Healing Powers of the Scottish Highlands!

I’m home already as I write this so it is a retrospective blog note! To be honest I had envisioned a very slow, quiet open-air and healing vacation with much down-time for reading and writing. This, in my mind, is what I envisioned even though I had a list of 8 or 9 major things I wanted to see, do, experience or share with my travel-mates Terrie and Frank! Thank GOD that we get what we NEED and not what we want or envision for ourselves!  In every way, this trip was refreshing, healing and helpful and filled with the most beautiful and breathtaking scenery you could ever imagine. But it was a busy, pro-active pace without ever feeling “pushed” or “rushed” or too overwhelming. We scheduled each day with John and Helen and they worked hard to ensure everything on the list got taken care of!

I could never have hoped or expected the unending and doting attention of our hosts/landlords! I have maintained a distance connection with my friend Helen for over 30 years. We have exchanged Christmas cards on and off, notes, etc. and then, thanks to Facebook/internet and email, we have been in more constant contact the last 10 or 15 years or so! Helen and I were in hospital together awaiting the birth of our sons John Richard and Kenny. She was in her young 20’s and I was 30. The time-difference now is inconsequential, but back then maybe I seemed like an old lady! And, due to my lack of fitness level now, I probably seem pretty old too!  Terrie, who is 3 year older and her fiance’ Frank are much more fit and so as it turned out were able to physically have much more in common with John and Helen. If I judged it right, I think the 4 of them will be life-long friends now too!  Helen is a most delightful and easy-to-talk to lady. I enjoyed her company 30+ years ago and even more so all these years later as she and her husband John took it upon themselves to ensure that we saw and experienced EVERYTHING on our list and added more to it for total fulfillment of our entire time with them!  John was a natural guide and care-taker; and both John and Helen were so fun and fantastic.

For the last 4 years, I have been on a roller coaster health-wise; both physically and emotionally.  I have been having increased occurrences of panic attacks; bouts of depression and physical incapacity–some related to medication reactions, and some related to degenerative issues in my joints, etc…. and so losing weight permanently, which has alluded me for much longer and for many of the above reasons, has been even less successful. Then it loops the cycle to emotional distress, etc. and well it results in long term “paralysis” to broach nearly anything to full success. It’s a vicious cycle of which I’ve been, as yet, unable to escape–but have never given up trying or hoping that I’ll experience some personal break-through some day.  I know that much of this goes much further back than 4 years, but it’s been more accentuated to me these last 4 than the 10+ years before. Probably because AGING adds just one more layer!  But I’ve maintained full-time employment, part-time college student status, sole responsible party to home and pets, including selling and moving and of course being a vigilant “mom” to my two ADULT “kids”!

Anyhow, back to this fantastic and true VACATION! The Scottish Highlands are like nothing else you’ve ever seen or experienced.  There are similarities at moments in time to other beautiful and scenic places you may have seen or been to, but the beauty and awe stand alone. And it’s accentuated when you are guided through by John and Helen. Their historical knowledge and obvious affection for the area, readily shared and excitedly explained, fills you even further with deep appreciation…and LOVE of the world around  you. From this view from my bedroom window:

which is the left-most window in this pic of Rosemount Cottage and Bothy where we stayed:

to the scenery that never ended; giving you a sense of God’s miracles and the beauty that still remains in this world. The lead pic in this Blog is a pic I snapped with my cell phone while on a return drive at an unplanned stop-over at a small car park! The beauty and mystique goes on forever and this picture captures this as best you can without really seeing and experiencing it for yourself.

We experienced scenery on/off the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea as well.  You sort of need to “feel” the North Sea to appreciate it.  It is different…it really is! This below pic of Ballone castle is on the North Sea and was an actual ruins that has been lovingly restored.

I will mass-insert the pics I took; but they are from all over the Highlands. We loved every place we went. We found an old blacksmith’s shop that has been refurbished to a small pottery-makers place, a woolen shop where ladies sit in a circle spinning yarn from sheep’s wool and a mosaics/glass artist’s beautiful artwork emblazoned on the building.

We found unexpected finds at an antique shop in Ullapool…a place I wouldn’t even have known to visit without John and Helen! I bought a little milk pitcher. And our most fantastic drive that brought us to see hundreds of wild Stags in glorious scenic revelry.

And, of course, we SHOPPED and ATE and enjoyed all of it!  I got, on sale mind you, some fresh Tetley round teabags! And a much beloved visit to Heathergems in Pitlochry where they make their jewelry out the sticks of the Heather plants which you will see in the pics as looking like huge patches of brown on the rolling hills. I wanted to go there back in 2005 when we were tourist-busing around when Michael and Kenny were performing with the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony so this was a real thrill for me!

I wanted to share this trip with Terrie and Frank for many of the same reasons I wanted to go there. For them to love and experience the open Highlands and appreciate the beauty of nature around them. They had been through over a year of living hell with Terrie’s cancer diagnosis and treatments…and they deserved a renewal experience. It seems to me that it offered that and more for both of them. And I was thrilled to be a part of that experience with them.

and, last, but certainly not least…BEN.  Wonderful wonderful Ben. Having just lost my last doggy, Sonny, it was so wonderful to have Ben around. He took Terrie and Frank on walks, he ate in nearly every restaurant/pub with us and traveled nearly everywhere we went!  It was wonderful.

Here’s Ben in is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Bandana:

I feel incredibly HELPED by this experience; and hope the feeling never wanes. Thank you for being interested to read this if you’ve made it this far!

Love, Lila