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Down of a Thistle

Down of a Thistle

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Several days during the trip last month the air was filled with flying fluff. It took a while to determine the source, to realize that the fluff was the down of a thistle, the national flower of Caledonia.

Here’s a perfect example of vacation thinking. Were I at home, I would find the thistle a weed and the fluff frustrating evidence of its spread. But in Scotland, I found it enchanting, winged messengers of hope and beauty.

Watching the gossamer stuff float through a heathered Highland landscape was a magical experience. It brought the Clement Clarke Moore lines to mind:

“He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle/And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle …”

And that’s just what we did — fly away, that is.  I miss that magical vacation thinking. 

(I saw a lot more heather than thistles.)

September 10th

September 10th

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It’s Grandparents Day, and as we prepare to celebrate another family birthday (they come in clumps, don’t they?), I’m thinking, actually, of my parents. 

They were never able to do what I’ll do today, which is to wake up in my own house and drive 25 minutes to hold, tickle, cuddle and celebrate a precious grandchild on her special day. I know they missed this, and I wish they’d had it. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I chafe at the suburbs, that I look for opportunities to leave and spend weeks wandering around European villages where beauty is given greater priority than it is here. 

But here … is where my heart is. 

(Happy 1st Birthday, Aurora Anne! photo: CCG)

On the Road Again

On the Road Again

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The last time I strolled any distance was on the streets of Edinburgh. Covid has kept me down and given my feet something they’ve been wanting for months — a break. 

But the break is over, feet. You’re on the line again, or, more to the point, you’re on the road again. This morning I woke up early and strong enough to tackle the neighborhood loop. 

Yes, it will be 101 today, but at 7 a.m. it was a comfortable. 73. I walked and walked.

It felt terrific.

(Pedestrians on the Royal Mile.)

Ephemera

Ephemera

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A woman enters the tiny chapel and crosses herself. I doubt she saw me notice but I noticed just the same. 

The couple in line in front of us can’t take their eyes off each other, are forever touching shoulders, exchanging smiles. She has short hair and dimples. He wears a plaid shirt. 

There were hundreds of moments like these on our trip through Scotland last month. Little things I glimpsed that I don’t want to forget. The ephemera of travel. 

They are like this section of Hadrian’s Wall, a stretch that runs along a lane that’s currently in use. Here is this historical marvel, traces of a structure built two thousand years ago, and we’re driving along beside it as if it was a 21st-century shoulder. 

The ordinary becomes extraordinary. And vice versa. 

On Location

On Location

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On this Labor Day I’ll continue my past few days track record of doing pretty much nothing, which is all I’ve felt like doing. But I have been able to read and watch movies, especially one film I’d been thinking about while we were in Edinburgh — “Chariots of Fire,” which won the Academy Award for best picture in 1981 and is a favorite of mine.

I learned that many of the scenes were shot in Edinburgh locales, including an old church (are there any other kind there?), an elegant eatery, and up in the Salisbury Crags near Arthur’s Seat. 

It was doubly fun to watch the movie realizing that I was right there only a few days ago. Kinda dorky, I know. But entertaining, just the same. 

(For “Chariots of Fire” fans, Harold and Sybil enter Cafe Royal through the revolving door that’s in the foreground while a band strikes up “Three Little Maids From School.”) 

A Souvenir

A Souvenir

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I returned home with an unwelcome souvenir: a case of Covid, the first time for me, or at least the first I’ve known about. Luckily, I didn’t contract the virus until a couple of days before departure, and it didn’t fully reveal itself until I got home. Since home is the best place to be when under the weather, I’ve been more reconciled to the trip’s end.

On the other hand, I miss the energy that usually accompanies a return: the joy of hugging family I’ve missed, the bustle of doing the laundry — mine is still piled up, optimistically, in front of the washing machine.

I’ll spend the next few days sipping Gatorade, nibbling crackers … and dreaming about where I was last month. 

(Portree, on the Isle of Skye)

When Your Heart Speaks

When Your Heart Speaks

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Through the randomness of notebook selection, the travel journal I took along for this trip has the following words on its cover: “When Your Heart Speaks, Take Good Notes.”

It was a gift from long ago, and I always liked its whimsical, wry message. I chose it for the trip because I’d just completed one of my larger, hardbound journals and was looking for something smaller and lighter. 

The notebook worked like a charm. It’s 6 inches by 6 inches, spiral bound, 180 pages. I wrote loopy and large with generous margins (unlike my usual), and am hoping to finish it today, cheating by just two days with “end-of-trip” thoughts. 

I’ve leafed through it this morning, marveling at what I might already have forgotten had I not written it down: the taxi driver in Fort William who used to be a shepherd, the group of hikers in Kererrer who found my sweater and gave us a ride back to town from the ferry, the absolutely perfect cottage I saw during that rainy walk in Oban.

It wasn’t my heart that was speaking. It was the world. 

Altered Eyes

Altered Eyes

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My hope for any trip is that I return home with altered eyes. How has Scotland altered them? 

It’s made me an even more confirmed walker — or perhaps I should say hiker — than I was before. The boots I considered not bringing were just about the only footwear I wore. So many of Scotland’s riches are best seen on foot. We covered as many of them as we could, given the miles not just on the boots but on the old bod. 

There was the antiquity. The Neolithic stones of Orkney, the Roman ruins in the Border Lands. The ancient stones of Edinburgh Castle. All of them put us in our place, which is puny.

And then there were the sights, sounds, sensibilities of any European country. Traffic is calmer, people not as stressed. American life is a high-octane, jangly affair these days. I’m thankful we could dip our toes into calmer waters for a few weeks. 

I’m sure there will be more observations to come, but these are few to start …

(A road beckons on the Isle of Skye)

D Day

D Day

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The D stands for departure, but reminds me of the Churchill barriers of Orkney, a tale I had no time to tell in these posts, so rich were these travels, so packed with information, perspective and fun.

The tales will continue when we return home. But for now, the actual, physical part of this trip must come to an end.

We leave for the airport in less than an hour.

(Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat)

Auld Reekie

Auld Reekie

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Before there was clean(ish) indoor heating, before Edinburgh’s medieval old town became a tourist mecca, Scotland’s capital city earned the nickname Auld Reekie, Gaelic for “Old Smokey.”

There were so many people crammed into such a small space, and so many chimneys belching so much smoke. It’s hard to believe the nickname on a day like today, with blue skies and clouds more puffy than forbidding. 

But Auld Reekie it was, and Auld Reekie it has remained — though it’s now just a term of endearment. 

(Victoria Street, said to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books.)