a garish red hat

Travel Journal Post #2: Oh, the Dreadful Fog in Skye!

In February, a week or two before I bought a round trip ticket to London, the Morrison clan was sitting rather limply around Grandma's living room because it was the night before my grandfather's wake. It was a long night and a black night, with his wife and his children and grandchildren sitting there in conversation, whether silent or aloud. Before we left, Aunt Tracey pulled out a black knitted hat to give to Aunt Paula. A nice, neat black hat knitted by great-aunt Muriel, who in all senses of the phrase is a knitting machine. I filed that hat away under 'Mention to Muriel that I'd Like One Myself' and went back to working out the eulogy in my head.

There is nothing like a wake to try your patience. You vacillate between being strong and professional or weepy and sentimental. Do you stare at the coffin with watery eyes or skim clear eyes over it? It didn't look like Grandpa. They trimmed his beard. That helped. But when someone comes through the line and grasps your hand with a certain grip, and you look up at their eyes, and you know right away that they have lost their own father, or mother, or brother, then the tears arrive in a rush for both of you. And then there's the inappropriate laughter that rises up when someone comes through the line that Grandpa didn't like, or when my aunt gasps at a lady who once made a pass at Grandpa having the indecency to come through and shake Grandma's hand.

But whether you are laughing or not, tears linger at the back of your eyes until they have opportunity, and opportunity knocks often. When Muriel made her way through the line, she gave me a hug, and said, "I have something for you, Rachel, if you want it," and handed me a red knitted hat. So the tears moved uniformly to the front of my eyes, as I explained oh, that I did want it. I had been going to ask her for a hat. Muriel beamed, and said words of wisdom along the lines of: "This is to show you that the Lord knows exactly what you want and need long before you do."

I appreciated the message. I didn't wear the hat that often. It was too blatantly Canadian and garish in a particularly red and knitted way. But I stuffed it in my suitcase when I went off to Europe, and I ended up wearing it one long, foggy day on the Isle of Skye.

Allan, our B&B host in Arisaig, had woken us up at the crack of dawn and rushed us through a breakfast of toast and tea so we could make it to the Mallaig ferry for the early morning sailing. It was a lovely foggy morning over the sea, but we were tired, and we hadn't a clue where we were going to sleep that night, only that it would be on the Isle of Harris. This worried Allan. (This worried me!) He made sure that we understood that we were to go to the tourist bureau in Portree, Skye, and book a room in Harris with their humble services.

The ferry men were lovely, and carried our suitcases. The bus driver that picked us up at the terminal laughed because we looked so tired, and carried our suitcases. I believe it was at this point that I shoved my hand in my suitcase and pulled out the red hat, because the fog made my hair damp. The bus driver in Portree was a woman, was certainly not lovely, and did not carry our suitcases. I was so weary, and once up the million bus steps I cried "Natalie!" in a voice of despair, poor girl, who was struggling with her own luggage, as I could hardly move with the chill in my bones and the suitcase was stuck in the aisle. So a nice young man with extraordinarily shaggy hair and a tan wool sweater jumped up, handed me his coffee, and hauled the suitcase down the aisle to an available seat.

I sat down and burst into tears. Luckily, he had already left for his own seat. "He was so nice!" I wept. "It's fine, it will work out," Natalie said. We had gone to the tourist bureau and found that there were only three options on the Isle of Harris. Each option was far out of our price range, and two of them far from the ferry terminal, and we had no car. We debated. I had no clue the right thing to do was. Take our chances and maybe come across a friendly and cheap hostel? An absolutely horrified look passed over the lady's face. "They only have a one star hostel on Harris," she said. "Do you have any idea what a one star hostel is like?" So we paid the lady four extra pounds to book an expensive B&B five minutes from the ferry terminal in Tarbert, Harris, and I swiped my credit card with an air of what else is there to do. Money only goes so far, but a one star hostel lingers forever in the scars of bed-bug bites.

So we took the bus from Portree to Uig on the Isle of Skye, and waited for the ferry there. As I struggled to get my suitcase off the bus before the rush of people getting on the bus made it impossible, I nearly broke down again when a delightful ten-year-old-or-so boy said, "Can I help you, Miss?" I believe I said, "No, dear!" with a catch in my voice because he was so small and had so many freckles.

At Uig, we sat on a bench in the fog. We ate disgusting chicken burgers at a cafe. We bought magazines because they had free mascara enclosed and read them in the ferry terminal. It was freezing, and all the local businesses kept their doors wide open, even the liquor store, which we toured out of desperation for Something To Do. We waited six hours, and with every minute my despair grew. I made pointless calculations in my head and kicked myself for not booking cheap B&B's while sitting in the comfort of my own home. And for packing summer clothes when, who knew, England and Scotland are far colder than Canada in June. What an utterly miserable day!

Finally, six hours later, the ferry arrived, and we pulled our suitcases up a long ramp with metal bumps every foot - incredibly difficult. I can't remember if someone helped with my suitcase of not, but they probably did. I think it was something about the woebegone expression on my face when carting my bags that led many, many Scottish men to help me with my luggage (unlike the cold-hearted English men, or the head-in-the-clouds French men). After disposing of said luggage in the rack and making a hysterical joke along the lines of "Somebody, steal my luggage! Anybody, really!" we found seats by ourselves, in front of a TV. The Weakest Link was on. The ferry was like a meat freezer. "I didn't know that teeth chattering was just an expression," I said. "I don't ever want to get off," Natalie said. Ferries, cold as they may be, are little oasis' from all the problems of the world. I jammed the red hat further down on my head in dejection.

But stumbling off the ferry with ice in the very core of my being, someone definitely carried my suitcase. I think Natalie might have actually commanded him too. She was a trooper through and through, and managed her own luggage with gritted teeth in almost all circumstance (bravo), while keeping a motherly eye out for how far Rachel was behind her, exactly. The sun was out on Harris, and there were little girls in bright colours Highland dancing, meeting the ferry in a very touristy fashion. We watched them for a bit, and Paul, our B&B host, almost drove past us because we looked so young ourselves (time and time again, we watched the surprise on our host and hostess' faces, as they realized that the ladies they had been emailing with B&B details actually were seventeen. Oh sorry, we just looked seventeen). But Paul, poor man with a bad back, redeemed himself by helping to carry our suitcases upstairs, because our room was on the third floor of Ceol na Mara. Oh please excuse me, I mean our HEAVENLY room was on the third floor of Ceol na Mara.

I was almost afraid to touch the bed, it was so beautifully clean and plump with mounds of comforters, and we were so dirty from the day of travel. Everything was white. Through the window, sheep baaed happily (or unhappily, who can tell?). We padded over to the open window. No screen, because this is Scotland. It opened onto a vision of delight: navy blues and muted greens fading into the grey stone of the mountains. A long day, and a black day, but the night was full of light. Oh heavens, it was heavenly. We showered and put on the thick white robes folded pleasantly for our use in the armoire, and Natalie brewed a good cup of tea in the hospitality corner, opening up packets of shortbreads to crunch delicately between our teeth as we tried not to get crumbs in the fresh beds. And - "Natalie, the TV has 1000 channels!"

When we woke up the next morning, Paul and Marlene had ready a break of porridge and maple syrup, of homemade yogurt and fresh squeezed orange juice, of Danish pastries and fresh fruit, and oh, so much more deliciousness. They stopped to make conversation. Why were we on Harris? "Because I'm a Morrison," I said simply. They laughed. "Yes, Morrisons are a dime a dozen here," Marlene said. "You know, you do have the island look." "But rather more like the MacKinnons of Scalpay," Paul remarked. I beamed. They had connected me to this island in a deeper way than I could have forced.

Only now, looking back, do I realize that the Lord knew, long before I did, that my money would stretch far enough. He knew when I'd pull the garish hat out of my suitcase in dejection. He knew that perhaps my favorite memory would be opening the Ceol na Mara window to the sea loch and leaning out, trying to spot the sheep, my hair dripping blackly onto the tiles far below.