S C O T L A N D : D A Y   1 5

SEPTEMBER 2 (Saturday) -- Glasgow

The next morning, Gin continued a little tradition she had somehow begun, which earned her a permanent place in my good book: She left a cold can of Coke at my door so that I could have my usual healthy breakfast of caffeine and sugar. She and Bill were to travel north by train that day, back to the northeast and Cummings (Comyn) country.

Beth and Ann and I wound up taking a bus tour of Glasgow, which turned out to be a good way to get to know the city before deciding what places to spend more time in. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to spend more time anywhere, so we contented ourselves with dropping off our copious quantities of film and doing some last-minute gift shopping in the drizzle that had begun falling on the city.

Perhaps we were all tired and ready to go home, but we finally chose to simply relax for the rest of the day. Rather than wander the wet streets of Glasgow, we elected to pick up our film and spend the remainder of the afternoon in Ann and Beth's room dividing among ourselves the copies of the pictures Beth had taken over the course of thirteen rolls of film. This felt to me like just the right way for our journey to end. For one thing, it helped us to fix in our minds the events of a very busy two weeks. For another (and more important) thing, it let us spend some final hours with one another, just enjoying each other's company before leaving Scotland and returning to our mundane lives back home.

That night the chilly rain kept the lads from singing. I slept well.