A late bus saw me rambling down down a dirt path on my last day in Scotland. One moment I was counting stones along the way, and the next I was standing in the ruins of a 15th century castle. No explanation, no placard. Entirely unexpected, it stood on a rise overlooking a glen of old growth forest, as it had for hundresd of years and as it would for hundreds more, long after I was dead.
It is so easy to step sideways out of time in Scotland that I’m convinced that the whole of the country is magic, the worlds worn so thin that anyone could reach a hand out and brush the veil keeping them apart.
Even Edinburgh, grey stone lady that she is, has her magic. Walking her ancient streets it seems as if one misstep, one single stray though, will send me slipping through the Door and into a new world…
Or perhaps an old one.
Chelsey Cook 