Hot Time, Summer In (Ross &) Cromarty

I've been as lazy a blogger on this side of the Atlantic as at home.  We've covered some ground since las we spoke, so let's see what might be of interest.

Elsie and John had arranged a rich full day for us on Friday.  First, golf at historic Tain Golf Club, which I just discovered was originally names St. Duthus Golf Club, named for the patron saint of Tain.  They lured Old Tom Morris there in 1890, where he was able to fit fifteen holes into their available land, with many of those original holes maintained largely as Tom left them.  Tom no doubt was more interested in the fishing in the Dornoch Firth, but likely pointed to where tees and greens should be sited.

Old Tom made his way to Crail the following year to lay out their original nine holes, so we are very much on the Old Tom Morris Trail this trip, hoping to add one more course with which Tom was associated before leaving.  For anyone keeping a scorecard at home, we are currently 0-1 in Old Course Daily Ballot attempts.

The defining feature of Friday at Tain was the heat.  I'm not sure if it ever actually hit 30C (86F), but it got toasty out there.  One odd feature of Scotland is that any given surface temperature feels warmer here, and this was so hot that Employee No.2 ended up with heat rashes on her legs.  

And they're off:

The golf itself was a pretty ragged affair, at least for three of us.  My favorite part of the day is watching Elsie and John tote up the Stableford scoring, in this case in a perfect spot sitting outside the clubhouse:

Really quite the nice spot:

Just a lovely spot in the shade in which to enjoy a toastie and not over-interpret one's play, because the scorecard contained joy for only one of us:

Elsie won the day, and not by a small margin at that.  For those only marginally familiar with Stableford scoring, 36 points means that one shot one's handicap.  Thus, Elsie is deep into sandbagging territory (Elsie, we kid), and the rest of us need remedial tutoring.  Oh well, we're just getting started here....

This was a portent of things to come:

Hard to discern, but off in the distance on the other side of the Dornoch Firth the Glenmorangie warehouses are visible.

Perhaps one more portent from Tain:

All Spring and early Summer we've been hearing how wet it's been, though the last 2-3 weeks have apparently dried out.  I call your attention to the earth tones in the photos above, hoping it's an accurate harbinger of firm and fast conditions in Fife.  

The Glenmorangie tour was good fun, although they strangely would not allow photography inside their buildings, so I shan't bore you with photos of stills and mashers.  

That modern glass structure is their "Lighthouse", purpose built for their mad scientist that develops their new concoction, whit an over-sized still contained within.  In front is a giraffe, which they've adopted as their cause because their traditional stills are 5.1 meters tall, which so happens to be the height of the average male giraffe.  

 

Good fun, although those partaking in the tasting (Theresa and John) didn't seem over the moon about the two selections available.  The prior evening John played a series of spots (presumably from a social media campaign) for Glenmorangie featuring Harrison Ford, the first of which I'll embed below:

We found them quite amusing, riffing on everything from Ford's reputation for being curmudgeonly to the pronunciation of the brand's name.  There are a total of twelve, and you can find them easily enough on YouTube if you enjoy.  I'll just say that we found them...well, Nice!

In catch-up mode, a few photos from Coul House Thursday evening:

Good to see that the receptionist has back-up.  This was the light as we drove home from dinner:

You'll be quite sick of my evening light photos from Pittenweem soon enough....

Dinner Friday was another wonderful BBQ, including two puddings:

Not just Banofee Pie for your humble blogger, but Sticky Toffee Pudding for Employee No. 2.  Somewhere in our travels we caught our first hay bales:

You'll see more of these for sure.

Saturday morning John ferried us to Inverness to pick up our rental car and we made the three-hour drive to the Kingdom of Fife.  Fighting the heat, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive in Pittenweem in the midst of a Haar:

"Haar" (also spelled harr, hare, harl, har, and hoar) refers to a cold, sea fog, particularly common on the east coast of Scotland and sometimes northern England. It's formed when warm air passes over the cold North Sea. The term is also used to describe the wind that carries this fog. Additionally, "Haar" is the name of a restaurant in St Andrews, Scotland.

The reason it was a pleasant surprise is that it was cool, no more than 17C (62F), although it had been much hotter and the house needed a thorough airing out:

 

In the middle of the frame are three dormer windows in an orange roof above the white buildings on the water, the two on the right being our bedroom.  But where is the tidal pool?

By the time we went for dinner, the Haar had mostly lifted, although it was visible out on the Firth:

Which amused me when I saw this later:

Dense fog expected on Sunday; Genesis Scottish Open moves to two-tee start for final round

They are right across the  Firth from us, although I write this at 7:30 a.m. we seem pretty clear.

The tidal pool was back where it belonged by the time of our after-dinner stroll:

And perhaps you'll be up for one quick photo of Pittenweem in that evening light I go on about

We're off to the Balcomie later this morning.  Madam indicates that I'll be going down, and certainly the results from Tain provide no reason to doubt her assessment.

Cheers.