Consequences of watching Outlander on a rainy day

I like to travel. Whether for a day, weekend or a longer vacation, near or far, by car, train or plain, I’m in ‘travelmood’ from the moment I shut the frontdoor behind me. Together with my family I’ve spent wonderful days and vacations in various European countries and we’ve seen all kinds of interesting and beautiful sites. We loved especially Italy, France and Greece, but Belgium, Germany and Luxemburg made us happy as well. For years I also dreamed of travelling around in Norway or Sweden, but hubby’s health required a warmer climate. Scotland though was never on my wishlist, so how did I end up there?! Well, a TV show and a series of books is responsible for that!

Late November 2014, on a rainy and cold Saturday, hubby and I decided to watch the 8 episodes of a series called Outlander. I got hooked from the moment I heard the openingsong “Sing me a song of a lass that is gone”. It gave me goosebumps the same way I had when I heard the first notes of the music from Lord of the Rings in 2001. We bingewatched the 8 episodes and were left with frustration when the last one ended with one of the main characters sitting in a windowsill holding a gun …. WHAT THE ….???? This was the end??? I found out after searching the internet that there was more to come, although not sooner than in April 2015!

Since Outlander is based on a series of books written by Diana Gabaldon I decided to read them until the return on TV in April. Somehow I had heard of the books years before. I’m an avid reader and have been a member of a bookclub where you had to order at least one book every 3 months, and seemed to remember having seen (one of) the books in the catalogue. The reason I didn’t buy it must have been that it wasn’t the first book but one of the later books and that, since the bookclub only had recent books in the collection, the previous ones weren’t available. Later I found out that it takes Diana 3-4 years to write one book. It explained why previous books weren’t available in the bookclub. Searching for books wasn’t as easy as nowadays so I let it be. But now we have internet and Google! Long story short: I found the books, downloaded them on my e-reader and managed to read the 8 existing books before Outlander season 1 part 2 returned to TV in April! All 8995 pages!

Besides the human characters, Scotland plays a huge part in the books, especially the Highlands. So, when I joined social media in order to find out more about Outlander on TV and everything involved, that included Scotland. I found out that there was, and still is, an enormous fanbase on social media, and it didn’t take long before I met a group of likeminded women with whom there was a ’click’. Outlander was the main subject, but the filmlocations and Scotland became important too, and after a few months we, 7 women from 3 different countries, planned a trip to Scotland. We talked about it daily in our private group and when we finally met in person at the beginning of our roadtrip it was as if we had already met before.

Our trip was a real roadtrip, travelling by ferry, train and car. In Scotland Steve McLeish from Outlandish Journeys was our guide during a 4 day tour. By car he drove us from Edinburgh, into the Highlands to Inverness, showing us Outlander filmlocations and historical places and sites during this journey, with the Jacobite Risings as a guideline. This wasn’t just an Outlanderbased tour, it was a journey into Scotland’s history as well, and Steve, being a historian, was the perfect guide. Needless to say it was a trip of a lifetime, leaving all of us with a desire to come back to this beautiful country as soon as possible. It took me 3 years….

What you see is what I saw

I always use this sentence to describe my pictures. To me it refers to the way I take pictures. I don’t use filters or photoshop to enhance my photos, they simply show the surrounding the way I saw it when I took the picture. No more, no less. But when I googled it, to my surprise it’s also the title of a book written by T.H. Ferraro and what’s even more surprising, it’s an introduction to photography.

In a way the title reflects how I am. What you see is what you get. I can’t pretend to feel like someone I’m not. It’s not always easy, sometimes situations or people require a bit of pretending in order to keep it pleasant and agreable. When I’m forced to act like that it feels like being untrue to myself and I usually try to avoid situations like that. I guess that is why I tend to stay away from people, places, festivities and social media when I’m not feeling well. I then lack the ability of empathy and compassion, and it’s better to say nothing at all if you can’t say anything nice. Must be something from my childhood….

Camera’s, pictures, albums

I must have been 12 years or so when I got my first photocamera, a Kodak Instamatic, a few years later followed by an Olympus camera. I took pictures of things that interested me, had them developed and glued into albums with all kind of decoration. In fact I was scrapbooking before it became a popular hobby.

Soon I became the ‘familyphotographer” following in my father’s footsteps, who until then, had always taken the pictures on days out and holidays. Well, not quite true, he also made slides. I still have the boxes with slides he made after developing, and we spent many evenings watching slideshows from vacations on a big white screen.

Not only from my father’s side I inherited this photohobby, I found out later that one of my mother’s aunts shared that same hobby. Both my father and great aunt are the reason that I have so many familypictures, dating back to 1912!

In the years that followed I had a few other cameras, always simple with automatic settings, and I took hundreds of pictures, especially during familyvacations. And afterwards I always put them in photoalbums, resulting in a nice collection of albums at my parent’s house. My mother still cherishes them. I continued to do so when I started my own family. As the years went by analog cameras were replaced with digital ones, and scrapbooks became digitally created albums, but I kept on taking pictures of things that interested me, at home, special occasions and during vacations. First with just hubby and me, with our first pet, an Old English Sheepdog (Bobtail) and later with our two sons. The dog and the boys each also have their own personal albums, and even our cat got his own albums when he came into our life. The result is a room with shelfs filled with photoalbums, telling the story of my life and that of my loved ones.

Dreaming

Ever since I returned from a trip in Scotland in 2016 I dreamed of going back there. Back to the country, where I left a piece of my heart from the moment I set foot on its ground, and explore more of its beauty.

In fact I made plans for a vacation, several times, but hubby’s severe lungcondition and arthritis made both of us realise that Scotland’s weatherconditions aren’t in his best interest. Instead, in the following years we went to the warmth of Tuscany and Crete and enjoyed the beauty of those countries and places.

And without knowing at the time, Crete, later followed by eyesurgery (yes, that’s right, Crete and eyesurgery to name a combination!!) set something in motion that changed dreaming into doing: going back to Scotland!