Roger Pires June 16, 2009
When he's not offering his take on daily life, Roger Pires spends his days as a computer systems analyst. It's not exactly a glamorous calling but hey, it pays the bills. He enjoys hockey, canoeing, snowshoeing, and spending as much time as he possibly can outdoors. He lives in Udora with his wife and two kids, who are his prime inspiration for Ravenshoe Ramblings.
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A fine scottish morning
Loch Ness lay somewhere in the fog. The night before, we had pitched our tents in the dark, serenaded all the while by the legendary Scottish rain. A farmer had cheerfully accepted our donation of a couple of quid to camp out on a hilltop next to his barnyard. I’m sure he did so more as a source of amusement than income. It would’ve been of little surprise to him that we woke up the following morning halfway down that hill, tent pegs and guy wires trailing behind us like the bridal train on the bride of Frankenstein. He would’ve already known, of course, that mudslides are a daily occurrence in Scotland. Eternal dampness makes the earth move and causes unwitting tourists to wake up shrink-wrapped in the canvas of their flattened tents.
When my buddy and I emerged from our crypt, the Canadian couple we had met in London were already shivering in the half light. It was the third week of August but it felt like October in Inuvik. Our breath hung in the air like nimbus clouds and the dampness clawed at our bones. In a futile attempt to generate heat, we gnawed away on a half-eaten box of stale shortbreads and laid waste to a jug of fermented cider. Our lavish meal was interrupted by a figure calling to us out of the soup.
We envisioned a lone piper leading us out of the quagmire and into the farmhouse for a nice, hot breakfast of bacon and eggs. Instead of a kilt and sporran though, this would-be saviour was clad in knee-high wellies and an overcoat. And rather than bagpipes, our rescuer lugged a slop bucket, overflowing with whatever was on the barnyard menu that morning.
“Just come to check on you,” he said in a heavy brogue laced with the musky perfume of pipe tobacco. It was the farmer. He had arrived, no doubt, to make sure the crazy Canucks hadn’t slid into the black depths of the fabled loch. Partly out of curiosity and partly because the part of my brain that filters out stupid questions had frozen solid, I asked our host when their summer was supposed to start. He looked at his watch and without skipping a beat replied, “You just missed it.” Then he tipped his cap and disappeared into the mist.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot of that morning from some twenty-odd years ago. It comes to mind whenever I’m shivering on my front porch debating whether to fire up the lawn mower or the snow blower. In fact, anyone who has been outside at all the last couple of months would think we had enrolled in some kind of climate exchange program with the Scots. In the land that gave us golf, Sir John A. McDonald, and the miracle of single malt whiskey, the sun wears a name tag. When it does make a rare cameo, a startled populace squints heavenward with a sense of vague recognition, like they’ve seen that face before, they just can’t remember where. We can be forgiven for having much the same reaction lately.
I brought home a lot of great memories from Scotland, some of them even printable. There was Edinburgh Castle and the colour and pageantry of the Tattoo. The Rose Street pub crawl – for those who survive it – is a life-altering experience. And driving on the wrong side of the road for five straight days is as close to space travel as I’ll ever get. But I wasn’t too heartbroken at leaving behind the weather. You would need a graduate course in optimism to describe the Scottish climate as anything but ghastly. Perhaps that explains the Bay City Rollers. We may have been defenseless against the roving bands of tartan and peroxide that invaded our shores, but we thought we would never have to deal with seasons of eternal gloom.
Until now.
My friend’s sister called the other day from overseas, lamenting that all of Europe was under the thumb of a vicious heat wave. So that’s it. In a nostalgic longing for the days of Empire, the Europeans have stolen our summer. While busloads of tourists searched for Nessy slathered in layers of Coppertone, my wife and I and our fellow parents took in our kids’ baseball game huddled together like victims of a shipwreck.
But there is hope yet. Occasionally of late, I’ve had to blow the dust off my supply of shorts and I see Scotland is once again re-staking its claim as the ark building capital of the western world.
But the long siege isn’t over yet. In this, our summer of discontent, we’ve taken to greeting each other with “ ‘Tis is a fine Scottish morning.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go flood the backyard rink.
