We Ate Jam and Bread for Dinner

Castle Campbell

Upon returning from Belfast, Brendan and I had some time to spend in Edinburgh as our dear parents traversed the seas of Scotland in pursuit of the finest whiskey. So we switched into frugal mode, something I was already well versed in from living in a country whose currency was stronger than my own. I introduced my brother to the wonders of the local bakery, Peckham’s, which he quickly came to love. It’s a classy place, with all types of spirits, locally made ciders, and freshly baked loaves of bread. And tiny jars of jam, which we bought along with the bread and that was... most of our meals, actually.

We made a quick trip to the Royal Veterinary School for Brendan’s sake, but it wasn’t terribly impressive. In fact, it seemed that the best part of the trip was this addition to my album of humorous signs:

The best choice we made of the whole visit was to go to a little place called Castle Campbell. I found it in my Historic Scotland member handbook, which said that it was located outside Stirling and was only accessible through a forest glen. I saw the words ‘strong footwear required’ and I was determined to go. We had to take two buses to get there, and there was a bit too much time waiting in each station due to unlucky timing. At one point I even turned to my brother and told him ‘I really appreciate you riding buses and waiting in stations with me all day’. But no amount of unfortunate timing mattered once we stepped into the tiny town of Dollar, which had maybe one rotary. As we walked through the town towards the castle, we enjoyed many a friendly greeting from various elderly people who seemed to be the only residents of the town.

We passed through a narrow opening in a stone wall, followed a path through a lovely park along a babbling brook and, of course, a golf course, and then all at once it was there. A hidden, isolated paradise of green. The forest glen amazed me and my brother both, and I cannot really describe how incredible it was to be there without a care in the world, enjoying the country for its beauty after the rocky semester of rainy weather and depersonalized education. We spent the majority of our time in the glen, actually, and when the castle peeked over one of the cliffs it came as a surprise to us.
We finally did venture to the crumbling structure, and we were greeted by two kindred employees and a virtually empty place to explore. And explore we did. The castle amazed me, but the gardens were even better. Flowers of so many shapes and kinds, from rhododendrons to roses to tiny intricate ones I didn’t know the name of. I took many a picture of everything, and I was saddened to leave.
The next day, Brendan and I got up early and finished packing the rest of my room, and I happily left those freshman dorms forever. We headed over to the bus station, running a bit with all of my semester’s worth of luggage, and made our way to Glasgow on an intercity bus. This was my first visit to Glasgow, and it was a strange experience, because we had one goal: make it to the Botanic Gardens to meet our parents, since they were flying into Glasgow from Islay (the isle of Laphroaig). We boarded a bus, thinking that we would just know when we were in the gardens, as they are rather self-explanatory. Luckily, we had asked the driver, and he called out the stop on a seemingly random street, which the gardens were hidden behind. We camped out on a bench with all of our things, only to find that these gardens were the playground of the local boarding school, so my brother and I took turns walking through the greenhouses as the unlucky one stayed behind to watch the bags and get giggled at by much too young schoolgirls and being glared at by much too wealthy schoolboys.

Our parents came at last to the rescue, and we quickly boarded our rental car and headed north, to the lochs!