We crossed unceremoniously into the rolling borders of Alba – the Scots Gaelic word for Scotland.
We headed to Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta in the Pentland Hills,
to test out the right to roam principle in Scotland. We drove up the laneway and got as far as here (Little Sparta is just beyond the trees). We got out of our little hire car, stretched our legs and inhaled the good air, when
along came the farmer on a quad bike. “May I ask what you’re doing here?” he said in a stern though fair-minded Borders accent. “Can we not camp here?” Patrick replied, to which the farmer gave us a thorough explanation about the limited access to Little Sparta, which was currently closed and probably beyond our budget anyway. It was getting on, we needed somewhere else to test the right to roam. Nice fat cows, green pastures. Scotland was not in drought like the south of England only a pebble’s throw from here.
From Little Sparta we found ourselves winding and wefting through delicious country and popped out at West Linton, and pitched our tent on the village green (a corner of which begins here),
just across the way from this little cemetery.
We were taken by this little town and reflected on the town clock centrepiece. When town clocks began to appear across Europe and lives began to become ever increasingly organised by clock time, what was lost? This too-fast-for-pilgrimage adventure has had its side effects. Ordinarily when we travel by bicycle or on foot, time spreads out horizontally and it feels like a week is lived in a day.
Under the orders of a rental car and a full itinerary we are living in an industrial haze (an off-gassing city on four wheels) with little moments of getting out of the machine for connection and kinship.
From West Linton in the south we bolted to Findhorn in the north. When this itinerary of screenings was being crafted we looked on the map and saw that these distances (at least from an Australian perspective) where not that far. However, unlike back at home, when a journey is stated as being four hours long one needs to double that here in the UK.
When we get out of the machine our relating bodies default into a state of walked-for food creatureliness, craving the nourishments of Mother Country.
We arrived at Cullerne House at Findhorn, and pitched our tent among the happy cohort of permaculture students camping there.
We met a bunch of inspired folk and prepared for the screening and Q&A in this space.
Imagine 70-80 people squashed into these rooms to watch The New Peasants. The audience laughed and sighed, cried and cheered and afterwards asked a string of goodly questions late into the night. There was a wonderful buzz followed by a few days to have lengthier conversations and make deeper connections. Meet Kelly! Homeschooling mum of four, radical homemaker, powerhouse of positivity, AaF blog reader and super supporter. Kelly was the reason we came to Findhorn,
and she brought us many gifts, including her family’s heather honey. Yum!
We two adults have been fairly under slept on this journey so far. Another big gift was Kelly taking Woody out for a day of fishing. He caught a bunch of undersized pollock (lythe), that he put back.
After we adults woke from our nap, we explored Findhorn Ecovillage, stopping in at the Universal Hall,
and later visiting Sylvia and Cornelia, who had invited us for lunch (complete with delicious gifted apple tart).
Patrick spent an evening in a well worn Findhorn pub with Jonathan Dawson, who co-created Schumacher College’s Regenerative Economics programme. Both sipping a nourishing pint of Guinness over several hours, sharing their thoughts, work and experiences. It was a special night while Meg and Woody connected with homeschooling families living at the ecovillage.
The next day we departed this most northern part of our travels and returned to the fast road. Oh badger! We only ever see you in this state.
We returned south through lands misted in heather.
Being on a quieter road south we had a little more agency to pull over, the gift of which we take for granted back home.
While in Alba we have been learning more about the enclosures and The Clearances that have resulted in a handful of people having the majority of the rights to the land and income. We learned that while fiercely contested over the centuries by raiders,
access to land for growing food, and for hunting and fishing is mostly out of reach for the average punter. Unlike in Australia and the US, where hunting and fishing for subsistence is accessible to a broad spread of folk, in Alba – where land and inland waterways are largely controlled by a small handful of land owners – hunting and fishing is mostly a class concern.
We are understanding that the right to roam ethic is merely the elite classes throwing the mob a manky bone – ‘We’ll control the land, take all its riches, and have majority access to its wealth, and occasionally you mob can walk across a field, pitch a tent, and have a little fish (in designated areas). However, if you take a salmon or a deer from our lands to feed your family we will call this poaching. Hunting and fishing is what gentlemen do.’
In a charity shop we found a timely copy of Danny the Champion of the World. Not only a wonderful story for Woody to read but a manifesto for all who have self-respect, and want to safeguard common-folk life for the future.
On the way back south we stopped at a little village called Boat of Garten, where a local, Kevin, called us in. Kevin has been a long-time blog reader and when he heard we were coming Alba way he offered to host a community screening and meetup in his home village. We stayed with his gorgeous family,
and Kevin took us on a little journey before the gig, which included foraging wild raspberries,
and guiding us to a happy pop-up woodland pub called the Gather Inn.
This sweet woodland was full of people thinking and acting for the relocalisation of food and culture, and it was mightily intergenerational with zip lines, cubbies and magical hangs.
A pretty nice old homestead resided next door to the pop-up pub,
and when Patrick looked down after he took the above photograph he discovered a helpless little critter in the grass.
Sadly, this little newborn rabbit was likely not going to grow up and live a goodly rabbity life among the hedgerows nor bound about the fields where these grand old cattle folk graze. Highland cattle can withstand the brutal Scottish winters outside.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that these are indigenous species – rabbit, blackberry, cattle and thistle – and unlike at home, there is no government regime for spraying the plants or deliberately spreading virus among rabbit populations.
So much of the biota of what constitutes our peoples’ medicine is freely living here. “Hello yarrow, my old friend.”
We gathered at the community centre in Boat of Garten and Kevin warmly introduced us and the film. It was a bonnie night of connecting and many conversations followed,
including back at Kevin’s where he poured a few drams of his favourite local whisky before bed.
The next day Kevin took us for a walk in the woodland behind his home. We excitedly gathered up chanterelles,
and wild blueberries among the tick realm of the heather.
We glimpsed a Common lizard in the undergrowth,
and two boys in the tree tops.
We gathered Penny Buns,
and orange birch boletes.
During the morning’s exploration in the woodland with Kevin and his two children, Dusty and Sorley
a morning which included spotting two roe deer and conversations about hunting, poaching and augmenting community organised food security, we gathered up a capful of mushrooms to take on our way.
We returned to the big road, passing both little and large curios of interest, too fast,
and then, for about an hour, at a snail’s pace.
Eventually, we crossed the hypertechnocivil suspension bridge back towards Edinburgh,
and arrived at Chris’s permaculture oasis in Penicuik in time for dinner. Chris had a number of volunteers staying with him, including Eleanor from France,
and he’d set up some tents for us to sleep in among the garden and various building projects.
Chris was getting his food, shelter and energy needs in order, and his volunteers were helping and learning, obtaining practical skills, which they were actively seeking.
The town centre of Penicuik was just up the way,
and a brisk walk before breakfast offered lovely heights. It is considerably colder here.
On our second night at Chris’s, Patrick cut and cooked our little haul of woodland mushrooms,
as our contribution to a potluck. Meg gave an honouring of the food,
and Woody learned new games. There was much discussion about The New Peasants,
which we’d showed earlier in the day at the University of Edinburgh, in a room above and to the left of this grand archway at the Old Medical School.
While walking around the city, Woody spotted a ball kicking scene and we asked to join in.
After a kick we glimpsed a hillocky rock through the city streets,
and knew we needed to get there. So we adults walked and Woody flew
to Arthur’s Seat,
where we startled a mother pheasant and her chick (out of frame),
before descending into an eight foot high patch of nettle.
In many places in urban Alba we’re reminded of Ivor Cutler’s, Life In A Scotch Sitting Room, Vol. 2, Ep. 11,
and in other places high-walled fortification speaks of pre-industrial militarisation, which Ian Hamilton Findlay was dancing with at Little Sparta.
Today power and colonialism are more covert, camouflaged in neoliberal window dressing. It appears as though we are evolved and peaceful, yet we modern subjects of capital are part of the most destructive empire to have ever existed.
This is the Edinburgh ‘Futures’ Institute where Patrick had academic work to do, invited by the University of Edinburgh.
While his dad was co-examining a doctoral thesis, Woody was contributing creatively at the Fringe Festival.
After Edinburgh we journeyed south to Macbiehill to stay with (another) Chris and Erinn,
in their lovely home.
Chris showed Woody how to make a bowl on his lathe,
and Erinn took us into their garden’s young food forest.
We shared a few gentle days with these goodly folk, yarning and gathering stories, and drinking a delicious elder flower sparkling wine made from this purple variety,
and devouring a magnificent haggis. You could tell Woody was not enjoying himself in Alba.
Growing up as a forager since birth, Woody never fails to be delighted by land that offers hidden treasures,
and while the wild raspberry party roamed, and Chris tended the haggis, Patrick walked along the road and brought back a bunch of lush dandelion leaves and three mature horse mushrooms to add to a horta dish.
Before we left, Chris and Erinn took us around to their friend James’ place for a meetup. James is a permaculture teacher and is currently building his family’s home with larch poles.
James and his family might be the only ones in Alba to have mature grapes on the vine.
James gave us a tour of his woodland, and the structures he and his volunteers have built.
One volunteer, Sam from New Zealand (blue t-shirt below, with Woody and Arlo) had recently returned from an IDF prison after being kidnapped from the flotilla. He and Woody had a great time talking about the merits of being unschooled.
Our time in Alba was winding up and we farewelled our new friends, dropped off the hire car in Glasgow and headed to the central train station.
We trained and stopped, ate blackberries,
and bussed to the west coast,
where at Stranraer we came to camp. We bought some bread and cheese and walked the town, encountering a medieval tower-house converted to a Victorian prison,
and an Episcopalian house of worship,
before pitching our tent for the night.
It was a rough Friday night in the park. Alcohol and hotted up street cars raged the streets til late, and when we woke at 5.50am the next day to catch the Cairnryan ferry to Éire, we had no idea of the big day that would unfold. More on that to come.
For those in Éire, we are screening The New Peasants at An Teach Saor in County Galway on August 25. If you are local and would like to come along, please get in touch for more information. If you are further afield, An Teach Saor (Irish for ‘The Free House’) is a land-based permaculture community and gift-economy smallholding in County Galway.
