Murdo & the Fuaran

Meanwhile we were getting to know our neighbors and spending many an evening at our local pub (the Fuaran which is in Altandhu - the next little village up the road) - playing darts, talking and singing. One night we met Donny Darling's brother who told us of his experiences in the war. He was captured during the blitzkrieg in France and spent two years in a German POW camp mining coal. He escaped to Poland and joined the resistance and fought with them until he was recaptured. Again he escaped and spent the rest of the war foraging in Russia. He owns a house in Polbain just a few doors down from us but now lives with his wife in England.

Old Murdo loved to go to the Fuaran - he would go every Saturday before he had his stroke. He always loves to hear our reports about who was there and what they said and who's doing what. Wilf and Wendy never go to the pub - we never have figured out why.

Murdo and Joanie were becoming dearer to us all the time. Joan gave us a photo of Murdo as a younger man that was on the front cover of "Ross Shire" magazine - so I decided to use it to do a painting of him with his beloved Tanera in the background. I framed it and gave it to them to put up in their lounge - then did another one for us to keep. I would have loved to have known Murdo then - although maybe we wouldn't have become so close or heard all the wonderful old stories if he had not always been there to visit with.