Tattie bogles and wee drams

---

On Monday, we drive over the concrete bridge to Skye, the Misty Isle, in a strong wind. The sky shows patches of blue ahead, but when we reach Broadford, there's a downpour. We decide on some indoor activity, so head for the Talisker distillery.

It's the time of the Tattie Bogle festival. Along the road there are countless scarecrows: a man bending to pull logs from a pile, a woman in spotted wellies and Marigolds sitting at a bus stop, the Stig from Top Gear in white overalls and racing helmet, a dalek. Others are more sinister, with devilish masks and sharp teeth.

On the tour, we find that the distillery isn't in production today. Talisker depends on rain to feed the burn for its water supply, and to our surprise there hasn't been enough of late. The guide assures us that they're expecting more. The whisky is distilled in copper stills, then matured in oak casks, most of which are American and previously contained bourbon. Some are sherry casks from Spain, though as sherry is becoming a less popular drink, so they are becoming more difficult to obtain. The usual loss by evaporation is about 2% ("the angels' share"); the longer the whisky remains in the cask, the greater the loss. We're told that workmen recently came across some barrels of fifty year old malt; little remained in the casks. Some found its way to a local inn and was selling for over £200 per shot.

On the way back to the bridge, we take a detour along the winding, single-track road to Kylerhea. After five or more miles, we cross one of the frequent brows to see the bay ahead and below us, with a rainbow on the hillside. We change into our boots and walk down to the a hide overlooking the shore by a lighthouse. Half a dozen people are lined on benches by the window, binoculars trained on the beach in the hope of glimpsing an otter or a seal. It's a long way off and it's hard to imagine seeing anything distinctly, a suspicion that's borne out by an information board that tells us how to distinguish between the two (besides the obvious fact that otters have legs). A sign on the path tells of Minke whales in the kyle, the strait between here and the mainland.

On Skye, we found that Jane's mobile wasn't roaming between networks as it should. The problem persists and on Tuesday she calls the service provider. The adviser recommends a "battery drop": removing and replacing the battery. This produces a message that the SIM isn't accepted, and the phone won't work at all. Another long call leads us to conclude that the only solution will be to drive the seventy-five to Inverness to pick up a new SIM card. That's a job for tomorrow.

---