the grey in the city

On the road! shimgray and I left Liverpool yesterday morning, swung through the city through the rain via bakery, and then started going north. This morning we left Edinburgh at the crack of dawn, and now we are on the train curving up the coast towards Aberdeen past rolling vistas of sheep, trees and sandstone, and the North Sea glowing under the sun. I have been to Scotland quite a few times over the last few years, but never in the sun. Everything shines. Everything is ridiculously picturesque. This from the country I visited last August and it rained so much the dye ran from my shoes. But, seriously, seriously: it is all drystone walls and clear blue water and tiny fishing boats rocking in tiny swells.

(The train has just slowed to a stop in Montrose and we can see the tail end of the Highlands with spars of snow standing out like bones. And there are real waves now, and rising spray, and flocks of Arctic terns doing loops and whirls.)

The last stops are some distance from Aberdeen, so we're picking up speed. This is the furthest north I've ever been in my life. Tomorrow morning I will be on a latitude with Bergen in Norway, parts of Greenland and Anchorage, Alaska. The way the landscape peels away, I feel like I'm flying.