Day Three

We had the same breakfast as before, although this time with grilled tomatoes instead of mushrooms—again, it was all really good. There were also 2 other guests, a German woman and a woman from London who were friends and on holiday. We got the scoop on the town churches, and went to the “most laid-back” one, that our landlady thought would be most comfortable to Baptists. There was a Free Church, a Free Presbyterian Church, and the one we attended, the Church of Scotland. It was a really enjoyable service. The first thing we were handed was a Psalter, for which I was glad, but it came with Mission Praise, which was their hymnal supplement of newer songs. The only song we knew that we sang was “Give Me Oil in my Lamp Keep Me Burning,” but we also sang the tunes NOEL and something else vaguely familiar.

The sermon was good, based directly out of Psalm 8, and very evangelical. The pastor, his wife, and the keyboardist had to run after the service to go to the 12:30 service at another church in their parish, about an hour away. We headed out after church for Applecross, over the highest road in Britain, and all one-lane. It was a fun, although tough drive, but there were amazing views from the top. Once we got into Applecross, we had lunch at the only inn in town (fish and chips—the best, I think), and then started heading north around the peninsula.

That drive was even more amazing, with cliffs going right into the ocean, ancient stone houses, sheep everywhere, views of the open North Sea, and then some snow-capped mountains. It was truly the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen.

It was then a long drive to cut across towards Inverness and Dingwall, where are next B&B is, Ardullie House. It’s a very interesting house, built in 1669 by the Monroe family on a large manor. It’s in the midst of being remodeled, and is not actually the cleanest house we’ve ever been in. But, it’s really cool, being so old, and the landlady, whose maiden name was Fane, has all her old family portraits up, including one of Richard Cromwell (Oliver’s son), and another who robbed the queen’s bowrie, but whose name I don’t remember. We had dinner at a pub with only locals, and then read outside for a while, surrounded by too many rabbits to count. We tried to go to Tesco (the Wal-Mart equivalent), and, while the sign said 24 hours, it is open M-Sat 8 a.m.-10 p.m. and Sunday 9 – 8.