Later that summer I was sitting in what was a small basement flat masquerading as a superior room in The Bank Hotel in a much lauded ex fishing village in the East Neuk of Fife – the room not me, I never masquerade as a small flat! The Guinness from the night before was lying, with the batter from my fish dinner, heavily in the pit of my stomach.
We had arrived in Anstruther courtesy of rain that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the tropics, it was Scottish weather at its most challenging: summer. As I clung to my seatbelt, peering through the waterfalls on the car windows Mrs T negotiated the roads of central Fife. It should have been a straightforward journey. It was relatively straight until Mrs T threw away the script by taking a detour that took in Cupar, some quite pretty cul-de-sacs, an industrial site and ended up in St Andrews. Once in St Andrews, several miles north of our target, she picked a random lane and left the main road where all those silly road signs kept telling us we were probably lost. The extra hour probably served as a reminder that I was mortal, and gave me time to practice grinding my teeth and re-examining my lack of knowledge of the logic of others.
This was to be part of the Scottish Journey where I re-engaged with Fife. I had hoped that taking regular short trips into the kingdom would stir up memories of my earlier days, the first year of my fifty Scottish years. Maybe I could find something that would help me tell the story of that time. I can’t remember why I chose Anstruther, but it would have to serve as an opening salvo in a bid to get back to the seventies and my earlier self.
The Bank Hotel, for it had been a bank in a previous economic cycle, was on what passed for a High Street although it looked more like a short one-way lane glimpsed as we sailed past the front door, afforded us the opportunity to examine the crowds and the chaos of abandoned vehicles that was the harbour area.
I thought it would be nice and quiet, I mumbled still shocked by the terrors of the open road.
I think we need to turn round and go back the way we just came. I advised. Receiving the sort of response most of my helpful advice usually gets, with added vigour fuelled by the stress the poor woman was feeling by this late stage of the adventure.
Once we had established our bolt hole in what must have been the banks’ vaults, where generations of young assistants would fend off the amorous advances of generations of junior managers, I decided I required a drink, and she required some alone time. That was the start of the Guinness.
The bar was quite busy but the service was quietly efficient. I received another Guinness with an appreciative nod, and pondered the madness of sitting in strange places paying extra and suffering the loss of control that takes me away from the comport of my own home.
Dinner in the bar – for it was in the bar we were dumped, by the pool table and directly opposite the entrance through which a cold breeze deposited wet (nay, drukit) punters in alarming numbers.
I thought we might have been given a nice wee table in the dinning-room, I said, that’s why I phoned to make a reservation.
Mrs T, who was in remarkable good humour considering the stress she had been under driving me around darkest Fife, said she was quite comfortable and reminded me that we would get to watch the first half of the quarter finals of Euro 2020 (now reaching its conclusion a year late) on the gigantic television above said pool table.
I supped my beer and wine and played with a Pittenweem Haddock that was clearly feeling the draft from the open door as it was buried under a thick batter that was acting as an overcoat. I’m sure it was very nice but gave up crunching my way through the heavy outer layers looking for fish and decided to chase the peas around the plate and content myself with dipping the chips in the Mayo provided – the staff were very efficient.
We watched the second half of the match (Italy v Spain) in our room having procured a couple of bottles of beer and some coke to take with us.
We spent a few, very pleasant days enjoying the sunshine (the weather improved) and returned home happy at our modest efforts.
I’m going to write about my 1st fifty years in Scotland, I told Mrs T but she seemed totally indifferent to the thought. Maybe it’s because half of that time had been before we met, I thought to myself.
Maybe we could get back to some sort of normal.
Maybe we could start planning trips to Europe, and further afield, I pondered. Maybe this poxy pandemic was over, I speculated …
but it wasn’t.
The hospital admissions started to increase as new variants (much more contagious than the original version) changed everyone’ s plans. Some folk managed to ignore the evidence and jet off to anywhere that would accept their cash – the usual suspects – but we stayed at home, took our medicine (various vaccines), and avoided crowds.
As I continued to attempt to recoup some of my, not inconsiderable, losses, and spend most of my time shouting at the television, the world kept turning.
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