July 23, 2015
Stromness, Scotland: Tussling with tatties
WHAT are tatties, Karen asked. It was on a menu chalked on a board on the wall. The well-built barman smiled. "Taters," he explained with an accent not at all of these parts.
"Potatoes," Steph translated again.
We were taking shelter - there's no other word - in a roadside pub as the wind howled and rain lashed down outside. You'll laugh if I tell you that we'd struggled all morning and yet the wind was behind us, But that's how it was. Behind us, we leapt the repeated steep hills like antelopes. Well, maybe not antelopes but a lot more easily.
But the moment the road turned, which it did a lot as it followed the coast, we struggled to stay upright. Going slowly, it was difficult. Going downhill, it was dangerous. But against the wind was far, far worse. As we were going down, we crossed two tourists going up. Their teeth were gritted, their backs bowed. They were barely moving. They looked the very epitome of the joy of cycling.
So the pub was welcome, especially since we had just the short distance to Thurso. Or, more precisely, to the neighbouring port of Scrabster. And there we would sail over to Orkney. We were told off, by the way, for referring to "the Orkneys". It's either Orkney or the Orkney islands. Knuckles rapped.
First stop, though, was the Clearances museum in a small white church in a graveyard just down the hill from the campground. The woman in charge seemed delighted to see us. We were her first visitors of the morning.
"You're very welcome," she smiled. "Please stay as long as you like." So we did. As we left, with thanks, Karen asked: "Where's the store?"
The woman looked baffled. Now it was my time to translate.
"Shop," I said. In Britain, a store is where you keep old clutter.
And so there we were, translating in the other direction, in the storm-swept pub. This time it was the publican's contorted, growling accent that stood out. Close to Cockney but not quite.
"What part of London?" I asked.
"London? Essex! Benfleet!" He said it with mock offence. Benfleet isn't part of London, although it's pretty close, out to the east. Near enough that even our man compounded the two.
"I couldn't live in London any more," he said. "Too crowded. You go to work crammed into the train, standing with people pushing into you. No, no more of that. I've been here eight years. Just the opposite. I went back for a few weeks. I couldn't stand it. I love the space here.
"All they need to do now is get rid of the Scotties!"
He looked round the bar to see who he might have offended.
"That's probably what they say about you."
A throaty laugh. "Yeah. Could well be."
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Slowly, the rain eased and the wind subsided. We passed the decommissioned nuclear power station at Dounreay. You say it Doon-ray, which immediately prompted jokes about doom rays. Enough that a road sign in town had been changed to a monster with staring eyes.
I think, although I'm not sure, Dounreay was Britain's first. A big place, too, because there were five reactors on a wartime airfield. They closed in the mid-1990s and it won't be until 2025 that they've been made safe.
We turned off the main coast road and took a back road to Scrabster. A couple we'd met at Crask had warned us, at tedious length, of the brake-screeching descent to the harbour. Well, you know what's coming next: there was no more a fall into the flames of hell than anywhere else. Anti-climax. Or it would have been had we not smiled politely and disbelieved the warning in the first place.
This was a time-killing day. Scrabster is a curving road beside a harbour of fishing boats and a bright blue and orange lifeboat. On the other side of the road, a line of ageing buildings occupying themselves with the sort of business that occupies harbours and sea-going folk.
There was a café, though, somewhere between a dainty tea room and the place where dripping cyclists famished by cold weather can politely take refuge. We sat in one corner while a teenage girl busied herself with an American family in the centre.
"Where are they from?" I whispered.
Karen listened. "Can't tell," she said. Always an odd phenomenon to Europeans, who can pretty much tell where in their country people come from.
In time the Americans left and the girl had nothing to do but stand behind the small counter piled with cakes and smile nervously whenever we looked at her. She was young enough to have braces on her teeth, old enough to have a brain in her head.
"What's there to do in Thurso?" we ask.
She thinks and says there's a cinema and some good walks. And restaurants and a library.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
"You go to the library when you want a good night out with your boyfriend?"
She laughs.
"I do think of living in a city sometimes. But I think it changes you, doesn't it?"
I considered telling her about the Londoner in the pub, who'd made the move in the opposite direction.
"Where would be your dream place?"
She thinks again.
"I've always wanted to go to Italy." She pronounces it Iddaly. "Or Hawaii." When there's an R in a word, she trills it. This far north, the accent is delicate and almost chanted, not unlike northern Welsh. The same Celtic roots, in fact.
Bizarrely, a band of Vikings leave the ferry before we get on. They remind me of an old radio comedy which, in every episode, had a woman who in a crackling voice, shouted "Hallo, boys!" lasciviously when she heard a man's voice. She was never described but you understood that she was an ugly hag with staring eyes and wild, blond hair.
The gag had Vikings storming up the beaches of England chanting: "Rape and pillage! Rape and pillage!"
From the top of the beach: "Hallo, boys!"
Pause. And then: "Pillage! Pillage!"
Today's Vikings didn't look capable of either. They carried swords and shields but many wore glasses and most had a paunch. I sat with one puffing Viking and told him the Rape and Pillage story.
He laughed.
"Are you sure you could come storming up the beaches these days?" I teased.
He laughed again.
"Not now. I'd have caught a taxi."
And then they left the boat singing John Denver songs. It was, to say the least, very odd.
Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,516 km (1,562 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |