Like many Scotsmen, or perhaps
it's just chaps in general, Alistair doesn't see the point in getting new
things when he already has a whatever-it-is that is perfectly serviceable. Sound reasoning.
So when we found ourselves
standing on the dock waiting for the ferry to Iona, it was the coldest November
on record full of the slate-grey stair-rod rain which usually welcomes folk to
Scotland, Alistair squelched off and
reappeared in a second-hand full-length Driza-Bone, towering above the crowds
like a jackaroo in exile. He was giddy
with the thrill of purchase. "It's
an amazing coat, look these straps go round your legs for riding and if it
snows it just slides off this cape thingy.
And the best thing…" he fished about in the ridiculously huge
pocket. Out came a half-bottle of peaty,
okay Oban single malt, whose smoky scent will forever take me back to that
squally day of tilting ferry, ferrous skies and above all, the kind of easy
rolling laughter that dances on the edge of everything when you are happy and
let loose on a bottle of whisky early in the morning.
Alistair’s phone dates from the
last century, just. He has tried to
teach us to be proud of sentiment and frugality. So, a tape keeps the battery in place and he never
gets a signal anywhere. It has almost a
decade's worth of photos on it and every morning he clicks the noisy buttons to
read the newspapers online. He says,
"This is all I need, look at this, I'm reading newspapers across the world
from bed.”
This week, after a long trip, in Edinburgh,
in a taxi, the phone fell out of a hole which had inexplicably appeared in “The
Coat” pocket. It was returned, hurrah
for honest cab drivers, to Alistair, but had been sat on by a passenger and may
be beyond repair. He is inconsolable.
I've just put a bottle of Oban on order.
safe weekend 0✗0✗ツ
