Catch-and-Release

Odd sensory memories surfacing from 2016
while I was working through a stack or two of paperwork:

a rat so very gingerly swimming past my kayak in the canals of Venice;

a bat so very gently rebounding from my chest in a castle in Scotland.

Blackness Castle

No Irish in Castle Lumley

I tried to order Irish in the Library Bar of Lumley Castle, Chester-le-Street, Durham, but they only had whisky. No Bushmills. Glenfiddach (with a terminal /k/, I learned) became the drink of choice. Medicinal, by the way. That sore throat from York.