My New Digs

Sunday night I moved in with this guy named Darren.  He lives in a flat that is normally shared by four students, but the other three are away for the summer, so I get a place to lie my head.  The room I’m in is bright pink, as the last occupant was decidedly a female.  I feel a bit like an intruder, but other than that (and the sad lack of a dishwasher) it is one hundred percent nicer than Deuan’s.  Don’t get me wrong, Deuan’s place was fine, but here I am within a five minute walk of St. Peter’s, a grocery store, and a library.  So I can now more easily fulfill the needs of the soul, body and mind.  Lovely.

St. Andrews 2

St. Andrews is a strange collage.  The first thing you see (at least if you cycle in) is a golf course, and the first thing you’re likely to hear are voices speaking not-English.  It is relatively small, but packed to the gills with tourists, golfers, students and ghosts.

St. Andrews Castle was home to the first Scottish Protestant Congregation.  This congregation was established after Cardinal David Beaton, the previous occupant of the castle, burned Protestant preacher George Wishart at the stake, inciting Wisharts friends to enter the castle disguised as masons, murder the Cardinal, and hang his body out the window to declare Protestant ownership.  The castle was subsequently besieged by the Regent of Scotland, and with the help of the French, was taken.  Firebrand preacher John Knox was among those sentenced to the galleys.

Twelve years later, Knox returned to find a Scotland boiling with reformation fervor.  Eighteen months in the galleys, which permanently ruined his health, and more than ten years in exile had apparently not softened his rhetoric.  After his sermon in St. Andrews the residents stormed out of the kirk and down South Street to St. Andrews Cathedral, the center of Scottish Catholicism.  They stripped the altar and desecrated the relics of St. Andrew, which were said to have been brought from Constantinople during the time of Emperor Constantine himself.  What was not destroyed by outright vandalism was finished off by neglect, until it became the ruin you see now.

This ancient drama is now stepped over and inspected by endless flows of tourists like myself.  My favorites were a group of Italians, one of them looked like the perfect stereotypical Italian: long curly hair, dark skin, strong features–except that he was wearing a kilt.  He was great.  And he said, “bellisimo!”  I wish I knew more Italian than that.

Again helped by friendly strangers, I managed to take the straight way through Tentsmuir and avoid the beckoning of the trees.  Home again for my last night at Deuan’s.  By the way, the pictures are courtesy of wikipedia, due to the tragic loss of my camera.

St. Andrews

Saturday the clouds rolled back and I finally got to make my trip to St. Andrews.  The original home of golf is about a three hour cycle from Dundee.  This took longer because I got lost in Tentsmuir Forest.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Tayport

The first tragedy of the trip occurred in Tayport, a retirement community along the river.  When I pulled my camera out to take a picture of a boat, it mysteriously failed to work.  So no photos.  Just when I was about to be in the middle of more kodak moments than a honeymooner in Venice (well maybe not really), the darn thing goes kaput.

 Tentsmuir

In Tentsmuir forest I started following the wrong signs.  This turned out to be a providential error.  Tentsmuir is mostly pines.  Pine is the aged wine of  scents, ancient yet sweet, with a bite in your nostrils when you breathe it in deeply.  As I went through the forest the ram-rod straight pines they were joined by the slender jolly maples, their courtesans.  Further in, the pines grew so thick that the needles fell off on their lower branches and only the ferns could survive in the undergrowth.  The court gossip was replaced by brooding ancient grudges, hatred for man and his grinding blades.  Out the other side, where the trees thinned again I knew I was lost.  Fortunately with the help of two birdwatchers and an old Scottish farmer, I found my way back to the cycle path.

Leuchars

Finally back on track, I passed through Leuchars Air Force Base, the only place up till that point where I didn’t think I wanted to live.  Lovely rolling countryside gave way immediately to barbed wire and fighter jets.

St. Andrews

Eh, more on that later.  I need to go to bed.  It’s past midnight here.

More Snapshots

The gray is back.  For a while, crooked triangle of blue light smiled in the face of spitting rain, but then the thunderstorm came, and behind it more flat monotonous clouds.  Oh well.

I should tell you about Owen.  I met him at a Bible study Wednesday night.  He’s 33 years old, working in advertising for a vocational school.  What he really wants though, is to study art.  In his slow, humble way he described how his artistic ambition won’t let him go, even with two children to provide for.  He’s applied for two scholarships, but hasn’t found out yet if they will come through.  He knows the Bible in a quiet way, applying appropriate passages wisely without seeming to put his knowledge on display.  I wish I had all day to talk with him.  He encouraged me to write, to do it now and not give up.  I think that’s what I’ll go and do.  Right now.

Too Much To Tell

I feel like there are too many things I could write here, too many things I’d like to tell you all, but there isn’t time or space, so I’ll just give you snapshots.

The sun finally burst through the slate-gray ceiling that’s been covering Dundee for the past week.  It’s the time of year in Scotland when the afternoon greets you with a brush on your cheek, then slaps you on the back to keep you moving.  Hopefully soon I’ll get to make the trip to St. Andrews I’ve been saving for a sunny weekend.

 I’m moving out of Deuan’s flat soon.  He found someone to take the room.  This guy named Darren offered to let me live with him.  He goes to St. Pete’s too, so that will be good.  I’ll miss living at Deuan’s, even though he wasn’t there all that often.  I’ll miss his books.  He has a great book collection, the kind that is collected by people with wide interests who buy books at random when they catch their fancy.  I read a great history of the beat generation and I was hoping to move on to a novel by Camus and a collection of Kafka’s short stories, but I don’t think I’ll have time.

I’ve mostly been reading Le Morte D’Arthur.  It is absolutely fabulous.  I’ve already started writing short stories based on the beginning. 

More snapshots later, as well as some literal photos I hope.