A Highland Coo-Eee

 

The hostel has been closed this week for washroom refurbishment. Anti-vandal showers are obviously the must have in Eskdale. I just hope it won't affect Fiona's masterclass on how to get hot water out of a tap (expertly delivered a few days ago). I took this time as holiday, and it really couldn't have come at a better time for me. The results of the blood test I had a few weeks ago confirmed what I already knew - I wasn't feeling great! It is something I have lived with for many years, but if the dose of medication is too high or too low, then it can start to affect me (although I do try my best to carry on as 'normal'). I suspect though, it was less of a bother for me than for my lovely work colleagues who had to put up with me! Anyway. I took the only road that always makes sense to me - to the Highlands of Scotland, and to Aviemore where my cousin and his family live. There are places I usually stop along the way, just across the border at Gretna service station, and Faskally woods by Loch Faskally and Pitlochry. My parents used to live and work near Pitlochry many years ago, and it would be somewhere we would often go on subsequent holidays (as well as the north east coast). It is a place that is thick with memories, just as the hillsides are thick with the scent of pine forests. I was greeted by a strange and wonderful sensation as I wandered through the trees and down to the water. I could suddenly remember every single time I had ever been there, and it was as if all those experiences were happening now and at once. For that moment it felt like my mind had brushed against eternity, and that time and everything else that normally governs us had faded away. I am not religious, although I did think that I once was (I called myself a Christian and went to church - but now that I don't, I suppose that faith was never real). There are times though that I feel the presence of something greater, perhaps it is God, perhaps it is nature, perhaps it is simply the awareness that life is not confined to myself (or to humans). I don't think I want to know the answers, though. It seems a bit of a waste to fill one's brain entirely with knowledge, when you can have mystery, instead. Scotland has long impressed upon me a sense of mysticism, a sense of magic. It is the place I love most in the world, because it is the place I feel most at peace with myself. And that is not because I am always happy here, but because it somehow allows me to be comfortable with both my joy and my sadness. Because you see those things reflected in the landscape, and in the long journey to get where you want to be. 

The weather in Aviemore this week has been stupendous, with temperatures hitting 24°C most days. I've spent the majority of the time outside, on my bike, walking up a mountain, or having an afternoon nap by some little stream. Once you get away from the village you can be fairly certain to find relative solitude - where the few people you do meet will stop and have a chat about this and that. I was down by the river Feshie one day when a man seemed to appear out of literally nowhere. He had taken the sleeper train from London to Dalwhinne, and had been walking across country all day. He wanted to know where and how far the next river crossing was, as he was beginning to wonder if he would make it to the other side. I went to favourite places, I went to new places, I went to places so magical I wondered if they could be real places at all. I also spent time with family, and went to the pub quiz where there was a Chris de Burgh question in the music round. I kid you not. It has been an amazing, refreshing week, and now I'm looking forward to going back to the madness of Eskdale.