Back From the Rellies

It’s Monday evening and I am writing this blog from my room at the Rosevale. A strong wind roars outside, making spooky moaning sounds through the cracks in the window casing.

I just spent a very enjoyable weekend with relatives. They live in the small town of Ardrishaig, which is about four hours away by bus, on the west coast of Scotland. Until the herring stocks collapsed in the 1920s, it was a prosperous fishing village. Although its seafront row of shops was demolished forty years later, it remains fully inhabited, with about 1500 retirees and a smattering of younger folk.

 Ardrishaig with the Crinan Canal in the Foreground

Traffic signs in the village: polite but firm

The bus which left from Glasgow Buchannan Station travelled in the dark, so I did not have much to see. The one highlight was a 15-minute rest stop at Inverary, a very picturesque village that is the seat of the chiefs of Clan Campbell. The walls of the men’s room stall in the public lavatory there was full of ribald sayings and primitive artwork. The only one I can repeat here is this:

“Weegies go home. Yer village is missing its idiots.”

I later found out that a “weegie” is slang for Glaswegian, someone from Glasgow.

I stayed at my mother’s cousin Grace’s house. She has a charming home that has a view of Loch Gilp, which is the body of water that borders the town. She also has an evil black cat called Stimpy, who will, without hesitation, bite the hand that feeds it.

The Evil Stimpy

Grace and Mark

(I cropped out her grandson because he had his eyes closed)

The following morning I got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower. The problem was, I did not know how to work it. There was one dial for the water intensity and one for the temperature, but twiddling either one produced no water. I was damned if I was going to call Grace over for assistance, especially after having spent a full week on my plumbing course so I spent the next ten minutes examining the shower from every angle. Finally, I spotted a full chain which dangled out of the ceiling. I pulled it and voila! Water.

Fresh from my triumph of learning how to take a shower all by myself, I sat down to a tasty plate of scrambled eggs. The day was then spent visiting my mum’s other cousin, John. He lives in the house my grandfather grew up in. It is a stone building high on a hill and built the year he was born – 1903. According to cousin John, his father, Dugald Campbell, purchased it for $750 and had it paid off by 1918. A thrifty Scot, to be sure.  I was also informed that this Dugald fellow was a man of the sea, and once served as captain on Cornelius Vanderbilt’s yacht back during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Dugald Campbell and His Wife Jessie ca. 1908

(that smart little fellow in the sailor suit is my grandfather, next to sister Magsa)

The Current inhabitants of grandad's childhood home: Smartie and Douglas

That evening, Grace’s son Paul showed up for dinner and over a bottle of wine we talked about all sorts of things. Daft laws was one of the topics. Apparently in Liverpool a woman can’t work topless, unless she works in an aquarium. And in Tennessee, it is illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head.

Fair warning.

Parting Shot: The Other End of the Crinan Canal