Yesterday, I got in a cab, got on a train and left Dundee and the Tay. I had a delightful time with Terry as we wandered the countryside, visiting standing stones. Terry is someone I’ve been friends with on Twitter and Facebook but had never met. He very kindly volunteered to pick me up at the train station at Inverkeithy and show me some standing stones that he’d sent me a photo of several months ago.
He’s a very good tour guide and funny, too. But he had to head back early so dropped me off at Mark Walker’s house where I was spending a couple of days and seeing an old friend and sister-writer Kate Laity.
Dundee is being radically developed–a branch of the Victoria and Albert, a new rail station, new posh hotel and blah blah blah. Given what I know of how development has changed the initial nature of my own town, I was less enthusiastic about it than I could have been. We shall see, to quote Mr. Walker.
There’s a lot of public art in Dundee and we went down the hill to see the penguins. Penguin statues actually. I didn’t get it. Why penguins in Scotland? The dragon statue seemed somehow appropriate but penguins?
Scott’s ship “the Discovery” is harboured in Dundee and was built there, too. “Scott of the Antarctic” Scott? That one? We saw it, too. Right before we went to the pub.
More on Dundee tomorrow…unless I get so obsessed with the border reivers (I’m in Carlisle now) that I can’t remember all the pubs and the museum with the Pictish stones and the whale and the gallery and…the pubs.
Also, I ate black pudding for dinner and haggis for supper.
Brilliant.