We woke up to a sound like someone wheeling a suitcase up our path. Rain, again. Everything in this town seems never-ending.

One of the magnetizing aspects of Scotland is that it is long-standing, stalwart. Change of the place is rare, if not the streams of students and tourists. At the end of the town, a castle and a cathedral have remained for nearly 800 years, landmarks of the tensions and victories and momentousness of this town.

All this oldness is good for fast-paced me; this resistance to change is refreshing. I feel grounded here. And while it sometimes drives me bonkers that everyone moves slowly on the sidewalks, and that construction persists endlessly, often this stubbornness makes me smile.

There is a single rose in our garden, far too big to contain itself, that has withstood about six rains and still remains pink and yellow and just so fresh. It refuses to fall apart.

I bought a bag of kiwis over a week ago. They have been sitting in a cozy nook next to my cookbooks for more than 8 days, and still, they remain hard and bright green inside. I know this because I’ve cut several open at my curiosity and at my fruit-loving husband’s request. Walker says they are incorrigible kiwis, but I just think they’re Scottish.

Yesterday, Walker lugged a warped (note: old) wooden chair over to the trees along the edge of our garden wall, and I pulled on boots and his sweatshirt. And, we proceeded to pick apples in our own garden. We have about five trees that are just bursting with apples.

The apples seem old-fashioned; for the life of me, I can’t identify them, but they are green with red blush marks, firm and tart and lemony-flavored. I miss soft-fleshed Macintosh’s, but these will do for cooking.  And, baby, cook we will! A cupboard full of apples is simply too tempting.

I want to know who planted these trees; I’m sure it was on old man, so many years ago now because the trees are molded to the shape of our wall. The ‘awesome’ award of the day goes to someone out there who planted about 15 fruit trees along our garden wall: thank you, whoever you are, for digging and encouraging so that we could be grateful it is another season full of yum and crunch.