08.24.04
Scottish sojourn – and Yorkshire too (letter home)
I have just got back from a week’s holiday in Scotland, visiting family and seeing a beautiful part of the world. My aunt and uncle and cousin live in Inveraray, a gorgeous little town on the shores of Loch Fyne on the west coast of Scotland. I spent a few days there early in the week and then went to Glasgow for a few days. I met my boyfriend off the train on Saturday morning – he has just started a new job so could only come for the weekend – and we went back down to Inveraray for the weekend. It was great to see my family but also nice just to relax. I went horse riding with my cousin Jenny, visited Inveraray Castle – the home of the Duke of Argyll – and climbed a nearby hill with an antique watchtower. We went driving on the Saturday and saw a bit of the highlands and the coast. We were very lucky as, despite variable weather throughout the week, we were blessed with gorgeous sunshine all weekend.
View of Loch Fyne and Inverary from the watchtower 
View of Inverary town and castle
A watchtower overlooking Inverary
Caitlin and Jenny imitate photo of their fathers (who are twins), displayed on mantelpiece
Judith in main street of Inverary
View from the car in the Glen Coe region of the Scottish highlands
Jenny and Judith at Inverary Castle
Jeff at the cottage ‘up the glen’
I also enjoyed the couple of days I spent in Glasgow. I had thought about trying to make it down to Edinburgh to see some of the festival but in the end just wanted to relax and stay put. I think I might go and spend a week or so in Edinburgh next year instead. In Glasgow, I stayed with my cousin Andrew (really my cousins’ cousin, but in two directions!). He is an artist with a flat in the west end and he showed me around a bit; to the Charles Rennie Macintosh Art School, the Botanic Gardens, Glasgow Cathedral … Glasgow is a pretty city and quite compact so you can walk almost anywhere you need to go, although I think the cold in winter would be a bit much for me.
Andrew near his flat in the west end of Glasgow
Andrew at the Charles Rennie Macintosh Art School
Caitlin appears as an extra in Doctor Who!
It’s hard to believe it’s nearly September and the leaves will be starting to turn on the trees. It will be interesting actually experiencing the four seasons rather than the hot, hotter, hottest of Australia. I am not particularly looking forward to the cold and rain and the fact that it gets dark at 4pm but on the plus side, I am hoping to go skiing this winter and at least there are a lot of indoor activities such as theatre to be pursued. I don’t know when I’ll come back to Australia for a holiday – I have twinges of homesickness now but I think it’s still far too soon. Maybe next year.
We have caught up with a few people from home since we’ve been here, which has been a real treat. First, my boyfriend’s brother Bill came to visit; then his cousin Jody; and just recently, my friend Dominique from The Australian.
We spent a weekend in Yorkshire with Jody, which was just magical. We got the train to York (two hours, as opposed to the five or six by road) and met Jody, who had been at a conference in Leeds. We hired a car and took off to explore the moors and the coast. The heather was just starting to bloom on the moors and it was easy to see the inspiration for novels such as Hound of the Baskervilles and Wuthering Heights. We drove to a town called Whitby on the coast, which had moors on one side and wild shoreline on the other. It was absolutely stunning with lovely houses, a beach and even a ruined abbey on the clifftop. Whitby was the home port for Captain Cook and also has literary connections as it was where Bram Stoker wrote and set most of Dracula. Just south of Whitby is Robin Hood’s Bay, a tiny former smuggling village, which is very picturesque and well worth a look.
Caitlin at ruined castle in Yorkshire
Whitby Abbey (immortalised in literature as the landing place of Dracula in the original novel)
Caitlin and Jody on beach at Whitby
View north from Whitby
Bird on statue of Captain Cook in Whitby
Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire coast
By contrast, the town we actually stayed overnight in – Scarborough – was a bit depressing and weird. It’s a few miles south of Robin Hood’s Bay but has a vastly different atmosphere. It’s a former resort town that’s clearly seen better days – the fairground rides have ground to a halt and the town is full of old people and herds of young men – virtually no children or young couples. It was all a bit creepy – it felt more like a setting for a Stephen King novel than anything else. It’s only redeeming features were Anne Bronte’s grave in the old churchyard and an old police box that we could pose next to pretending we were in Doctor Who.
Beach at Scarborough
The high street in Scarborough
Grave of Anne Bronte in Scarborough
We had a look around York on the Sunday afternoon before getting the train back to London. Minster Cathedral is everything it’s cracked up to be – we had the added amusement of watching the police try to get fathers’ custody rights protesters down from the roof.
View of York from city walls
Minster Cathedral
Fathers 4 Justice protester up Minster Cathedral
My boyfriend has a job and now that we have two incomes we intend to start looking for a new place to live. The flat we are in now is really good value and it’s comfortably furnished but it’s not big enough for two people (it’s a studio) and it’s not in a great area. We’re not sure where we want to live though as we haven’t really explored London enough and the dampener is that my job is way out in Croydon.
My job is going quite well though. I think I said I was senior reporter in my last newsletter but I got a promotion about a week later and I’m now deputy news editor. They were actually hiring for that position when I joined but hadn’t finished interviewing everyone yet. The new job is good as it is a nice combination of reporting and editing. I had to give up the magazines beat but I’m still doing digital media plus government policy and regulation and research stuff, plus covering a couple of the big ad planning agencies. I still write analyses and profiles every other week but with news stories, I am editing more than writing. I had my trial by fire the week before my trip to Scotland as the news editor was away and the editor was sick! It was a bit hairy because half the reporters were working on a special supplement for the magazine circulation figures but we got through it and I actually quite enjoyed it. This week and next I am filling in for the web editor, which is less than thrilling because there is a new website and it’s not working properly.
England if football-mad and I have decided that if anyone is talking about someone you haven’t heard of, you should always assume it’s a footballer. I discovered this when one of my colleagues went away and his boss changed his password to (I thought) Shera. Everyone was joking about it when he got back, so I made a crack about ‘Princess of Power’. I got a sea of blank faces and soon discovered they were talking about Alan Shearer, a footballer. It’s not just me though – every Australian I have told this story to (male and female), all made the same assumption as me. The women as well as the men take football very seriously – it took ages for everyone to get over England’s loss to Portugal in the Euro 2004. Now of course, they’re all sad about Paula Radcliffe bombing out of the marathon instead, but the Premiership’s started so that won’t last long.
