The road to Darvel was very familiar. We'd traveled it only ten days ago, and it was very strange to realize just how hard it had been to travel before compared to just how easy it was this time. Funniest thing was that the Hamilton's farm turned out that the farm was where we'd turned around the time before in trying to find it the first time. We drove up to the modern, neat little house, and Mary greeted us at the door and ushered us in to the coke heated livingroom. After initial introductions, we just started talking about everything and anything. Pretty much all of 'em were cool. I'm gonna refer to John Hamilton as John and myJohn as the JF for the rest of this, 'cause it could get too confusing other than that. "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb and its fleece was white as snow. Everywhere Mary went, the lamb was sure to go..." Pet lambs are real, on farms, and domesticated lambs, if they're hand raised and treated as pets, think of themselves as part of the family, which can get really, really annoying as they get bigger. Being used to being allowed in the garden, pet lambs can destroy the family's vegetables that aren't just the farm staples. John said that out in the country that 'giving someone a pet lamb' was the same as giving them trouble. Mary and John had several children, one of their sons now lives in the old farm, while Mary and John live in the new bungalow. Their son also has children, and one of the daughters has a pet lamb she calls Percy. The farm mainly grows black faced sheep for meat. The wool is shorn in the spring and sent over to Spain to be made into rugs. When John found out that I spun he joked about sending a black faced sheep's fleece home with me. There was also the rather interesting question of how, exactly, we were related, and the JF had a print out of a family tree that his Mom had put together, and the four of us had a fun time trying to read it. As far as we were able to figure, it looked like we were related by two sisters, both of whom had married one man. But we weren't at all sure why that actually had us related. Both Mary and John said that we were younger than they'd expected for a married couple that had been to the U.K. twice from the U.S. That was when John and Mary offered us drinks, and the JF asked 'em what they drank and John said, quite frankly, whiskey with water. Mary noted that the younger generation, more often, did their whiskey with lemonade, but she didn't like it sweetened like that. I decided not to, and she brought drinks out for everyone and they sipped 'em. I tasted the JF's and really like the way it tasted. So I'll have to try that sometime. Eventually, Mary asked if we'd like to stay for tea. The JF then gathered up his courage and asked one of the 'stupid questions' we'd saved up for sympathetic Scots. "What is high tea?" Mary replied, promptly, "'Tis a single course meal with bread, butter, and cakes as well as tea." She proceeded to serve us something different. First, the hot, thick, black tea, with milk and a sugar lump for me . Then Scottish pancakes which were rich, silver dollar pancakes slathered with cream butter and strawberry jam. Then thin, small slices of fruitcake, again thick with butter; big, eggy cubes of sponge with cream and jam; home baked date bars; and to finish, a chocolate truffle. There were seconds on the tea, and a lot of silence as we enjoyed the cakes. Wow. Mary was delighted at my using 'wow' for all the things that amazed, mystified, and delighted me during the whole conversation and, later, as we explore the farm. She kept commenting on it whenever I use the word and kept saying that she'd be using the word all the next day. That was kinda funny, 'cause I really hadn't realized, until then, just how often I use that word in conversation. The joke turned into something real. As we were eating Mary said that she'd like to take us down to see the farm, and the JF and I exchanged looks and then said that we'd like to take a fleece home with us, just 'cause it would be from relatives. They looked at us like we were crazy, but Mary smiled and got real enthusiastic about the idea. So the first thing she took us down to see was the barn where they kept the bales of wool. It turned out that the spring had started so coldly, that they'd only sheared the year old hoggets (castrated male sheep) before selling them for meat. So they only had a dozen fleeces, she said apologetically, as I started jumping up and down. Hogget fleeces are the finest of all the various fleeces that can be gotten. Each year an ewe lives and is sheared, her fleece gets coarser; and ram's fleeces, the first year, before they're mature and mating, are beautiful, but once the hormones get going, the wool coarsens up as well. So they had the best first in the barn and didn't even know it. Mary didn't know what was there, and didn't want to disturb the way the fleeces that were there were laid out. So she ran off to get David, their grandson. David came and dug through the fleeces, and, watching him, I saw one fleece among the others with a much finer crimp than any of the other fleeces. I pointed it out to him, "Is this one different?" "Aye! Tha's the one." he said... and proceeded to tell us that it was a half breed of some French breed of sheep, that was supposed to produce a finer wool. It had also been dyed orange around the edges. I was kinda amazed, but he said that it had something to do with making the hoggets look healthier or something for sale. He wondered if it would be a problem, and I shrugged. I was probably going to make nothing more than socks out of it, and the dye was probably not color fast if it was cheap and used for nothing more than the one day's show. I said it would most likely wash out and if it didn't, no loss, I kinda liked the color. Which had both David and Mary laughing at me, but it was cool. David brought it up to the house for us, and Mary found a box for us. I got David's sock size, in European sizes, and said it was likely that I could make wool socks for him from the fleece. They said that they'd never had anything made from the wool that they'd grown there, so I thought it would be fun. We boxed the fleece up, taped it up, and then went back in to talk a little more. One of the things I'd wanted to comment on was the book of poems that John Hamilton had published in the U.K. It was a delightful book in the language of his childhood, thick with local usage and written in the brogue they spoke. He was astonished that John and I, with our clear American accentlessness had even been able to *read* it and understand it much less enjoy it. That was a lot of fun, 'cause he was obviously pleased, too, that we'd remembered. Also, as we'd gone back in through the kitchen, we saw a painting of the farm and, behind it, were the arches of a stone railroad bridge that had once been there; but had gotten so old and out of repair, that they'd had to tear it down. The bridge arches were the namesake of the farm, which was called The Arches. As evening and darkness started to fall, we took off back to the B&B, stopping about a mile from the B&B for gas, a pasty, and a couple of Dunkin' Donuts (which were in the 24 hour shops there just as they were in the 7-11's here). When we got back John did his usual packing magic and got everything to fit in our luggage without breaking the handles off the suitcases or the straps of the duffel. Four pieces of checkin and four pieces of carry on, and we were pretty set, though the duffel was so heavy it took both hands and my legs for me to carry it around much. We then ate the donuts, drank tea and watched TV until we were tired enough to go right to sleep. ---------- The early breakfast was as solid as all the others, and with everything packed, it was much easier getting it all into the car than it had been taking it all out. We completely forgot about the long, local route to the airport and kinda semi-automatically followed the signs onto the M6, which was stopped, completely. John said not to worry, we had plenty of time. But those that know me know that I worried anyway. We got there in *plenty* of time, and since we'd checked it all out the night before, we knew exactly where to go to return the car. The little Cincacento had carried us about 1700 miles, only 100 miles less than the last trip, where we'd been in the country another day. The lady behind the counter looked a little shocked and I kinda remembered the thing I'd thought on the last trip to the U.K.... that the British think of a century the same way Americans think of a hundred miles. We got to our flight well on time. The flight to Heathrow was uneventful, other than the excellent food. And after getting out passports checked out, we found our gate with very little trouble. John made sure I was all settled in with my laptop, and wandered off to check out the duty free shop. I avidly watched the oncoming stream of travelers, while knitting at my black shawl. Sure enough, about ten minutes later a figure wrapped in a big grey trenchcoat comes down the walkway with two very long things wrapped in homemade carrying bags came trudging up the line of gates, looking here and looking there rather solidly and steadily. As he got closer, I could see the shaven sides of his head and there was a brilliant lizard tattoo'ed on the right side of his head, and an astonishingly open smile... Tanais. Hurrah! The tall things he'd slung on his back were his dij's and he played a few notes for me there, and we talked for a while, in depth about dreams and meaningful works and following ones heart. It was a meeting I needed in a lot of ways and got me to really think. That was cool. John came back, with the boxes of chocolates I'd requested and a bottle of whisky and a special gift box of chocolates and he listened to Tanais and I for a little while, and then read for a while. British Airways called for boarding on our flight. Tanais' flight was on last call, so we gave him a hug and off he trudged. We learned, later that he caught his flight right on the hairy edge. The flight back was long, but the 'right' way to be fairly comfortable, if tiring. We watched Disclosure and IQ. I loved IQ. The line through the passport check and customs was just as before. This time, though, there were agro dogs checking all the luggage coming off the plane. We had our stuff, and the box, and a guy came up with a young, very enthusiastic golden retriever who was just *ecstatic* about the box. I grinned and had fun talking with the pup who was just *wagging* his tail like crazy. "What's in the box?" asked the guy on the end of the leash. I laughed, "It's a raw sheep's fleece. Probably smells just wonderful to the pup..." He laughed a bit, and checked our list of stuff and told us to go through the 'nothing to declare' line. So we did. The guy at the gate asked a bunch of questions that John all said yes to, and then asked what was in the box. "A fleece." said John. "Is it tanned?" asked the guy. "Yes." said John, rather obviously not listening to the guy and just wanting to get through. "Okay." said the guy and waved us through. I kinda blinked, afterwards. John hadn't heard the question at all. Oh, well. We waited a while for our luggage, not wanting to haul it very far, 'cause it was so heavy. Beda, our fairy house cleaner, was house sitting and taking care of Fezzik and willing to come and get us; but we'd never talked over exactly what 'pickup' meant, and it turned out that she was waiting out on the curb. So I sat on the pile of luggage while John lugged most of it, until the last load, which I helped bring out. We piled it all into Beda's old car, and John drove us home. It was kinda chaotic with Beda finishing cleaning the house while she packed the last of her stuff, but we managed to at least get everything out of the car and most of the daily stuff put back away. My traveling gear stayed out, though, as the rest of May and June had trips scheduled throughout them. It turned out that for both those months, we were away from home more than we were there... But, right then, it felt very, very nice to be home again, able to shower and just go to sleep in our very own bed, with nothing but the frogs to sing us to sleep. ----- fini ------ "Journeys are a gathering of memories, with each place a momentary island. Our recollections are treasures, hoarded away to become gifts for some future daydream." -- LD Kirkland ----- Copyright 1995 by Phyllis L. Rostykus. All rights reserved.