Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 16

More than 39 steps

“You live a somewhat mysterious life,” the slim tall big-hair lady in the dark power suit and high heels that were sinking a little into thin sand said to me, and, “I do a little, lately,” I agreed, before continuing with, “increasingly lately, obviously,” but then I added, “I don’t create the mystery though, the mystery creates me,” to which she said “eh?” to which I said, “think about it,” to which she said, “You like being mysterious don’t you?” to which I said, “I have no choice, for the mystery…” but before I could finish with my perhaps annoying repetition she snapped, “shut up!” but she was smiling, with a big white-toothed grin set brighter by the shocking red lipstick that seemed just a little more than way too much to me, so I did indeed shut up, and I smiled too. I doubt if we will ever meet again, mysteriously. I rather hope not. I turned and looked at the aircraft carrier in Rosyth dockyard, some distance away to the west, and I thought about my past few days, in Cheltenham, then Cumbria, then what could loosely be described as a laboratory, then a lecture room, then an Edinburgh restaurant, then North Queensferry, near Rosyth... and I started "joining the dots", as some people like to say, to construct a tale that might, some day, develop, as fact and fiction and faction all mixed up, mysteriously. It will take many more than 39 steps to get there though, and I am not sure I have enough steps left to make that walk, or if I really should. This one step is quite enough, meantime, for tonight. I am very tired, but I cannot sleep.

North Queensferry

... is not where I expected to end up today, but there I was, just me and a man I had never met before walking on a long, narrow and empty stone pier heading out into the Firth of Forth; oh, and two ladies who preferred not to risk the slippy stones, and another man, wearing dark glasses on a gloomy day, who eventually appeared, said nothing, but took photos of us all, then left. Strange? A little. Still, we survived the unexpected experience of this less-visited shore compared to the south side. Tomorrow is another day, if we reach it.

By Napier of logarithms (remains of)

I had ten minutes to pass before a meeting, and soon discovered that I was passing it in the company of what is left of John Napier (not much, physically, I'm sure, but still a great deal in legacy), and Henry Dewar (chemists remember him) and Henry Raeburn (painter) and Thomas de Quincey (writer and opium addict) and many more notables whom I never knew were there. "Aw deid noo," as we Scots may say, somewhat dismissively, perhaps, was what ran through my mind as I noticed the time and began rushing to what was supposedly important, but suddenly seemed less so. I was a little late for my meeting, which I duly blamed on logarithmic decay, only to be met with bemused glances by people who thought they had significant things to say.

Old evidence

Lake Windermere

Prelude to Coda

The watercolour was called Prelude, and depicted a clearly beautiful young girl, maybe nineteen, although only glimpsed in side view, playing her flute by a window... and yes, I got the double meaning as I viewed it alone one night in an American hotel room while preparing to sleep before meeting a publisher; and on that lonely night it made me feel rather sad... and now, many years and more than a million words later, here I am sleepless again in a hotel room and contemplating another random painting of a river running to the sea, as rivers do, and remembering my long-ago evening with the Prelude and wondering if I have now already embarked upon my coda... for such is the way that thoughts can go, late at night, in a hotel room. Goodnight weird, wild, wonderful, worrying, wasted world, goodnight.

Bowness-on-Windermere

Mixing work with wandering

Cheltenham

Worcester

to find an old church now dealing in a different kind of spirit, and grape, and hop.


Very fine woodwork too.

Fonab Castle