Be Thou My Vision

 

Gordon’s soul, unlike mine, is destined for expansion like the migratory white swans flying against an ice-blue sky in the winter, searching for their feeding grounds. The bird watchers often comment on the fact that many of the swans arrive at night in the nocturnal splendour rather than in broad daylight because they have probably used the stars to guide them. Imagine the Plough, Orion, the Pleiades, Comet and the distant galaxies magnifying the aerial view of their wetlands, for roosting, covered in fog at dawn. It would not surprise me if Gordon, who has a tendency towards a choleric disposition when he is confined, would wish that he could read those remote lights from the constellations so that he could join a carnival of migratory wild birds who live at some distance from civilisation in the lonely meads.
 

Gordon and I took the high roads. Gordon’s soul, unlike mine, is destined for expansion like the migratory white swans... 

Very picturesque, isn't it?

"Ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond..."

the words from the famous folk song, Loch Lomond



Ah, Nature's beauty...isn't it breathtakingly beautiful?

Yesterday was Gordon’s birthday. So, we decided to expand our territory to pastures new in a pursuit of a new feeding ground. Gordon kindly picked me up very early in the morning before the sunrise as this new place we were paying a flying visit is quite a distance from my house. It means that I had to be up early. I usually switch off my alarm clock during the weekend. Instead, I rely on my other 'wake-up call'; the sound of the metallic, rattling noise from the engine of the fishing boats going out to the sea and the bright light thrown off by the reflection of the sea’s crumpled silver-paper surface.

I wake up in the early hours of Saturday morning by listening to the sound of fishing boats going out to the sea

Vintage car advert - "Silent, Smooth & Reliable"

My idea of travelling in style (without stress and traffic)

We both love to travel on the solitary roads in very early hours of the morning before the rush hours. We would like to imagine, like in the old days, we have the whole road to ourselves. It is exhilarating and worth making an effort to rise before the caravans and tourists coaches depart from their various hotels and camping sites for you can feel part of some mysterious, primordial world where only water, land, birds, sky and silence meet to create a world far removed from the noisy and hurried world that most of us now are compelled to inhabit.      

Forfar (Angus, Scotland)

Nationalism is a flame of a kind which is on the rise before the Scottish referendum next month

Saddler's is the best bakery in town

Forfar Bridie is Gordon's favourite. Recipe here 

What is Forfar Bridie? It is a type of snack, made of minced beef meat in puff, flaky pastry. This snack is traditionally identified with the town.

Forfar's sweet shop window

Nothing happening. The town as well as the shops are very quiet. The silent streets and shops continue to exist with or without your observation. It's like being inside one of Edward Hopper's melancholy paintings. 

Forfar, the county town of Angus, Scotland is not very famous. Its population is about 13,500. It does not particularly attract the tourists from abroad nor the visitors from England who want their summer break. It does not advertise in the tourists’ holiday brochures nor rush into travel agencies during the holiday season, shouting: “Quick! Come and look at me!” As a result, it remains almost unnoticed. In fact, Forfar is used to being unnoticed like a confirmed bachelor who walks down everyday to the village shop to pick up his morning papers.

 

A colourful display of tartan  and checked scarves on the shelves. Forfar was home to a very successful textile industry during and after the Industrial Revolution. It also has the best kilt shop where you can order made-to-measure traditional tartan kilts in all various patterns and colours for a reasonable price. 

 

In the development of taste, by which I mean, the hotels that are being rebuilt, redecorated and modernised to look exactly the same (in the name of progress) as all the other hotels in large, capital cities, the pubs and the restaurants that cater the same food and the characterless, over-specialising retail outlets, this small town would come at the bottom of the list and yet, it is more content to let all the rating and modernisation pass by unheeded.

It has not caught up with the revolution in taste, fully capitalized philistinism and gentrified marketing, such as has destroyed some provincial towns which are now strident, commercial and neoned. You can search the shops in vain for a postcard of the town – let alone tourist information centre! Forfar seems to have got stuck in George Bradshaw’s guidebook period with the façade of the old buildings writhing in the last, suppressed spasms of the fading Georgian grandeur. Its style is quaint – and yet homely. It is provincial – yet imperial (former royal burgh). It only attracts the visitors who would appreciate what is unique to Forfar.

It is famous for its textile industry. Even to this day, when you walk, look up a narrow street, in full sun, you will see the inhabitants of the town, before the shimmering glass of the shop windows, men in coats with sheepskin collars, adjusting their trilby hats at a jaunty angle and in the beautiful arcades, some very dotty but very grand looking women rearranging their tartan shawls and white ruffles around their necks like unusually bright-coloured peacocks.

Now the summer crowds have gone...the traffic jams disappear. I love visiting the scenic route during off-season. The colours of the countryside are still bright, the air is fresh but chilly.

The holiday season is over. The tourists are going home. Is there such thing as tasteful tourism?

The temperature there was a few degree warmer yesterday. But still when the wind hits you, it hits you with its melancholy.  The sound of the clock from the town hall chimes hourly. The men in coats with sheepskin collars checked their wrist watches and disappeared into Sickertian pubs where the game of dominoes was being played on the marble-topped table.

Glen Isla, one of the most desirable and most romantic destinations that has been seducing visitors since antiquity. 

White-washed cottages, all against a background of green melancholy mountains and a shimmering azure sea. 

I bought Gordon’s favourite Forfar bridie, a horse-shoe shaped meat in pastry from Saddler’s, the best bakery in town, for his birthday.  We came back home via a scenic route. It was the most absorbing experience seeing the mountains dropping steeply to the rivers in absolutely unstirred atmosphere on the frost-hardened roads.



Gordon, who is immune to this surrounding as a native, neutralised my excitement of seeing the most dramatic landscape by whistling away an old Irish song, “Be Thou My Vision”, while he drove. The sun was setting in glory beyond that strip of sea and a broad ray of saffron light fell on the heather growing by the roadside.     
 

Gordon's birthday cake (Home-baked, of course!). Gordon was not on diet but he is now!