The Isle Of Coll

Thanarru ngajubintharri!

After camping I spent a couple nights in Oban and while there I decided I really wanted to visit at least one of the islands off the west coast!

Well the only place I could find accommodation was on the Isle Of Coll, it's one of the less touristy isles and it's so small you could walk around it in a day.

The beaches were beautiful and they reminded me of WA beaches. Now admittedly I am a beach snob and I do believe Australia has the most beautiful beaches in the world, and Coll can add itself to the list!

I was very lucky to meet an awesome couple while there! They own bees and sell honey, soaps and candles, and business is so good they get volunteers to help them.

This lovely couple adopted me for a couple days and it was wonderful!

They took me out to see the bees and I learned heaps and even got to help out a tiny bit.

They gave me a bed for the extra night I stayed in Coll because I was loving it so much.

They took me to the cèilidh that was held in town on the Friday and that was the most fun I've had in a long time!

Little ol' me who has two left feet was even the first one to get up and dance, and I ended up doing three dances that night!

And that is some high cardio exercising let me tell you. The sweat was pouring from my pits!

Then after Coll I went back to Edinburgh to see the Edinburgh Royal Military Tattoo, and that was a really fun kinda special night for me. I don't have any photos or videos because I wanted to enjoy the event and be present!

Now I don't know why but every year ABC used to broadcast the Tattoo and a core memory I have is watching the Tattoo as a little girl in my nana's house.

She wasn't watching it of course, she was too busy playing cards, but it was on in the background and the bagpipes would fill the house and it's a really nice comforting safe memory for me.

I used to live with my nana when I was little and those were the best years of my childhood. I felt completely safe and completely loved and more than enough living in that run down 2 bedroom welfare house with the cracked linolium floor and dirty walls.

It's funny too because my nana was a black woman through and through! English was her 7th language and she was an important Elder in our community... and her dad was a Scotsman who worked at the station her family lived/worked on. Pretty sure he was the cook.

And she was lucky because she had 2 dads, the white one and the black one who raised her as his own.

I've been thinking about my nana a bit these last few weeks. And I don't think I'm ever gonna stop missing her. Love you nana xx