Too Much Country; Too Little Time

Think what you know about Scotland. Seen both Rob Roy and Braveheart, or perhaps Trainspotting? Read a little Walter Scott or Burns back in the day? Joined a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne last New Year’s Eve? Wondered why a country would make the ground up nasty bits of a sheep boiled in a stomach its national dish? I could go on—hell, I haven’t even mentioned the bagpipes yet, or the kilts. Scotland, the bits I saw anyway, on a rapid tour of about 40% of the country, left me with one over-riding thought: I want to go back. If for no other reason than the only time I actually got to eat haggis was in the form of haggis pakora at a trendy Indian bistro.

Before I delve into all the details of the “Land of the Heedrom-Hodrum” (reference to a semi-obscure ditty about a Highland piper), I should give London its due. We did, after all, spend approximately 72 hours there, most of it on foot or bus. It was, I would say, a sort of “London Teaser”, complete with quick visit to The Tower (it’s not, in fact, remotely a tower; more a sprawling stone compound); Big Ben (very clock-like); London Bridge (still standing; no sign of plague victims); The Globe Theater (I think it was actually the “new” Globe—very white and shiny.); Westminster and the buildings of Parliament (massive—explains why their politicians all look so fit); and Trafalgar Square, complete with Nelson’s Column, topped by a rather smug pigeon. (Come to think of it, every statue we saw—and there are loads of them—was topped by smug-looking pigeons, with the exception of the bronze guy on horseback in front of the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, who was topped by a traffic cone, an annual prank by students at the local art college.) We meandered along the Thames for a couple miles, ideal for admiring London’s radically diverse architecture—from the elegant dome of St. Paul’s cathedral to a recent installation locally referred to as “the Erotic Gherkin”.

But I nearly forgot the most amazing thing: clearing immigration at Heathrow. As anyone who has either returned to the US from a trip abroad, or any ‘foreigner’ entering the US knows, US immigration is at best uncomfortable, and at worst, a glimmer of just how hostile, unwelcoming, suspicious, and potentially threatening the “most powerful country on Earth” can be when not trying to win international favor by doing surprising things like electing a black man president. Even those of us with nothing to hide and every reason to cross our own borders are often made to feel guilty by ICE agents peering alternately at our passports and their computer screens, and into our innocent faces, searching for the flicker of doubt that will give away our secret Al Qaeda sympathies, or perhaps our indulging in the occasional French wine… but I digress. First of all, on the plane, rather than the two sided, detailed questionnaire handed out to non US citizens entering the US (including a bit about one’s terrorist tendencies), I was given this tiny white card asking for nothing more than my name and address of residence. Not even my passport number! I was sure they’d forgotten to give me the “real” card, but when I asked the flight attendant, she said, “No, dear. That’s all you need.” Still skeptical, I followed the herd to the immigration area, where, rather than the individual cubicles and bullet-proof glass encasing our officials, I found agents sitting in pairs on what appeared to be barstools, at these little waist high tables. The line moved very quickly as they deemed it unnecessary to delve into each passenger’s life history. When it was my turn, the pleasant young woman greeted me with a smile and took my passport and little white card. “Welcome to London,” she said, “How long will you be staying?” “Just three weeks,” I said, “And um, you guys are SO much more welcoming than your counterparts in my country…” She smiled at me tolerantly and said, “Well yes, of course we would be then, wouldn’t we?” handed me back my passport, and wished me a pleasant stay. When I looked in my passport later, I saw she’d given me a six-month visa rather than the customary 90 days…

We stayed at a fairly humble but clean and functional B&B near King’s Cross, an area dominated by small hotels, many dating back to the 1800’s. King’s Cross has long been the station to which people coming to London from the north arrived, resulting in generations of need for affordable accommodations. The majority of them now seem to be run by non-English types; ours alternated between a pleasant Pakistani guy, and upon our return, a very friendly Bosnian. We opted for ‘double room/shared bath’, which on the front end of the trip resulted in a trek down the hallway, down 1.5 flights of stairs, down a second hallway in order to reach the “loo” and tiny shower. On the return, the night before we departed Britain, we lucked out with a room right next to the facilities—oh the joy of it.

We did a mini-pub tour consisting of the four pubs located within two blocks of the B&B, sampling Guinness and real cider and observing the mix of actual Londoners and other visitors like ourselves. Invariably, there would be a ‘football’ (aka: soccer) game on, sometimes two, on different screens, eliciting an endless stream of coaching from the regulars. Pat also accompanied his younger brother, Tony, to watch a football (more accurately pronounced “fitball” north of the border) game at a pub near his sister’s house, at which once the game had reached its unsatisfactory conclusion, a process accompanied by many rounds, the locals began a sort of spontaneous karaoke, dismissing their disappointment (a fairly constant state for supporters of Scottish fitball) with choruses of bawdy tunes. I was sorry to have missed that.

We went to Notting Hill and Portobello Road, renowned for its endless sprawl of market stalls selling everything from turnips to Turners, though the latter is rare. Pat found an old pipe (he took up pipe smoking last summer), which he later snapped in two while cleaning. We ambled up Oxford Street, glutted with Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans shopping as if it were the end of days, delicately skirting the occasional homeless person, often in his or her cups, requesting a donation. We wandered down to Kensington, and the museums (none of which we had time to actually enter); Victoria and Albert Hall, and came within two blocks of the Stanhope, the pub Pat inhabited during his years working in London. By some fluke, the weather was stunning, clear, sunny, warmish, unheard of, newsworthy. This further encouraged us to walk, although I insisted on boarding the occasional double-decker and sitting in the front row up top, instantly converting public transportation to a wild-eyed experience on a real-life amusement park ride. How we consistently managed to avoid things like telephone poles, buildings, other vehicles, and pedestrians remains a mystery, but I loved every second up there, much to Pat’s tolerant amusement.

And then we boarded the train to Glasgow. As it was Saturday, we were forced to take a local, which meant nearly eight hours rather than the customary 4.5, but it didn’t matter. The first five hours were in daylight, affording us a scenery that alternated between green hills liberally strewn with sheep (this was to become something of a constant backdrop to the trip), charming wee towns, and the occasional sprawling grey metropolis. We’d been assigned facing seats with a table between, and while one young woman remained in the seat next to Pat for most of the trip, the seat next to me was occupied by no less than five occupants, all male, between the ages of 16 and 70, and of assorted ethnicities. None, save the last, an older Englishman, said a word, though the teenaged Asian boy sneezed rhythmically for the entire 34 minutes of his trip.

Pat swore he knew the second we’d crossed into Scotland (it was dark by then); something in the air, he said. Just before the crossing, we’d stopped at Preston, where the conductor requested we not panic when we departed the station heading back towards London. It was only that a switch had not been properly thrown, requiring him to back up a couple miles before continuing north. It was actually something of a relief to hear from the conductor, as the only other PA’s we’d been subject to for much of the trip came from the steward of the food shop. I wish I could have recorded these, but just imagine the Monty Python crew let loose with a microphone and vague instructions to keep passengers apprised of the minutiae involved in running an onboard shop and you’ll get the gist. (The readiness of the tea was a major factor.)

At last we arrived in Glasgow, 9:47pm on a Saturday, and were met on the platform by Pat’s sister (Theresa), brother (Tony), brother-in-law (Gerry), and two nieces (Charis, 14; Saorise (pronounced sear-sha; it’s Gaelic for freedom) 9-nearly-10). This required two cars, as like nearly everyone else in Britain, both Theresa and Gerry drive smallish cars. Cars that routinely get 40-50mpg. This is a good thing as gas was—has been for a while-- running around $8/gallon.

We were excited to finally see their house, built in the 1830’s, and beautifully decorated by Theresa with stunning pieces, many bought at estate sales and auctions. Pat and I went to one one afternoon and stumbled across the filming of one of the BBC auction-themed shows we sometimes watch on BBC America, the one with the nutty guy with the gap between his front teeth. Possibly I found this more exciting than Pat, and so subsequently spent more time idling within camera range. If you watch the show and it’s being held at Great Western Auctions, Glasgow, keep an eye out for me.

After sitting up talking till after 3am, we slept late, and upon waking, were treated to a full-scale Scottish breakfast prepared by Gerry, complete with black pudding (blood sausage), bacon (like Canadian bacon); sausage, fried: eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms; baked beans, and tattie scones (pancake-like triangular things made from potatoes). I had seen such things on television, and over the years, Pat had whipped up simpler versions from time to time, but this was the genuine article, and was repeated several times throughout the trip, although after that first time, I tended to ask for porridge, the only acceptable alternative.

At last on Monday we negotiated the busses from Kirkintilloch, the quaint wee town NE of Glasgow where Theresa & Gerry live, into central Glasgow. Although only about 50% of the busses on the route are double-deckers, we were lucky and thus made the 35 minute trip from my favorite top-front seats. On narrow roads with no shoulders, bordered by huge trees, every sharp turn was a gasping experience, my initial enthusiasm in no way diminished by repeated trips.

For Pat, a return to Glasgow was a complex experience. The city had changed considerably since he last saw it, transformed by many new buildings and roads mingling with those long in place. He was disoriented, and we stopped in our strolling many times as he groped for his bearings. In this he was generally successful, and we were never properly lost, just frequently perplexed. But as we had neither schedule nor destination that day, time was ours and we wandered the city till it grew dark. There was one destination: the Scotia Bar, the oldest pub in Glasgow, dating back hundreds of years. Although it has been through many permutations over the years, in the 60’s and 70’s it was home to a generation of folk singers, musicians, storytellers, and a local motorcycle gang called the Blue Angels. Among the regulars was Billy Connelly, famed comedian, singer, and banjo player, but perhaps best known to US audiences for his roles in the films “Mrs. Brown”, “The X Files: I Want to Believe”, and “Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events”. If you’ve never seen his standup comedy, look him up on YouTube, make a choice, sit back and enjoy. (One caveat: he IS from Glasgow, a city where even the most erudite find it difficult to convey a complete thought without a liberal sprinkling of the word “fuck”. And here I thought it was just a Pat thing…)

So we walked in, 11:30 in the morning, and the place was dead empty. The bartender served half pints of cider, and we drifted through the cramped interconnected roomlets, Pat in a sort of daze, me squinting in the dim light forcing its way through the inch-thick glass of the tiny windows at the hundreds of framed pictures covering the walls. Few were recognizable to me, but when Pat joined me, he found a number of familiar faces. We didn’t stay long, especially after a young busboy came up to him and asked him if it had been a while since his last visit. Pat thought for a second and replied, “Only about 35 years.” Hearing the number spoken aloud had a disconcerting affect on him, and we were back on the street within minutes.

The next day we began our series of surprise visits to his various aunties and uncles. We headed first to the bakery his auntie Charlotte and uncle Roddie have run for 47 years, easy to find as it is the last existing bakery in the as-yet to be gentrified area of Govan, south of the River Clyde. Although many people still live there, the streets felt empty and there was a feeling of being in an abandoned town. We walked in and the short, smiling woman behind the counter said, “Hiya, luv, whit’ll it be then?” And Pat just looked at her, smiling, and she looked back, more closely now, and said, “Oh dear, I know I should know…it’s no—it’s no wee Pat then is it?” “Aye, Charlotte, it is,” he replied. Roddie, who had recognized Pat right off but said nothing till his wife figured it out, came out then and they both greeted him with enthusiasm. “Ye just missed Theresa, darlin’,” said Charlotte, “Ye must’ve passed her in the road—grey-haired woman wi’ two wee’uns in tow.” We had in fact passed this little group, without a second glance. Roddie offered to walk us round to Theresa’s flat, and off we went, promising Charlotte we’d be back soon.

At Theresa’s, we rang the bell, and heard a window on the 2nd floor open above us. A grey-haired woman stuck her head out and said, “Who is it then?” Pat looked up and said, “It’s Pat.” “Oh aye,” she replied, as though she’d seen him the day before rather than 21 years at his mother’s--her sister’s—funeral.

Inside, however, she allowed herself a bit more emotion and also greeted him warmly. We stayed a while, until Pat’s cousin Jackie, mother to the two young children, came back from work to pick them up, and then we stayed longer talking to her. Then it was back to the bakery where we enjoyed the first, and possibly best, Scottish meat pies and sausage rolls of the trip (and there were many!)

That night the phone rang and it was Auntie Anna, yet another of Pat’s mother’s endless supply of sisters, wanting her visit as well, after 3pm the next day. It worked out well, as we were picking up our rental car for the Highland trip that afternoon, so with Gerry’s TomTom installed (a navigation system) and directing us in a gentle female voice speaking the Queen’s English (there is, apparently, the option for a Glaswegian voice, which we very much wanted to hear, and amused ourselves repeatedly imagining what it might sound like: “For fuck’s sake ye daft bastard, turn left!” Pat supposed that should you then miss the turn, the device would launch itself off the dashboard and ‘stick the heid in ye’—i.e. whack you in the forehead.) Anna was thrilled to see Pat, commenting as had both Charlotte and Theresa that he was the spitting image of his uncle Pat, one his mother’s equally endless supply of brothers, but unfortunately dead some years. Also there were two more cousins, Robin and Karen, both around my age and so barely acquainted with Pat. And within the hour both their kids had shown up, a total of four, between 10 and 16, and all eager and excited to meet their long-lost 2nd cousin and hear his tales of Alaska, and to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. Seems he’s not the only member of the family to harbor dreams of a life in the far north. Invitations were issued, and perhaps one day will be fulfilled.

TomTom got us safely home, a good hour’s drive through the city in rush hour traffic, and a love affair was born. By the week’s end we were so attached to TomTom that Pat swore she was calling him by name and I was wondering if I could download her sonorous tones to my mp3 player so she would always be near…

Meantime, Pat had developed an excruciating toothache, or teeth ache, as two of his front bottom teeth chose this inopportune time to attempt to vacate his mouth. Loosening daily, he was forced to chop up all his food into bite-size pieces, a decision that afforded him some relief. Relief also came in the form of frequent doses of ibuprophen, something of an inconvenience as British law prohibits you from buying more than a box of 32 at a time. Gerry told us over dinner that this was to reduce ‘impulse pill gobbling’ in response to being dumped by one’s boyfriend, but in fact only seemed to lead to extensive liver damage by which time the couple has made up.

We departed the next morning for the cottage in the West Highlands that Theresa & Gerry have been borrowing from an English family for over 20 years. In the old days, they spent a lot of time there, making improvements to the place, enjoying a bit of rusticity away from their Glasgow lives. In the last few years they have not been up so often, due in part to the purchase of an old house in NE Tuscany that requires much of their time and energy. This weekend was, then, their first visit since the owners had done some considerable amount of work, modernizing and expanding the usable space of what is in fact a traditional ‘but ‘n ben’, a white-washed stone cottage with a chimney at each end and a slate roof. The drive was lovely, and surprisingly like sections of the drive from Homer to Anchorage, only on a much smaller scale, with many more sheep, the odd ‘highland coo’ (long-haired, long horned cow), serpentine walls handcrafted from local stone, and many sweet little but ‘n bens. I now understand where tweed comes from, as all the traditional colors unfurled themselves before us: the blues and grays of the overcast skies, bottomless lochs, roiling rivers, the sea itself; rusts and browns of the dying heather and gorse; greens of the pines and firs.

We stopped in the seaside town of Oban, a fishing port and tourist destination, filled with quaint wee shops and pubs, and a sort of Roman amphitheater dominating the skyline behind the town. Pat turned into a shop specializing in the needs of the Highland hunter or fisherman, and was left speechless by the high cost of the hunting rifles. He commented to the owner that in Alaska, the same arms were less than half the cost. The owner shrugged, then launched into a story he’d seen on TV about some guy who shot a polar bear in, he swore, Alaska, but it turned out to be a crossbreed, half grizzly and very rare. He was disappointed we had never personally seen a polar bear, but Pat assured him we had grizzlies routinely wandering through the front yard, a concept that delighted him.

We stopped again in the sprawling metropolis of Ft. William to pick up additional groceries, and then headed down the narrow twisting roads to Smirisary and the cottage, known locally as Laranbroach. From the parking area, it is about 1.5 miles up, down, and around to reach the place. We managed to arrive between downpours, but the winds were blowing close to 50mph, and our full backpacks and armfuls of necessities (such as more meat pies and plenty of chocolate; Scots have a collective sweet tooth beyond any place I’ve been, and supermarkets devote aisles to every sort of sweet available, including more varieties of chocolate imaginable. We were determined to sample as many as possible in the course of our stay.) made us anything but aerodynamic. Fortunately the last trickles of a disinterested sun illuminated our way, and Gerry’s detailed directions concerning how the place opened and functioned had us inside and starting a fire in the wood/coal stove in no time. As the rain battered the windows head on, we listened to the waves slamming into the jagged rocks below, nibbling our smorgasbord of chocolate, and awaiting Theresa, Gerry, and the girls’ arrival.

We spent the next two days there, taking hikes, exploring the ruins of ancient crofts and cottages, making rude comments about the ubiquitous spray-painted sheep, soon dubbed “graffiti sheep”, and collecting potfulls of whelks and mussels that we boiled up and gorged ourselves on. A day trip took us to the remains of a castle called Tiorum set out on a point in a lake the color of tar, dating back to the 13th century. The weather couldn’t have been worse, really, and yet the driving rain and gale force winds only served to enhance whole Highland/Hollywood experience. I kept expecting some kilt-sporting, broadsword-wielding stud to appear, demanding Scottish independence or death.

Sunday evening we made the hour or so drive up to Mallaig, just north of where the lovely movie “Local Hero” was filmed, and somehow found the only B&B still open so late in the season. It was their final week, so we felt fortunate, even after realizing that £25 for the room meant per person (although thanks to some stroke of international financial luck, the dollar achieved its highest point against the pound in five years during our trip, resulting a bit more pocket change for us than initially budgeted.), it was well worth it—clean, spacious, en suite bath, and an amazing breakfast the next morning. After a lengthy discussion with the proprietress about major upcoming renovations, Pat was invited to stay through the winter and work, an offer he briefly considered. We splurged on a fish & chips dinner, freshly caught, lightly fried, doused in vinegar, and absolutely delicious.

The following day we headed for the Isle of Skye. It is unfortunate that our strongest memory of that insanely beautiful island is the absolutely horrible curry we had the misfortune to eat at one of the island’s two Indian restaurants. Curry being, after haggis, the national food of Scotland, we made the mistake of assuming there could never be such a thing as a bad one. How wrong we were. But in spite of this obstacle, we still enjoyed our brief stay, admiring the Cuillin Mountains, and contemplating a detour to the Talisker distillery, the only one on Skye. But truth be told, after five days of Highland views, we’d become a bit inured to the natural beauty surrounding us, and on the strength of a news report declaring the northern and western Highlands due for a blizzard, we elected to head east instead, towards Inverness and Pat’s cousin John.

In fact, the snows hit a bit lower than predicted, and as we pulled into a ‘scenic overlook’ by the side of Loch Ness to eat our lunch and hope for a glance of the monster thingy, the snow began to fall, heavier and heavier, until we could not see the lake just a couple hundred feet below. We decided to stay there until the road, not 10 feet away, was actually visible, then continued through the slush. The years in Alaska had accustomed us to such conditions. The same could not be said for all the drivers on the road, and we were grateful to arrive on the outskirts of Inverness as the skies cleared and the snow gradually diminished. TomTom outdid herself and lead us directly to John’s door, a feat as he lives in a twisty housing development that we’d never have found without directions from a resident, and that would’ve cost us the element of surprise. As it was, Pat rang the bell, and a tall, handsome, white-haired man opened the door and stared at us, a hand-rolled cigarette dangling between his lips. After perhaps 20 seconds he said, “Aye, and who the fook are you?” (realize that this sounds much better with the Glaswegian accent…) Pat just smiled beatifically and said nothing. I pulled off his wool hat, at which point the man in the doorway gave a start and said, “It’s no Pat?! Och, ‘tis--for fook’s sake, it’s fookin’ Pat!” and swept Pat into a bear hug that Pat happily returned. See, the thing is, Pat and his cousin John were very close between the ages of 14 into their mid-20’s. John’s four years older, the age of Pat’s older brother George (who died about 12 years ago), but it was with Pat he clicked, and the two of them, from the wee bit of reminiscing that went on over the two days we stayed there, were partners in crime (sometimes literally), music, and everything in between. They’d not seen each other, however, for around 30 years, just keeping very loose tabs on each other via Pat’s sister Theresa. Most of you reading this know Pat, and how entertaining he can be; what a good storyteller, etc. John, however, takes it all up a notch. Or ten. An inveterate entertainer, he can spin tales that leave the listener helpless with laughter. He and Pat had many years to catch up on, as well as all the years requiring reminiscing, and when John’s wife of 38 years, May, joined in, there was little to do besides sit back and let their voices wash over me. They took us on a walking tour of the city, through tourist shops overflowing with stuffed Nessies in plaid tams and bath towel printed up to look like kilts, and eventually to a subtle little restaurant with excellent food served by a Depeche Mode wannabe with a pierced upper lip. After two days with them, with only a few hours sleep a night as a break in the talking (and one episode of “Ultimate Loggers” or some such title, a favorite show of John’s, primarily to laugh at the “whinging bastards”), we had to rejoin TomTom and head back to Glasgow, if for no other reason than the rental car was due back. Sorry to leave, but certain we’d meet up again soon, perhaps in Alaska, we pulled away, still laughing as we recalled story after story.

En route back to Glasgow, we stopped to visit Culloden, site of the catastrophically unsuccessful battle between the Jacobites, comprised mainly of clans from the Highlands and led by Bonnie Prince Charles, against the Government, aka the English, on April 15, 1746. (I asked Pat if he thought this date had any bearing on it being tax day in the US, another day most of us would prefer to forget…) Nothing is ever that simple, and so there were Scots on the Government side and the odd English alongside the clansmen, but on the whole, it is generally safe to say it was “them” against “us” and leave little confusion. The Scots were massacred, over 700 dead within an hour, and it was the end of the Clan system for over two hundred years. The infamous Highland Clearances began then, resulting in thousands of Scots being driven from their lands to make room for sheep and cattle, by far a more profitable business. Many of these refugees ended up on large ships, headed for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the still nascent USA, possibly the only good to have come of the whole sorry affair. The Culloden Vistors’ Center was completely rebuilt and reopened just this past April, on the 262nd anniversary of the event. It is possibly the finest visitors’ center I’ve ever seen, both architecturally as well as educationally. There is the history of Culloden running along either side of a large hall, Jacobites in blue on the left; Government in red on the right. So you read along, one side then the other, or maybe just one side if your loyalties are fierce, at last arriving at an enclosed room with a huge movie screen on each wall. Once a small crowd has formed, all standing in the middle, they roll film and you find yourself in the midst of the battle, no effects spared. Heads are blown off, legs shattered, young men in tartan and red wool splatter and collapse in untidy heaps. When all was done, barely 90 minutes later, most of the heaps were bloody mounds of plaid. In spite of myself, I had tears in my eyes and a weight on my chest, affected far more deeply than I could have foreseen. Pat had an expression between anger and frustration, one I’ve seen whenever he has to deal with authority of any kind. My camera couldn't do it justice, so if you're curious about the place, go here: http://www.nts.org.uk/Culloden/Home/

The last week in Kirkintilloch passed quickly, but we had time for a long day in Edinburgh. We took the train over, a quick, easy, comfortable trip, and spent most of the next 10 hours walking the city. Compared to Glasgow, it’s, well, hillier. And a bit more historic feeling. Churches every 50 feet, many of them ancient, yet still elegant. We wandered through a graveyard called Greyfriar’s (best know for this insanely loyal dog, known as Greyfriar’s Bobby, who lived out his long life at his master’s graveside.) The gravestones were fascinating as they dated back hundreds of years, and often gave much more information than is generally found engraved these days. (Between the at times nearly eroded away lettering and the light, none of my pictures came out.) We learned that of the eleven children born to James and Ellen McKittredge, only two lived past adolescence, but a few graves down, we were pleased to see that Mr. John Murtaugh survived from 1643 until 1735, a pretty good run in any era, although judging by the size of his plinth, he lived well. From there we inadvertently found our way to the Writers’ Museum, a lovely four-story, 400 year old building dedicated to educating the masses about the work of Scotland’s three greatest writers: Sir Walter Scott, R.L. Stevenson, and Robbie Burns. Each had his own floor, complete with realistic wax figures poised thoughtfully over candle-lit desks, along with an endless supply of material detailing their lives, loves, and literary merits. The best part was the recorded conversations of the writers chatting with various friends, publishers, acquaintances. The actors caught the cadences of the time, and their voices animated the pictures and replicas. From there it was a steep walk up to Edinburgh Castle, a massive hunk of stone dominating the city. They wanted something like $20 to enter the place, so we contented ourselves with strolling the perimeter, and went through the gates (behind one of which Pat proudly pointed to a roughly scratched “Gibson” etched some 45 years earlier on a family trip), and as far as the shop, lured in by a sign advertising free tastes of local produce. This turned out to by tiny plastic shot glasses of single malt whisky, certainly organic, and delicious in a smoky, throat-searing sort of way.

By now we were weary of schlepping the quaint cobblestone streets, and the thought of one more kirk (church) was disturbing, so we headed toward the artsy side of town, picked up some dim sum, and took in a movie in the sweetest little theater I’ve ever had the pleasure to enter. There were four fairly small screening rooms, each with perhaps 40 seats. You selected the seats when buying a ticket and an usher lead you by flashlight to your assigned spot. All was velvet and legroom, excellent sightlines and fine acoustics. We saw “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”, which was depressing as hell, but well enough done. It was the ideal theater for such a film, where a huge screen would have been overwhelming.

We had just enough time to jump on a bus back towards the main train station, and arrived back in Glasgow around ten pm, ready for our next, and nearly last excursion the following day: to Rosslyn Chapel. Pat had worked in the area many years ago, and so has known about this magical place long before Dan Brown’s tale hit the world’s shelves and screens. Since 1997, the Chapel has been covered by a huge metal roof. Conservation work done in the 50’s, with the intention of repairing and improving the interior walls, actually resulted in trapping moisture within the stone and caused far more problems than it solved. It is expected that the place will have sufficiently dried out and the roof removed within the next few years, and not too long after, will be wholly restored. The one good thing about the metal roof was that visitors were actually allowed up the scaffolding, and could walk around a platform at roof-level, for views and details normally never available. We spent most of the afternoon there, listening in to the formal tour at times, and then wandering off on our own to explore. (Apparently Hollywood took a number of liberties with the place when filming “The DaVinci Code”, so the guide wanted to prepare any fans of the film for the bitter disappointments ahead.)

We took it easy for our last couple days, remaining in Kirkintilloch, and of course watching the US election night broadcast (it started at 11pm and ended with Obama’s acceptance speech at 5am. I don’t really need to include these details, I just like seeing the words “Obama” and “acceptance speech” in print…) Our last night happened to be Guy Fawkes night, which for any of you unaware of this curious British custom, involves celebrating the night this guy, Guy, tried to blow up the British Parliament. He failed, but they still like to commemorate the event by burning him in effigy and setting off obscene quantities of fireworks. Theresa brought home an assortment, so we had our own little festive scene in the back yard, culminating in one that took about five minutes to complete its show. It was a bittersweet evening, as we knew we’d be off the next day, despite feeling as though we’d only just arrived.

One more night and day in London, the former spent with Pat’s brother Tony in a pub watching two simultaneous football games then enjoying a delicious last curry, and the latter walking miles looking for some esoteric bit of electric hardware we need for the on-demand hot water heater/shower thingy we bought in Glasgow. We eventually gave up, Pat figuring he’ll get it to work one way or the other, and boarded the tube out to Heathrow.