice to us, even bringing out the clan tartan for our viewing. The people in Scotland showed us so much hospitality—epitomized by the sign on the road out of every village, "Haste Ye Back."  

Now to Haggis, Neeps and Tatties. As you might guess, Tatties are potatoes, usually mashed. Neeps is a vegetable, much like a large turnip, but apparently a bit sweeter. They are also served mashed. We were informed by our hostess that most other countries growing neeps do so for cattle feed, but apparently, the Scottish like them. Now to Haggis—We found a recipe for it and were appropriately amazed. They take the tongue, kidneys, and heart from a lamb, grind them up with a liberal amount of suet (lamb fat, probably), and add pinhead oatmeal (steel-cut oats), stuff all into lamb stomach and steam or boil. It’s different. Well, our last morning in Scotland, at the Malcolms, we had the opportunity of trying Haggis with our breakfast.  Each of us tried it and it wasn’t all that bad! Now we can say we’ve survived Haggis. 

One note if you are renting a car in Ireland to drive to Scotland - most rental companies do not provide insurance for you to drive outside the Republic. However, we did find one that did, but you specifically must ask for it. The other alternative is to take the ferry from Dublin as foot passengers, then rent a car in the the UK. For us, the car rental in Ireland was the less expensive alternative.

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