Friday, 13 February 2015

This is my country, the land that begat me


P

I've never really been the patriotic type. Nor have I ever been that proud to be Scottish. It's not that I ever wanted to be another nationality, I just never really thought about it. And if I'm honest I did sometimes feel like being Scottish was a bit rubbish. I have no idea why. It was probably that scene from Trainspotting.

Then something happened. I'm not sure how, why or when but I grew up. And slowly I began to fall in love with this beautiful country. The land, the sea, the lochs. There's something about going up north that I love. Armed with an overnight bag, a Starbucks latte (the last Starbucks you will probably see in a while) and a full tank of petrol - on these little road trips you can almost sense when the air gets cleaner. You can feel when the wind chill gets higher. 

I hate boats and I'm not a strong swimmer. Yet there is something about being surrounded by water that sets me at ease and cleanses my mind. Chicken soup for the soul I suppose. And so we took a little road trip up to Glencoe. And we stayed in a charming little village called Ballachulish that consisted of pretty much nothing. And nothing turned out to be so charming that we stayed an extra night. Turns out drinking pints of craft beer while devouring lobster and getting beat at pool is my new favourite thing. 

We spent a day in Fort William. We ate breakfast in a glass conservatory overlooking the beautiful hills and mesmerising Loch Leven. We even got to stop at The Drovers Inn on the way home and left with a promise to ourselves that we would book a room and return soon. 

I definitely ate too many chips.

And I got him back for beating me at pool when we played darts ;)






The title of this post is taken from the poem 'Scotland' by Sir Alexander Gray and given that I am all kinds of patriotic these days, I really do love it a lot.

1 comment:

P said...

Amazing pics! I'm off to Fort William tomorrow... can't wait!x