Scotland for me
a trip to Fife and I’m in love, going back for Christmas.
St Andrews is of course quite special
Firstly the beach, which goes on and on out past the golf course and round the corner towards the Eden estuary.
Enough visual stuff to keep one happy for a month
A lovely little secondhand bookshop where I found lots of poetry
Including a little pamphlet style book, Situations Theoretical and Contemporary, printed in 86, poems by Tom Leonard which contains this sadly ironic gem;
Scotland has become an independent socialist republic.
At last.
Eh?
You pinch yourself.
Jesus Christ. You’ve slept in again!
And it is now the home of my daughter and her husband, he’s running Waterstones and she’s teaching film at the university and little Em is happy to be running on the beach, eating kelp and sleeping the rest of the day in a quiet house right on the western edge of the town.
we had a trip up to Killiecrankie, past Pitlochry in Perthshire
It stopped raining about when we got out of the car, but the cloud and mist stayed around
Dramatically steep valley sides all clad in trees
More leaves, I did pick a bagfull of sessile oak leaves off the forest floor.
All the lichened tree trunks and wind-soughing branches
And impressive tall pines
Clouds sunk down between the ridges
Impossibly romantic and Caspar David Friedrich-esque
Tangling branches, trees black with rain
And very historical of course, plus bungee jumpers diving off that terrifyingly high bridge.
Next day was sunshine and Tentsmuir forest and beach.
A bit like Wells beach in Norfolk but without the miles of sand, instead the Tay estuary just around the corner.
The dogs found a ball amongst the kelp and driftwood
The dunes aren’t as big as ours but there isn’t as much sand on the beach, so …..
Lots of pine needles. Some wind fallen green clumps found their way home with me too.
Friends, family and a special country are going to keep me coming back.