Highland Line Number 36

Highland Line Number 36
1 September 2006

As of today we have been in Scotland for 3 years. We feel so at home here and well-settled into our newly renovated home. It has been our great good fortune to have chosen a village full of friendly and welcoming folk. Many of you have remarked that you are amazed at how busy our social life is and how many people in the village we've come to know. Our various activities help a lot with connecting us to different people, but in such a small place, you also can't help getting to know most of the folks who run and operate businesses in the area. In fact, that was the way we started getting to know locals back when we were still living in the States and coming to Comrie as holidaymakers. Our first contacts were with David and Juliet Sutcliffe who owned the Osprey Shop in the village and Syd and Lorna Peedle who owned Comrie Cottage where we stayed while here.

By a sad coincidence, today is the day we said goodbye to Barbara Burberry, a Canadian by birth who, with her husband David, ran the Dalchonzie Strawberry Farm Shop on the outskirts of Comrie and who made delicious jams, preserves, chutneys, and other delights in the shop's back kitchen. Barbara died last Saturday of cancer. We have taken most of you who have visited with us to the shop and brought goodies from the shop to some of you when we visited in the States. You probably remember the petite and perky brunette with the wide smile, briskly wiping her hands on her white apron and making jokes behind the counter. Others who didn't get to the shop certainly sampled her wares on toast at breakfast with us. Her remembrance service was held at the shop at noon. We were among the 200-plus people who gathered in the shop carpark (there wasn't room for us all inside) to celebrate her life and to support her family. Members of the family made their way around the circle of people, talking to each of us, thanking us for coming. When they had finished, we observed a minute of silence and said the Lord's Prayer. Then it was time for the hearse to leave followed by a limo with the family members on their way to the private ceremony at the crematorium. In the Scottish tradition, a man dressed in tails and carrying a top hat tucked in the crook of his arm, led the hearse and the limo away on foot, walking slowly and somberly all the way down the one-lane country road until they were out of view. David said to us when he was making his way round the crowd that he wasn't going to make a speech, but that if he had to sum up Barbara for the gathered crowd, he would say that her friends became her customers and her customers became her friends.

In fact, we took Jack and Kathy Howell to the farm shop just a little over two weeks ago. They were here on a visit from Much Wenlock. We had a great time showing them Drummond Castle Gardens and the Braes of Balquhidder. If you've checked the blog now and then, perhaps you saw photos from those two excursions. If you haven't seen the blog recently, you might like to go to the August 2006 archives to see the "before" and "after" photos of the front of the house which I posted on August 8th. We're getting lots of compliments on how good it looks inside and out. Earlier this week we ordered drapes for our living and dining area which will leave only the cushions for the window seats to finish the interior decorating.

Now that our renovations are finished, we have been doing quite a bit of entertaining, having various people over for dinner, people we've been wanting to get to know better or spend more time with. For the past 3 years, with the exception of that first and only Thanksgiving Feast in 2003, we have limited our entertaining to a few couples whom we know well because we had such a small space to entertain in. Meanwhile, we have attended meals out and parties at so many different homes that we have a long list of people we want to entertain in our new space. We've begun that process and look forward to continuing it into the winter months.

The locals have started repeating that age-old phrase: The nights are fair drawin' in, and so they are. Already sunrise, at 6:15, is almost an hour later than it was a month ago and sunset, at 8:15, is an hour earlier. What daylight we've had, though, has been amazingly sunny all summer. August was no exception although it rained a bit more than in previous months. It rained again all night last night, a steady but gentle rain (which the gardens really need), but the sun is shining again now. We may have a scattered shower now and then today, but we'll also have lots of sunny spells and it remains fairly warm with a high of 70 and a low of 50. Not a bad way to move into Autumn. The heather is in bloom on the hills now, though, a sure sign of Autumn (which no one over here calls "Fall").

Donald has continued to work on his golf game. It's been up and down this month but, overall, his scores have improved. Today he came in with the winning score at the St. Fillans seniors competition so he's pretty happy that all his work is paying off. He has two distance education courses going and is also involved with local organizational work. He just got publicity materials together and collected local subscriptions for the Strathearn Music Society whose first concert will be in two weeks, a production of Die Fledermaus presented by Scottish Opera. Wednesday evening he was invited to prepare a version of his most successful programme for St Fillans Music Circle for their Christmas programme. Soon Probus meetings will start up again.

I had my first chorus rehearsal this past Monday and on Tuesday the Pilates sessions started. In another week the weekly So and Sews meetings will begin. We will miss some of these scheduled sessions and meetings, however, because of guests and our own travel plans. On Sunday, Don's cousin Ruthellen Bunis and her husband, Russell Baker, come to us from Edinburgh where they've been since yesterday. We'll tour them around a bit and then send them on their way up to the Northern Highlands for a few days. When they return, they'll be with us for another few days before moving on to Glasgow for a 4-day visit prior to flying home. They'll actually be in Scotland a day longer than we will for we fly to France for a short visit with friends in Cassis on the 18th. Our Autumn will be busy.

August was busy enough what with the final activities for the Comrie Fortnight, especially the float parade, and then a couple of visits to Edinburgh. Early in August both of us went with Helen and Gordon Rae to see Manhattan Transfer as part of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. Last week Helen and I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival to hear Isla Dewar and Laura Marney read from their new books. On Wednesday evening this week, Don and I went to Perth to see the Old Blind Dogs in concert (a traditional folk group) on the same bill as Blazin' Fiddles (a 7-piece traditional fiddle band with keyboard and guitar).

Every once in a while we'll meet a young person (someone in their 20s) who'll ask where we moved here from. When we tell them, they recall wistfully trips they've made to the States or express a desire to go there (or go back) some day. The next thing they usually ask is "Aren't you bored here?" They always seem surprised to learn that we're not. Maybe we ought to put them on the Highland Line list!

We hope you're not bored and that your are swinging back into the autumn back-to-school, post-Labor Day routine with gusto, enjoying loved ones and friends both old and new. We hope your summer has been a good one. Keep in touch.

Love,

Lynn and Don