A village affair

I may have unwittingly started a rumour.

I haven’t yet arrived at the village but I have a feeling the tom toms will be working overtime (and not the GPS variety, either) and smoke signals will be drifting up over the heather.

Hiss! Scarlet woman! Hie thee hither! I fear for the welcome I will receive when I arrive in about 15 minutes time, 20 minutes if I slow down and pull across to let every car behind me overtake.

As I turn the corner and obey the 30mph sign at the edge of the village, all looks quiet. Angry villagers waving fists and demonstrators thrusting banners at my car to advise me in the nicest possible way that it might be better if I stayed elsewhere this year, are nowhere to be seen.

Still – I drive through and decide to postpone the moment of my Grand Re-entry for another hour or so. I tell myself I need to buy an umbrella (how could I not have brought one with me? Was I really so optimistic about the Scottish weather?) and so I drive a further 30 minutes to Pitlochry. The lashing of the rain on my windscreen is unwelcome, it makes me think of lashings of a different kind. And stocks. And stonings.

Past the world’s oldest pub, I swing through the now oh-so-familiar streets of Pitlochry and pull up outside the Golf Shop. It just so happens there’s a sale on and so I get somewhat distracted by trewsers, jerkins, shirts and paisley socks.

“Halloo there,” says the jolly owner. I remember he is a chatty sort of fella, so I am likely to be here for a while and settle in for a cosy chat. A blessing really as it postpones getting to my village just a wee bit longer.

“I know you,” he says, reminding me of where I live when I am here in these parts.

“Ah yes,” I say, wincing a little. He won’t be so friendly next time, I think, not once he knows what the whole of Perthshire thinks I’ve been up to.

“You’re from Sydney! I’ve just had three weeks in Europe, the weather was wonderful.”

I’m not sure about the connection. Sunshine I suppose.

“Ah, you’ll need that,” he says with a hearty laugh as he sees me checking out the brollies. “It hasna stopped raining here for months now.”

After some lengthy technical discussion about the merits of the various umbrellas on display and no, he doesn’t stock rainhats, conversation moves onto the Rugby World Cup. He is pleased as punch that Ireland just beat Australia.

“We love it when anyone beats Australia or New Zealand,” he says, which I suppose is complimentary in a perverse kind of way. I can’t believe I have travelled to the other side of the world to escape two months of persistent consistent rubgy talk and here I am, already caught in patriotic crossfire.

Finally, I can eek out this shopping trip no more and I turn my car back in the direction of the village and without incident arrive, park in my designated spot and within moments Jeanette and I are hopping about, hugging each other, burbling stupid stuff about the grass being green not white this year.

“Leave your luggage! Gordon will get it later! Come in, come in,” and I am led into her kitchen.

“What will we have? Fizz? Tea? Or a wee glass of Edradour?”

I think I better get it off my chest. The Edradour will give me Dutch courage.

We settle on her settle, cuppa in one hand, Edradour in the other, chocolate slab with maltesers in it resting invitingly on a plate.

“I think I may have started a scandal,” I confess.

Jeanette’s eyebrows, ears and head shoot up.

“Oh yes?” she asks.

I launch into my story.

“Well, I stopped at the shop to order my newspapers on the way here. And Bob was standing outside with a postie. I went over to him and said hello and I kissed him on the cheek. Well, that’s what we do in Sydney. I just didn’t think. I mean, it was just an automatic action.

“Bob blushed bright red and began burbling. The postie, who turned out to be Roy’s temporary replacement, made some ho ho ho nod nod wink wink comment.”

“Oh nooo!” Jeanette covers her mouth with glee as she giggles at this scene.

I followed Bob into the shop, which he was just closing (heaven only knows what any watchful neighbours might have thought at this) and I asked Bob how he was, how the weather was, how his wife was.

“That was such a lovely greeting,” he said, still looking rather pink. “Thank you so much, I don’t usually get a kiss."

Then blushing again, as he wrote down my paper order, he said, “I’m so sorry, but what was your name again?”