Our Scotland Adventure - The Psycho of the Highlands

The front of the house was covered with gravel, and a conservatory on one side of the house showed its glass walls with lots of greenery behind.

As soon as we pull the car into the parking, a little lady holding a register under her arm and a pen in her hand runs out the door. Her hand with the pen waves as if we ran over her cat. She came to the driver’s window and tapped with the pen on it until Ivan lowered the window. She insisted on directing Ivan in and out of the parking until he parked at a perfect 30-degree angle (or was it 40 degrees?) as she wanted.

Ivan is a bit tired and confused about the angle thing but follows her commands: ‘turn the wheel to the right’, ‘too much’, ‘reverse a little’, and ‘stop’.

‘Maybe she is OCD or something,’ I whisper, because once she started to wave I did not dare to get out of the car without Ivan.

Finally, the angle was right, the engine was off and she waited for us in front of the big door hugging her register, holding the pen this time like a cigarette, and on her waist we can see now she’s got one of those walkie-talkie things. She looks very much like a modern matron, without the keys to the cellar. Her walkie-talkie cracks. She speaks into it.

‘Yes, arrived. Room ready. Good.’

She turned back to us, no hello, no welcome, she sharply opened her register and started immediately.

‘If you go out, when you return you don’t knock at the door, you must ring the bell. Always! The door is locked at all times. Don’t ring after 10 pm.’

My eyebrows shoot up. That means we have a curfew? She pretends she did not see it, but she did. And went on with the list.

‘Clean your feet when you enter, take the shoes off if they are wet.’

She opens the door for us and waits for us to wipe our shoes. Considering that the rain just started and we just come out of the car, and she had gravel around the house…, hah, did not work. She had not budged.

Her head jerked a few times towards the floor, her eyeballs pointing to the little carpet outside, while her figure blocked the door.

I try to make a joke, stupid me.

‘Uh, I forgot my slippers back home.’

Face immobile, she said nothing and she also did not move until we cleaned our shoes. As soon as she was content she turned on her heels in the hall, which we can see now is covered wall to wall in a beige thick carpet, and trotted up the stairs.

Ivan followed and asked her.

‘We want to see Urquhart Castle. Do you happen to have any touristic brochures?’

‘They are closed to visitors.’

Short and sharp.

Ivan sighed disappointed. She unlocked the door, with a key that was in the door, she walked in and showed us the room. Beautiful, big enough, a cute tiny window, as it looks good on these cottages slash mansions, an immense bed with a thick mattress. She showed us the door to the bathroom and then the small tray on the snow-white desk.

‘You have a kettle, coffee, and tea. You can make yourself a tea or coffee. No food allowed in the room.’

Bluntly, she then let us know:

‘There is no breakfast’.

I pull a face.

‘You are disappointed.’

‘No, I am not.’

‘I can see it on your face!’ And she points with her pen as if ready to stab my chin.

‘Well, not disappointed, surprised! I am surprised because on booking.com it was advertised as ‘breakfast included’.’

‘But you did not read the conditions.’

The pen is again under my nose.

‘Ah, you mean that whole page of ‘small print’ with no children under 17 and no pets? I wish I were 17 and we have no pets, but I paid for breakfast included. I ticked for breakfast and I was charged for it!’

‘Maybe you forgot?’

I point to her register.

‘I only booked yesterday!’

My annoyance was not hidden anymore.

‘You did not read everything. We don’t serve breakfast here, there is no kitchen. How can we prepare anything without a kitchen?’

‘How can you charge it then?’ I took my phone out and I was ready to pull up the booking for her to show her what I paid for. But before I could even connect to the internet somebody called her on the bloody walkie-talkie, she turned on her heels and she was gone!

I am a hundred percent sure what I booked for and I was fuming.

‘Let her be,’ Ivan says. ‘It’s not worth it.’ Then smiles cheekily. ‘We have food in the car, hell with her ‘no food in the room’.’

I was still pissed off when we inspect the bathroom. To our horror, it was fully carpeted with the same thick carpet. Now is Ivan’s turn to be shocked.

(In the photo below Ivan is looking for an escape route!)

‘How are we going to shower without making water on the carpet?’

‘We don’t care!’ I answer determined not to let her ruin the day. ‘Let’s get out of here and see what is this Loch Ness about.’

We drove into the village, since Urquhart Castle was closed we thought we might drive by and see it from outside.

The small Loch Ness village would’ve been missed by anybody on the map or otherwise, if it weren’t for the Loch Ness monster; everything is located alongside the main road — a museum with all the ins and outs of the Loch Ness monster, a hotel, a restaurant, another hotel, another restaurant, a tiny souvenir shop, and a cruise office for boat rides organized daily in ‘search’ of the monster. We drove further down and out of the village and we found the Urquhart Castle.

As we expected, it’s an impressive medieval ruin on the shore of the lake, from which a tower still kept its shape. As we did not expect, it was open! We took a tour of the grounds and we were happy we had the chance to see it. On the way out we mentioned at the admission office that our host believed they were shut down. The ticket lady looked surprised.

‘We were never shut down. We are open every day until 6 pm.’

By now we were so miffed by our host that we concluded she was loco.

On the way back we stopped for a pizza, which was a first-class pizza for Scotland and when we arrived at the house we took from our car the bag with food. Nights were rather cold and we usually left the food in the car overnight, it was like having a fridge.

Ivan hung it casually on his shoulder and tried to hide it, pushing it with his elbow towards his back.

We rang the bell. A loud ding-dong reverberates from inside. That’s why she wanted us to ring the bell. The posh sound of the mansion bell.

Our psycho opens the door with a pouted mouth and knitted eyebrows which relax when she sees us dutifully rub our shoe soles on the front carpet, just to show her how good we are and to distract her from our food bag.

The crack of a smile on her face disappears when I tell her in an excited tone.

‘Oh, we had such a great day! Lucky us! Did you know they opened the castle? That was so cool!!’

Her face dropped and without a word, she turned and went off into a room downstairs that looked very much like a dining room.

Overnight the bag with our food stayed on the outside windowsill.



In the morning we had a half-cautious shower in the lovely carpeted bathroom and had our breakfast in our B&B room with ‘no food allowed’. We set up the table on the show-white desk for our breakfast: cheese, salami, bread rolls, and tomatoes, and we snacked on some chips and chocolate. We made coffee, and we packed up with us the rest of the tea, coffee, and sugar sachets available on the tray.

At exactly 10 to 10, we were ready to leave, so we grabbed our bags and got out of the room leaving the key in the door.

As soon as we reached the landing a smell of freshly brewed coffee and fried eggs wafted to the top level.

‘WTF?’ Ivan grunts. We go downstairs, Ivan not even trying to hide the bag with our food anymore.

Our landlord comes out from the dining room donning a red apron. Behind her, we can see a few tables with people buttering their toast and sipping coffee.

As soon as she sees us, and she is aware that we see the other guests having breakfast, her face opens up into a huge smile.

‘How was your staying?’

I grind my jaws together, and this time I hope she sees not only the disappointment on my face but my thoughts, since I did not say a single word.

But Ivan replied cheeky.

‘Very nice carpet. Thank you.’

We headed out without any delay as she followed us and waved goodbye, but we ignored her completely. Something told me she was used to that, and she did not care.

‘What on Earth is wrong with her?’ I ask Ivan.

‘Maybe now she wants a nice review.’

‘When I see the Loch Ness monster.’

We spent the rest of the day with the cruise on the Loch, listening to the guide trying to convince us he had once seen the monster. We visited the Loch Ness museum. Quite interesting. There are so many ways you can milk a story like Loch Ness, from all the sightings to history, books, stories, photos, lies, and souvenirs.

That lady was by far the weirdest encounter in our travels. Actually, I think she stole the show!

I thought for a while to leave a shitty review on booking.com, but I was so bitter that I could not be bothered.

I can still do it though. Leave a review. If she is still alive and she was not murdered by one of her guests.

Or maybe we go back to Scotland. But I don’t believe there will ever be any sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, Loch Ness now has a Psycho.