Wee sleekit tim'rous beasties (OR the twa turkies)

First, dear friends and relations, a happy new year to each of you!

Secondly, an addendum. During our Iceland missive, I singularly omitted to mention that Reynir Eggertsson, "our man in Reykjavik," is the reining world Gay Games under-30 champion in the men's hammerthrow. He says heenjoyed Sydney very much at the time.

Most of these words are mine, notwithstanding one lovely person's rigorous emending eyes, while most of the photographs and captions are Becky's.

Becky and I travelled from Iceland to England, where we had Christmas in Manchester. Getting there involved travelling by Megabus, whose cheapnes shas to be experienced first hand to be believed. Like, there is low cost, sure, but there is also the experience that goes with a low cost. Very enjoyable for several minutes, edifying for a lifetime.

Manchester blessed us with a proper white Christmas: the powder was frozen H2O, not your narcotic variety. Becky built a rather cute little snowman, a precursor of bigger and better things to come, whose picture you may appreciate below. So, we celebrated the almost certainly fictious birthday of Somebody Very Famous with Leon, Nisha, Beryl, andTerry, staying at Beryl and Terry's place in Boothstown, outer Manchester. Christmas involved the biggest turkey most of us have ever seen, as well as a healthy complement of additional foodstuffs.

There was quite a bit of liquid refreshment as well. People in Engla-Land go to the pub on Christmas eve. There they meet up with old-time friends and be generally very warm, if not decidedly fuzzy, together.

Boothstown is in the Worsley area, which was rural until fairly recently. A good snowfall meant the chance to walk along the canals. This was stunningly beautiful-- which one of Becky's photographs seems to have captured.

The sequence from there goes more or less as follows:
1. Stagger home.
2. 'Enjoy' a 'little nightcap.'
3. Sleep more deeply than the oldest log in the darkest forest.
4. Wake. Lift grand piano off of self. Recognise pain.
5. Brace for breakfast. Even if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this one is a must.
6. Open prezzies. Even if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this one is a must.
7. Brace for morning tea. Even if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this one is a must.
8. Snooze.
9. Sunset.
10. Brace for Christmas dinner (turkey, wonderful sauces and vegies, champagne and assorted wines, really really good cheer). Even if you are feeling sorry for yourself, this one is a must.
11. String out the good cheer as long as stamina permits.
12. Sleep more deeply than the oldest log in the darkest forest.

Next day, all our troubles seemed so far away. Soon enough we learned of the tsunami in south-east Asia. All of England was asking, how does God allow that? Except for someone in the Guardian who asked how humankind allows an even larger number to be wiped out by preventable diseases each week in Africa.

Before then, though, Beryl, Nisha, Leon, and Terry decided to take us on a little tour of Manchester town. There was a game on at Old Trafford, but Leon's ticket connection did not quite come through. Instead we looked at the City Library (where messrs Marx and Engels spent a few hours writing something about making everybody's life better), the newly amalgamated university (whence Alan Gilbert, the new vice-chancellor, is ideally situated to launch his long-considered if rather high-risk and costly invasion of Russia), and the town centre. There is a ferris wheel in the middle of town. It is expensive, but the view is magnificent.

The most important part of this chapter, though, is the familial aspect. Leon and his brother Sean have been very close to the Clarks in Australia over more than twenty years of their parents living in two separate countries. To visit Beryl and Terry, and to be made so welcome in their home, was very moving for us both. Leon is soon to be married to a beautiful, sharp-witted, and I suspect an outrageously successful woman, Nisha, who therefore is a welcome new family member too. And Beryl and Terry, also soon to be married, are extremely generous in sustaining (and feeding!) the Clark family connection as well. Hearts and stomachs were equally full to bursting as we departed.


* * * *


After Manchester, it was the Megabus back to London, the lasting confirmation of our transporting edification, and then a plane to Glasgow. Becky and I had planned to spend new year in the highlands with April Kelly, her fella Gavin Nicoll, and a number of their friends (Danny, Johnathon and Nicki, Arlene and Nigel, Björn and Cathy, Mel and Ryan, and David and Jo).

April and Gavin drove down from Dundee (2 hours) after lunch to pick us up from the airport -- and really the extent of thir hospitality just grew from there. We then drove back to Dundee that evening, thanks to a generous car loan from Gavin's father David. There we spent the next two days wandering around a beautiful but dark city, very Jane Eyre, with brooding stone buildings everywhere, the dark river Tay rushing in and out of its estuary, and brilliant dawns and dusks that give half an hour of gentle colour at each end of the day. April's own house is the upper half of an early 19th century mansion, complete with a ballroom on the top floor. Dundee is a terrific town for a haircut, we both found, and I compounded this tonsural bent by shaving for the first time in yonks.

From Dundee we drove north to Aviemore, thanks to a very generous week-long car loan from Gavin's stepfather, Alan, then out to a couple of farm cottages owned by the Laird of Pityoulish. Here it seems the inner photographer in both of us got full rein. The Scottish Highlands are worth getting romantic about. The pinkish colour in every plantand rock; the elegant ruins of farmhouses, sheep fences, bridges, and castles; the weird hairy cows; yatter yatter yatter.

When first we arrived in Pityoulish, it was mild weather. The early photographs show this. We walked through the Rothiemurchus estate, including the Loch an Eilein, with a ruined fort built by Robert the Bruce falling into its tiny island, sheltered from the Road of Thieves in the forests above. Then we had a new year's eve cocktail party, wherefar far far too much alcohol was consumed by people old enough to know better than to mix your drinks when consciously drinkling to excess. Everyone at the party was to prepare a cocktail somehow representative of a theme, and to dress up in the costume of that theme. Becky and I prepared Turkish martinis, and so were dressed up as a pair of turkeys. This was very convincing on one level, rather less so on others. At any rate, cutting a long story medium-sized, the photographs, I believe, betray a certain dishevelment, if that is a word. They keep all the most shameful secrets to themselves, however.

On new year's day, and for the next couple of days, there was heavy snow.We went out walking in it whenever we could, which made even the simplest of strolls down to the river quite an adventure. The snow does amazing things to such a landscape: it creates forests of pom-pom trees, frozen groves where the undead may bathe, and gingerbread houses on the hills. We were suitably spellbound for the rest of our stay there.

Finally, we returned to Glasgow via Dundee. Again, Gavin's father David kindly lent us his car. Here we visited the university, as well as a rebuilt house of the brilliant art noveau designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Glasgow is quite a rainy place in early January. We were pleasantly refreshed by the severe gales as we perambulated. But it is a very warm city, on that more soulfull level. Scotland generally is a place where people return your smile and ask how you're getting along. It is the low-price end of an expensive kingdom, and the feeling on the streets is imbued with ambient solidarity.

This was phase 1 of the 'April's Planet' guide to Europe. Phase 2 is the Croatian coast. We shall be posting more words and pictures very shortly.

Posted by Tom in Dubrovnik