Eidsons Visit Dornoch
It was golf that brought them here. Our grandson Stephen,14, got really serious about golf this year and did well in several tournaments. His grandfather was eager to introduce him to Links golf. So Stephen, Shelby, Sean, and Thomas,11, came all the way from Austin TX to see us in Dornoch. On their way, they got together with Lilli and Violet for a big-city experience in London, which offered quite a contrast to the Highlands town with no stoplight, where we were staying.
While the two Stephens and Sean played golf the first morning, Shelby, Thomas and I visited Dornoch’s HistoryLinks Museum. That afternoon, Thomas seemed delighted to have time to himself, playing games in our backyard. When he described the yard as a rhomboid, I had to look that up: “a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled.”
The next day was the local event of the year, the Dornoch Highland Games. It started with a parade down Castle Street to the Meadows fairgrounds, then rides and games unique to the Highlands, as captured in Shelby’s minute-long video:
On Saturday our friend Marion drove Shelby, Thomas and me to see Tarbat Ness Lighthouse at the tip of the Portmahomack peninsula, on the right on this map that fills one wall of the house we’re renting. Shelby took the panorama of the shore, looking out to Dornoch Firth and the North Sea.
On Saturday evening, Thomas found some neighborhood kids to play with and opted out of a fancy dinner with the rest of us at a local hotel. On Sunday Sean played golf with our friend Geoffrey Thomson at Brora, some 20 miles north. Shelby, Thomas and I attended church at Dornoch Cathedral. Marion then took us for a visit to Dunrobin Castle.
We counted nine pieces of silver at a place setting on the Castle dining table and marveled at lovely fresh bouquets from the Castle Garden. Thomas was surprised by the fancy, but quite old-fashioned bathroom. From there we drove to Brora to pick up Sean. Dinner at Luigi capped a lovely day for all.
While Stephen Arthur caddied for Stephen Barnard in the Carnegie Shield Tournament on Monday, Thomas went fishing with his father and caught a fine-looking trout, which they later cooked and served with dinner. Such a joy to have the Eidsons with us, however brief it was. Now they know what a special place it is.
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