In the basement of Kinloch House, is a large suite of rooms that houses the Muir and Wilkes antiquarian book business; the Wilkes of the pair being a close friend of Angie and Nick. Alan is a well known psychologist (long since retired) in the field of social cognition and long term memory, the Go-to man on the subject, in fact, prominent in the text books I studied as a student. But, as he’s only too happy to tell you, his first love is, and has always been, books. Old books, beautiful books, rare books. Beneath our flat, there are rooms full of them stacked and catalogued on floor to ceiling shelving and further rooms with boxes and stacks still awaiting that process.
At his invitation we meet him and his wife, Judith, in Wormit for lunch at a restaurant aptly named The View. Perched on a hill, it overlooks the River Tay right where the Tay rail bridge crosses the water to Dundee. This bridge is similar to, but not in fact, the original. That one collapsed in a storm in 1879, taking a passenger train and over sixty people with it into the freezing December sea. There were no survivors. It was a tragic engineering ‘oops’ moment and (luckily for future rail travellers) sparked a rethink regarding wind loads on bridges. On the foreshore sits a memorial to the dead and the lists of names and ages are chilling.
We find this because, after a delicious lunch and much lively chat – they’re both easy conversationalists: Judith is a vivacious musician and Alan and Adrian have a mutual rant about Brexit – Adrian and I walk the couple of miles along the river path to Balmerino and back. It’s already Thursday and our stay here is rapidly disappearing in a pleasant round of visits, walks and art. Yes, art. On Wednesday, we drive into Edinburgh and visit some galleries, starting with the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.
It’s a gem. Not only does it have one of the best collections of modern art in Britain, particularly of the surrealist kind, but it also has a wonderful cafe with garden seating and, note this, you can park your car there all day, walk into the city centre and no-one minds! What’s more, as the gallery backs onto the little river known as the Water of Leith, one can take the tree-lined path almost to the middle of Edinburgh and avoid the busier of the streets. We do exactly that. It’s so civilized.
We’ve trodden many paths over the last two weeks although, as the Fife coast path alone is eighty one miles long, for the most part it’s still untrod. Earlier in the week, we visited the beach town of Elie on the Firth of Forth, where hardy Scots wade into the VERY cold water and sometimes even swim. Children play on the sand in swimsuits while A and I zip up our coats against the wind and head east towards St. Monan. As we walk past ruins, the sun comes out and the world is transformed. St Monan is a delightful surprise with a small picturesque harbour lined with multi-coloured cottages and the skinniest building I’ve ever seen – the only eatery and very busy – growing along the harbour wall. St Monan also boasts a museum of witch trials, real ones, but we give this a miss, feeling ourselves shudder as we walk past the door.
Golf Links are everywhere in this part of the world and, on our walks, we pass many, vast, immaculate and with views to die for. This is especially the case near St Andrews, where on our return, we stumble across a cafe called Northpoint claiming to be the location of the Cambridges’ first meeting. Whatever its history, the food is delicious and we’re already planning a return visit. Oh, and I’ve had some good news.
Having sent my travel documents directly to the Durham office of HMPO on the advice of the Australian High Commission, I actually spoke to a young man who KNEW SOMETHING! and the something was that my urgent need for my passports has been LOGGED ON MY FILE! What’s more, he said that, in his experience, once logged SOMETHING WILL BE DONE. I wanted to kiss the man. But am I now hopeful? I’m afraid I’m with Arthur Miller on this one, believing ‘it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self’ and my experience with the passport office has done nothing to change my view.
