Thursday 5 October 2023
When we first moved to Scottish Borders in mid-November last year, we only once drove in the dark and only a few times at dusk. We didn’t know the roads particularly well, there was a lot of rain and a lot of flooding and, worst of all, a lot of ice, which lingered by the sides of the road for weeks. We were also convinced that there would be a constant stream of animals running across the road in front of us. Also, I hadn’t overcome my fear of darkness, specifically non-urban environments. Yesterday, I drove home from dusk into darkness and it was completely fine. In some ways, being able to see headlights of cars coming towards you (not that there are many) makes it easier anyway. But also, I stopped feeling nervous or apprehensive about darkness in the same way. I had never lived somewhere without streetlights and an array of neighbours nearby. I have also realised that whatever it was I was scared of – actually, I do know, it’s films/programmes I saw when I was young where bad things happen in forests and in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, before we moved here, I was worried about people. I am well aware that sounds ridiculous. Within days of moving out here, I realised that this is not the kind of area where people wander at night and that it would be far scarier for someone who didn’t know this environment to wander around in darkness than it would be for us to deal with them. I don’t know what I watched on TV as a child that set me down this night-is-scary path but I do have a memory of coming downstairs one night while my mum was still up and watching some kind of suspense/thriller/crime programme and I went into the room around the same time as some hideous axe murder type thing in a cabin in the woods. I remember running upstairs and being absolutely terrified and clambering into my bed before being too scared to move for ages. It’s the Jaws effect; one bad impression, seen as a child, and that’s it. I am less keen on overcoming my shark-attack paranoia but I’m glad I have been able to settle and enjoy living here without the kind of irrational fear I was worried I might have about darkness.
Yesterday, the rain held off long enough for me to have a walk on my way to Selkirk to pick up my friends Luke and Hugo (staying with a friend in Melrose). Then it rained and rained, as forecast, but fortunately not enough for the road to flood and to not be able to have lunch at the house with Luke and Hugo and get them back to Melrose and me back home without a massive detour. I also had time to buy some cakes and biscuits from the bakery in Selkirk. I love buying cakes and biscuits in Scottish bakeries, there’s a good selection and a lot are no-nonsense, really good and definitely homemade rather than mass produced.
Today is forecast to be 10-14°C with an excess of rain, meaning my friend Lindsay will be arriving to spectacularly bad weather this afternoon/evening. Were she staying with us in Lewisham, it would be 13-19°C and cloudy with a hint of sunshine. Sunrise here was 07:22 and sunset is at 18:39. In Lewisham, 07:07 and 18:29. So it’s now darker for longer in the morning here, but an extra ten minutes before the sun sets.
Apparently, the worst of the weather will be from around 11:00 this morning so I’m going to go for a short walk now. It looks very unwelcoming outside, low cloud, grey and wet. It won’t be a long walk.