Bonnie Bovine – Part 1
By Taba Dale
Kevin and I are back in Liscannor, after completing two Golf & Music Tours to St Andrews and the Highlands. Our golfers played many of the iconic, Top 100 courses during the day, while our musicians, Paul Carroll & the Begley Brothers, entertained every night in local pubs. The Auld Grey Toon (St Andrews) will never be the same, that’s for sure.
We were in Scotland for nearly an entire month, taking an extra week with our friends Jane and Roger Franklin, to visit the Isle of Skye, Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides, and South Uist.
Taba inside circle of Callanish Stones on Lewis
On the Trotternish Penninsula of Skye, we climbed the steep path to the large pinnacle of rock known as the Old Man of Storr. We explored the ethereal Callanish Stones on Lewis, which predate Stonehenge by 500 years.
Askernish: 11th hole, par-3, walking from Kevin’s tee (197 yds) to my tee (142 yds)
Back in County Clare…
Back in County Clare where Elsie & Lucy and the small herd of cows spend their days eating the juicy grass of Liscannor…
“Lucy, what do you think we should call the new girl?” Elsie asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. She’s so huge,” Lucy noted, spotting her large, white body grazing in the field.
The big new white cow grazing in the pasture
“Well, Batty the Battleship was what I call huge. She was so big and grey. I really miss her.”
“Me too Elsie,” Lucy agreed, “she was a dear sweet soul. She was an enormous help when we went to visit our cousins in France.”
“Oh please, don’t bring that up now,” Elsie mooed and hung her head.
“OK, so the giant white one — she is really a bonnie bovine,” Lucy said with a swish of her tail.
“Where did you come up with that? Have you been listening to our next-door neighbors?
“I did hear the brown-eyed American gal talk about Bonnie Prince Charlie,” Lucy confessed, “but apparently she doesn’t think he is so bonnie.” Brown Eyes said, ‘Maybe he was pretty, but he was an eejit and only escaped from Scotland after he botched the Battle of Culloden, by dressing up as an Irish spinning woman!’”
Elsie was aghast. “You know, Lucy, I’m really not political. Don’t get me started on that subject.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Lucy apologized. “But what about the monstrously big new white girl?
Elsie was pensive and then said, “She’s like a massive recumbent slab, isn’t she?”
“A what?” Lucy couldn’t believe her ears. “What in the world is that?”
Now it was Elsie’s turn to admit she was eavesdropping. “Must have been our human neighbors again — talking about seeing standing stones in the Outer Hebrides, and a stone circle in Daviot when they were in Aberdeen.”
Recumbent slab of stone circle, Longhead at Daviot, (Aberdeenshire) Scotland
Lucy shivered a little and asked, “Do you think they are into spiritual stuff?”
“Probably the gal is. The guy worships golf, so no, it would not be his thing.”
“Maybe our new white cow is spiritual too. What if we call her Daviot?”
Elsie concurred. “Good one Lucy. She deserves a very special name.”
