Day 5 -- Wednesday, the 16th October
We sleep in, today. Up at 6:35 or so, which gives us enough time to prepare for our breakfast. Indeed, we have an appointment at The Harbour Inn, across the street. All three of us have the Full Scottish, which is not blinding (I ask for the bacon to be crispy -- it is not), but nice, and filling.
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| adc re-enacts the famoud tOMoH breakfast pic |
Say, it is about time we explore the town, is it not? We walk up the street to visit the church, which is well known for being round, so the Devil cannot hide in a corner. That is really its claim to fame: from the inside, it is fairly uninteresting, plain and bland as Protestant churches tend to be, a functional place of worship.
We take a walk in the surrounding graveyard, where adc is suddenly annoyed: a huge gaggle of barnacle geese took off in the neighbouring field as she was pulling her camera out. JS and I heard the cacophony, but we did not realise adc was likely the cause of it.
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| How many distillery workers in those graves? |
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| Commonwealth war casualties |
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| A gaggle of barnacle geese takes off behind the wall |
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| adc manages a better picture |
On our way downhill, we stop in every shop to look at random tat for tourists (a lot looks quite nice), interesting books, maps, posters, whiskies etc.
We do a quick stop at the house, then move on to the distillery, where we will spend most of the day. [notes to follow]
Back home after 16:00, we eat a bag of popcorn past its prime, and consequently narrowly miss the Islay Whisky Shop's closing time. Grr.
A quick trip up the street for some take-out at the Cottage Café (Soup of the Day, which is Leek and Potato, for adc and me, then Haggis Supper for adc, and Veg Pakoras for me -- JS is living on leftovers). It is easily the cheapest meal of our stay, as well as the worst. At the same time, it does the trick, and I am satisfied.
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| Veg Pakoras |
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| Haggis Supper |
We have a dram of Bowmore 43yo 1973/2016 (43.2%, OB, 6 x Bourbon Hogsheads, C#3883-3888), followed by an Islay-cask-aged beer from Mills Brewery, then off to bed.
This was a strange day. Of course, the tasting was pleasant enough (the whiskies were cracking, mostly), yet I felt like I was wasting my time the whole day. See, it was supposed to rain from dawn to dusk, which convinced us not to hike. In the end, it was dry from around 10:00, and just drizzly prior. We could have been hiking instead. Bah! The ladies had fun, and, really, so did I. The fact I did not drink, in case we would take the car in the evening, did not help me relax. Truth is, we were always going to visit Bowmore (town and distillery), and today was the best day to do so. I am just a little grumpy.
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