The last week was a blur, as final weeks of a long trip tend to become…first of all, the final concert at St. Michael’s was a really good one; a nice crowd of very receptive listeners, including a 97-year old man who gave me an incredibly profound compliment that I’m actually too embarrassed to write here. He was a guy I really wish we’d had time to sit down with and talk more – and of course, I didn’t think to get a picture with him. The concert itself went very well, even though Mel had to work extra hard with the instrument at the church; she still got amazing sounds from it. Great way to end the performance part of the trip, all in all.
We also had some great highlights in and around Helensburgh – we did visit that submarine museum, and it was amazing; they had an actual mini-sub in the old church building, and the history of it was really fascinating. The video of them getting this enormous thing into the place was wild. The guy who was “manning the station” that day was great, too; he had retired after 3+ decades in the Royal Navy’s submariner service, and had some intense stories for us – plus he just gave us a tote bag from the place. Another day found us on a boat tour to Holy Loch, where the US Navy had a sub base during WWII; that boat ride was WILD – windy and rough, spray flying everywhere – and the pilot was really cool; they let Rowan sit in the co-pilot seat and we were laughing like lunatics every time the boat would bash through a big wave. I was talking to the pilot about whisky (predictably enough, I know), and he told a story about drinking with some of his friends in the Highlands, who have a tradition of taking the cork out of a bottle and just throwing it away. He shook his head ruefully, and said, “it’s just bloody madness” with that great accent, and I just about fell on the deck laughing.
The day after the concert we got up and drove to Stirling, where we saw the Stirling Castle (absolutely incredible, but really busy that day with tourists), and the even more incredible William Wallace Monument. I’ve seen photos before, but they don’t do it any justice at all; it’s enormous, with this really interesting rope motif in the stonework that I want to find out more about. There was an actor there in full kilt and Claymore who did this great 15-minute monologue about Wallace and the Battle of Stirling Bridge that was equally informative and funny – we have a picture of Rowan brandishing that Claymore next to the guy while they both yelled “Freedom!” Great stuff. The monument had three levels of museum, and on the first level, among other things, was Wallace’s actual Claymore. It was immense. Six feet long, at least; he must have been a truly enormous guy for the times. The monument is really powerful, and was a great way to end the tourist part of the trip.
Ah, the food. Holy Haggis, the food. The best damned Indian food we’ve ever had, including personalized service the first time we went there on a quiet Sunday night from Rocky, who is clearly a local legend – about two dozen people mentioned him while we were in Helensburgh – and some absolutely unbelievable other meals at little places.
I know I’m leaving things out – there was just so much…
The trip home was a minor dumpster fire. We had such an easy time checking in our rental car at the Glasgow airport that we were all nice and relaxed, and we were then blindsided by the weird consistent rudeness of the British Airways experience. Very curt, pushy, and just generally unfriendly; it was a jolt after the overwhelming niceness of everybody in Scotland. THEN, Heathrow. Lines. Slow, overly thorough security checks, and an absurdly long wait to get my trumpet case back which made us literally RUN to the gate for our flight, and make it after they’d officially closed the door – we really only made it because Jen ran on ahead of the rest of us to let them know we were coming. The gate, of course, was about 87024750 miles from where we’d landed, after a long, complicated bus ride through the maze of “backstage” Heathrow. Brutal. The flight to Charlotte was long, but survivable, and then…holy crap, worse lines at US Customs, and then having to go through Security AGAIN, where both Duncan and I “enjoyed” some light fondling by a security guy – Jen said she could see both of our, uh, crotch areas lighting up on the screen, for some inexplicable reason. The guy did ask for my phone number, at least… Seriously, it was all weird. More long long long wait for my stuff to be slowly, painstakingly hand-checked, while I’m holding up my pants with one hand, hoping for no international incidents involving my underwear…at one point, two people were yelling at me at the same time to go through the X-ray screening thing, and I just yelled back at them – “if you’re both yelling at me, I can’t hear either one of you!!” It was just all kind of a drag; demeaning, pointless, and a lousy way to end a great trip. I had just read the phrase “security theater” and that’s what it felt like. But, eventually, having been awake for 24 hours, we made it to KC, where my sister picked all of us zombies up and drove us home, where we all collapsed under the weight of some very happy kitties.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.