Scotland Pt.2

Tuesday 4^th May 2010

So here I was in sunny Gorebridge again, or as the locals like to call it, Gorr-brig. It’s hardly the centre of Scottish cultural learning, but it does have it’s charms. Like the coal-era slag heaps that have recently been levelled to make way for a private housing estate, or the abandoned turn of the century high street with it’s boarded up windows and litter-cornered doorways. The last time I was here I remember thinking that the small stream of Gore water that flowed under the main road resembled the last vestiges of hope escaping from a community that had thrown out all it’s toys. Now it seems that even that hope has run-out completely, and the once culturally-rich and economically booming little village has fallen to it’s knees as yet another victim of corporate domination and a world that couldn’t give a fuck.

But that aside, it’s where I woke up this morning. I rolled out of a comfortable bed and downstairs to a bacon and egg roll and a cup of tea. Simon had got up early and made breakfast. I can always tell when Simon’s up, there’ll be the sound of guitar or Ukele strumming coming from the lounge room.

We wandered out side and he introduced me to his Girls. Leggy-looking chicks they were too, with nice perky breasts and sharp, gleaming eyes. Salmon Feverolles, I think he said they were called; but to me they just looked like chickens, I couldn’t help but imagine a strip of bacon resting across their backs.

He’s taken to breeding Poultry now, least, that’s his latest thing. Before this it was Lime-wood whittling, ukelele crafting, and radio-controlled flying. Beyond that the list stretches back as far as my earliest memories and takes in such things as guitar playing, photography, birds of prey, replica handguns, Parrots, Rabbits, Cartooning, wood-turning and all other manner of intricate engineering and building projects. Each of these and more he has mastered with sickening agility and speed, he can turn his hand to anything and make it bow to his every wish. So not only is he now breeding poultry, but he’s also genetically modifying them to recreate a species of chook that went extinct with the dinosaurs…or something like that. Chances are he’ll probably succeed too, the moment he does, he’ll move-on, and look for a new challenge to conquer; like living totally self-sufficient on the carbon footprint of an AA battery.

*

I spent most of the afternoon clicking through e-mails and text messages, replying here and there, deleting elsewhere. I thought about how I should be putting a diary of my journey up on the web, but Simon suddenly decided he wanted to have a ride on the bike that used to be his, so I grabbed the keys instead. I hadn’t been near it since climbing off the night before all bedraggled and tousled-up, and I wasn’t so sure that I could even face sitting on it again so soon. Simon climbed aboard and fired it up, man it sounded good. He revved it a few times and said so himself, then he kicked it into gear and took off into the make-believe sunset. An hour later he was back, and full of praise for how well the bike was performing; and the level of it’s care. Excellent I thought, I’ve done my brother proud.

In the evening we kinda chilled, watched a movie, had a laugh, ate some food. Me and Matt took a final coffee and fag on the Moon-less and cloudy-skied doorstep, where we shared stories of failed relationships and the women we’d love to have loved. Back inside Simon was snoring and farting on the couch; I took off my shoes and crept upstairs to bed.

Wednesday 5^th May 2010

Today dawned fresh and clear, with just a hint of misty rain that cleared before I’d downed my first of many coffee’s. There was a couple of things that I had to get sorted while I was here, one of them was getting the bike MOT’d, and the other was going through a large rucksack of gear I’d left behind last time I was here. I got on the phone to Torness motors in East Linton and got the bike booked in for 9am the next morning, then I went outside and retrieved my bag of nonsense from Simons workshop-shed.

It’s amazing the amount of crap I can accumulate for no apparent reason, things that I simply can’t live without, but have had to leave behind here and there for the time being. I opened the bag -which had got soaked through-, and started rummaging through the contents. Shirts, t-shirts, scarves, beanies, and socks, and socks…and socks! Old video stock and blank dvd’s that I’d completely forgotten about. Piles of paperwork from the Bringing Walter Home project I did a couple years back that fell apart in my hands and turned to paper-mache before my eyes. An alarm clock I’d been given by the Stobsmill Pub for drinking exorbitant amounts of bourbon was still ticking, and remarkably was even showing the right time. Old addresses, memorabilia from places long ago seen, and bits of fluff and notebooks and pens and tangled fishing line scattered the bottom of the stinking, soggy canvas. I upended the whole bag and tipped it out on the ground.

I hung the clothes out on the line and started going through the mish-mash of assorted crap. In truth, most of it went in the bin, but the stuff that I did save is now relevant and worth hanging onto, except maybe the 2009 calendar I got from the Gorebridge chinese. Maybe that’ll make my shit-list next year.

In the afternoon I got a text from Lyndal saying she was glad I’d survived the first leg of the journey, and that she hoped good weather would be my constant travelling companion. As I sat there inside with the rain beating at the windows, I couldn’t help but remember my last trip to northern France. The sun had shone for two weeks constant, and the wind had never lifted above totally still, it was glorious, unlike the grey sagging clouds hanging above, and the whirlwind semi-typhoon rattling at the doors all around me.

The evening saw Simon teaching me the finer points of championship Draughts. I always thought Draughts was for people who didn’t know how to play chess, and was therefore so simple that even a fool like me could master it…I was wrong, embarrassingly so. Over the next hour or so I drowned my sorrows with a fruity Rose’ while poring over a map of Europe and refining my route down south.