Monsters of the deep

Like the frantic White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date”. A date with the hottest new chef in Scotland, Mark Donald of The Glenturret Lalique Restaurant.

After missing my original flight to Edinburgh thanks to the utter indifference and incompetence of the Iberia Airlines check-in people in Madrid, I’m scrambling to get to an old cattle market town called Crieff, located about an hour’s drive northwest from Edinburgh in the foothills of the Scottish Highlands.

As I am mentally whipping the taxi furiously onward from the back seat, I’m suddenly dumbstruck by the sight of two towering white metal horses that appear just by the M-9 highway near Falkirk.  Their pearly heads arch gracefully over the trees, beckoning.

I am spellbound. I NEED TO GO TO THEM. Heck, I’m already so late. I’m now thinking a little more late shouldn’t matter. Luckily, my driver, a burly no-nonsense Scotsman called Tom, isn’t having it. The gigantic horses may seem to be just next to the road, but they are deceptively far off of our path to Crieff and Glenturret, where my interview is waiting. Besides, Tom says firmly, they are Kelpies, evil shape-shifting spirits that haunt the local waterways. Kelpies sometimes take the form of horses and treacherously entice their victims to ride them.

Warning: If you touch a Kelpie, you will be dragged to a watery death unless you manage to grab the horse’s bridle. File that tip under ¨Life Hack.¨

Many people have come to Scotland in search of the famed Loch Ness Monster, but it turns out that there are sea monsters in just about every loch and pond in the country. In fact, just as I am making my way to Glenturret Distillery, another sea monster is emerging from Loch Turrel, still dressed in chef’s whites.