So, This is Scotland

Scotland. 

In some ways I’m unprepared for it. Not the country itself, I don’t mean that, but rather what being there means. In planning my trip, I’d thought by the time April arrived, after the busy months of traveling that I’d be ready for the countryside, for some isolation, for the lonely time to write. I’d thought that I’d want to slow down.

On the one hand, I am and I do.

On the other hand, I’m not and I don’t.

I hadn’t anticipated that site seeing would be habit forming. Addictive. That I’d want to rush around collecting castles, monuments, cathedrals, stones, human interactions, museums, and waterfront skies like baseball cards. That my independence would be defined and enforced by what I could walk to or what bus I could catch. Or that I’d be sad to leave England behind me. 

Emerson wrote, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

Oh, but would he have meant that if he knew it was England which lay behind me and Scotland that lay before me? Surely not small matters those. And, to make it all come together here, would he have thought that what lies within me is nothing more than a murky pool of introspection? 

How travel does teach me all about myself. Apparently, though, I’ve still got a lot to learn.

With that thought on my mind, I take to the road again. After a full day, I’m there. Well, almost there. I’ve taken the local bus from the house to the station, the coach from Liverpool to Edinburgh, and then gotten the train from Edinburgh on. My host picks me up from the train station in Tweedbank and drives me through the dark for twenty or so miles to the place where I’ll be living for the next two months. The house with my separate living space, an attached apartment, is in a village with no shops or pubs, no cathedrals or monuments. What it does have is a village hall with an old red phone booth outside of it and a population of around thirty. It’s a little village stuck in the middle of the countryside between two slightly larger towns, one six miles southwest and another six miles north. My host has said she goes to town frequently and that I’m welcome to go with her for groceries as needed which made the place a possible destination for me. I’d been reluctant to commit to a twelve mile walking trip for groceries regardless of how beautiful the pictures had made the place out to be. What a privilege to have that option. 

Scotland.

My first full day is overcast and rainy and I’m grateful to be able to take it easy, to settle in, and to recharge myself from the travel of the day before. Late in the afternoon, my host invites me along for a walk when she goes out to take her dog and I’m glad for the chance to stretch my legs. Soft drizzle falls.

The second day she takes me to the river with its impressive aqueduct and we get to know each other a little as we squelch our way through the mud and the dog joyfully runs around. My host is originally from the States but moved to England with her family when she was nine. Her accent is about as mild as mine though her husband sounds (to my undiscerning and delighted ears) like Sean Connery. When we’ve finished our walk, we stop by the grocery store and I get a week’s worth of food to take back to the house. “There’s a feeling of wholeness when the fridge is full,” I tell her. Which is another sort of privilege that I don’t take for granted.

Back in my rooms, I read up on the Scottish Borders and what I should see while here. There are a series of abbeys, walks, the grand home of Sir Walter Scott, old peal towers, the resting place of Robert the Bruce’s heart. I want to see all the things. The trick is how to get to them. Most of the places are too far to walk in a day. There’s rumors that a bus runs from town to village to town, but I can’t find a definitive schedule online and there’s not an obvious stop on the main street (such as it is) that I have seen. It’s travel adjustment, I reason—city to country, bustle to quiet, sunshine to rain—that’s making it hard for me to figure out the details of things that only days before had seemed so easy. With that reassurance, I decide I’ll give myself some days to settle in.

Anyway, what’s the rush? What’s the hurry? It’s not like I’m not accomplishing things. After all, the first item on my To Do list for this place is Countryside Walks.

On my third day (how quickly already the days speed by), I walk up the path I’d taken the first day with my host—“It’s called the loaning,” she’d told me—and I see a sign that points up a hill and claims: Wooden Hill/Path to St. Cuthbert’s Way. Curious, I look it up when I’m back at the house. Well, this sounds promising. It’s not the path to an abbey (which I do want to see), but it’s something to do. From where I am, St. Cuthbert’s Way is part of the Jubilee Path which is a circular walk just over 12.5 miles long.

When the sunshine comes out like a miracle the next day, after I’ve had my breakfast and my coffee, done my daily writing, and gotten myself sorted (as they say here), I pull on the wellies my host has graciously loaned me and decide to give it a go.

A noon start might be a bad idea, 12.5 miles might be a bit ambitious (and not even for groceries), but the sunshine has lured me out and is promising me many good things.

All but skipping, I make my way down the loaning alongside the burn and walk to the sign that points me up to Wooden Hill. The online guide book I’ve downloaded to my phone gives me directions as well as interesting facts about the area, its history, and pointers such as: This is a steep climb but very worthwhile (of Wooden Hill) and: It is worth pausing at the stile before entering the wood to appreciate the view fully.

I follow these tips and am not disappointed by either the steep climb or the views.

So, I think to myself, this is Scotland.

From where I am at the top of the hill—before clambering over the stile and entering the woods, doing just as the book has instructed—I look around. I can see the Eildon Hills, Peniel Heugh which is a distant hill with Wellington’s Pillar, a monument to the victory at Waterloo (as my guidebook informs me), poking up toward the sky. I can see snow dusted mountains, vibrant green fields, distant farmhouses, maybe the remnants of a faraway peal tower, loads of mud, and finally, after days of blanket grey clouds, the blue sky. There’s a deer in the meadow.

When I’ve given the view what it’s owed, I climb over the stile and venture into the trees. The wood itself is magical. Mossy green grass softens the sounds of my boots against the earth. A threadbare blanket of snow lies along one side of the path. A thin trail of mud runs down the middle of the way. I could see how easy it would be to write fantasy based off these trees, off those distant hills, off this still-persisting winter, off the deer who probably knows how to speak but, for reasons of shyness or fear or antipathy, has vanished from sight without saying a word to me. And these trees, I’m sure, would move on their own if asked kindly enough or if they wanted to.

“What do people do here?” the person who has spent up to six months at a time completely and happily on her own in the wilderness, asks of the air. As if I’ve forgotten what the peace of the natural world is. As if I’ve been so taken in by the handiwork of humankind that I can no longer see the forest or the trees.

As if I don’t know.

I make my way out of the woods and down another muddy path. It’s farmland and the track I’m following is littered with potatoes, some soft and gently rotting, some still firm and perfect. I think of the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi who picked up the leftover stalks of grain in the harvested fields of Bethlehem and I wonder what would happen if I put these apparently forsaken potatoes in my bag and took them with me. Would that be stealing? My host had told me that there is no private land in Scotland.

“So, you can’t trespass.”

This after I’d told her that I’d tried to walk to the loch the day before but had thought I’d accidently wandered onto private property so I’d turned around and come back.

“Oh, that’s good to know,” I’d remarked.

While it can be said, “There is no trespass law in Scotland.” There is however, a Scottish Outdoor Access Code which very briefly summed up says: Be Respectful. Which is, first of all, common courtesy, and, second of all, simply wise since many farmers have guns.

[N.B. The trespass and access laws aren’t quite as simple as to say that any walker can go wherever they want whenever they want, but for the most part that is true so long as the walker does not inflict damage on the land or there aren’t signs posted by the owner asking people to stay off the property. As far as I can tell in Scotland for now, it boils down to this: while the walker may have the right of passage over a bit of land, only the owner has the right of use of that same land.]

I leave the potatoes where they lay and wander into another little friendly forest and then out again in time to cross a small burn (burn is the Scottish word for a stream) and head off into yet another wooded area. Another magical wooded area. Another one.

Answering my question of earlier, I think, “The only thing you could do here is write poetry.” Because I’m finding my thoughts are jostling around in meter, not quite in rhyme but there’s definitely a cadence there.

Still following my guidebook, I walk through a small village (another one without shops or pubs or cathedrals or monuments) that used to have a grain mill as its claim to fame. The signs lead me on and I walk across a field, ease my way down a rather steep and somewhat muddy hill, and cross over the Oxnam Water. I sit on a convenient bench next to an equally convenient picnic table I find on the opposite side of the bridge. I sit there overlooking the river and eat a snack. I check my distance. Oh, well. I’ve only come four miles or so. That’s all? 12.5 miles suddenly seems an awful lot.

My guidebook has said that the first leg of the circular walk will end after a walk down the old Roman Road called Dere Street which used to link York and Edinburgh and before I get to the banks of the Jed Water. One option at that point, it says cheerily, is to visit the little tearoom just down the road. Another is to take the bus back to the starting point. With all my musing, wandering through woods, and picture taking I’ve managed to stretch 6.5 miles over four hours’ time. That’s pretty slow going even in the mud. A bus does sound nice especially when I think that the remaining 6 miles will probably take me just as long as the previous ones since I’m feeling a bit on the worn out side. That’d put me back home at 8:00. I make a deal with myself. I’ll visit the tearoom, ask about the bus, and if all else fails, I’ll gather up my fortitude and complete the Jubilee Path. After all, I did bite this off myself and if it’s more than I can chew, it’s no one’s fault other than my own. I can walk it if I have to. 

With my plan made, I amble down the road and to the buildings that are set up ahead of me. Blast. The tearoom is closed. Well, it is after 4:00. If I’d gotten an earlier start… Yes, fine, that’s true. But I’m not in the mood for reason. What I’d really like is for someone local to wander by so I can ask them about the bus stop. I’d rather ask from here than go off wandering in all directions.

No one goes by.

I stand around feeling suspicious.

However, time waits for no man (or overly ambitious and now tired afternoon walker) so I head back the way I came. Near the turn onto the main road, I pause. A truck comes from behind me and I wave at the driver, but he gives me a funny look and goes on.

Six more miles it is.

Yet, still I linger. When I’ve almost talked myself into moving, another truck goes by. But I’m tentative and my wave must look like a friendly gesture instead of a flagging down. That driver gives me a look and goes by too. At the road, though, he has to stop and wait for a break in the passing cars, so I, with gathered bravery, approach the window. When he lowers it, I say, “Pardon, can you tell me where the bus stop is?”

He asks me where I’m trying to go and when I tell him he says, “Hop in. I’m going that way.”

He doesn’t have to offer twice.

Four miles by road is like traveling at lightspeed compared to six miles by muddy (though beautiful and poetry inducing) trail. I’ll do the full circuit one day, I think. I will. Or I’ll work it backwards next time. I tell myself this because I feel like I’ve cut an adventure short. Shortchanged myself somehow. Maybe I feel this because getting a ride hadn’t been one of the two options I’d offered myself at the foot of the Jed Water. Isn’t an unexpected adventure just as good as another six miles? Isn’t a Good Samaritan good?

Better, I think.

When the driver finds out I’ve only recently arrived to Scotland and via England no less, he says, “Scotland is better, isn’t it?”

I have to agree. For in this moment, Scotland is perfect.

*If you’d like more travel fun check out my Patreon page! There you can get full access to the picture of the week, stats on the novel I’m writing, or even a postcard from each new country I visit. Toodle along here to get the details: https://www.patreon.com/amandawhite