Home from the sea...
This trip, like others back to the my old homeland makes change stand stark before a hazy backdrop of memories. The depth of field is long, as I notice and explore threads of history previously ignored. My purpose is a mix of business and pleasure, so the trail branches out in many directions. Some paths I follow briefly. Others I will return to many times.
A black and white lens with occasional cracks 'where the light gets in' replaces the vivid colours of last week’s Mediterranean landscape. There is a parallel in time though. When the Knights of St John built mighty sandstone fortresses against to onslaught of marauding Turks, the Scots defended their ground from gray granite castles on windy hillsides and lived in towers with metre thick walls.
The ancient city of Stirling looks beautiful in warm summer tones with just a few modern touches superimposed.
There’s nothing modern about the buskers in the town square keeping a large crowd entertained on a Saturday afternoon for the price of a gold coin (or other) donation. The sound of pipes and drums is stirring, almost elemental. The performance of men in traditional tattoos and highland dress - not the gentrified version - mesmerizes.
But the sunshine never lasts long in Scotland. Billowing gray clouds gather often to temper the light and douse the land with the water of life. Rather too much than too little! I can never quite find words to describe the richness of the colour gray that fills the skies in the build up, or the way it manages to transform daylight into a powerful sense of foreboding.
A few random memories bring a brief sojourn in the southern central region to a close. The wee sweetie shop represents a generation with hard candy and sugar-rotted teeth cemented in place by massive amalgam fillings. My generation - but I buy some hard peanuts flavoured sweets to suck on for nostalgia's sake.
The monument to 13thC hero Rob Roy McGregor would not look out of place in a comic with the commonplace battle cry ‘see you jimmy’ for a caption. One of many, many reminders of the fabulous, familiar, infallible Scottish sense of humour.
Another monument in the old graveyard up by the castle honours John Knox, the great protestant reformer. The man was, by all accounts a brute, whose activity may have later spawned the forerunner of the gesture of throwing shoes - though in the form of a stool - by outraged parishioner Jenny Geddes in an act that earbed her a place in history. The same ‘see you jimmy’ caption could apply.
Maybe both these historic, local heroes sent out a warning that the mods were moving north! The invaders might be different, but the principle remains the same.
A black and white lens with occasional cracks 'where the light gets in' replaces the vivid colours of last week’s Mediterranean landscape. There is a parallel in time though. When the Knights of St John built mighty sandstone fortresses against to onslaught of marauding Turks, the Scots defended their ground from gray granite castles on windy hillsides and lived in towers with metre thick walls.
The ancient city of Stirling looks beautiful in warm summer tones with just a few modern touches superimposed.
There’s nothing modern about the buskers in the town square keeping a large crowd entertained on a Saturday afternoon for the price of a gold coin (or other) donation. The sound of pipes and drums is stirring, almost elemental. The performance of men in traditional tattoos and highland dress - not the gentrified version - mesmerizes.
But the sunshine never lasts long in Scotland. Billowing gray clouds gather often to temper the light and douse the land with the water of life. Rather too much than too little! I can never quite find words to describe the richness of the colour gray that fills the skies in the build up, or the way it manages to transform daylight into a powerful sense of foreboding.
A few random memories bring a brief sojourn in the southern central region to a close. The wee sweetie shop represents a generation with hard candy and sugar-rotted teeth cemented in place by massive amalgam fillings. My generation - but I buy some hard peanuts flavoured sweets to suck on for nostalgia's sake.
The monument to 13thC hero Rob Roy McGregor would not look out of place in a comic with the commonplace battle cry ‘see you jimmy’ for a caption. One of many, many reminders of the fabulous, familiar, infallible Scottish sense of humour.
Another monument in the old graveyard up by the castle honours John Knox, the great protestant reformer. The man was, by all accounts a brute, whose activity may have later spawned the forerunner of the gesture of throwing shoes - though in the form of a stool - by outraged parishioner Jenny Geddes in an act that earbed her a place in history. The same ‘see you jimmy’ caption could apply.
Maybe both these historic, local heroes sent out a warning that the mods were moving north! The invaders might be different, but the principle remains the same.
posted by Cathy Gunn at
July 04, 2009
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