Our train rumbled northwards through ever-less-populated scenes. Newly married, this was my first glimpse of my new home – the Scottish Highlands. It was 2008, the most eventful year of my life.
If you’d asked me in 2006, “Hey Deb, you wanna move to Scotland?” I would have laughed and thought you were a bit crazy. But there I was, starting a new adventure – my first adventure, really, at the ripe old age of 41. Life is so very strange!
A favorite description of authors writing about the idyllic British countryside is, “sheep dotted the fields.” Three train rides over eight hours made it evident that sheep really DO ‘dot the fields’, rather picturesquely! (This past spring I also discovered that sheep literally ‘dot’ them, much less decoratively and far more pungently, but in spite of mucky shoes I remain enchanted by the sight of lambs and sheep, even now, six years and hundreds of sheep-views later.)
Despite travel-weariness, I was riveted by the sight of lambs running from the train as it passed by, and of distant glimpses of the ruins that hinted at the dramatic, often tragic history of the Highlands.
You might think I was crazy to move to a new country, sight unseen, and that opinion might be confirmed when I tell you that before that, I had spent a grand total of six weeks ‘in person’ with the man who became my husband. But I’ve never been so certain of anything.
My entire life has been one of caution, and of pleasing other people. I didn’t even move out of my mother’s house until I was 35! The only reason I knew in 2008 that I was doing exactly the right thing was because I felt no fear whatsoever – ‘fraidy-cat me! Instead, my move to the Highlands felt like a foregone conclusion, and a certainty.
We finally arrived, still in full daylight at nearly 9 p.m. on that soft summer evening.
It’s about a mile from the train station to our house, and our wheeled suitcases clattered along behind us as we made our way through the quiet village toward home. My American legs started complaining as soon as ‘downhill’ became ‘level ground’ but I soldiered on.
The village looked frozen in time. Many houses are from the 1800s, some even earlier. We walked through the grid of small streets past houses and shops. No shopping district, here. The village seemed to be a jumble of houses and shops squeezed together, the buildings all of a shape unfamiliar to me.
Now they’re so well-known that if I came back to America for a visit I think I’d find it strange not to see gable-ended, simple homes from a bygone era.
Once through the village, we had to cross the A9 – the major north-south highway. It took just a moment to cross because this far north, the traffic is minimal. (I have since stood in the middle of the A9 to take photographs and have never had to hustle out of the way of traffic, not once.)
We trudged up a steep hill. Midway up at the bus stop, an elderly pair spoke animatedly. They turned as we approached and I tried not to look too winded as we drew even. The woman nodded at us, taking in our suitcases and then giving me another sharp glance. “Hiya,” said my husband blithely, offering her no introduction. She said hello, brimming with quick curiosity. My beloved forged on, leaving me no choice but to follow, smiling as I passed by. She resumed her conversation but turned to watch us until we were out of sight.
“Who was that,” I asked my husband. He glanced back behind us and lowered his voice to reply.
“That,” he said, grinning mischievously,”was the biggest mouth in the Dale. Everyone in the village will know within the half-hour that I’ve come home with a younger American woman – one with a suitcase and a wedding ring, no less.”
He hadn’t introduced me specifically because he knew the speculation would keep them going for days.
Oh, dear. In my new village for less than half an hour and I was already big news!
Deb Segelitz was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and is astounded to find herself living in the Scottish Highlands. Equally surprising to her is that she now has a small business restoring and selling old fountain pens. These two facts have convinced Deb that life is either beautifully random, or filled with destiny created by someone with a sense of humor. She hopes the fine north state residents will accept her as an honorary member, since she has some cousins in California who she visited once, but even more importantly because the north state folks she actually knows are fabulous people, who are also the reason for her presence here on anewscafe.com. An enthusiastic amateur photographer, Deb is grateful that she lives in a place that’s about as point-and-shoot as it gets. Her tortoiseshell cat, Smartie, rates her as an average minion, too slow with the door-opening but not too bad on the food-dish-refilling, and her husband hasn’t had her deported back to the States yet, so things must be going all right there, as well.
