Wind and ruins

Our 2023 Easter sojourn to Scotland took us to the Borders.  100% British mainland in 2023; not so much as a single island.  That alone made the trip different from our usual Easter excursions to Scotland's islands.

April 2, 2023--Anglo-Saxon Christian crypt, St. Cuthbert's, Bamburgh 

Mainland are cities--with larger attendant populations and broader, deeper economies.  A push is perceptible on the mainland that is not usually felt in the islands.  Call it the daily bustle.  Being on the clock.

April 2, 2023--Sundial, St. Cuthbert's, Bamburgh

An analogy is the distinction in the windward "feel" from Scottish island heights facing the uninterrupted north Atlantic fetch versus the breezes and eddies felt in a Scottish glen.  

[See Wideford Hill, Orkney 2022 comments:  https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/05/wideford-leaning-wind.html.]  

This push is almost tidal.  It underlies rural Borders, its villages and towns.  Early morning, the Borders drain toward urban Scotland (principally Edinburgh); late afternoon the Borders refill.  Midday, between these surges,"High Street" in the towns is noticeably less busy, perhaps unfortunately so.

April 1, 2023--Berwick from Elizabethen Castlegate bridge 

Economically, distant commuting can be counterproductive.  Especially so in rural outlying regions, in Scotland as well as here in Idaho County.  For much of the eastern Borders, groceries are gotten in the city of Berwick, about half an hour's drive.  The northern Borders, the same applies to Edinburgh.  And Carlisle for the western Borders.

April 4, 2023--Melrose Abby ruin; pink sandstone

So, we noted differences, whether great or small, in our 2023 trip to the Borders.  We focused on "medieval" rather than "neolithic" or "iron age" as has been the case with our earlier excursions to the islands.  Being mostly medieval, the historical sites we visited on the mainland were more immediate, closer in time to us, and thus less puzzling than, for example, the neolithic constructions on Orkney.  Better said, the Borders are written and readable on history's pages.

April 4, 2023--Melrose Abby ruin

 

A commonality exists in all of these sites, island or mainland.  That is one of ruins.  Hopefully it is not emblematic of our own society today, but the dominant condition of the historical sites is one of abandonment and decay.  True in the Borders for castles and churches alike.  True in the islands as well.  It is a doleful commentary upon our own condition.  The kings died, their power dismantled.  So too Christians, their altars forgotten.

Our Easter sojourn in 2023 gave us much to reflect upon.  Salient questions are:  "Does Christianity still live?  Or is it only a ruin?"  We will address this in followup posts.

April 3, 2023--St. Cuthbert's Church at Bamburgh