Another post from Kintyre

Well, not exactly from Kintyre, but about my visit there, as I’m home again now, and struggling to fit in all the things I have committed myself to in my retirement.  Anyway, back to Kintyre!  I’ve told you before that I have rellies up in Tarbert ,so I managed to spend time with them during the lacemaking week!  On the Monday I joined them at their Gaelic choir practice, which as before was fun.  They are singing different songs to us, so it was good to be trying out more new songs, as well as get to know some of the choir members.  Here are some of the tenors having a little practice together. before we took ourselves off to the pub for a little bevy and some good craic.   

On the Thursday afternoon I went up to Tarbert again, this time stopping to take a few photos on the road up from Linda’s. 

These are the church at A’chleit, and the Jura mountains from a different perspective. 

 

 

 

 

Clachan, which used to be on the road down the peninsula, is now bypassed by the present main road, so I detoured to take this photo.  Clachan is a pretty little village with a row of terraced cottages along each side, one of which has incorporated one of our old red telephone kiosks as its front porch!  

One of the cottages was for sale!   I’d have loved a look inside it!  No time though – and certainly not enough money to even contemplate the idea of a holiday home, though it would be nice!!!

Nearing Tarbert there is a beautiful view of West Loch Tarbert which I had to stop to photograph, and then the road heads away from the west side over to the town of Tarbert on the east side of the peninsula.  It is only a narrow strip of land here, which is what the Gaelic Tarbert or Tarbet, in some places, has come to mean.  There’s a story that it is the only Scottish mainland “island” as in 1098 Magnus III of Norway, Magnus Barefoot, made a treaty with the Scottish King Edgar, claiming  for Norway as much land as he could take a boat round.  He sailed round the Western Isles and then set to sail round Kintyre, but when he reached Tarbert he got his men to carry their longship over the isthmus, so he could also lay claim to the peninsula.  Today he could sail through the Crinan Canal and claim a bit more land!  So I suppose you could say that this area is an island now! 

This is the view from Neil’s house overlooking the harbour, while the next photo, from Wikimedia, shows the view from the hill on the other side, back to the harbour.

  It’s a very pretty town.

 

 

 

 

This is the church on the left of the photo above, and below are Neil, Hilary and Woofy the cat at home.   They had guests staying that night. Joy, a tall slim blonde lass from near Oban, sings Gaelic, solo and in a choir known as Atomic Piseag!  Piseag (PEEshak) is Gaelic for kitten, and the name is a play on the name of a late 1990s pop group very big around the time the Piseags began!  That should really be Piseagan, the plural of piseag!  Along with Joy were her accompanists, Sue, who plays cello, and Paul who plays guitar.  They were doing a west of Scotlandl tour, and were performing in Carradale that evening, so as Neil was going along to hear them, I went too.  It was a lovely night, and  when I found some of the Tarbert choir members were also there, two of them Piseagan themselves, it was nice to feel part of the community! Joy’s singing was superb, and her musical backing excellent!

It was  fairly late that night again, when I returned to Muasdale (Moozdale or Moozdle, a Norse name, probably from Magnus Barelegs’ time!).  Everyone had gone to bed, so I crept back to my room, hopefully not disturbing anyone!  Next day was Frantic Friday, our last day,when everyone works hard to try and complete their lace project. How quickly the week had passed – but I still have photos to share, so I’m not done yet!

Talk again soon.