Scotland’s weather has always been a world-wide joke. if you can’t see the Ailsa Crag it’s raining, if you can see it it’s about to rain. Scots in the summer don’t use tanning oil; they use 3-in-1 to keep from rusting. And it stopped raining for 20 minutes yesterday, and if you missed it you missed summer. Not this year!
When we arrived in Scotland last week they had already had almost three weeks of good weather. We’ve had sun and 60° every day we’ve been here and, more importantly, no rain. This makes it one of the longest recorded stretches of good weather in memory. The weather in Scotland has always for us (April, May, September, October) been better than Scotland’s reputation. In a five-week trip we’d usually get rained out of golf a couple of days and we’d play in lighter rain a couple of other days. The rest of the time would be a mix of sun, clouds, wind, and showers. This year is decidedly different. The forecast for the weekend holds a chance of rain, but even that is getting less and less with each forecast. If it keeps up like this, Scots might even begin wearing sun glasses.
Topic Two: Golf
So far on this trip we’ve played 81 holes of golf on five different courses (one of them new to us). That means we’ve already walked 22-1/2 miles with another course and another five miles scheduled for tomorrow. Two things are different this year compared to past years. First, Anne isn’t playing a full round because of the right shoulder replacement she had at the end of January. Although the recovery is coming along, as her doctor says, “textbook perfectly,” her movement still must be restricted until August--to let the tendon which had to be cut heal completely. She gets to walk the course and can chip and putt gently from about 100 yards in. It’s very frustrating for her to be at some of her favorite golf courses and be so restricted, but she knows it’s for the best in the long term. Second, although I always enjoy playing golf with my dear, the other day I play with the deer. Two young Red Deer bucks had laid claim to the tee at the seventh hole of St Fillans GC. [See the photos on my Flickr page.] Not even when golfers teed off five feet away would they move. The two had moved about twenty yards onto the fairway when I was to tee off on that hole. I was so worried about hitting one of them that I duffed my drive left into the rough, or at least that’s the excuse I used. Only a week into the trip and the golf is already quite interesting.
Topic Three: Leaving the Cat from Ten Years of Travel in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales (to be published in June)
“Good-bye, George. Be good and don’t get into any fights. We’ll be back in…(fill in the number of days or weeks).” “Blah, blah, blah, George, blah, blah, blah,” is what he really hears. We leave for morning coffee or golf in the afternoon or dinner out, and George, our 12-year-old cat, shows no signs of care even if we wake him from one of his four or five house beds (our bed, the sewing room window, the computer room window, a dining room chair, the top of the furnace) and throw him out. Get out the suitcases and George’s world turns upside down.
It was really a mutual adoption. George was abandoned by his original owners behind the house across the street. The people across the street neutered the orphan, named him George, and let him live with their other outside cats. George started spending more and more time in our front yard and I befriended him with Tender Vittles® every morning. After talking to the neighbors and George finding out that we had better food and that he liked being able to come into the house, we took George to the vet for his shots and he was ours--or I should say, we were his. George really does rule the house and we live at his beck and call.
That's what makes it so hard on George when we leave. He doesn’t approve or agree with our plans to leave. Oh, we take care of him. Whether we go overnight or for six weeks, we pay the neighbors to care for the house and for George. He’s fed twice a day. He’s let into or out of the house three or four times a day. He’s played with and fussed over and cared for even when he’s had to be taken to the vet because he and a neighbor cat had a disagreement.
All that doesn’t change the fact that when the suitcases come up from the basement poor George doesn’t know if we are leaving for a weekend, and week, or a month--and how much is six weeks in cat years, anyway? As we leave for the next trip, I’d love to be able to say we’ll be gone only this long and you’ll be well cared for, and have him acknowledge, “Thanks, Dad. And don’t bother with the timer-programmed radio; I don’t care for that station anyway.” Instead, I know I’ll get the sulking, the running in and out, and the cold shoulder, because all George will hear is “Blah, blah, George.”
Photo: Anne at the Angus Art Gallery Tearoom.
Thinking of George, reminds me of the children's book Six Dinner Sid. He visits all of the neighbors and they each believe he is their one and only. He takes on the characteristics of each of the neighbors to please them. Until.....he gets sick. Each in turn take him to the Vet. Until the vet notices the same cat reappearing. So maybe George will have a cadre of adopted parents while you are gone and only feign his lonesomeness when you return.
ReplyDeleteWeather still off and on here. Flowers, especially tulips look lovely. Have a good day.