I spent the spring living in the Scottish Borders and went back this weekend for the Kelso farmer’s market, where you can buy coffee walnut cake, liver, lemon posset, fennel, catnip plants, fish, yellow logs of farmer’s butter, blackcurrants. The little town is overlooked by Floors castle which resembles the old school for the deaf in Edinburgh by the same architect, and like it has a vague air of slightly sinister institution with its gates and neurotically mowed lawns, though unlike many old country piles it has no peculiar stories and characters, no Vita Sackville-West or headless ghosts. The Kelso town hall has a small fishing museum in it( the nearby river tweed is a popular fishing spot, and a salmon breeding ground- the salmon have strong scent based memories of the place they were born and swim back to it to breed , we learned) which was marvellous- full of old tackle and information about Pictish salmon Gods and some strange mannequins “seasoned by the saltiness of time”. I love small, eccentric and niche museums which haven’t been trendily done up to met the status quo of the current time.
I couldn’t tell if these were taxidermied fish or models of fish caught but being a taxidermist of fish would be a messy business.
There was a small art show on at the town hall too- paintings of horses, labradors, tigers and herons. There are a number of antique shops and I impulse bought an old hand painted chamberpot from 1910 as it was a good deal, which may begin a bad obsession for me. I love crockery and chamberpots are crockery of the most wonderfully grotesque sort. They make perfect poetic sense- in comes food on a porcelain dish dish- out it goes too, most likely even carried by the same servants.
this one made me think of the “high art maiden” poster at the kensington v&a. like i could see it being used by a spinster with artistic leanings who would perhaps drape a scrap of william morris cloth over it when it was carried out of her bedroom.
I had never had a Scottish strawberry tart before, and the friends I went to the Kelso market with bought me one from a local bakery- shortcrust pastry filled with whipped cream and topped wit a whole strawberry, pointing upwards like a tongue and covered in strawberry sauce.
While living in the borders I was lucky enough to be around the sculptures of Charlie Poulson, many of which involve trees and evolve as works as the trees grow. When I go see them again, they will look different. my favourite, Skye Boat, has trees growing underneath a large model of a boat. Eventually the trees will grow, surrounding the boat.
the borders are an underrated part of Scotland with hardly any tourists-lush and strange with many hidden pockets of art. I did a trip there a number of years ago to visit the abbey ruins of which there are many- in Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso. The destruction of monasteries during the Scottish reformation is the worst act of cultural vandalism in Scottish history( would like to hear of others! . At the Melrose museum they had chamberpots on display, tiny ones, which the monks would use during very very long masses.
Everything you visit, every museum etc sounds/looks as if it is straight out of your short stories, how is that possible! (I love both the stories and the substacks of visits)
I have so much admiration for your stories, Camilla! You are a nonpareil observer of the sublime + grotesque ❤️