EPILOGUE - One Month Later

The summer has been very busy since returning from my huge adventure to Wales. Only a day after my return I went to a music festival (Kelburn Garden Party, a lovely little festival on the West Coast of Scotland) which was a change to see friends and spend some fun time with my Sophie whom I’d missed a lot whilst being away for so long. My mum kindly babysat so we got to let our hair down and enjoy some time together.

The next weeks included a holiday to Devon, a friends wedding and a concert by jazz legend Herbie Hancock who managed to raise the roof in an electrifying performance at the age of 85. Soph, my mum and I went with my dad’s friend Stuart Gale and his wife Sara - Stuart had been the one to get me into jazz when he took my dad and I to see Dr. John play in Glasgow many years ago.

I also visited the house my dad grew up in - 9 Beckwith Road, Herne Hill, which looks much the same today (outside at least) as it did then.

I had the most time to think of Dad however, these last few days whilst on the island of Arran, which is why I wanted to write this epilogue.

I was last taken to Arran with my family when I was only 3 years old, and although I don't remember much of it, I’ve been told about it many times. My dad took me up Goatfell on July 28th 1989, a considerable climb for a 3 year old, but I made it to the top - I assume that I probably kicked up a huge fuss about such a long walk but if so the details were spared from me. I can be so precise about the date for an unusual reason - when we reached the top we found a group of people holding a commemorative service - it turns or it was exactly the 100th anniversary of the famous Goatfell murder case - of course my dad was already familiar with the case, being a lover of grizzly true crime! A small group were holding a vigil there to remember Edward Robert Rose who was bludgeoned with rocks and buried just off the summit, triggering one of the most controversial legal trials in history.

33 years later I took my wee family up Goatfell - it was 7 year old Isabelle’s highest mountain to date and she also managed it, albeit with a few tantrums along the way! Thankfully there were no corpses to be seen, and the weather was uncharacteristically tropical for Western Scotland.

The next day we went to Lochranza on the North coast of the island, one of my dad’s favourite spots there. He’d been many times with my brother and sister before I was born, and they all cycled around the island and camped there. It made me very happy to be passing on my dad's legacy to Isabelle - his love of the great outdoors and the simple pleasures in life, so easily forgotten in today's world, but always there when you look for them.

Looking back at my Welsh adventure I now see what its done for me - by taking the time to immerse myself in my dad's world its brought me closer to him, and made me appreciate him all the more. I still miss him a lot, possibly even more than before but it doesn't have the edge that it did. Grief at losing him so young has given way to happy memories and appreciation for the time that I had with him. He was a truly lovely and unique man and I fell incredibly grateful to have had the childhood that he gave me, and very happy to be able to pass on some of his spirit of adventure to my own family.

I think that's probably why I wanted to do the Welsh challenge - it was a way of reaching out into the abyss and trying to make sense of it all. When it's all said and done I probably know just as little of life’s eternal mysteries as I did before, but that doesn't matter. At least I feel better able to move on with my own life and I know that whatever happens my dad will always be a part of that in some way, even if it's just when I laugh imagining him commenting on whatever I'm up to now.

We were supposed to stay for a week in Arran, but there was a gas leak in our cottage and we were forced to evacuate. As there weren’t a single other cottage or even hotel room free on the whole islands during this, a week in prime high season, we were forced to come back early. Just shows you can't predict life but then again that's what makes it so interesting, and all the more reason to make the most of what you have right now.