Finishing with Inverness

We spent a couple of days in Inverness where Pete's Great Grandparents got married, Margaret Mackenzie and William Johnston. Inverness is a small city, we enjoyed our stay here. We went to the movies, celebrated Lars turning 10, visited the Culloden battle site and Cawdor Castle. We tried to mix our time here up a bit so that Lars and Roxcy would not find it all too boring.

We went to see Spider-Man Far From Home. Roxcy LOVES Tom Holland. She has such a crush on him and wants to see any film that he is in. Lars is a big Marvel fan and has seen all the Marvel films. We really enjoyed Spider-Man. It is light watching but fun and it was so much fun watching Lars and Roxcy fill themselves up with popcorn and ice cream. Lars has 4 Marvel movies on his device to watch when he gets bored or we are doing a lot of driving, I think he has watched them 4 times since we have been on the road. Roxcy has Spider-Man Home Coming on her device. I think when we get back to the States we will have to watch all the Marvel movies on Mikes big surround sound system. That will be  quite a lot of hours viewing.

Lars turned 10 while we were in Inverness. This was our attempt at a birthday breakfast. Pete walked to the bakery up the road from where we were camping and bought a pie, sausage rolls and shortbread type biscuits. We thought it would be nice for Lars to have a hot pie for breakfast ... Pete came back with cold sausage rolls and a cold pie, apparently they did not sell them hot. He then thought that frying the sausage rolls might heat them up enough to eat. It was all a bit of a disaster really. Roxcy did not like the jam in the biscuits so I scraped it out. Not much was eaten. The food was certainly nothing like what he would have had at home with his Mum & Dad, but he did not complain.

As part of Lars' birthday celebration Pete and he went go karting ... it was a great success! Our breakfast disaster faded very quickly when Lars put on his go karting gear and prepared for the track.

Here they are lining up at the starting line with two other go karters. It was fun watching Pete and Lars race each other round the track ... they had about 30 minutes all up. 

I love this photo of Lars and Pete ... Lars looks like a young professional Formula 1 racing car driver. 

 While we were in Inverness we visited Cawdor Castle which dates back to the 1330's and  has been the seat of the Thanes of Cawdor ever since. The castle is known for its rare tapestries. This embroidered seat reminded me of Marg. She taught me how to embroider and smock. I did a lot of embroidery for a while. I think I did one for Viv, Cathy and Marg. I really developed a love and appreciation of needle work from Marg.

During our time in Inverness we also visited the Culloden battlefield. This battle was fought in 1746. Lars is fascinated in all of this history and of course the swords and guns. The battle was a disaster for the highlanders who were supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie and the end of the Jacobite rebellion. 1200 highlanders were slaughter in a 68 minute battle and many more were killed in the weeks that followed. This defeat was the death knell for the clan system and the beginning of the end of the lifestyle of the highlanders who were heavily persecuted by the military. It set the scene for the highland clearances when many families were driven out of the fertile glens and either emigrated or lived in poverty in coastal crofts. These people were Pete's ancestors and I felt like there were moments when the bloody history of these people spoke from the earth.

From Inverness we drove up to Dornoch on the start of the North Coast 500. By the time we got here it was raining and looked and was miserable. Pete and Lars had a conversation about upper, middle and lower class. Upper class is a RV, middle class is us in a camper and lower class is a tent ... there are some advantages to being middle class and this is one of them. Not having to camp in the rain. We drove past the church where Madonna and Guy Ritchie married. It is also the place where the last witch trial took place in 1722, they boiled an old woman alive in hot tar. What can I say. We are now officially on the NC500 and Outlander Country.