How to scare a wellie – take it to Bervie
Another day, another journey. This time on foot, with a couple of very pleasant companions – Victoria, who has come all the way from Shetland to grab a piece of reflected glory from my presence, and Ruth, who is up from this Edinburgh place which is my final destination (I probably got the world tour idea wrong, but who knows).
Anyway, what secrets I learned about these two! Sadly, what goes on tour stays on tour, as some of my rugby boot mates have told me, so I can’t, unless hopelessly overcompensated, pass these tales on.
The walk was good, though, from the Stonehaven place down along the coast to Inverbervie. Nobody calls it Inverbervie, though. We have to say Bervie to pretend that we’re locals
(mind you, have you seen the locals?). High point for the female companions was a sign saying ‘Kinghornie’. This, for some reason, caused great merriment. There’s a picture somewhere of me with the sign and a telegraph pole coming out of my top.Scariest moment, though, was right at the end. We went to this weird thing called the Hercules Linton memorial statue. Jeezo! Hercules Linton was born in Bervie (note the casual use of the local name) and designed a big ship called the Cutty Sark.
This statue is a replica of the figurehead of the ship. There’s another photo of us all there, but let me picture the scene for you - the statue is this very dodgy, slightly manic-looking woman who definitely would benefit from wrapping up a little warmer from the Aberdeenshire squalls. She has a bicycle tyre round her neck, which may or may not be a feature suggested by the original designer. I rather liked it, juxtaposing as it does two forms of transport very neatly in one exposition. Bottom line, though, the whole thing is a tad scary.Nobody wrote on me today, though, which was nice.
