Radio Carol?

I have been interviewed on two different radio stations; BBC Radio Scotland (NATIONAL RADIO! Terrifying!!) and on the podcast/internet radio page Cemetery Confessions, where I was a guest in the discussion as well as specifically interviewed.

My name is Carol (by abbreviation), hence the title. I tend to use 'The House Cat' on this blog rather than my full name, but that would sound odd on those platforms for people who don't know me.

You get to hear what I actually sound like, which means you hear my awfully polished English accent. I live in Scotland, but I'm not Scottish, I'm 'Franglais' - French-English. My French accent got pushed out of me by the time I'd hit my mid teens, sadly. I'm a bit self-conscious that I now sound a lot posher than I actually am; I'm not upper-middle-class. I was raised in poverty from a working class background, but ended up attending a private school on scholarship which is where I got the polished speaking voice. I think this was also made more apparent by my deliberately trying to enunciate clearly to make sure I was understandable. 

BBC Radio Scotland Interview

Firstly the BBC Radio Scotland interview. I was contacted by a represented Kaye Adams Programme to talk about hate crimes against Goths in the wake of the excellent news that the ::Sophie Lancaster Foundation:: has been granted substantial governmental funding to continue their work. I was interviewed alongside two people who have done a LOT more work towards the Goth subculture - Sylvia Lancaster, who is Sophie Lancaster's mother and who spearheads the Foundation and does a huge amount of work to tackle bullying and prejudice, not just against Goths but against all people who are different, and sociologist ::Dr. Paul Hodkinson:: who is a Goth himself and also a researcher who has studied the subculture he is a part of and is one of the preeminent sociologists studying us in an academic sense. 

The BBC Radio Scotland interviews can be found ::here::.  The show is quite long and in different sections, and the section about Goths starts at approximately 1:41:20 (hours, minutes, seconds), and starts with the interview of Sylvia Lancaster. I think it pretty much speaks for itself, and I will not write much about the content here, especially as it is a relatively short section.

I was really nervous about the interview, as it was on live radio, and not just that, but live national radio. I get terrible stage fright at the best of times, and I was literally shaking in the studio before the interview began (and needed the glass of water I was drinking to keep me calm). The first "hi" I say is so meek, with a nervous trying-to-sound-perky tone of voice, and the whole interview had me so nervous that I was talking really quite quickly - I'm sorry if I am a little too fast for some listeners, especially for those for whom English isn't a first language. 

Cemetery Confessions Episode 
I was also a guest on the latest episode of Cemetery Confessions, which is ::here::. We mostly talk about ::an article:: on Darkest Goth magazine. We're quite critical of what was said, but I certainly think the article's heart was in the right place. Even if I disagree with a lot of it, the general push towards Goth being inclusive and keeping away from elitist gate-keeping is a good thing.
I admitted in my discussion that I'm not hugely educated on the music theory and technical aspects of rock music of any sort. This one of the reasons I've not really written much more in the 'Music Monday' category on this blog. I know what I like and that most of what I like falls into genres in and around Goth, but I don't know much about guitar playing, drumming or poking synths - my music education has been mostly classical, and I don't have a deep musical understanding of what I enjoy. 

I was interviewed specifically about being a Goth in the Highlands. I did say that we don't get gigs - this might not be true any more, as one of my friends is trying to get some bands to play here, which should be brilliant. Our community isn't the largest, but it is very vibrant, and because it's a hybrid between subcultures we can get people involved that are outside the scene. I have talked about this at length both in Gothic Beauty magazine and in ::this:: article.

One thing I noticed in retrospective listening, is that I think that some of what I said could be interpreted as a resentment of Christianity; the only resentment I have is to the people and institutions in my childhood who used Christianity as an excuse to be judgemental and restrictive towards me, and those who now couch their prejudices against me in religious terms, although I think is more an expression of their self-righteous and hypocritical bigotry than an expression of Christianity itself, and I know personally a lot of Christians, Goth and otherwise, who are very tolerant and kid people, for whom standing up to injustice and prejudice is a Christ-like action. While I certainly appreciated the artistic, architectural and musical culture of my mixed Anglican and Catholic upbringing, I also did appreciate the sincere faith of those around me, even if it was something I couldn't truly share in myself. 

[One thing I mentioned was how physical suffering is often a component to the path to spiritual attainment in the stories and lives of martyrs and saints, as well as the crucifixion itself, and I didn't mean this as a negative or a criticism, more wondering if that was the origin of the attitude in Western culture for seeing a nobility and spiritual or psychological learning in suffering. As someone who has suffered quite a bit physically and emotionally, back when I was Christian myself as well as since my conversion to Neo-Paganism, I actually found that framework personally helpful. I don't want to romanticise pain as the path to enlightenment, but I found that sometimes I learned the most about myself and life when I was pushed to my limits by terrible circumstances. I don't really know how to express myself well on this topic.]

Again, I was quite nervous, but I think I spoke less quickly than in the more recent BBC interview, but I did stop-start quite a bit - my speaking was somewhat choppy, and I think I got more fluid as the interview progressed and I became more nervous. The interview about being a Goth in the Highlands was definitely marred by my having a cold and breaking out into a coughing fit. 

Japanese Punk-Goth In Culloden

Another instalment of my 'Highland Goth' photography series. These were actually taken last summer, but I've been so busy with college that I haven't had the time to process the images. These are photographs of K. which, if you have been reading my blog awhile, will know is one of my good friends and also someone particularly interested in Japanese fashion. For the majority of her appearances on my blog, you will note that she is into Gothic Lolita fashion, but she is also into other aspects of Goth-related fashions, including Goth itself, and Japanese Goth. In these photos she's wearing an outfit that's very much based in the aesthetics of Japanese and Asian Goth brands; it's got the deliberately tattered look of punk, the bright colours and stripes from late '90s Burtonesque looks (I think there's Burton graphic on the skirt), and an hint of 'kawaii' about it. 

Photograph HouseCat

I did K.'s make-up, and lent her a few of my things as she was visiting us. I don't actually have an eye-shadow that red, so I used a little lipstick for a really vibrant red. The hat she's wearing is actually Raven's - I think he got it for a General Bison (Street Fighter) cosplay, but it wasn't quite right - not enough red. However, military style hats seem to be common Visual-Kei style headgear, and it went with the outfit, so it was donned. However, Raven is a lot bigger than K. so the hat is a tad large. K. is a keen cosplayer, so it also seems fitting that she wear a hat that was initially intended as part of a cosplay. 

Photograph by HouseCat

This particular photoshoot very nearly ended up quite badly because I managed to get a cut on my eyeball. Originally we planned to take this photoshoot in the underpass in Culloden that has a very psychedelic looking 'Alice in Wonderland' mural the local youth group did in graffiti style - it was done by teenagers, so they took a rather interesting and colourful approach to it. We went there, but I forgot that the school year is different to the university year, and that a lot of teenagers from the local secondary school were about to be funnelled through one narrow underpass... I was using my partner's camera, as mine was out of battery power, and his has a little sun-hood over the rear screen, and this is spring-loaded, with a little thumb-flick thing to release it. As I was photographing K., I was interrupted by a gaggle of teenagers, and tried to step out of the way of the flow of people, and moved the camera away from my eye, and just as I did so, accidentally released the sun-hood and a sharp plastic edge caught my eyeball. 

Photograph by HouseCat

Initially, I thought it was just a poke, and no real damage was done, so we moved on to the Doocot, where things were quieter, and I tried to complete the shoot - difficult as I had to use my other eye as my good eye was streaming with tears, and my other eye is always terribly out of focus without my glasses, and is it was bright, I had my sunglasses instead (I can see pretty well out of the eye I hurt without glasses). I'm surprised any of the photographs were even in focus! I finished the shoot, and started walking home, and was beginning to realise that it was more than an ordinary poke in the eye, and that my eye was really burning and streaming. It hurt pretty badly indeed, but I could see out of it. After consulting NHS 24 to make sure it wasn't a waste of hospital time, I went to the minor injuries unit at the local hospital, they put some yellow-orange dye in my eye and took a look - turns out I'd managed to scratch my eyeball - just on the edge of my iris. If it had been a few millimetres further up, I'd have scratched it on the lens of my eye. I have a friend who got a scratch on his cornea, and as the scar tissue is cloudy, he's now partially sighted in that eye, so I feel quite lucky, as it could have been much worse. 

Ducky and K. Photograph by HouseCat

The plan was to also do a photoshoot with K.'s partner, Ducky (also a good friend of mine).  I actually spent a while doing Ducky's make-up, but because of my eye injury, the photoshoot didn't work out. I did, however, get this photograph of Ducky and K. together. They're a lovely couple and I'm so happy for the both of them. In future I'd like to do a set of photographs of them as a pair - a proper 'couple' shoot. 

Steampunks Storm The Castle!

I am sad this is a tad blurry.

Ok, technically I was being Steam-Goth that day, and we didn't really storm the castle, we just stood i front of it. Inverness Castle is currently the city courts (I did jury there in the first year after I moved up to Scotland; it felt a bit surreal sitting in a Gothic Revival courtroom in a Scottish Baronial castle to attend a trial presided over by the Sherif... ), and therefore storming it would be a really bad idea. Instead we stood in front of the large front door and used it as a back-drop for this photo-shoot because I thought the red sandstone walls would be the perfect colours to accentuate the outfit. The current castle was built to replace the original medieval castle in the Victorian era. It's built in the Scottish baronial style, and was built as a courthouse, police station and prison. 

Sean without goggles on his face. Photograph by myself. 

This is another set of photographs for my project documenting the Goth and nebulous dark alternative scene in Inverness. This is my friend Sean, and he's a Metalhead/Romantic Goth/Steampunk hybrid. The outfit (and re-painted Nerf gun) he wore that day typify that - stompy boots worn with a Romantic Goth jacket from Punk Rave, a decorative top hat from Raven SDL which could easily be either Romantic Goth or Steampunk (perhaps verging more on the side of Steampunk due to the brassiness of the buckle), steam-punk paint-job on his goggles and the repainted Nerf gun... a mixture of styles. 

Sean, looking for air-ships or something. Photograph by myself.

One thing that I find differentiates the Goth scene in the Highlands from the scene in other areas is how much overlap there is in participation by individuals here - very few people in the Goth scene here like only one alternative genre of music, and participate in only one subculture, to the point where most events are mixed, and it's all one merged scene rather than a Goth scene substantially differentiated from other subcultural groups. There are plenty of Metalheads here that aren't into Goth, but not many Goths here that aren't also into Metal, or also into Hippie stuff, or Steampunk stuff. When I've been in other cities, the Goths seemed to be very much their own group, and there were specific Goth club nights, and there was less overlap. 

You have to be wary of those air-ships - sometimes they have pirates!
Photography by myself, Sean modelling. Look at that awesome jacket!

I guess the overlap here is partly because we have fewer scene-specific events and resources - our club nights are mixed, it's the local hippie shop - FarFetched - that also sells Goth clothes (after the closure of Hot Rocks and Pyramid over 5 years ago), virtually no major bands take their tours to Inverness let alone anywhere else this far North, and the scene is mostly in their late teens and twenties, with fewer elder Goths still active in the scene here, so fewer direct ties to the scene's musical core and roots. There are elder Goth here, though, however, and hopefully I will be photographing a few for later in my project. 

Sean has impressive boots. Photograph by myself. 

Those who follow me on Facebook will know that I injured my left eye this summer - I accidentally flicked the sun-shade for the view-screen on the back of Raven's camera after being startled while on a photo-shoot (borrowing his camera), and it gave me a wee nick on my cornea that was really rather painful, but is mostly over my iris so does not permanently impede my vision. It did put a bit of a delay on my processing photos - but I did finish the shoot that day, and take a second! The next day however, my eyelids had swollen shut on my left eye and I hadn't much sleep because it hurt as if I'd rubbed chillies in my eye, and I had to go to the hospital... Anyway, there are definitely more photos in this series to be poster up. I will continue to photograph my local scene in all its variety and diversity.

I hope you enjoy this photographs. Please credit me and the model (Sean M.) if you decide to share these anywhere (eg. Tumblr) and link back to me. I've seen my photographs shared about on Tumblr before, and I don't mind it - to me, it shows people appreciate it - but I do want to be properly credited. This may only be a hobby for me, but it's still my work and I spend hours organising shoots, travelling, taking shoots and then processing the images, so I'd like to be credit for that!

The Steam-Goth outfit I wore that day is the same one I wore for a shoot for Carpe Nocturne magazine, so you will get to see that shortly too! 

Metal Meets Goth Near Loch An Eilein

As I mentioned last year, I am slowly embarking on a project of photographing members of the local Goth community. This set is one of two I took of my friend Joel at a ruined building on the shores of Loch an Eilein, at Rothiemurchus in Speyside. This is the first of three sets of photos that will have come from that day out - these are the ones I took on my little point-and-click camera as tests of different poses, etc. I also brought the Canon camera and took proper photographs on a proper camera, but I mislaid my memory card with those on. I also took photos of Loch an Eilein's ruined castle in the middle of it. I would love to visit that castle by boat... something I may have to try and arrange in the future with the castle's owner.

Joel is both a Goth and a Metalhead, and his outfit for the photoshoot was meant to reflect that, and I had a lot of fun doing his make-up; I don't often get to do make-up on men or in different styles. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I'm not quite sure what I was aiming for, specifically with the make-up; I went with something akin to the effect of wearing a half-mask with the shading drawn on, but it wasn't refined enough to exactly create this effect, plus the make-up over the eyes and bridge of the nose doesn't fit in with that theme. I guess in the end it was abstract geometry and shading. Either way, Joel seemed to like it, and I was quite happy with how it turned out. Crisp lines were achieved with using tape to mask. Using bandage/dressing tape seems to work best for this sort of thing. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I really like all of the textures in Joel's outfit. The complex strapped arm-piece is one really cool accessory, and I'm a little jealous of Joel because it looks pretty darn cool. I actually lent Joel a few of my spikes, even though he has heaps of his own, to balance it out with an eclectic selection of spikes on the other arm. I also lent him one of my spiked chokers, to layer with his own. I don't wear spikes half as much as I used to; I guess my fashion these days leans too much to the anachronistic to embrace the punkier aspects I used to love. Perhaps some of my spikier Goth friends will end up being a better home for bits of my collection. 

Photograph by HouseCat

Taking these photographs was a scramble through rough ground. I was wearing trousers, army boots and a rain-coat, and the weather wasn't warm. I'm surprised Joel wasn't complaining about it being chilly in that mesh shirt! The building (I am not sure if it was a boat-house or fishing lodge for the loch or what) is partly mounded around by rubble and earth, and I did climb up the mound for photographs, but they will probably be in the other set when I find the memory card for the better camera. 

Photograph by HouseCat

I think my photography skills have improved since ::this:: photoshoot I took of Ducky and Catastrophe Plague at Beauly priory (not that I'm not still pretty chuffed with the photos I took then). I am going to continue with my Gothic photography project, documenting visually the variety of Goths in the Highland scene. In the not-to-distant future there will be the second set of photographs of Joel taken with 'the good camera' and also the photographs of the island castle of the 'Wolf of Badenoch'. [Who needs Game of Thrones if you live in Scotland? We've even got a Wester Ross...]

Raven took this photo of me taking a photo.

I've been taking photographs of other things too - there's more graveyards, old churches and creepy things coming up, as per usual. I'm on summer break now, and trying to make up for how little I was posting while studying. University is more work than a full-time job; I've never been so busy in my life, not even when I was studying before. I'm also working on decorating the house and sorting the garden this summer, so I won't be posting every day, but updates will now be far more regular. 

Being A Goth In The Highlands

I have been recently electronically interviewed by Gothic Beauty magazine about being a Goth in the UK. I was asked quite a few questions, and one of them was about my experiences in different locations - I obviously couldn't write an essay in answer to every question, and even the answers I did give ended up quoted rather than published in full. 

I have moved around quite a been to and stayed a lot of places - some for longer than others - in the UK and in Brittany, where my mother's family are from. My main locations have been Oxfordshire and Berkshire, then Peterborough and Bristol, before moving here to the Highlands. I've also spent time in Brittany, France. I could probably write reams upon reams on my experiences in each of those places, but as I've been writing this blog since I moved to the Highlands, and as I have yet to find another Goth blogger hailing from this far North in Scotland, I feel it's important to share this perspective.

I will also make it clear that my perspective is that of an immigrant; I have lived here several years, but I am not someone who was born here or has lived here since they were very young. Other people's experiences and perspectives will vary. 

The Highlands has been the most radically different place I have moved to and been to! Even Glasgow and Edinburgh have their paralels with cities like Bristol, Oxford and London, but the Highlands is most different place I lived compared to the others. I have lived in the countryside before, in Oxfordshire, but even that was nothing like here. The geography and climate is also rather different here, and I think it's important to understand that regional geography really does still impact on people's way of life, wherever you are, even in the 21stC. Highland culture is also pretty different from other regional Scottish and British cultures that I have experienced,and as such the Goth that exists there will be different than the Goth that exists in places with other local cultures. Goth is an interesting thing; it is its own culture, but it i also in many ways a subculture to the parent location of wherever it springs up.

The Highlands' alternative scene is very vital, vivacious and vivid, but due to the area being mostly small downs and villages with Inverness as the largest centre of population (and Inverness is not very big, as far as cities go), there's just not a lot of us. I think, in terms of percentage of the local population, there's possibly actually a higher than average number of alternative people of various sorts - and I would imagine that this may be a consequence of the Findhorn Foudation being in the local area, over near Forres. A lot of the alternative folk in the area tend to be of a more 'Bohemian' or 'Hippie' variety (although I am sure quite a few would eschew such labels), rather than the darker forms of alternative lifestyles. That being said, there are a fair few metalheads in the area too!

The Goth scene here is not a distinct entity from the other local alternative-lifestyle scenes - there are a lot of overlaps, and every person seems very individual; there's less pressure to form little cliques of subtypes - probably in part because there's simply not enough of any one subtype to make this work, except for perhaps the Skaters, who seem to be less engaged with other local subcultures - although I do know a few people in that group, they're a separate group in many ways. In general, though alternative people here participate in a variety of different alternative groups - alternative people connect with other alternative people, and it there's a definite intermingling of groups; I'm a Goth, but I'm intertwined with the Metal scene here, the small but burgeoning group of Lolitas,  and the Pagans, and a lot of people who are more close to being hippies or 'Bohemians'. This means there's a lot of cross-polination of ideas from the varied subcultures, and a lack of exclusivity; what group or groups you belong to does not exclude you from other groups. Those who have been reading my blog for a while will have seen the diverse assemblage of eccentrics I have the honour of knowing!

One advantage in the local scene being so small is that we don't seem to have that "Gothier than thou" competitive element (I have only come across this in a couple of younger Goths, and I think it was more about their own insecurity rather than them really believing they are some sort of Gothic elite), and folk here are not afraid to talk about their interests outside of subcultures, whether that's shinty or welding or being a chef. Small numbers make gatherings easier to facilitate, but as most gatherings are small, it is easier for us to find venues for some things, and harder for other things. The small scene also makes it easier to make friends, because it is quite a tight-knit group and a welcoming group, so once you know a few members of the scene, it is likely you will soon be introduced to more. Some of the disadvantages are that the scene ends up feeling a bit 'incestuous' - everyone ends up sometimes a bit too tightly connected to everyone else, and it can seem like a bit of variety and changes could be beneficial. I don't know literally every Goth in the area, but I do feel like I know a good few of them. 

The Goth scene in the Highlands seems to be a rather intergenerational Goth scene - I think due to there being fewer Goths in general, we tend to be more open to talking to Goths of any age. I certainly have friends here who were Goths "the first time around" who joined the scene when they were in their teens or twenties during the early 1980's, and I am acquainted with a few much newer Goths who are 18, 19, etc. There are even younger Goths in their early and mid teens, but I don't know them personally, although some of my younger friends do and as such I guess they're acquaintances of a sort. I try my best to support the younger Goths because I know I could have benefited from that when I was a younger Goth and a babybat, and it wasn't really something that occurred for me. 

Also, the Highlands do not have the numbers of Goths (or even darker alternative types) nor the geography (Inverness is the hub, but scene participants come from a rather broad geographic area, and that makes the practicalities of transport an obstacle, to support any specifically Goth retailers or venues. Our club nights have become rarer and rarer, and Inverness no longer has a specifically Goth shop. It's not a dying scene, though, and I find quite a few teenagers are still becoming involved, but it is a very small one. Life here is, however, connected to Glasgow, Edinburgh and the rest of Britain, and the Cairngorm mountains do not provide an inpenetrable barrier (even when the trunk road north to us is closed by avalanches and snow), especially in the age of the internet, and a lot of us go to places like Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh for events that happen there - but the cost of transport is restrictive. There are a lot of things I miss out on because they do not happen in the Highlands, and travelling down to a bigger city is very expensive. It's also time consuming; it's just over 4 hours by car or coach, and somewhere between 3 and 3 and half hours by train to get to Glasgow, and Stirling is closer, Edinburgh further. There does not seem to be many events in other Northerly towns and cities such as Perth, Aberdeen or Elgin. 

Being a small group here, we stand out more. I am certainly known as visible figure, and have had a lot of strangers come up up to me with some variation on "I've seen you around as that lady in the Victorian clothes with green hair, and..."  but I am probably one of the more visually distinctive Goths (and my fashion isn't actually accurately Victorian, but I guess that is what people identify it as). I am often asked if I know other visually distinctive local Goths (and mostly the answer is that I do, or am at least acquainted, and it will turn out that there will be someone in common that we know; it is really that sort of small scene). Being visibly rather different probably contributes to the attention, but I love how I look more than I dislike the attention. There are also practical concerns because of the climate; I have ended up with skull-pattern wellie boots worn over layers of stripy socks and vine-pattern tights, a big collection of Gothic scarves in varying warmths and thicknesses, lots of gloves to wear under my gloves, and an ability to put together layered outfits that are both adjustable to the ever-changing weather and still within the Gothic aesthetic, I have bought an extensive selection of sensible footwear that keeps relatively within the aesthetic, and have all-black wet-weather gear and then high-visibility skull stickers to add to that! Here I end up wearing a full-length trenchcoat out of warmth rather than aesthetics, and wear it buttoned up against the cold. Compared to Southern England, the weather is noticeably colder and more changeable, and the winters much harsher.

Urquhart Castle - photograph by the HouseCat

There is a lot of dark and bloody local history. My last apartment was in walking distance from Culloden Battlefield, and I've been to ::Rait Castle::, the ::Old High Church::, the remains of ::Craig Dunain pyschiatric hospital:: (which used to be Inverness District Asylum) and plenty of other places with dark and turbulent histories. The current division of the landscape is still a derivative of the landscape carved up in the Highland Clearances. Artistic interpretation of past events is part of what makes Goth very attractive to me, and part of how I engage with Goth myself. The land has millennia of human history, back to the Picts and even before. Historical inspiration is a big part of being Goth - and while we ought not glamourise or exploit the sufferings of the real people involved in these events (or ignore their contemporary ramifications), it is important not to forget them, and I think that artistic exploration of the more troubled parts of history not only facilitates a greater understanding of that history - as long as it is done with good scholarship - but also can act as a way for us to understand more contemporary struggles.  

I find a lot of inspiration in the regional architecture, history, art, etc - as I have in Oxford, Bristol Edinburgh (I love Edinburgh!) and Glasgow. I visit the local cemeteries quite regularly, especially the one at Tomnahurich, which is practically a necropolis, and I visit and photograph the many local castle ruins, ecclesiastical ruins etc. I actually have personal project to visit and record as many of the cemeteries in the area as possible, and I find the local traditions of symbolic carving to be fascinating. 

There's a uniquely Scottish style of architecture called Scottish Baronial, different to Gothic and English medieval fortified and vernacular architecture, evolved from late medieval and renaissance 'castle' architecture specific to the needs and purposes of the how the semi-fortified and fortified estates of the Scottish functioned. It is aesthetically different despite there being parallels between castle architecture the world wide, and in the same way that the Gothic style evolved to be used for more than its original use as an ecclesiastical architectural style, Scottish Baronial went on to be applied to things other than castles and the estates of the nobility. In the same way that Gothic architecture has shaped the atmosphere of the Gothic mindset in the literary aspect of that term (after all, it was named after the architectural settings), Scottish Baronial architecture fills that role to a degree in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. Yes, we have ruins of Gothic architecture too (::Fortrose Cathedral ruins::, ::Beauly Priory ruins::, Elgin Cathedral ruins, Pluscarden Abbey...) but the Scottish Baronial style is more ubiquitous, especially as it was adopted in a revival manner in Victorian times, and even more recently, buildings like the newer wing of the Eastgate shopping mall in Inverness hark back to it, and castles are certainly a lot more common in these parts (surrounding Inverness there are several castles - Rait, Kilravock, Cawdor, Brodie, Urquhart, Inshes (only the doocot left), Inverness, Aldourie, and Dingwall had one that is now a manor, etc.).

There were two more paragraphs on this blog entry and then BLOGSPOT ATE THEM. I will fix this when I have time. Coursework is priority.