Highland Dispatch
Letter from Scotland
Apologies for the late newsletter this week, I’ve been in Scotland. Not a great excuse, but the long days here have a way of slipping away from you.
I spent one night in Edinburgh and walked through New Town as I love to do. I stopped at one of my favorite places, the Oxford Bar. The main room has a high ceiling and about six seats around a small bar. The walls are a specific and reassuring color that’s more muted than eggshell but less dreary than paste. There’s an easygoing friendliness and the people know one another. They play no music, which is a good thing, and have many whiskies, which is an even better thing. It’s hard to choose, I just find one that I haven’t heard of that looks good and give it a go.
We’re staying in a house on a river, the Deveron, about an hour north of Aberdeen. Unlike most of the anglers here we’re trying to catch some brown trout. And, like all the anglers here, we’re also trying to catch Atlantic salmon. This happens in some of the world’s great rivers, The Spey, The Dee. You arrive a 9am and meet the ghillie, who wears a tweed jacket and a tie. You get ready in a small fishing hut, which in some cases is over 100 years old, and heated with a wood stove. The ghillie gives you a tea with milk and sugar (that seems correct here) and then helps you get set up on the river.