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12-27-2007 Jim Atwell You know Anne's enthusiasm for all things Scottish; she takes her family heritage very seriously. Last May we trekked all over Scotland's eastern highlands, treading on flagstones her forebears had trod, climbing stairways they had scaled, even peering in windows of the crumbling stone cottage where Great-Great- Great-Grandfather Geddes had sheltered both his family and his sheep against the drifting snow and North Sea winds. Well, to honor Anne's devotion to her family (and especially to honor her,) I took a wildly romantic step she would have never foreseen. I bought her an estate in Scotland. When next we travel over there, Anne and I will visit the Scottish property she now well and truly owns. I already can picture us standing on her new estate. Though not simultaneously, since the holding is just over one square foot. But never mind! It's Scottish soil, and it's Anne's in perpetuity! For several reasons, the plot's not exactly prime real estate. Besides modest dimensions, it's also located in Scotland's remotest part, the far northwest, just inland from the Hebrides Islands. The brochure calls the area "wild and unspoiled," which I take to mean "uninhabited and uninhabitable." Way up there in the back of beyond, some canny Scot has set side four hundred acres of scrubland, fenced it, and begun selling it off in one-squarefoot plots. Now, consider: A single acre contains 43,560 square feet. Multiply that, please, times 400. Why, that Scotsman must sit by his evening fireside, rubbing palms together and cackling over the gold that's going to roll in. He's had certain painful expenses, this entrepreneur. There was all that fencing to pay for, and then the surveyor to lay out the grid and a solicitor to write up the deeds. Advertising required a fancy brochure, and that called for a really creative writer. He found one. Whoever put together that brochure deserves a British national prize, perhaps the "W H Smith Thumping Good Read Award." Try on the following passage for bland obfuscation: "The Kincavel Estate itself (the fenced 400 acres) is just a few hundred yards from a secluded golden sandy beach - visitors at certain times of the year may find they have it all to themselves. (I'm guessing all winter, for sure.) On a nice day (there were several in recent years) the estate is the perfect place for a picnic as there are spectacular views in every direction ..." Of course the views are spectacular; there's nothing taller than a windblown shrub to block them. The brochure writer has the Kincavel owner inviting us warmly to visit Anne's estate, and provides a map for finding it. But he also cautions us not to expect tourist amenities among the fences of Kincavel; i.e., no places to eat, no places to stay. (They'd take up a lot of saleable square feet.) But again, never mind! We're talking romance here, not reality. Anne and I shall visit, find her holdings, and stand proudly there embracing one another, she from on her property, I from just over the border. By terms of the contract of sale, incidentally, Anne's estate and those surrounding it must remain forever "wild and unspoiled." She cannot, for instance, build upon her land - though I can't imagine what could be erected, beyond a barber pole. (I guess one could be buried there, albeit vertically.) Now, more creative salesmanship: In ages past, of course, all Scottish estates belonged to rich nobility. Each landowner carried the title of "Laird," and was so addressed by those who, like Anne's sheep-raising forebears, rented from them. The papers accompanying the deed to Anne's estate assure her firmly that, since she is now a landowner, the honorific is now hers to use; or, if she prefers it to Laird, she may be addressed as Lady. In fact, the deed itself is made out to "Lady Anne Geddes-Atwell." That title, mind you, on top of her already being "The Honorable" as a member of the Town of Otsego Council. It makes one's head swim! My secret hope is that, when we visit Anne's Scottish estate, we find it covered with blossoming heather, border to border. Wouldn't that be romantic, Anne bringing home to Fly Creek a bouquet of her very own dried flowers? But my private dread is that Anne's estate will be completely underneath a big gorse bush. Gorse sinks its roots deep into sandy, otherwise barren soil, and it produces a scraggly, spreading bush eventually about five feet tall. True, it does sport tiny yellow flowers. But an interloper gorse could block Anne from stepping onto her own bit of Scotland. Gorse is best known for needle-like thorns that not only stab, but snap off. The painful, festering result is not romantic. I think I'll set that possibility aside. I'll picture instead my own Lady Anne on her estate, bending to pick sweetscented heather, then straightening to slip a fragrant sprig of it in my lapel. That gesture will inspire yet another long embrace and leisured kiss across the border. If you're going to fantasize, do it right. Read about Jim Atwell's new book, "From Fly Creek - Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at JimAtwell. com. |
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