That Old Beer Injury

...seems to be acting up again lately.

Beer Injury? Que?

I don’t remember what year it was -- possibly that beer thing is effecting my memory. Jen and I were in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had hearing then so it must have been 8 or so years ago. (there, I feel SO much better for having nailed the range down to a specific decade. More or less)

On an earlier solo excursion, I’d caught some killer bands and a wildly cool singer/songwriter night in the claustrophobia triggering, low ceilinged, sub-subbasement of a pub up near the University. Naturally, I had to drag Jen there.

Our first stop in town was The Tron of singer/songwriter/claustrophobia fame. I was horrified to find that it had, in the intervening years, become some sort of boring ass, nastified, vile sports bar. It was awful and a half times twelve. We ixnayed the joint after a single half pint.

We wandered a bit, ending up at The Malt Shovel on Cockburn for jazz. Neither of us are jazz heads but, after being exposed to it by the men folk (Oni and The Amazing Bob™ that is), we can now appreciate and even enjoy a band with chops, tasty improv and some hard bop. West Coast Cool was always my kick, my groove but, as it turns out, there’s more out there!

In any case, pissed about The Tron’s devolution (It appears, from the website, to be back to its good old self now. Oh sure, now that I’m all deaf and shit -- bastids!), I came up with the brill scheme of catching the bus north to the Isle of Skye. So we did. We even managed to score a room at the wonderful little B&B on Bosville Terrace that I’d stayed in before.

We didn’t have real plans beyond hopefully catching a blistering trad session or two at The Isles Inn Pub. Beyond that, there’s really only so much to do in the island’s very small big town of Portree.

What to do, what to do? We found a car rental place with the idea of touring the island for a day. Now, y’all know that I despise driving with Force 12 strength. Here’s the thing though, Jen doesn’t know how to drive stick and I do (thanks to my carny years). You know, it seems far easier to drive while sitting on the right hand side of the car. I’m used to that spot so it’s comfy. Maybe that’s just me.

While driving down out of Quiraing we came upon a Holy Grail we didn’t even know we were missing. Yup, a brewery. It was the Isle of Skye Brewing Company and they had a shop AND it was open! Yea us!

We attempted to be smart and realistic and ONLY bought 6 bottles each. Into our rucksacks they went and off we drove.

That beer injury I spoke of? You try toting a six pack on your back for five days of traveling on foot, by bus, plane and train. Oh OK we also had a bottle of wine or two as well. Hey, we had to bring treats and souvenirs back to Boston!