I say Aberdeen, Scotland, because there are quite a few places with that name around the world. Those homesick Scots got everywhere! The original California is a wee village near Falkirk.
Anyway, I had only been to visit Aberdeen on the north east coast of Scotland once before, and it was chucking it down with rain that time, so to me that granite city which Aberdonians are so proud of looked dreich and depressing. From a distance grey granite looks just like breeze blocks.
Last Saturday we found ourselves making our way there again, for a historic football match. Dumbarton had made it to the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup, the first time since 1979 when Jack couldn’t get there as we were living in Essex at the time.
It was a lovely day and as I would just about rather chew a wasp than go to a football match I just had a walk along the beach which is just a stone’s throw from the city centre.
Aberdeen is an amazingly bustling and busy port, with ships and ferries coming and going all the time and a lot of ships tied up in the harbour. They keep saying that the oil industry isn’t doing so well nowadays but from the amount of action around Aberdeen it seems to be picking up well. In fact I know for a fact that small workshops specialising in precision engineering around Fife are being run off their feet with the amount of work which is coming their way from the oil industry.
Despite the fact that I had done my homework and looked up the locations of secondhand bookshops in Aberdeen I decided against checking them out while Jack was at the match. I must admit that my sense of direction is so bad that I was a bit worried about being getting lost!
So I spent my time in Aberdeen just reading and having a walk along the beach, which has beautiful sand and some interesting stones!
Next time we go up in that direction we’re going to visit the Grassic Gibbon Centre which is about 25 miles south of Aberdeen. It was shut by the time we made our way back home.
Oh and if you’re interested Dumbarton lost 1-0. They had some very bad luck, I know because I ended up inadvertently seeing the highlights on the TV.