I have packed up all my suitcases and stored them in the locked closet under the eaves in my room at Glenelg. Then I haul my travel case to the office where I work for a while.
Dean, Barbara, Ari, and Max join me in our reserved seats on the train at New Street station. The kids are good as gold during the five-hour journey, listening to books on tape with headphones. We talk and eat the bread, cheese, and fruit that Barbara has thoughtfully brought.
We pass through Durham and can see the lights of the massive cathedral there; a cathedral that Bill Bryson says is even better than the monolithic York Minster, which is on my list. I promise myself to go back to Durham to see it.
[Note: Sadly, I never get to Durham even with Bill Bryson’s advice: “If you have never been to Durham, go there at once. Take my car. It’s wonderful.”]
In Preston, just over the border, a Scottish crew comes on board. I attempt to buy some red wine in the buffet car, but I cannot understand a word of the waiter’s thick, impossible Scottish accent. After the third attempt, I finally realize he is asking me if I want a ½ bottle or ¼ bottle of wine. As always, Bill Bryson explains it so well. Here is his only slightly exaggerated interaction in a Glasgow bar when the a man says to him
“Hae ya nae hook ma dooky?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
“He’ll nay be doon a mooning.”
“Oh, ah,” I said and nodded sagely, as if that explained it.
I noticed they were still looking at me.
“D’ye hae a hoo and a poo?” said the man to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“D’ye have a hoo and a poo?” he repeated.
I give an apologetic smile and explained that I come from an English-speaking world.
“D’ye nae hae in May?” the man went on. “If ye dinna dock my donny.”
Just then to my relief, the barman appeared, and he said to me, “Ah hae the noo.” I couldn’t tell if it were a question or statement.
“A pint of Tennent’s please,” I said hopefully.
He made an impatient noise, as if I was avoiding the question. “Hae ya nae hook ma dooky?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Ah hae the noo,” said the first man, who apparently saw himself as my interpreter.
I stood for some moments with my mouth open trying to imagine what they were saying to me, wondering what mad impulse had bidden me to enter a pub in a district like this, and said in a quiet voice, “Just a pint of Tennent’s, I think.”
The barman sighed heavily and got me a pint.
Bill Bryson, Notes from A Small Island
After four hours and forty-five minutes, we reach Edinburgh. I bid the Kaplans goodbye and follow the “Way Out” signs climbing the Waverley Steps out onto Princess Street. I check into the Waverley Hotel and admire the luminous Edinburgh castle and the Scot monument from my hotel room window.
Photo by photoeverywhere
The city skyline at night is one of the prettiest sights I’ve seen. As Bill Bryson says
Can there anywhere be a more beguiling city to arrive at by train early on a crisp, dark November evening? To emerge from the bustling, subterranean bowels of Waverley station and find yourself in the very heart of such a glorious city is a very happy experience indeed. It is captivating. Every monument is lit with golden floodlights—the Castle, the Bank of Scotland headquarters on the hill, the Balmoral Hotel, and the Scott Memorial down below—which gives them a sort of eerie grandeur.
Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island
I promise to stop quoting Bill Bryson, but his description of Edinburgh fits exactly my experience on this cool November evening as I look out upon the city bathed in soft light.
Jody’s UK Memories 