The owner comes in to take measurements of the sofa bed that’s broken, apologises, says he assumed we’d be out at the museums on a day like this or seeing the town but we’re not; we’ve come all this way… Read More ›
travel
Postcard from Holyrood Palace
The girls are burned out on castles, history, foreign languages and pizzas from Tesco, leek soup. I buy a box of corn flakes to tie us back home, we leave the house in search of lunch in Edinburgh, but the… Read More ›
Last Wednesday in Edinburgh
Thursday. Full-on tears, sobbing, from the kids — our night-time ritual protracted to around 11. The onset of hormones with Lily, Charlotte tags along for good measure. I build our first fire of autumn, the top floor of our Edinburgh… Read More ›
View northwest from the Cairn of Greatest Sorrow
Some bars I’ll walk into and just walk right out, pretending I’m looking for someone. The bar, “Lochavulgin” or some other name that gets stuck in your throat: I throw the door open right on cue to a Foreigner song: I… Read More ›
Day 15 in Scotland, coming into Oban
The Latvian-Scottish hairstylist in the salon across the street from our flat holds my hair up in the mirror, both of us looking at it, and says it’s a disconnected style, which I ask her to define but she can’t… Read More ›
‘Tell only happy hours’
Drink anything with enough alcohol in it and you’ll start tasting almonds, oranges, coconuts, pine needles, Christmas cake. But there’s no pretence in the tour at the Scotch distillery: our guide, who wears a badge saying Team Leader, points to… Read More ›
Viking graffiti inside the burial chamber, Orcadia
Just as you’d think they would, the Vikings came upon a structure of religious and historical significance that had already been there a few thousand years, punched a hole through the roof because they couldn’t find the door, pulled out… Read More ›
‘A shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore’
It has the feel of a wet campground, all the smoke and everything damp, watching the Guy Fawkes 5th of November fireworks and bonfire display here in Inverness, the largest festival of its kind in northern Scotland, because I have… Read More ›
‘Is evil something you are, or something you do?’
We’ve hung a roadside atlas of Scotland over the door in our flat, draped there like something we shot and dragged in for drying — it looks so big on paper, but you can see much of it we’ve covered… Read More ›
Cloud herding in the Highlands
There are two good reasons, probably more, to get a new job right away if you’ve lost your current one. First, you don’t want any gaps in your resumé. Like a house with a For Sale sign, the longer it… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 