Scootland

 Ah, now we’re talking. The part of the UK that seems better and better to me each time I visit… Scotland. Hey, this was almost exactly a year ago! This blog catchup project is going great! Whatever about it all! After the jump: small town socialism and whisky-based socializing!

Is Dunkeld nice Of An Evening? PUBLIC OPINION IS RESOLUTE: it nice.

Every time I visit Scotland, I split my trip between Glasgow (where my wonderful friends Ros, Ellenkate and Sarah live) and somewhere new as a just-for-Pat unplug. It’s usually a perfect wind-down to these frenetic and (am I getting old) possibly overlong stints on the road, allowing for long walks and calm days spent reading books, little treats, and a good dose of friend times back in the city. This year (meaning 2022, time is out of joint) I decided not to go for the raw beauty of Skye but for the bucolic landscapes of Perthshire, specifically Dunkeld.

Thing about finding pleasant unplugging spots in Scotland is: you are spoiled for choice. I think I had a “short” list of about eight spots, all tangled up in cost and distance and ease of public transit, etc. Dunkeld edged the others thanks to (a) a very brief entry in the Rough Guide to Scotland (which is usually a good indicator that it won’t be too heavily touristed), (b) an easy train connection from Glasgow, and (c) a single phrase alluding to many walking paths accessible from the town itself. Perfect - a spot where I could read or hike depending on the weather and my mood.

It also featured a ruined cathedral at the end of my street, which is one of those things I am finding very frustratingly difficult to find in America. Get it together, realtors!!

What I didn’t expect, and was delighted to find, was a robust and healthy sense of community. That started on the walk from the train station (which serves Dunkeld and Birnam - ever heard of it), which passed a community orchard, which featured a sign asking folks to pay attention to which tree numbers had been flagged as “ready for picking” and not to pick from other trees. That’s it - otherwise, the orchard was tended by volunteers and left open and available to anybody who wanted a pear, a plum, an apple, whatever happened to be in at the moment.

Over the course of the week, I routinely had an afternoon sample at the whisky shop in town (the fabulous, friendly, knowledgable and flat-out delightful Dunkeld Whisky Box) and got to know Will and Allan, the owner and his part-time semi-retired former-social-worker employee respectively. They were phenomenally friendly and engaging, chatting about the town (where, Will pointed out, most people had non-tourist-trade-centric lives, and there was a real intergenerational energy to the place, as opposed to the “retirees, tourists, and teenagers who work for the summer and shoot up / drop out in the off season” vibe of e.g. Pitlochry up the road) as well as broader issues in the UK. In particular, it was fascinating to hear from Allan about his career in social work both in the rougher parts of Edinburgh and in the in-many-ways harsher poverty of the rural area surrounding Dunkeld and Birnam. One day I mentioned how much I loved the ethos of the orchard to Allan; he responded “Most Scots wouldn’t say they’re socialist, but we basically are.”

If you are very lucky on your travels in Perthshire, you’ll be invited both to a session night down the pub on Thursday AND to a concert by a local musician made good revisiting her home town on Saturday. IT NICE.

That’s what I love about the place, beyond its heartwatering natural beauty, fantastic food and spirit culture, and sense of humor - there is a strong feeling of community, not in an insular way (at least in my lucky experience) but in the way that when you walk into a shop or a pub, there’s a very decent chance you’re going to have a real, enthusiastic conversation, because this is a part of the world that hasn’t bought into the weird antisocial tech-first system that’s overtaken so much of the west. (As I write this, it’s part of what I’m loving about Barcelona and Catalunyan culture as well, though I know this is changing even in the bastions of community-culture.)

It is possible that this sense of social camaraderie is bolstered by Scotland being the kind of place that financially supports clowning and entertainment like a Unicorn Dance Party to tour small towns. Did you know the arts council of Scotland had (at least a few years ago) the same budget as the NEA in America? Probably not relevant why bring it up!

Anyhow. It was a rich, full couple of weeks of tea, whisky, friends, walking, music, chat, and nature. I’m headed back in a couple of weeks, with both a brief re-visit to Dunkeld and a longer stay in Mull to enjoy around my usual “beloved peeps” circuit in Glasgow, and I really cannot wait. Some places call to you so strongly they feel like a viable home. That’s Scotland, to me.

Also Scotland: ridiculous afternoon teas with lovely friends.

Up next: a brief thought on my current travels (specifically my recent stop in Marseille just following their wave of protests at the racism of French police) and then maybe we’ll start talking Morocco! Maybe! Who knows!!! Aroo!