vignette ~ Scotland

She had been planning this trip for months. She’d always wanted to see Scotland and Wales, but her husband didn’t care to travel and their jobs had keep them both too busy to spend any time thinking or arguing about it.

Then the accident had happened. They had been out for an evening walk in their lovely neighborhood in Montrose when a local teenager had taken a corner too quickly, losing control of his new Mustang. The car had careened off a tree and struck her husband before either of them could get out of the way. He died instantly. She had cuts and bruises -- the ones on her body had healed pretty well, but the ones on her heart were permanent. The teen lost his legs and the use of his left hand. Part of her felt bad about that, but a bigger part just didn’t.

The first year alone was tough, the second was a little easier, and the third was spent healing. She came to terms with her situation, and part of her new outlook was to be adventurous. So, she was off to Scotland.

She had thought about joining a tour versus just diving in with no plan. After reading travel literature and studying maps, she decided to follow her own sketchy plan which allowed a lot of freedom to change destinations. And, she was gifting herself a whole month to explore.

The flight over had been godawful, what with TSA restrictions, cramped seating, and a gruesome amount of time in the air, but she was in Edinburgh at last. Listening to everyone speak with that wonderful Scottish burr made her blood thrum with excitement. She wandered around the terminal listening with a silly grin on her face, and finally thought I better get a car and be on my way before someone reports me as an escaped asylum patient.

Inverness was her first destination, but she was torn whether to go north through Aberdeen, or head west through Glasgow and Dumbarton. The maps indicated there were several castles between Glasgow and Loch Lomond so, finally making the decision, she turned toward the west.

Speeding along on Scotland’s version of an interstate, all of a sudden she startled herself, thinking I’m whizzing by stuff I wanted to meander through. Exiting at Boghall was easy, although the roundabouts were going to take some getting used to, to say nothing of driving on the wrong side of the road, but she was westbound again in no time and up-close-and-personal with things that touched her right down to her toes.

Everything was lush and quaint. Stone buildings with slate roofs, all shapes and sizes of chimneys, colorful doors and walls on so many of the buildings, and hanging flowers or window boxes full of greenery. It was more romantic than she ever imagined.

Rolling hills led through little hamlets, past stands of trees, up and down alongside pastures full of contentedly grazing brown cows, some with long horns and longer hair -- permanent bad hair day she chuckled. Fluffy sheep, or some quite shaggy, some with black faces and some with white, loitered right next to the cattle. The first time she saw the strange cow, a so-called Oreo cow as she later found out, she laughed right out loud. Black front end and black hind quarters with a wide white stripe around the middle -- just like the cookie turned sideways. Someone has a real sense of humor!

She definitely believed it was as she’d always heard: Scotland was a magical place! Suddenly struck by the notion to chuck everything and fly with the breeze, she tossed her maps in the backseat and turned at the very next road. Who knows where this goes, but I guess we’ll find out. Then she turned again when something caught her eye, then turned yet again when another direction felt right.

She laughed! This is great! Just going wherever she wanted without worry or concern. When she got hungry, she didn’t even look at her watch but stopped and ate at a tiny tavern with the name of Darken Dooren.

She headed down a country road when she left the pub, and was content bumping over ruts as the old road was, by turns, pavement, dirt, grass, and weedy gravel. The pastures were overtaken by occasional trees and boulders, then thick woods took firm hold. As she rounded a sharp bend in the deteriorated road, she slammed on her brakes and gaped. A beautiful scene stretched before her -- a broad lake with shallows on the left, cattails on the right, and steep mountains on the far side. It was the stuff dreams are made of.

Seeing as how she didn’t expect much traffic, she shut off the car right where it was and, grabbing a blanket from her bag, got out. There was a bare line in the grass which she felt must be a trail, so she twirled the blanket to settle around her shoulders and started out.

She could see tiny fish in the edge of the water, and the gravel on the bottom looked untouched. Wow! Such a private place! Grinning she continued on, around bothersome boulders, hopping across little streamlets, picking her way past marshy cattails, across the grass again, up a little hillock and then another until she came to a wide, shallow pool. The pool sparkled when the sun hit it and as the birch trees swayed with the breeze, shiny glints jumped here and there across the water. Since the water wasn’t very deep, it obviously fed into the lake at a lovely slow pace.

She could no longer resist. She took off her felt traveling clogs, stuffed them into her skirt pockets, and stepped into the water. It was warm and gently kissed her ankles as she walked along the edge, skirting around several large boulders lazing in the water, letting the water lap up her shins, then back to her ankles, the gravel and sand providing the perfect softness to walk upon.

The waterfalls were a surprise. She rounded the last boulder, quite a large one and taller than the others, when she saw the three small waterfalls and a fourth, large enough for her to touch the top of, if she stood on her tip-toes. It was an enchanting sight.

Such wonder, such astonishing nature -- she didn’t want to ever leave. She moved toward the waterfalls and noticed the bottom dipped a little deeper beneath the largest one. She was careful to avoid that area -- no sense in getting her skirt wet. Tiny little flowers hung among the greenery around the tops of the waterfalls. And different shades of moss cradled the surrounding rocks and bushes that enclosed the waterfall area.

Heaven. This is surely Heaven. There was a little ledge between the third and fourth waterfalls and she made her way over to it, being sure to stay in the shallows. The ledge was perfect. Wide enough to sit on comfortably, it ran behind the largest waterfall and even widened a bit, creating a tiny room back behind the water. Gees, could this get any more splendiferous?!

She sat back against the rock wall of the ledge, trailing her toes in and out of the water, spooking the tiny fish, watching the sun and shadows play hide-and-seek, studying all the various shades of color on the rocks, some of them wet and some dry.

It was at least an hour before she heard voices. Oh, dangit. I knew this peace couldn’t last forever. She sighed, resigned to sharing her heaven with other travelers.

Then she listened more closely. Those voices weren’t happy. In fact, there were at least three of them and they were heatedly arguing about something. She sat still and listened intently, trying to figure out if she needed to worry. They were coming closer and were definitely male.

She couldn’t understand what they were saying. It wasn’t that they were speaking Scottish English which was difficult to understand at best, they were speaking some entirely different language and she didn’t have a prayer of understanding what they were talking about.

But they were coming closer and they definitely were not happy. Two of them were yelling and she assumed they were yelling at each other. In the interest of prudency, she pulled her feet out of the water, dried them on the blanket a bit, then scooted over into the little area behind the waterfall. She hadn’t left any wet footprints on the ledge, and since her blanket was charcoal grey, she could wrap herself up in it and practically disappear if she felt it was necessary.

She shivered, went ahead and wrapped the blanket around herself, then put her shoes back on. She could see out through the water but as of yet the people hadn’t appeared. Just as well, she thought. Just keep going.

The three men must have settled down next to the pond though, because the voices kept talking, arguing, yelling, and being at odds with each other. Good grief! It was definitely getting late because the sunlight wasn’t glinting on the water anymore and the peace she had been feeling was turning to pique.

How the hell am I going to get past those guys? I’m going to start getting hungry pretty soon. But she sat still and listened and gradually realized her options were few -- to stay here ... or to wait until dark and try to sneak away.

Dammit! Is there a moon tonight? How was she going to be able to get back to her car in the dark? Or turn the car around without the lights on? Or was she going to have to back that damned car out until she found a place large enough to turn around in? Good grief! I need a horse! She almost laughed out loud. She had never ridden a horse and wasn’t sure how you were supposed to guide them. But, by god, she was brave and if worse came to worse, she would ride a horse rather than being stuck someplace with weirdo people.

But the men kept talking, occasionally coming closer to her hiding spot, and finally the sunlight completely disappeared, darkness settled in, and a full moon came up. She could almost enjoy it, if she could find the switch to turn off this damned waterfall. Everything looked black, grey, or fuzzy from back here, and she was done playing this fairy-world game. I just want something to eat and someplace soft to sleep ... damned beauty! She mentally grumbled. It had gotten a little chilly, so she re-wrapped herself up good and snug, and scrunched into a ball to keep warm. And, in spite of everything, fell asleep.