Even Prisoners get Paroled

Dear all,

Our dreary English summer is turning into a grey and dreary autumn.  While we have had some wonderful moments this summer, some that I will share with you later, I mostly have been holed up with four bored children the whole wet summer.  That is, until J and I escaped for five days to St. Andrews, Scotland.

I love Scotland.  I mean it.  I am completely in love with Scotland.  The craggy shoreline, the sea, the mist, the sunshine, the rain, the people.  I have had some sort of conversion, a bit like the first time I ever roamed through Vermont.  An instant homesickness for place I’ve never been before. We have traveled so much, but I rarely drive through foreign towns and villages and think to myself, ‘Wow.  Lucky you.  You get to live here,’ but that is exactly how I felt about every Scottish person we passed.

J and I drove up from Cheltenham.  We headed north and put Birmingham and Manchester behind us before 9:00 a.m. By the time we entered Cumbria, England, or The Lake District as it is called, we were ready for a break.  Cumbria is Beatrix Potter country.  We exited the motorway following signs for a rest stop and drove through a heavily wooded, winding road which lead to glass and stone walled lodge nestled in between mountains with a deep pond running right up to the glass wall.  Honestly, it was as if any number of Beatrix Potter’s characters would come padding over to us.  So spectacular was the setting, we hated to leave. And this was just a rest stop!

We drove further north and entered Scotland.  I was a bit disappointed.  It just looked so much like England.  Then the landscape began to turn.   The tidy green grasses slowly grew more stark and yellow.  Then we wound around a bend in the road and there it was:  the heather.  Mounds and mounds of purple hills and mountains fading into the mist.  Why does anyone leave Scotland I wondered and that was before we even got to the sea.

We made our way through Glasgow and around Edinburgh and drove up the east coast through tiny but proud villages of weathered grey stone buildings and cottages with bright blue front doors (Scotland’s flag is blue and white).  Grandmas walked with grandchildren in record numbers.  Scotland is like Ireland with a more grand past-not quite as humble and with better roads, but it is not as painfully cute as our part of England.  Rugged and refined.  I like that.

Our first sighting of the sea coincided with the first golf course we spotted.  The smell of the sea along with freshly cut grass was intoxicating.  The air was thick.  We rolled down the windows and breathed deeply.  The air in Scotland is so pure and clean; it almost feels sharp in your lungs.   London leaves your boogers black and in Cheltenham, I do not dust so much as wipe black grime off stuff.   It felt so good just to breath in Scotland.

By the time we arrived in St. Andrews, the golf Mecca, I was smitten. 

More to follow,

With love from England,

T-Ann