RECOVERY DAY INCLUDING THE EATING OF WOODCOCK-UGH

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice

And to make an end is to make a beginning

T.S Elliott

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Welcome to 2013. 

So with a 6am bed you would think that we wouldn’t be up till the afternoon, but we were all up at 12 noon and unfortunately we had missed the departure of 6 people who left at 9.30am and at 11.30am.  That was a shame, but they had cars to return and planes to catch and maybe it was sort of okay as I hate good-byes anyway.  The good thing for me is I hope to see them all again in May when I return to London.  I have a return portion of a ticket I didn’t use last year, so I picked May for want of a better month, so I guess that is the only thing I do have booked and considering I have no idea where I will be in May it is a little comforting to have that in place.  I also got some grand news that my Scandi Contiki gal pal Aimes was engaged and her wedding is to be the 3^rd August in Canada.  I would LOVE to be there for that, but that is something that I just cannot commit to at this stage.  We will see later in the year, later in 2013!!!!!

Again my timing was perfect as scrambled eggs and bacon was on the menu and sizzling in the kitchen when I got down there this morning.  I was feeling a little ordinary, but considering it was a 12 hour drinking session I was actually doing okay.  It really is beautiful here and with massive glass window overlooking a paddock and a view of the fast flowing river with the glens in the background it was a great place to nurse a hangover.  There were showers, some sunshine poking through black clouds giving an amazing light on the bare trees and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wished to be.  Paps and Em got married here and I can see why.  The family home also needs a notable mention.  Inverawe House first appeared on the map 300 years ago. It became an important stronghold of the Campbell Empire and boasts its own trans-Atlantic ghost at Tigonderoga.  The original house has an incredible story.  Having established himself at the mouth of the River Awe around the early 1500s, Campbell of Inverawe decided to build more comfortable quarters for his family. He settled on a more sheltered site further up the river and built a tower-house on the site of today’s Inverawe House.

The original Inverawe House has been altered and expanded much over the years. One Laird who carried out many improvements was Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe who also sent barrels of seeds and young trees back from his final voyage to America, which ended in his death at Ticonderoga in 1758.  When he died, Inverawe came into the hands of his only surviving child, Janet, who was married to an English officer. In 1765, she sold the estate to her maternal uncle, Colonel Robert Campbell of Finab and Monzie.  His line died out with his daughter Jane, who inherited it in 1888. She married another neighbouring Campbell Laird, the Captain of Dunstaffnage.  In 1912, Mrs Campbell of Dunstaffnage sold Inverawe to the Currie family, owners of the Union-Castle shipping line.  They commissioned the well-known Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer, who carried out major alterations to the house, forming a great panelled hall with high windows in the central tower and demolishing the former porte-cochere in favour of today’s front door with its steps.  Of this, a protesting neighbour remarked that “it was more suited to an Edinburgh street than the Highlands”.  In 1923, the house was sold to Major Ian Bullough whose family had made a fortune in textile machinery and who had built Kinloch Castle on Rum. He died in 1936 and Inverawe, now held in trust for his sons, was leased for 15 years, to cousins of Major Bullough, the Blakeney family.

In the 1950s Inverawe was sold to Mr Anderson, who divided the house into flats. In 1958 the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board which was constructing the Awe Hydro-Electric Scheme, the largest in Europe, bought the estate to act as its headquarters.  It provided accommodation for its staff in the house and in Nissen huts built around it. It was at this time that the ballroom was demolished and the top floor of the house removed.  Inverawe House is still a family home, with the Campbell-Prestons living there since 1962. They took over in 1980, having found the idyllic place to start a business and bring up their four children. Robert was brought up on the banks of the Awe. He is a born fisherman and naturalist.  What an amazing family history, and something that we would never get in Australia. 

Robert and Rosie now run a successful smoked salmon business that is on the estate.  Robert was trained in the art of smoking by old Mr Pinney, and found that he was a completely 'natural smoker'.  He knows exactly when something is ready, when something needs a little more smoke or heat. Rosie and Robert soon found smoked fish from Inverawe House was in great demand.  They started with 400 addresses from all the family’s address books – and the business just grew. Today this figure has multiplied many times over, and yet they have managed to keep the personal family touch.  If you live in the UK they do post and all their products can be ordered from their website at www.smokedsalmon.co.uk

So then there were 13.  The next car load left at 1.30pm and then there were 8.  Jamie, Fi, Girl the Addle Paps, Em and I were smart and knew that we would need another day to recover and they were right.  My afternoon consisted of going through the 120 photos I took at the clay pigeon shooting and the 363 photos I took over the New Year celebrations.  Thank goodness that Facebook have lifted their very first photo restriction of a 100 photos per album.  In my defence I did have a lot of photos to cull and when I had finished I was left with 99 from the shooting and only 256 from NYE.  Not a bad number and in my defence there were 19 of us right- we need to have some leeway for all the people right.  Right?  I saw in some-ones Facebook feed about having a photo to represent each day of 2013, a photo journal as such, and I thought I would be up for that challenge and I have now signed up for http://365project.org/berniejamieson/365 So keep up with my daily photo and the small story that will go with it each day as the year progresses. 

A stocktake was done of the 2 days/2 nights alcohol consumption and as a group we had drunk 1 bottle of vodka, 3 bottles of gin, 5 crates of beer, 2 bottles of whiskey, 10 bottles of champagne, 2 magnums of champagne and 34 bottles of red and white wine.  Not a bad effort and the great thing is that Em and Paps bought all the food and drink and then they just gave us a bill at the end of our stay, so nobody was out of pocket and Rosie and Robert weren’t left footing any bills either.  It was perfect.  After a pizza lunch that totally hit the spot we all retired to the TV room on the second floor and watch Stardust.  An easy going movie that we all democratically decided on out of about 50 movies and it was a chill afternoon. 

Dinner was going to be a push for me.  I walked into the kitchen just as ‘dinner’ was about to go in and they were Woodcocks that had been killed 3 days before.  As their common name implies, the woodcocks are woodland birds. They feed at night or in the evenings, searching for invertebrates in soft ground with their long bills.  Paps had gone out on the shoot, but hadn’t contributed to the now dead birds lying on a try with a bit of bacon wrapped around them and a slice of orange on top.  One of them still had its head on, as Paps said that you can eat their brain, it is supposed to be quite a taste-yeah I bet it is.  They looked disgusting, but being in Scotland I just had to try something that had been caught fresh off the estate and when it was served on my plate, my first cut into its small breast the innards popped out the end and then that was me done.  Literally the innards came oozing out.  It was also a little red for me and after small bite, the flavour which is very gamy if you’re into that, I was done.  My bird was popped into the oven a little longer and then it was eaten by someone else.  They aren’t the biggest things in the world, but to serve that to a bunch of hung-over people was a BIG call and I am embarrassed to say I was the only one out of the 8 that didn’t eat it.  But I did give it a shot.      

So that people summed up my first day of 2013. 

I can’t believe that it is the start of another year.  Come 29th of March this year (2013) marks 2 years since I left Australia on my World Odyssey, it doesn’t even feel that long ago but then when I look back on what I have done and seen it does make it a bit of a reality check for me. 

2013 has begun and I am ready for whatever it has in store for me.