'Saltburned' in Scotland
A mysterious weekend spent in a Scottish Castle - as the working class novelty.
I am on a train today, on my own, travelling to Glasgow. The busy train has just left Bury St Edmunds station, I know I need to change at Peterborough and Edinburgh, but after that I am not really sure where I am headed, although on this occasion I do know my destination will not be a Scottish castle, complete with pipers in Full Highland Dress.
The last two Monday Newsletters have been about quite difficult subjects, so as I am embarking on a holiday and only want to be thinking about things that make me smile, this week’s newsletter is of a more lighthearted nature. A tale of the strangest stay in bonnie Scotland from years ago.
I have only visited Scotland once before, thirty years ago and I couldn’t even tell you the name of the place where I stayed, all I know it was a few miles from Edinburgh, in the middle of nowhere but in the vicinity of a small village.
The marriage to my first husband had been over for about a year and for reasons no doubt a psychiatrist could tell me, I had subsequently been venting my anger and all the other emotions still lingering around by embarking on a manic affair with the gym next door to where I worked in the City of London.
Every workday I spent two hours or more after work, drowning my sorrows in sweat, in the hope that one day would I could look in the mirror and feel good about what I saw.
One evening in mid December I was dressing in the changing room when a tall girl with short spiky blond hair, asked what I was doing for the coming New Year. I didn’t know Fiona well, we only exchanged the usual small talk about the weather, the sauna temperature and what we were doing at the weekends but the conversation usually ended there. We didn’t mix socially or share any mutual friends so I was quite taken aback when she asked me if I would like to spend New Year in Scotland with her family. Being single and not relishing the idea of a New Year at home with the potential of bumping into my ex-husband and his new girlfriend, I thought celebrating Hogmanay in Scotland sounded a splendid idea. Getting out of London would do me good, I had never been to Edinburgh and the change of scenery would feel like a breath of fresh air.
Arrangements were made, I picked Fiona up from her flat in West London in my little Renault Clio and set off very early on the morning of 30th December for the 6 hour drive to her family home.
Nearing the end of the journey, the motorways and A roads left behind, the country lanes opened up to the magnificence of the Scottish countryside. Following Fiona’s directions, we turned into a country lane, an avenue with bare branched trees standing guard on both sides “Not far now” she said chirpily.
The lane was well over a mile long, I began to wonder where it was taking us when out of the blue, before my very eyes arose a fairytale castle, not a house pretending to be a castle, a real sandstone Sleeping Beauty kind of castle, with towering turrets dotted with small widows and the Saltire flapping proudly against the backdrop of the crystal clear December sky.