I’m it. And I do.
Stick with me a bit, and I’ll explain.
I have been, I believe, the only tourist in the little village of Duns, Scotland.
I’ve spent time in all three of the pubs, walked around town, hung out in the central square having morning coffee, and shopped, and I’m it. The only American accent here.
I’m sure some of the locals have developed an impression of me, or maybe nobody noticed. But I’ve come up with some impressions of Duns and Scotland in general.
I’ll use bullet points. I love bullet points.
- Scots don’t get in your chili. One learns this when one lives in a small house for any length of time. Houses are smaller here. Buildings, shops, and pubs are smaller. Everything is on a smaller scale here than back in Texas, and it’s been that way forever, I suspect. I’m staying in a 160-year-old stone farm cottage, and my head is dinged up from low doorways.
I’ve noticed that nobody has struck up a conversation with me on their own, but since I’m a big, friendly type, I’ll start talking to anyone, and they might seem a bit surprised at first. They warm up quickly, and a nice conversation ensues.
- It rains a lot, but most buildings have very little roof overhang. All the buildings in downtown Duns are probably several hundred years old, and they all have heavy-duty rain gutters that send downspouts directly into the ground, which takes that water somewhere else, and perhaps nobody knows where. But if it’s raining, and it does rain, there is no overhang or porch. You leave the building, y’all be getting wet. I hope to discover the logic someday.
- Meat. Potatoes. Rinse, repeat, repeat. We eat a lot of meat in Texas, but the Scots put us to shame. I’m having lunch at an outdoor café, and I picked up a chicken salad sandwich to go with my Viking War Mug of coffee, and sure, it had tomato and lettuce, but it was mostly chunks of chicken in mayo.
And a hot dog.
One kind of meat wasn’t nearly enough. “This chicken salad is missing something… Hmmm… More lettuce… More Tomato… Maybe some avocado… Maybe pickles… Bell Pepper… Wait, I’ve got it. A hot dog.”
I’ve had some amazing food. My hosts, Peter and Matt have a wonderful dinner every night and I’ve had almost every kind of mammal on earth.
- Haggis. You know what haggis is. Haggis might strike fear in the hearts of every human outside of Scotland, but it really is a part of everyday life here. You can get haggis breakfast patties, fried haggis balls, vegetarian haggis, haggis pie, spam, spam, spam.
It’s everywhere all the time.
And it’s delicious. And it becomes normal pretty quickly. I’ll miss haggis when I get back to Texas. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen it in Texas, and there are plenty of sheep lungs to go around.
- Scotland was the first country in the UK to make it illegal to smoke indoors in public places. Go figure.
- I haven’t seen any bagpipes or kilts in Duns. Some things are for tourists, I suppose.
- Everyone in Duns seems to know each other. I’m sitting in an outdoor café in the center of town and everyone who walks by says hi to everyone eating here.
- I’ve only seen one guy drinking Buckfast. He’s on a bench with big gold necklaces, greased back hair, smoking a vape, and drinking a peculiar Scottish drink called Buckfast. It’s made by monks and is a volatile mix of caffeine, fortified wine, and liquified Satan. I’ve not tried it, and I probably won’t. It’s the cheap way to get wasted and angsty in dark alleys.
You drink Buckfast when you want some bother, which means you want to get in a fight.
- Speaking of vapes. I see them everywhere. Cheaper than cigarettes I suspect.
- I still can’t understand anyone. It’s been two weeks already.
- The water is good here. Green places usually have good water, and it’s very green here. Although I don’t see people drinking it here. I always carry around a water buffalo of water in an insulated jug because I live close to the heat of hell much of my life. People here seem to drink coffee, beer, and colored stuff in plastic bottles.
- Pies. Just like New Zealand, there are pies. Not so much fruit, but animals and vegetables. I do love a great pie, but I try not to indulge very often. I only have a couple of pairs of pants to fit into for a few months.
- Scots look a lot like Americans. From where I’m sitting in this public square in the center of town, if I were to swap out the accents with midwestern accents, I could be in Ohio somewhere.
- There is an architectural style, I believe, called Scottish Gothic. It looks exactly like the name implies. Heavy stone, thick walls, fascinating shapes and features, and unlikely to fall over when shot at by a cannon.
- I think most of Scotland was built when people were much smaller. I’ve got permanent brain damage from banging my head on doorways. It’s the doors. Not my misspent youth.
I’m travelling with a carry-on bag and an old leather daypack, so I don’t really have room for any more clothes, but while wandering around in Duns, I came across R. Welsh and Son Hunting and Fishing Store.
What a treasure.
I ended up talking to George, who had been running the store for decades, and pulled a Hogg of Fife, Hemsdale Tweed Waistcoat from a rack and tried it on.
I knew immediately that I had to possess it.
It’s a heavy tweed, in what he called an Edinburgh tartan. Dark, earthy green with a tiny orange and tiny red thread threading through in two-inch squares. My favorite color actually.
It’s long and sleeveless. And while I’ve always wondered why vests even exist, as in why own a jacket with the arms ripped off, I had to possess it.
It was made for hunting grouse or pheasant or The Great Woolly Tardigrade or something, and I don’t hunt and don’t own a gun, but I had to possess it.
It’s fantastic. It’s long, heavy-duty, made with thick, scratchy wool that will be found by a Keith Richards long after the next great extension.
And since Keith undoubtedly possesses one and wears it when he’s out keeping game on one of his estates.
I suspect that if I wore it into a Land Rover dealership, they’ll naturally bring out the old, rusty Series II from service assuming it’s mine.
It’s insulated with big pockets for your shotgun shells and little doo-dahs to hold the pocket flap up so it’s easier to grab a shell when that tardigrade is flushed from its lair.
It has this kind of “Country Laird of The Manner” feel to it. I’m pretty sure The Queen’s Royal Gamekeeper wears the exact same vest when he’s out in the Highlands keeping The Queen’s Game.
It has gravitas.
It has well-made functionality.
It was made in the UK. The only piece of clothing I’ve ever owned, besides a hat I picked up that was made in the shop in Glasgow, was made in the UK.
It’s just that cool.
So now I possess it.
I figure I will just have to wear it on my flights to Hamburg in September and back to Austin in October.
But I justified it because I’ll never find another like it, it was on sale, leftover because they no longer make it in that pattern, and it was the only one of its size in the whole country AND… And this is important. It’s really great to have a lot of pockets when you’re doing the planes, trains, and automobiles thing.
And I discovered something wearing this monumental new possession.
Vests are actually functional.
You can move your arms around much more easily when they’re not attached to the jacket.
Try it. Put on a jacket and wave your arms around like you’re trying to flag down a plane from a deserted island. Now take off the jacket and put on a vest and try it.
You’ll wave down that plane AND not feel the agonizing bunching up of your jacket, showing the crabs and seagulls your belly or boxers.
If, after reading this, you feel you must possess such a Helmsdale Tweed Waistcoat by Hoggs of Fife, here’s the link that will tell you it’s no longer available, so you can sink into a deep depression, knowing that I am the only gent in the colonies that possesses one.
Obviously part of the advantage of being the only tourist in Duns.
