Day 10: There’s Never Bad Weather, only inappropriate clothing!

Today was our moving day, but first—breakfast. There’s something I like to do in Scotland, and that’s eat haggis in different regions. I had a couple of samples in the Glasgow area, but now that we are in the Highlands, I wanted to make sure to have another taste, this one from the local butcher. It was definitely different and my favorite—slightly peppery and not so tart. When we get down to Fife, where St. Andrews is, I’ll try the vegetarian haggis again. It might beat this one.

After a long, tearful goodbye to Shauna, we were off. In a minute, I did a Johnny-thing. I figured out how to hook my phone up to CarPlay. This was terrific. Now John could see directions on the screen rather than hearing them dictated by me. That done, we went through a little town called Carrbridge. This is a place famous for Carve Carrbridge, a chainsaw sculpture festival, no kidding. And such a small town, we went right by the obvious winner from last year, a highland cow and calf, all carved from a giant hunk of tree trunk. I looked up the contest. It’s in September, with rules that specify that the art needs to be finished in 15 minutes. It must be a fast and noisy festival!

Hole 1 at Tain, a nice sunny start

The River Tain runs through the course. Yes, we found some rain, but had plenty of great holes before then!

This is hole 17 in the rain… see the swamped green in the background.

A bunker completely full of water. Amazingly, there are no rules to save a ball in there without taking a penalty. Luckily, no ball, just a pretty picture.

Our golf today was at Tain, a lovely course that we discovered in 2014 with Johnny and played again in 2016. It was blowing a gale when we started, and it was blowing a gale when we finished, only then it was also raining! Hole 11 was probably my favorite because I made it over the “Alps” to the green and two-putted from there. This is a hole right on the water, right before Morangie, with a great keg on the edge of the berm for the Glen Morangie distillery, just down the street. But what a day. 30 mph of wind is exhausting. Apparently, this same weather plagued the Women’s British Open down in St. Andrews today. It was a hard round, but with only two lost balls. John did well on many holes—good day for him. I parred the 16th and bogied several difficult holes, but that’s it with bragging. Mostly, I’m proud of all the pictures I took!

I love this view of hole 15… lots of grasses, and this path… so beautiful.

After golf, we had a short drive to the Golspie Inn, a charming 200-year-old mansion, and close to the water. It’s a lovely place with a restaurant—comfortable and very convenient!