Ah yes! The first thing on my list I’m going to talk about is good ol’ Scotland!
I’ve dreamt of going to Scotland for I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG!! My grandpa Scotty was from (ohhhhhhh, you guessed it!) Scotland as was my great-grandmother, Jean—my middle-namesake…. Scotty was from Glasgow and my great-grandma is from Edinborough. Though I’m not allowed to talk to her (or is anyone else from my family, because her daughter has essentially made it verbotten for anyone to contact her because my precious gran is sooooooooo vulnerable, which is a crock, that woman can kick anyone’s arse from here to the ‘borough!) I did manage to however, have a chance to spend an afternoon with her several years ago while interning in Toronto. She told me about how she spent her childhood living next door to (http://www.tunnock.co.uk/index1.htm) this lovely place! Oh Lordy, could you imagine growing and hanging out with your best friends who happened to make perhaps the world’s most DIVINE goodies, the snowball!! http://www.tunnock.co.uk/snowball.html
Ugh. mmmmmmm. Drool. Oh yes, focus! She told me the stories about how she’d go visit the kids whose parents owned the factory and they had a parrot (who for all I know, could still be alive and well considering how old they can live!) and they’d have tea and goodies and mmmm. Can you time warp me back to that time please?
I can only imagine how divine those babies tasted (no, I’m not talking about Swift’s Modest Proposal! I mean those snowballs!) fresh from the oven back in the day? mmmmmm…
Anyways – that’s not the only reason I want to go there. How amazing it would be to visit a country with so much HISTORY and old buildings and rain! To visit the loch and of course, look for me Nessie amidst the fog… or to climb a mountain (which would allow me to cross #22 off of my list at the same time, killing two birds with one stone!) or to cross the lands where so many lives have been lost in the pursuit of freedom and independance….
It’s also the land where my grandpa Scotty left so many years ago, in the 1970’s. He’s my mom’s step-father and he left after he lost most of his family in a terrible accident. His small family consisted (from what I remember) of three children and his wife, Annie. However, two of the boys died in a car accident along with their mother. The third child, my uncle Bill, eventually left and went to Australia where he remains today. My grandpa Scotty was always very dear to me, and while it was difficult to understand what the hell he was saying half the time, I know that he truly loved us like his very own grand-children…. his warm embraces and giant bear hugs at the beginning and end of each visit, made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. I would like to return there for so many personal reasons, that it rates high on my list of priorities of 100 things to do before I die…
When I was in grade six, my mom got be two very signficant gifts to me. One, was a wee Scottish lass in her crazy little kilt dress and the second, was a most beautiful (and I know EXPENSIVE) book with many photos and pictures that I gazed at frequently… I even took on a paper-route, hoping to be able to afford the plane tickets to take me and my mom over to visit… (And that my friend, would knock #31 off my list!)
So, That my friends, is why “Visit Scotland! (The homeland, Ooch!)” is on my list!
