Part Two – Scotland

A few weeks ago we were to go on a river cruise, through Europe, but first I spent two weeks with my cousin, in Scotland.

Cousin Lee lives in a very remote corner of southern Scotland, just a few miles from the border. Her home is located between Lockerby, scene of a horrible plane crash several years ago, and Gretna Green. Gretna is the first village over the English/Scottish border and, years ago, was the favourite place for young English couples to elope to as the legal age to marry, without parental consent, was 16. In England the age of consent was 21 so many young people fled to Scotland to tie the knot. It is now a tourist attraction but still a popular place to get married, in fact, my youngest daughter got married there, not be eloping but by booking it over the internet. Old fashioned venue brought up to date.

Lee’s home is in the “Y” where a country lane forks into two, she is surrounded by fields of cows. Quite often the cows are moved from one field to another, this means the road is blocked for a while as the cows are herded along the road. They have to walk round the corner, where Lee’s cottage is located and, quite often take detours through Lee’s garden.

As you can imagine, they make a heck of a mess, so Lee has arranged various pieces of fencing to stop the cows taking the detour.

There are also may horse owners in the area so frequently horses and riders trot by. Most of the other traffic consists of large tractors and other farm equipment. As the roads are really narrow, meeting and passing another vehicle is nerve racking. One of the vehicles has to pull right over to the side of the road, which involves running right up to the hedge and driving through six inches of mud.
One of the vehicles that you do not really want to meet up with is the Muck Spreader.

I’m sure this vehicle has a more technical name, but to most farm folk it is called the muck spreader. It does exactly what it’s name explains, it throws manure. The vehicle drives slowly up the road, close, to the edge and flings manure out, into the field beyond. Trouble is most fields are surrounded by hedges and these catch much of the stuff being flung. This leaves strings of stinky stuff hanging off the hedges, which is unpleasant to look at and extremely smelly. The idea is to fertilize the fields whilst getting rid of the heaps of manure, from inside the cowsheds, that has accumulated over the winter indoors.

Lee’s cottage was originally built as a “Butt and Ben”. This means a small, one room cottage, built out of field stone which served for a home for a shepherd or field worker. Over the years the cottage has been added onto and is now a neat little two bedroom home where Lee and her mom and dad lived for many years.

The home is now fully modernized with an up to date kitchen that houses a super gas stove with six burners and three ovens, however, where the house is sadly lacking is the heating system.

In Britain there is a system of heating called storage heaters. These take in electricity during off peak hours, store the heat in bricks and then release the heat over the rest of the day. However, it is really just a back up system and requires additional heating to supplement it. Lee doesn’t have this. She is a very hardy soul and wears a tee shirt, outdoors, right through winter. I have photographs of her, vacationing here, and she is stood in her tee shirt surrounded by the rest of the family wearing full winter garb.

I am not made of such stern stuff and need my creature comforts so, when vacationing at Lee’s home, I wear winter gear, even in summer. The weather outside may be warm and sunny but inside it is always cold. One morning in winter, I got up to find the bananas frozen and had to put mine in the oven, to warm up.

Sleeping at Lees is a problem. If Dave is there I have him to cuddle but, I usually go there alone and it is a struggle to keep warm in bed. I wear a winter weight nightie, a sweater, a fleece robe, another sweater, worn like pants, with my legs down the sleeves and woolly socks. I still shiver. The house seems to breathe out cold, damp air and keeping warm is so hard.

I love my visits with Lee but was glad when it was time to head to the airport for the next leg or our journey.