On a sunny and warm day, the three faculty spouses took a little jaunt to Crieff and points north in the Highlands. Although it was all quite lovely, the Scots drive very fast on B roads. which are the equivalent of a county road in Minnesota--and B roads are not straight, unlike county roads in Minnesota. Concentrating on scenery becomes secondary when you are contemplating your imminent death off a cliff.
The highlight of the day for me was a visit to the first lending library in Scotland, housed in an 18th century structure perched very close to the riverbank. The library was closed, but the setting was beautiful. There was a chapel on the site, stripped to the rafters, but with the remains of frescoes on the ceiling. You reach the site down a dirt road, past an abandoned chicken farm, suddenly coming upon huge yew trees surrounding the chapel and its graveyard. It was all quite magical--must have been the shock of the sunlight. And, when we returned to Dalkeith somewhat later than we thought, the students were all buzzing that we were MIA. In a small community, anything is grist for the mill.
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