A 2 week sojourn in the Isle of Skye recently, playing at the intriguingly named Saucy Mary’s.
The journey by train took about 14 hours from my door to Mary’s and was hard grind with suitcase, guitar, bag and laptop, particularly as you can’t put them down anywhere, even in the station shops or nip to the loo, without the threat that they may be blown up. Trolleys in most places are non existant and it costs a small fortune to leave stuff in the left luggage places. That said, once you are on the train it’s a lot better than driving long distance as you can snooze, eat, drink, read, gaze out windows, listen in to other conversations and all that. My strategy was to combine all at once and damned good I was at it.
The finest leg of the journey was between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh. A quite stupidly beautiful journey winding along loch shores of breathtaking splendour. My fellow passengers and I would point out deer with cries of ‘deer!’ Which is only right. A townie I may be but I know a deer when I see one.
Arriving at Kyle I was met by John the owner of Saucy Mary’s who drove me over the Skye Bridge (he not being in Chiity Chitty Bang Bang made this the only practical course of action) to the village of Kyleakin.
Over the next few weeks I learned 1). Kyleakin was at one time going to be called ‘ New Liverpool’ an ambitious and cunning plan to turn the small village into a major seaport; 2) the last ferry to Skye from Kyle (and the other way round) ran on 16th October 1995, my birthday; 3) the midgies round here are ruthless and don’t take any notice of any sprays or cream to try and keep them away; 4). Backpackers are quiet if they are at the start of their ‘journey’ and fucking lunatics if they have been on the journey for a while; 5) they like ‘rock’ music; 6). Vodka and red bull works but tastes a bit like sick; 7) Naval marines are quite aggressive and very big on a night out (and maybe even on a night in for all I know); 8). How to play 500 miles by The Proclaimers which seems to be regarded as a hymn and is the only way you get to finish a set on a saturday night coz you can sneak off while everyone is singing the ‘dandalanda’ bit for the next 30 minutes or so; 9) I am addicted to the internet and never want to be without my broadband ever again; 11) cheap guitar strings just aren’t worth it; 10)I can talk to myself quite happily after a few days on my own; 11) returning home is the best part of any journey.
It sounds like I had a bad time but that’s not really the case, it was just a bit odd being stuck in one place. I nearly went to the Skye festival but the train timetable proved an insurmountable problem unless I fancied being stuck in Manchester or Wigan station for 5 hours from midnight on my return and who on earth would want that?
In conclusion, Skye is beautiful, the people like people from anywhere (other than the Marines and backpackers……) and haver is a great word to put in a song.
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