Saint Anthony and the Standing Stones

The afternoon had been spent on Culloden Moor. This is hallowed ground for the Scots. Back in 1742 around 6000+ highland clans under the leadership of Bonnie Prince Charlie lost their battle against the English. It's a sombre place as you walk amongst the clan headstones, inscribed with the numbers that were lost.

Nearby are the Clava Cairns, standing stones from ancient times. This was a must to visit, one of the very reasons we came to Scotland.

We had read and thoroughly enjoyed the Diana Gabaldon series of books, in which one of the characters goes back in time to 1740. In the book a standing stone, within a circle of stones did the same job as Dr Who's tardis .

We approached the circle of stones with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation.

The stones were awesome, not as large as Stonehenge, but still very impressive. There were 3 groups, arranged in a circle with a stone cairn in the middle. We had a lot of fun getting up close and personal with the stones, but disappointingly no travelling back through time.

As we were about to leave I became aware I'd lost my glasses.

We retraced our steps, but with no luck.
The light was fading, the stones were outlined eerily in the gloom. And of course, to make matters worse the glasses were black rimmed.

I started uttering a few prayers to Saint Anthony. My mother used to swear by St Anthony, saying that he never let her down when it came to finding what she'd lost.
He had recently found for my dad, my late mum's rosary beads. The entire staff of the nursing home, my sister and I had searched for hours one night to no avail. But after the night spent in prayer to Saint Anthony, the cleaner had discovered them in the morning, tucked into the wall space for the sliding door.

So not surprisingly I have a lot of faith in St Anthony's ability to find lost things.

Eventually however, with the light fading and no glasses, we dejectedly made our war back to the car.

As we were leaving, a van pulled up in the car park and six dark shapes emerged. They wore long coats and were hooded. Were they here for some mystical celtic ceremony to be performed as the sun set. Or were they tourists rugged up for the evening chill.

I decided that most likely it was the latter and my glasses were much too important to let an opportunity go by. So summoning up my courage, I asked one of the group if they did happen to find some reading glasses would they leave them on the fence post.

I was taken aback by the answer. A voice with a strong American accent said "hav ya said a prayer to St Anthony ?"

Do Americans know about St Anthony as well!!!!

Well after another night spent in prayer to Saint Anthony, we returned in the morning to find guess what? ..........

Saint Anthony had done it again.

Maybe the Nessie searchers up at the loch should spend a bit of time in prayer.