Guilt Trip

Well- that’s it! I’ve finished my exams, and gotten some actual REM sleep so my brain in fully functional; and between all the pre-celebratory gin and tonics (none of my friends are done yet so the big summer blowout will commence next week), I made room for a little bit of guilt.

I’m a little worried that I exaggerated quite how bad small-town life is. Don’t get me wrong it has it’s depressing moments, but in my efforts to sound more like the cool Scottish girl from the Decoy Bride, I might have come across more as someone who hates everyone and everything and tries to make it funny. So for this blog I thought I’d talk about the charms of a rural Scottish town.

Like much of rural Scotland, where I live can be very picturesque; and like a lot of Scottish hamlets, it can be gothic and mysterious. There are perks that come with everyone within a mile’s radius going to bed at 10 on the dot; although as I discovered at 12, this does also mean that people will threaten to file a noise complaint if you play karaoke at a sleepover.

But if you’re in mental breakdown mode at 2 in the morning, a nighttime jaunt to clear your head works wonders, and the quietness of a rural town at 2 in the more brings a kind of eerie calm to a busy mind.

But if you’re looking for something that sounds less like it was directed by Sofia Coppola, there is always Scottish people’s famous humour, which almost makes up for the weather; take it from the locals, if you don’t hate the weather here just wait ten minutes and maybe you will.

And the people of the town have their own set of local tales and myths. In my town in particular there is a wildlife centre, which something inexplicably escapes from every year;  it always seems to be a lynx cat, and even though I’m pretty sure it was caught, there’s still a rumour that it still lives in the woods, living off squirrels and the occasional wandering human. A wolf escaped recently and for weeks children tried to convince you that they heard howling at the moon.

Rural Scotland is a fantastic place to explore, provided you brings shears to cut any sheep you might find stuck in bushes; and avoid large fields of cows- you don’t know true terror until you’ve been chased by a highland cow. To this day I can’t look at a Highland cow postcard without feeling the strange urge to run.

That’s all from me for now; but stay tuned for what not to do the day of an essay deadline and my hilarious train journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh.