Drumming Up The Past (Giants in the Forest 5.3)

Drum Castle is the first home of the Giants in which I spend as much time wandering around the location as I do communing with the Grand Heads. It might be the effort of the cycle (only an hour, but I have learnt something about my levels of fitness), or the attraction of being in a place that looks like it has seen a fair slice of history.

It's more likely that I am charmed by the discovery of a secret room. The romance of a hidden chamber gets my sentimental view of the past, and the possibility that it has its own guarderobe appeals to my grubby sense of humour. 

I am greeted by Laura Paterson, my contact and a senior assistant for the National Trust. We have a lovely cup of tea in the old kitchen (The National Trust are good at hospitality, as I noticed when my mother insisted no summer holiday was complete with a visit to a stately home), and Laura talked with enthusiasm about the impact of the Giants. The full interview will be online soon - including my typical radio voice and shout outs to The Vile Arts - but the impression is that Drum Castle is a centre for all sorts of intriguing projects.

The Giants have been evolving thanks to the ministrations of local groups - not just children - and when Laura guides me along the path to the Might Three, the evidence surrounds us. An artist has been weaving - the wonderful recursive shape that makes up shells and spiral galaxies is very much in evidence - and there are a selection of wood and wool works that are part obscure ritual objects and part playtime fun with craft.

The most striking feature is that these Giants are not in a circle, or a glade, but on a lineal path and are ripe for being the final point of a procession. Laura confides in me some of the details for the Dark Wood event, and I won't spoil them - except to say they piqued my anticipation for an awesome event.

And when I say awesome, I am not being gnarly, dude. Drum Castle is opening me up to the old school idea of awe. The sense of scale hinted at by the Giants is matched by the beauty of the location, and the history contained in the house. I am starting to understand why I am on this trail, and what the Giants might be hinting at, what stories they bring and how their locations embody a certain mystery...

Frankly, the NTS website can do a better job of explaining the castle's history than I can. I shall admit that the possibility of hiring it for a wedding did make me wonder whether my unmarried state was fortuitous, as now I know where I want my marriage to happen, and I might have come across rather childishly to the helpful museum guide when I started banging on about the iconography of Greek Gods on a reproduction of a porcelain tray (it's a blue willow style copy of a tray cast in metal by a Roman emperor)...

I was quietly reverential when I read about the history of the family who had once owned the estate, before bequeathing it to the trust. For all my egalitarianism and wild eyed anarchism, I am fascinated by the apth of the aristocratic families, who have been involved in wars and great events and all added to the history of the country.

Still seeking, still excited, I unlock my bike and ease on down the road back towards Aberdeen.

Giants in the Forest Chapter 5.2: Getting to Drum

The idea for this post was to follow the map route, courtesy of Google, and describe the road from Aberdeen to Drum Castle.

It took me a while to find the right road out of the city - I don't like cycling in urban areas, mainly because I worry about jumping traffic lights or turning up into one way streets. I try to orientate myself by checking the number of pubs along the side of the road, although once I get onto the A93, it is all too easy. Although there is enough traffic to remind me that I am not in the wilds - and the odd truck to blow me into the pavement - it is surprisingly safe.


View Larger Map

I alternate between rather pleasant streaks of housing and more undeveloped patches of land. A closed hotel intrigues me enough for a tiny detour, and I coast up to the boarded-up entrance. There's a poster for a Circus on the window, Zippo's, which I have seen in Glasgow. I like the routines with the budgies the best.

Back when I was teaching at St Aloysius, I considered writing a response to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that would be about Jesuit philosophy and bicycle rides. At the time, I though that the pedal bike was a more suitable vehicle for spiritual contemplation than the petrol-driven fiend. The latter might have more of a rock'n'roll edge, all very American and fast: a push bike struck me as more British, more environmentally friendly, very 'vicars arriving at evensong.' I think I can see a few wind farms in the distance. Or was that from the train, where they excited comment, both positive and negative?

I flick between gears to listen to the rotating repetition of the chain against the cogs. It all seems fine. I couldn't ever work out a good title - Zen being so cool and concise, words like 'desolation' or 'consolation' felt too vague. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Art of Riding a Bicycle Around The Western Isles seemed both verbose and pretentious.

There's a warm breeze moving east to west. I duck my head down to prevent it blowing me into the traffic and hug the curb. It's a pleasure to be on a road that hasn't been pot-holed by frost. Verbose and pretentious might be a good description of me, but I wanted people to read it, not laugh and walk away.

Like jesting Pilate... I think that comparison can be left, thank you... truth, if you must know, is a gentle ride to a castle on a sunny day. Drum Castle is a real castle, too - started off in the 1200s, when there was a chance that knights might turn up and start a siege. And after seeing the Giants in Edinburgh, I am looking forward to meeting this new set - the first ones who are in a location that conjures up chivalry and those windows in the shape of crosses that you can shoot bows and arrows through.

There's what appears to be a large Garden Centre on my right - and beyond, one of those special brown signposts. This took less time than the map suggested. I swing into the final stretch, and jump off the bike to walk into the Estate.

Giants in the Forest (Chapter 5.1): To The North!

Please, someone, rescue me. The Fringe is rising like a river approaching flood: I can hear the crunch of ruined relationships and broken, temporary trysts beneath my feet when I enter the bar. Red Bastard told me what my problem is, Boris and Sergey made me laugh even in the jaws of hell and yet, and yet...

I'd like to say that it was dark when I set out, my bike not quite fully fixed and the chain still clunking whenever I change out of bottom gear. This is dawn for me, although the sun is up and woke me before my alarm. It's six-thirty and the hottest July I can remember. After the gentle trip around the Borders, and the ironic problems I had getting back from Edinburgh, I am hitting the part of my Giant Quest that excites, and worries, me most.

The Aberdeen train is so early, but will get me into the north before the working day begins. Being the go-getting, dynamic blogger, I fall asleep as soon as it leaves Queen Street station. Given the length of the journey, it's a mouldy old train, the stock more ancient than that which plies the line between the twin capitals. No internet connection, and I feel justified in sleeping off the three hours.

When I wake up, it is as if the line has narrowed and the forest is surrounding us.

The next time, I looking over an abyss that is green and glistens with sunlight.

There are real hills here, the ones that climbers get aroused by and tramp up and down and tick off of their extended lists.

The reflection of the hills and trees in the water is the sort of thing that would make a good photograph, if only my reflection on on the window was not so jarring.

I wake up to a text from a beautiful woman. It is half past eight. We are entering the city, the Granite city.

I take it slowly, wheeling my bike into the town and onto the High Street. Locking up, I oil the chain again, wipe it clean with a yellow cloth which then stains my yellow water-proof. I am self-conscious, that I look like a tourist. I try to destroy this impression by going into Oxfam and buying a book about Matthew Bourne. I figure that the sort of person who buys a thick paperback is not going to be seen as a day-tripper.

The huge pannier I have to lug into the shop does not help.

The tourist information point is helpful: they give me a map of the road out to Drum Castle. I realise that the trip will be all on the main artery across the top of the country. I never break free of the settlements, the commuter villages of Aberdeen. Aside from my disappointment at not getting big swathes of open countryside to sigh and swoon over, I'm intrigued by the way that Aberdeen has a different model of urban sprawl to Glasgow. While the West Coast Wonder incorporated all the settlements within its mass, Aberdeen is more like a series of outposts, with short passages of countryside between them. No need for the parks that are the lungs of The Dear Green Place...

It's brief, but sudden: a tremendous sense of love for this country. Not in any nationalistic sense, or even patriotic. I enjoy the grandeur of Aberdeen's city centre: on a sunny day like this, the granite winks and glimmers. As I make my way towards Drum Castle, my bike chain settles and I feel more at home when I am on the road.

Discuss.