From Deb's Desk: A Day With Grant

June 25, 2017 – Today dawned bright and beautiful once again (but rain is in the forecast). I have truly been blessed with good weather this trip, only needing rain gear once for a short time. My plan for today is to spend some time with Grant O’Rourke and his family. Grant was one of my celebrity guests at the last TTS convention, and I am looking forward to seeing him again! He is funny and smart and reminds me of Eric and Greg – especially Greg. He is handsome with a Scottish accent, and because I spent a fair amount of time with him last December, he feels like he could be one of the family and I am looking forward to seeing his hometown through his eyes. Grant wrote to me that he knew I would be seeing the usual tourist spots and he would show me some more obscure Edinburgh sights.

Because we are meeting for lunch there is no need for me to get up early and I stretch out in bed and enjoy this time just a bit longer. Soon I am at the computer checking Facebook and seeing what the rest of my friends and family are doing. Next I check the bus schedules and consult a map to know where to meet Grant. As it turns out, it was very easy to find and soon I was sitting at our meeting place at Usher Hall.

Shortly, I see Grant and his wife and wee man walking down the sidewalk towards me. I am greeted with warm hellos and big hugs and it seems that we have always been friends. His son (who I will not be naming or showing to protect his privacy) and Grant and his wife and I walk a short distance to one of their favorite neighborhood restaurants. I learn it is a favorite and their son has a rewards card there and after enough punches he will receive a prize and we surely must not forget to have it punched today! It was a very nice restaurant, not specifically a kiddie place, and I enjoy a delicious Goat Cheese Salad, Grant’s wife ate Peri Peri Chicken, their son ate cheese pizza, and Grant enjoyed BBQ’d ribs. I comment after he ordered how he must really like ribs because that is what he told Eric he wanted to eat while in the Quad Cities and Eric had made sure to get him to Jimmy’s Rib Haven for real Midwestern Ribs. Grant said that they Jimmy’s ribs were some of the best that he has eaten.

We spend lunch reminiscing some about the convention and the snow storm that followed. I asked Grant to autograph the first page of his speech that he had left on the podium at the convention and he did joking that it really was a shame to deface such a fine piece of literary writing! We talked about his recent visit to New York and Boston and other Outlander events that he has attended and what he has coming up. I asked him if he thought that Outlander had boosted his career prospects and he replied that possibly in the US so he has retained a US agent, but that in the UK, Outlander had not aired on public tv yet and would not until next week. Maybe after it catches on in the UK he will see more job offers and currently is preparing for a one-man play next month. I sure wish he had been doing one while I was here because I would have made it a point to see it.

We talk about our families and what I have currently seen in the area and it is a very pleasant lunch. We enjoy discussing world politics as well as the politics of our own countries. I will not share the details here because I believe that a person’s political opinions are private unless that person chooses to make it public, so I will not elaborate on these comments but it was fun and interesting conversation to compare our likes and differences.

We talked of zombies. Yes, zombies intrigue the six year old at the table and I am even given a demonstration of how zombies look when they walk. He is adorable and I wonder if he has inherited the acting bug from his dad as he is outgoing, a good conversationalist, and did a mean impression of the walking dead.

The wee man and Grant’s wife share a yummy-looking ice cream sundae but I pass on dessert for this meal. Grant said he has thought about where to take me and had decided on a walking tour in some of the old town. We get their meal card punched and walk to our first stop…a graveyard.

Saint Cuthbert’s church and graveyard is just down the way from the restaurant. It is below street level – because much of Edinburgh has been built upon itself over the years – and we descend the stairs to a shadowy, green-filled space with trees towering above all of it. Much of the area and monuments are covered with moss and it is a lovely, quiet place to wander. I take photos of the leaning, some broken, and many unreadable due to age, stones. The work that would have gone into these beautiful stones is a testament to the stonecutter’s skills. Here is a place of quiet and peace and I enjoy walking through this old churchyard and cemetery.

A plaque tells me that Christian worship has been practiced on this spot for the last thirteen centuries. The steeple I saw was built in 1789 and the newest part of the church was built in 1894. The history here is amazing! The plaque also noted that the inventor of logarithms is buried here. Do you know his name? It is John Napier, 1550 - 1617.

We continue our walk and find ourselves next to a children’s play area and the wee man asks if he can play a bit. Of course, we let him and the three adults watch from a park bench as the six year old makes new friends and plays on the equipment with them. Grant tells me that wherever they go, his son makes friends immediately and I believe it as he is a lovely and outgoing child.

We continue our walk and cross an expensive part of town. We see where the prime minister or mayor or something like that - somebody important - lives and continue on over a rock bridge and looks down into a small river. I looked it up later and I think it was the Water of Leith and flows into the sea at the Firth of Forth. It is really more of a large stream and flows in and around and through Edinburgh.

We follow the walkway along the river for a good distance passing through areas of woodland and see a vintage millstone no longer in use as well as a stone well-building that is padlocked shut. In places the water tumbles over large rocks and makes a most pleasant sound. Grant and the wee man sometimes dally behind and sometimes surge ahead. We two ladies wander slowly talking of family and life. She tells me that she went to college near here and this was a popular place for students to hang out. She is a writer and I hope to read some of her work someday and she shared with me the main theme of the novel she is working on. She tells me that she and Grant have known each other most of their lives, having met and attended school together.

The rock-walled pathway and stone, moss covered bridges where the wee man drops rocks into the water, soon leads to a gravel path where we can get down to the water. Of course, the wee man wants to get in and we happily sit down on a big rock to take off his shoes and socks and roll up his jeans. Here he plays happily in the shallow water and we adults simply talk quietly and enjoy each other’s company.

All too soon it is time to leave on as big dark clouds are starting to move in and we start along the path again as Grant and his son skip rocks into the water. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon that at the water’s edge with friends skipping rocks? As we continue down the river path often there is something interesting to take a photo of and I continue to collect photos of statues, and ivy covered trees, and other things that strike my fancy.

We climb to the top of the hill and hail a taxi to take us all back home. We say our good byes in front of my flat and take a few more pictures. I was sad that it all went by soooo fast as good times do! I assure them that when they want to come back to the states that I will have a place for them to stay and personal tour guides! I encourage them to come and explore the west with my family as that is my favorite direction to travel and I would love to show them some wonderful parts of America. So, until we see each other again Grant and family, thank you for your hospitality and many hugs to you!