An east coast thing
I was in Inverurie for work with the next couple of days free. Obviously the Cairngorms were calling, but first a meander inland to climb Morven, an outlier on the cusp of the great agricultural patchwork of Aberdeenshire. If Lord of the Rings had been filmed in Scotland, this landscape would have doubled nicely as the Shire, a rich quilting of forest and farmland, hills and winding valleys, slow-flowing rivers, twisting roads and sudden, pretty towns hidden in the folds, sleepy today in the bright heat of August. It's not an area I know well, but it is distinct with a strong identity and sense of itself, one Scotland of many, something of a political enigma too. Around here it's Doric, not Gaelic, I was reminded the night before. This is the north but not the Highlands; the lowlands but not the central belt. Back in the Middle Ages, when the Lord of the Isles was a major force, west coast vs. east coast was a shooting war. Agriculture is the bedrock here and in the 19th centu