Category Archives: Life reflections

Day Two: Grey Mare’s Tail and Adult Sweets

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You can always tell when a hotel caters to multiple cultures. Peebles included on its magnificent breakfast buffet sliced meats and cheeses (German) chunked cucumbers and tomatoes (Eastern Europe) and small round items guests of Korean descent were appreciating. The rest of us left those rice-cake-with-bits-on things alone.

I dove straight for the oatmeal and Scotland’s amazing yogurt. There is nothing like real steel cut oats for a hearty breakfast. And if it’s a dairy product, Scotland does it right.

The Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall amazed the team, and some of the heartier members wanted to hike. (Photos and history here: https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/grey-mares-tail) I envisioned calling for a rescue helicopter when Cassidy ran for the top of the waterfall, but more realistic was our growing concern that we should take Harry to a doctor. We have taken tour members to hospitals before. Harry’s “slight cold” had gotten worse but he didn’t want anyone noticing and he wasn’t doing free UK healthcare. Because, Harry’s a guy.

Harry loved the waterfall, as did Andrea. If you show the Meadors birds, bushes, flowers, or falling water, they are happy. So Harry enjoyed the view from his van seat, parked carefully so he could see the Mare’s Tail, while the rest got their feet wet and learned about sheep. Who were now clogging the road and not leaving until they had finished their morning’s graze by the bridge. They didn’t care about our schedule but were willing to pose for photos in return for biscuits (ehm, cookies).

Off to Moffat, home of the world’s loveliest sweet shop. It’s an old-fashioned “by the scoop” place. And in the back they hid adult candy: gin and whiskey miniatures.

(https://www.moffattoffeeshop.com/ if you want to explore once you’ve finished reading.)

Two years ago I set out to taste as many Scottish gins as I could, because new distilleries make gin while waiting for their whiskey to mature. When I mentioned this to the checkout lady, she gave me a sympathetic glance. “You know there are 630 types of gin made in Scotland? As of last Tuesday, and there are new places coming online every day.”

I bought six different miniatures (1% down!) plus some rose and violet creams, which are hard to find stateside. Scotland does candy, gin, and dairy products right. We’re not going to talk about haggis.

The rest of the day was mostly “get to Stranraer, then recover and rest up” because we had a 7:30 ferry to Ireland the next day. Most historic hotels in Scotland don’t have lifts, although Stranraer had a Victorian one. That means a carpeted box where you close the door and the wall slides past you. Historic elevators terrify most Americans, as you can literally harm yourself if you’re stupid enough to put your hand to the wall sliding past. British people rely more on common sense, like “why would you do that” rather than “it is illegal to have such a lift.” And it was tiny, not more than two people with cases at a time. Since we had pulled in behind a tour bus…..

The lift kept Harry and Andrea from having to trundle their cases upstairs, which was great because Harry was not only sick, but the quintessential gentleman who would not allow anyone to help lug their luggage. They got ensconced in their room and Harry conked out for the evening, while the rest of us headed for meat, fish, or vegan courses downstairs. The group had their first sticky toffee puddings, and I wish I had photographed Maria trying that. We all need to find someone who looks at us the way Maria looked at her first Sticky Toffee Pudding.

And there was whatever anyone could manage for sleep before our 6 am departure to catch that ferry, and that was the second day.

Rosslyn Chapel: still day one

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Sorry, y’all, our food processor broke and since we’re in the middle of garden mayhem, that was a crisis. Just getting to the Scottish adventures now after a hard day’s chopping.

Now, when last we left our heroes, everyone was on the van and everyone but Maria had their luggage. We headed off to Rosslyn Chapel, a working church, as well as a Knights Templar site and the setting for one of Dan Brown’s novels (referred to by the historical society as The Second Miracle—the first one being that Cromwell left the place standing although his troops did stable their horses in the chapel during the “it doesn’t pay to be a heretic” times.)

The chapel was sometimes called “the green chapel” in the 1700-1900s because it was so overgrown with fungus. Queen Victoria wanted it preserved, but who had any money? Until Dan Brown upped its visitors from 1000 per year to about 150K per year. A lot of restoration went on after that.

The chapel’s most beloved story is probably the Apprentice’s Pillar (read about it here after you finish reading about our adventures: https://www.rosslynchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/apprentice-pillar-fact-sheet.pdf)

But my two favorites are the heart that appears quite randomly amidst all the amazing and mysterious carvings of apostles, corn (which is weird because corn didn’t exist in Scotland during the time the chapel was being built in 1466), and some strange green men who age as you move clockwise through the chapel. It’s a big mashup of symbols and ideas, and smack in the middle of the left well as you face the altar is a heart. A very traditional heart.

I asked the guide about it. “Victorian graffiti,” he said with a smile. “Kids used to party here before it was fixed up, back in her day. And somebody carved that sometime in the 1800s.”

Kids… whatcha gonna do?

My other favorite story from the chapel comes from the Apocrypha, and is about Zerubbabel, the guy who asked King Darius to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. One night Z and two other king’s advisors put on a bet. Each would say what was strongest, and the king would adjudicate who was correct. One said the king, because, you know, he was judging the contest. Another said wine because it could make people do silly things even if they didn’t want to. Zerubbabel said women, because they gave birth to people who made wine and became kings, plus men had been known to become absolute idiots just to get their attention. And then he said, “but the truth conquers everything else because we all have to bow to it.”

Hence the Latin saying carved to the right of the chapel altar: The king is strong, wine is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all.  It’s the only quotation in the whole of the chapel, and frankly it’s a coded message that the chapel owner was a Templar.

There was one more interesting message at Rosslyn. As I mentioned, it’s a working church so we had to wait to enter. As we walked around outside, a man from another group cut in front of a woman taking a photo, and then said something rude to her about not getting her knickers in a twist. Based on their accents, the man was in his home country, and she wasn’t.

As he kept up a barrage of abuse toward her, I asked her how she was enjoying her holiday. She spoke pleasantly of getting to see the chapel for the first time, something that had been on her bucket list for years. And of her home country, Switzerland. We chatted amiably until the man’s stream of invective dried up and he drifted away. Tourism sometimes brings out the worst in people seeking good times. Weird.

A pleasant drive from Rosslyn to our hotel in Peebles, beautifully appointed and generous with its magnificent dinner portions. This is when we discovered Gareth’s superpower was finishing other people’s unwanted portions. A good team member to have.

Then it was off to bed because everyone was still the wee bit jetlagged. Presumably the haggis bon-bons from the starter course danced in their heads as they slept.