The past.

I got my photo of the 400 year old turkey oak, not its very best side because on this day it was standing plumb in front of a cricket screen so I couldn't get too close, but I also got this 'doocot' built by a gloomy evil-tempered laird who really hated his wife. The superstition of the time was that building a dovecot was the fastest way to, euphemistically speaking, 'get rid of' a wife - so he built four!! The wife left to live in a friendly household in the neighbourhood before the curse could take effect.

The laird was hated by his tenancy and many of his neighbours but he left a colourful legacy of tales. Smuggling was one of his favourite hobbies and a local cave in a nearbye bay is still known by his name. The belief was that subterranean passages joined the cave to his house and that he kept contraband there until it was needed. He used the cave to hide his cattle and horses in times of trouble (the '45' for instance) when they might have been comandeered and enlisted by government troops.

The father of this laird also had a fearful reputation, possibly even more fearful as he was reputed to dabble in the Black Arts. He was known as 'the wizard' though he was probably just an clever, learned man, interested in chemistry and mechanics and the contemporary alchemical search for the elixir of life. It was generally supposed that he had sold his soul to the Prince of Darkness.

The past sounds so much more vivid, passionate and romantic tha the present but I suppose it was only thus for the larger-than-life characters who made it so.