This was to be a leisurely day, so we took out time, kept our eyes peeled for eagles and stopped to walk the dog along a pleasant stream. Eventually we came to the small town of Lauder, where Terry Anne popped into a shop to get us some cake for the picnic lunch we would be having later.
She was quite dismayed when she came back to the car. "Bloody Hell," she said. This was unusual for my wife who doesn't generally use such language. "Guess how much I've had to pay for them," she said as she showed me the contents of awhite bag. Now I love a bit of cake, but I'm no expert on the price, so I reckon the two macaroony looking affairs looked like forty pence cakes to me (Remember this was 2001. So I doubled it up and the price came to eighty pence. I didn't want to guess too low because given her tone I thought she must have been charged more than she expected, so I added a good bit on to take the wind out of her sails. "One pound fifty," I said with a smile, knowing that I wouldn't be far away.
"Miles out," she said, "Those two little cakes cost me two pound sixty. It's day light robbery. I nearly said to the girl in the shop," and at this point she switched on a broad Scottish accent, "will you no be having a sale Lassie?"
We both laughed and then carried on to Thirlstane. The castle at Thirlstane is quite magnificent; everything about it oozed with history and we even got to see the room where Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed after giving us English a good hiding at Preston Pans.
Walking around stately homes and Castles is very tiring and Thirlstane was no exception so we were pleased to get back to our car and partake in our picnic which included the two gateaux priced macaroons.Although they were expensive the macaroons turned out to be very nice and it got me thinking about how the Scots love their cake. Shortbread has always been a favourite and one of their cities is even named after a cake (Dundee). It was at this point of my musings that I remembered an incident that happened in the early sixties when I was about ten years old. I was living with may parent at the time in the little village of Seighford in Staffordshire, and was informed that we were going to be visited by Edgar and Irma, a couple of Scots from Edingburgh. Edgar was an ex-soldier that my father had served with in Germany, so it was going to be a grand reunion and they were going to stay over for a the night. This in itself was a major happening because until then, nobody had ever stopped over in our house.
Anyway, the visit went well especially for the landlord of the local pub whose till never stopped ringing. When it came to sleeping arrangemenets there wasn't much room in our council house, so my parents gave up their bed for the visitors and slept on the living room floor. What's more they even got breakfast in bed and I can remember my father coming down stairs with their order.
"They want cake," he said.
"Cake!" my mother replied, for breakfast."
"Yes, it must be a Scottish thing."
And so it was that they both had a quiet chuckle to themselves and I looked on sadly as our Chocolate Swiss roll went up the stairs to be eaten by the two Jocks. Apparently they cut it in half and had it between them, an act that produced even more laughter.
I mentioned earlier that I like cake and it upsets me that some cakes can only be purchased in certain region. In parts of Yorkshire you can buy curdy cake, which is about as close to heaven on a plate as you can get. In the Scottish borders they have the Bannock which is another favourite of mine which is absolutely delicious, but I'll tell you more about that in my next Scottish post.If you would like to find out more about my books please click here.If you would like to see more photos of Scotland or some of our paintings
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