What a glorious Tuesday!

For those of you not in the British Isles today, let me tell you-- you missed it. Sunshine like silk, a light breeze, fresh air, blooming flowers, sunlight on water... people live for days such as these.

So what did Miss Melville do with it?

Took the train to Inverness and a bus and a boat out to Loch Ness!

Lawd, what a lovely day! The ride out along the rails took about 2.25 hours, delivering unto our happy eyes field after pasture of woolly, wonderful sheeps and sheeplings. These little balls of fluff munched sweet green grass or frolicked as we passed stone fences and small creeks. Genuinely enjoyable. After arriving in Inverness, a pleasant town all on its own-- though about 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than our point of departure in Aberdeen-- we wandered down to the tourist information storefront, where my traveling accomplice, let's call her M, purchased some Scottish swag and cards of the post persuasion. Then it was off to a woollies shop for more touristy purchases, and then the bus depot where we ate sandwiches in the aforementioned sunshine and shared a chocolate bar. Yes, I packed a little "mom bag" as M called it, with sandwiches and green grapes and granola bars and some chocolate and dried cranberries (unsweetened, of course) and a totally unnecessary umbrella and some band-aids, but these last two weren't needed. I can't seem to go anywhere without these provisions, much to my mother's delight-- she's infected me with the travel-provision-worry bug, and I must admit that I don't really mind.

ANYWAYS, M and I caught a coach out to Loch Ness itself, following along the River Ness, the shortest river in Scotland and the only outward bound waterway from Loch Ness. Apparently many rivers flow into it, but only Ness relieves it. It's a lovely, shallow affair with well-groomed banks for the most part.

Our tour guide was a pleasant old fellow who'd grown up in the area and relayed to us loads of interesting facts about the area, the buildings we passed on the way and the Loch itself-- apparently there's more fresh water in Loch Ness than in all of England and Wales combined. Also, regardless of season the water temperature remains a steady 3 degrees centigrade. Holy frigid, batman. Lovely, dark and deep indeed.

And then we saw it-- Loch Ness. Shimmering in the rare Scottish sunshine, lightly misted at the far end, and utterly stunning. All those late-night cheap television specials had totally failed to prepare me for actually seeing it. However, the silly monster-chasing specials had prepared me for one thing:

Giant plaster Nessie!

This was about as close as we came to seeing a monster, but it was good enough for us. Onto our boat and off for a cruise on the glistening water. The boat wasn't overly full, and we were able to scamper up to the top deck and fully enjoy the fresh water breezes. Looking down into the water, one could really see just how black it it-- all the peat sediment that washes down out of the highlands reduces visibility to mere inches. The mist steadily faded away, but the effect was breathtaking.

Eventually we made our way to Urquhart Castle, an old fortress of the Jacobites and therefore ruined during a campaign which happened before America was even a twinkle in her papa's eye. The approach was fantastic, giving a good view of the ruins from the water. After alighting from our boat, M and I bee-lined it for the waterline, so as to put in our feet. Admittedly it was an incredibly warm day for these northern climes, but I swear the water wasn't THAT cold. In fact, I'd say that it was Lake Michigan-cold rather than Lake Superior-cold, and certainly not North Sea a la two weeks ago-cold. Regardless, it was refreshing.

Urquhart Castle itself was interesting and a good clamber. Signage told of how, after the bombardment which left the place in a sea of rubble, local farmers had made use of the stone to build barns and other useful things, and so all that's left is the skeletal remains of what was one a large and complex castle. However, the spiral staircase in the tower (all five stories of it) and several of the windows, arches and lintels are still intact. In fact, you can still see the soot on what would have been the inside wall of the chimney of the smithy's. I think things like that, living signs of habitation, are more remarkable than the scale, though the bulk of the place was certainly impressive.

The Smithy.

According to our learned tour guide on the coach, the digging of the Caledonian Canal, which we passed on the way in and looked remarkably unremarkable, lowered the lake level by almost 3 meters, dropping the lake surface to just 3 meters above sea level. (He claimed this also gave evidence to the incredible staying power of the cold in the water.) In doing so, the moat which used to encircle the castle has given way to some lovely, carpet-like grass:

On the walk up, M and I passed another remarkable sight-- an unusually shaped little guard hut. There was something about it that positively arrested the eye.

In addition to the numerous arrow slits and high windows which would have given decent protection to the archers inside the fortress, Historian M took the opportunity to enlighten me as to the usefulness and history of the "murder hole" from behind which one could lance, skewer, shoot, stab or douse with boiling oil or tar anyone moving up the entryway. As it is, I think it was dead handy to take my own personal historian and literati with me on this little foray into entrenched history.

Parts of the Castle were remarkably intact, considering how much force had been leveled against it in the name of English domination. As a side note: anyone in the northern climes is more than welcome to start vociferously proclaiming the merits of the English army or government at any point, and I've got a fiver that says you'll be "corrected" by a "friendly" Scotsman in record time. Regardless, the stairwell leading from the inner close to the outer close was one of the remaining bits of the old outpost.

The outer walls of Urquhart Castle as viewed from the high ground within the Keep.

After clambering around like billy goats for the better part of our tour time, M and I headed up the path to the proper modern museum, auditorium, gift shop, cafe and all important water closets when something caught out eye. Something large, wooden, forceful-looking standing out from it's surroundings... "Is that what I think it is?" I asked in a voice both hesitant and mirthful. "What do you think it is?" M returned my query. Together, we dared to ask, "Is it... a trebuchet?!?"

Oh hells yes. A trebuchet.

Complete with stone balls to hurl with medieval destructive force. I positively giggled. The historian in M was greatly pleased with the whole venture and after some more strategic acquiring of postcards and literature in the gift shop, we caught a coach back into Inverness and puttered about until we were able to board a train back to Aberdeen.

All in all, a thoroughly rewarding day. I heartily recommend it to anyone who has the chance. I hereby bestow on Inverness and Loch Ness the full five out of five Miss Melville rating.

Book Review: The Oldest Orphan

Written by Tierno Monenembo as part of the Duty to Remember project coming out of the Rwandan Genocide, this is not a particularly light read. This is not to say that it’s not a quick read, topping out at 96 pages, or a well-written piece, but it is certainly not easy. The narrator is accessible, but deceptive and debatably monstrous. And, frankly, any book written about genocide should be difficult—if it’s easy you’re doing it wrong.


The narrator, Faustin Nsenghimana, is 15 years old at the time of the narration, making him a newly-minted 10 year old boy at the time of the actual genocide. His story is one of brutal survival, of what he felt he had to do to continue to exist in his world, be it as it may. By alternating between reflection, memory and flashback, the story unfolds with such tact that one is never able to forget that Faustin is a victim, but becomes monstrous himself. Perhaps this is the cruelest consequence of war—the living casualty.


At the outset, the reader knows that Faustin is living out the short remainder of his life awaiting a death sentence in the Kigali central prison. What one doesn’t know until the bitter end is what first set him on his path—the manner of his parents’ death and his mutilated survival. By constantly pulling the reader back and forth between being horrified by Faustin and heartbroken by his plight, the author skillfully evades the temptation to make a saint of his narrator and with the same hand deepens the reader’s understanding of the tragedy.


In a number of marked ways, the work thematically resembles Camus’ The Stranger. Beyond the fact that both narrators are ultimately sentenced to death and they both death with the death of the mother, there are certain other elements that pull out a comparison. However, Monenembo’s descriptions are infinitely more graphic and The Oldest Orphan lacks the sense of release of tension that one gets at the end of The Stranger. While this is quite possibly deliberate, as the genocide has not gone away or been dealt with, it leaves a lasting effect on the reader.

While I would certainly recommend this short yet heavy piece of fiction, I would do so with a cautionary air—don’t treat it as a summer read, beach book or rainy afternoon solace. It is certainly none of these things. As such, it is absolutely worth a read.

Ergo: 3.5 on the 4.0 lps (literary point scale)

A new leaf.

Alright, so… Miss Melville is making a few changes in her little online life, dear friends—less with the ridiculously self-centered, uninteresting posts, up with a new era of far more interesting things! This is not to say that my various exploits won’t crop up now and again, but there will be other segments as well…

And so, in this new vein, I offer book reviews, whiskey ratings, musical and visual artist appraisals, and informal guides to visiting the many beautiful sites on our green and growing planet.

Enjoy!