Last night our BioLogos group chilled at a pub in Kirkwall until close to midnight, when we boarded a really big boat. They call it a ferry, but that may conjure in your mind a small vessel that takes you across a river, like the Bucklebury Ferry that takes hobbits across the Brandywine. This was a very large sea-going vessel for many hundreds of people and quite a few of their cars. And it goes over a hundred miles through the North Sea down to Aberdeen.
Because it was so late and dark, there wasn’t much to see. So after a short bit on the outer deck, I retired to my sleeping pod. That was essentially a Lazy Boy recliner in a special room, which we paid about $15 for, and with the help of 50 mgs of diphenhydramine, I got a few hours of sleep before coming ashore at 7am. Our flights back to London weren’t until later in the afternoon, so we decided to take one more adventure.
We wandered around for a couple of hours, poking into every building and room they’d let us go. The pictures, of course, don’t do justice to the experience of being there. It’s a really long way from the castle down to the sea (which we did on the other side of the castle from the one showing in this picture). And for the second day in a row in Scotland, we had a gorgeous day of sunshine. It became my favorite way to strike up conversation with a local person by saying, “Wow your weather hear is spectacular! Is it always like this?” That gave them the chance to say, “Oh of course, 365 days a year” and then they would laugh.
There was some conversation among us about how the visit to this castle helped my book (and possibly some podcast episodes on a similar topic). And the answer is “probably not a lot in a direct way.” Even though life was drastically different back then, their minds were much the same as ours today. I’m looking for earlier developments.
But in another way, it has been helpful. Going to places like this helps to develop an imagination — and even empathy — for very different circumstances than one’s one. I’m an ardent supporter of that sort of thing, which is so central to a liberal arts education. And of course you can get a good deal of that from books — both histories and novels (and Substack travel logs!). But being in a place like this adds another dimension to that… and it’s really fun. So let’s say this visit was like calisthenics for the imaginative and empathetic journeys back through time I’ll need to take in writing this book.
On the bus ride back to Aberdeen, our traveling fellowship split up. We had different flights to different airports back in London as the other three fly home tomorrow. Their flight was later, so they got off on a different stop to see some more of Aberdeen. I found myself on the upper deck of a double-decker bus, surrounded by strangers, slipping off by myself like Frodo did from his fellowship. I kept watching to see whether Colin would come after me like Sam did Frodo… but no. That is not the way this trip will go. Now the solo phase of my journey begins.
I flew to Gatwick where I have another sleeping pod. It is a hotel right in the airport that caters to solo travelers for a night. The room is about the size of my car (not an exaggeration), but clean and quiet. It has given me the opportunity to imagine the days to come.
Tomorrow I head south.