This is Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness, Scotland. I visited the area several years ago with a choral group from Virginia.

The group went to England, to sing with our sister choir in High Wickham, but I paid extra to stay an additional week. My hosts, Barry and Jenny Street, helped me make arrangements for my second week after original plans I had made became suddenly moot.

During my extra week, I stayed in Edinburgh at a wonderful bed and breakfast, whose name I wish I could remember, but the hosts were absolutely wonderful to me. I was in Edinburgh for the festival of Beltane and took one of the "ghost tours" in the tunnels (catacombs, sewers, whatever) under the city.

That was for the first few days. The rest of the week I traveled north into the lower Highlands, to a city called Inverness. It lies on the river that leads into Loch Ness and was showing signs of rapid development from a small community to a busy tourist area. My bed and breakfast there was somewhat of a let-down after the wonderful treatment I received in Edinburgh, but I still enjoyed the city.

One day I spent the entire day walking around in the countryside. I had taken a bus into the hills to look for what I thought would be the location of a stone circle mentioned in a novel by Diana Gabaldon. (The novel is Outlander and I am currently reading the latest installment in the series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. She's a wonderful writer--well able to make you love and hate the characters as if they were the people in your own life. She also puts a great deal of research into her work so the historical aspects she draws on are not too far taken away from the history we are taught--just enough to be realistic and still have the lift of fantasy. I have been in love with Jamie Fraser, the story's hero, since I read the very first passage about him.)

Umm... yeah. I was telling a different story, wasn't I? So I walked around the hillsides looking for the battlefield at Culloden, which I found, and the stone circle, which I don't believe I found. I found a stone circle, but I doubt it was the right one. During this adventure, I also found landmarks that referenced places I had heard of in Scottish music. A band called Silly Wizard has a song on the one album of theirs I owned, called the Valley of Strathmore. I passed through an intersection with crossroads signs on it, and one of them pointed towards Strathmore. I had to take a picture of that for myself and my sister, who loves the song (and the group) as much as I do. Of course, I also promised to bring her back a big Scotsman, kilt and all. I didn't completely manage that, but I did get pictures of a bagpiper in full tartan, and got a Beef Eater to speak on a tape recorder for her. That was great.

Well, enough reminiscing for the moment. I need to get beautiful for a wedding this afternoon. Not mine! Some friends from the hash decided to get married, so of course, all the hashers are invited as well. Several of us pooled our funds and bought them a kegerator. Perfect gift for a hasher, especially since the groom is our current beer meister. I think we may have even gotten enough money together to put the first keg in it for them. I love hashers.