It's just going to be a shortish blog this time because I have this inexplicable urge to write something, yet I can thing of nothing too exciting to write it on. So I thought I'd revisit last Saturday's unfortunate visit to the Glenkinchie distillery, and my observations of local life on the journey.
Glenkinchie is the nearest distillery to Edinburgh, and Glenkinchie is famously called the Edinburgh malt. It's also one of only three lowland whiskys still in production, the other two being Bladnoch and Auchentoshan if you're interested. Me and Jon had planned on going to a distillery for a while, so going on this mutually free Saturday was a good shout. To cut a long story short, the place was shut. Nobody knew why, not even the barman at the pub in nearby Pencaitland, so naturally we were disappointed. There was an open backdoor we could have sneaked through, but whisky makers are particularly serious when it comes to trespassers due to the highly secretive nature of their product. We had to make do with the lovely malty aroma coming from that entrance.
Anyhow, what struck me as interesting was how different life seemed to feel out in the East Lothian countryside. I've never had much interest in going there; it looks gloomy and isolated even in the best of weathers, and it happened to be shite that day. However, what I found refreshing was the kind and helpful nature of the people there. We met an elderly lady on the bus who let us know which stop was ours and told the driver for us. She also advised us on where to find a taxi to finish the journey from Pencaitland to Glenkinchie as she felt it was a long way for us to walk. Furthermore, when we couldn't get a taxi and just started walking there, a car stopped over and the couple who were in it offered us a lift. It was really nice of these people to help us out, as we never asked any of them for help; they just gave it to us. Although my formerly rural life in Fife wasn't especially filled with people like this, there were the occasional standouts which lent an air of familiarity to East Lothian I haven't experienced since my move to exclusively urban surroundings.
Anyhow, I'm back in the city again. There are no doubt many helpful kind people here in Edinburgh, but you just wouldn't know it. Most people are too stressed out by their own lives to really care about others. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm a champion of generosity and caring in the heartless city. It's just the way it is in the big towns. Here we have all the corporations, banks, universities i.e. busy stressful places to be. We may be in a densely populated area, but there's too many individual things going on for people to hold eachother's attention. You have to find community exclusively amongst your friends and family. Out there in the sparsely populated countryside, most people seem to get to know each other very well.
I'm not championing community here. I never much thought about it before. However the friendly nature of the local Pencaitlanders and Glenkinchie-ers contrasted with what I'm used to, so I thought I'd bring it up. And it seems like I've rambled on long enough to have a fair sized post after all. Sorry about that, I know you wanted a quick read and I didn't give you one.
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