The sky is grey today. We take a shower (Tim always cold, Olga warm) and prepare breakfast while the kids sleep until 8. They play some more with their friend Noa while we pack the tent and car.
The next door Church ruins are closed on Tuesday so we continue our trip to the Robert Burns museum. It’s busy on the parking and inside, while we enter at 10 sharp. There turns out to be a celebration today, they recently discovered a new picture of Burns, and he died exactly 230 years ago.
Robert Burns is the national poet of Scotland. His poems and songs are still well known. We’ve been reading some of them to become familiar, and we recognise hints in the exhibition (to the mouse and the fox and his many love affairs).
The museum exhibits many letters and personal items of Burns, because he was famous at a young age, many details of his life were known and much was preserved.
He was the son of a farmer and he comes from a poor background, working hard on the land to support his father, and with very little education. He started writing poems at 15, for his girlfriend. He made quite some money with his poems already at the age of 26. Unfortunately, his success lasted only 10 years, as he died from a heart attack when he was 37.
We buy the Complete Poems and Songs collection in the shop and explore the village Alloway, as his memorial and birth house can also be visited.
The memorial lies in a park and can be climbed. There is also a house with moving statutes. We wait for a while before we realise that it are statutes of people that seem to be moving, but the statutes itself won’t move.
The birth house is at a 10 minutes walk. We pass the brig o’doon, many statutes of a mouse and dogs, which also remind us of Burns’ poetry. The house itself is small, it has only three rooms: a stable, a kitchen and a bedroom.
We are desperate for an ATM, as we’re still without serious cash to pay for campsites. Any ATM we try seems to be broken, does not accept our cards or does not existat all. We finally manage to withdraw some cash at the Morrisons supermarket, and also fill our stock of fruit, bread and snacks to ensure we’re fueled when we spend the coming days on islands…
We pass Glasgow on our way North. And visit the Hill House, designed between 1902 and 1904 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margareth Macdonald Mackintosh.
The house was commissioned by publisher Walter Blackie. In 1982, the property was donated to the National Trust for Scotland, which continues to maintain and open it to the public.Stories of the Blackie grand children are displayed around the house, giving a nice insight into it’s use.
We can easily identify Margaret’s role in the decoration, spotting floral motives, versus the rectilinear style of Charles.
The house is not in the best state. Scaffolds hide the damaged outside, and also inside it’s damp and plaster comes loose from the wall. Mackintosh was too optimistic about the use of concrete, a new material in his time, and the way he used it was not resisting the wet Scottish weather. Several tests are being done to see what plaster would work best before a complete renovation is scheduled next year.
It’s fun though, to climb the scaffolds and see the house and roof from the outside. We wish them all the best with the heavy and delicate removation works.
We pass the banks of Loch Lomond on our way to Ganavan. The ferry to Isle of Mull leaves at 20. It was the only ferry with available tickets when we booked last week. We arrive already at 17, and are allowed to the “stand by” lane. Our hopes rise. It would be great to have an earlier ferry and enjoy golden hour on the island. But the ferry of 17 o’clock is full and we’re still in the stand by lane.
Olga gets some seafood for Tims dinner and it does not take long until a seagull smells it and jumps on our car.
It’s the start of more animals jumping on our car. Next is a highland cattle! The kids scream enthusiastically when the highlander tries to join us in the car, but we shake our heads in shock of the giant beast. It withdraws in its car and kids are sad. They follow the highlander and ask in proper English if it wants to join our family after all. They manage and are over the moon with the new family member. The Swiss guy tells us his name is William. He’s on holiday with three friends and won William today at a Tombola at the highland games in Inverary.
The kids can take William on our holiday, but have to keep him on their lap for the coming five weeks, as he’s truly enormous.
The animal parade is the start of our luck today, as the next ferry of 18:15 turns out to take six extra cars, including us. Hooray!
Tim disappears to the upper deck while kids and Olga eat dinner in the cafeteria. The crossing trip only lasts one hour. We spot a castle, landhouse and stunning islands in the sun.
The island has a lot of grassland, hills, and also looks stunning during our 30 minute drive to our campsite.
Internet is not super reliable here, so no worries if there is no blog in the coming days, we will keep on writing and publish when we can.
