Scone With The Wind

We have now reached the north coast on our motorhome tour of Scotland. The scenery here is wild and rugged, with sheer cliff faces where you peer down on powerful spraying waves crashing aggressively on to craggy, inaccessible rocky stacks.

The views are spectacular, looking directly across the foaming sea to the Orkney Isles – a barren and forbidding landscape dotted with abandoned crofters’ cottages. To the west is Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British Isles mainland.

And yet, our coastal walk soon brought us to a gentle cove, with a sandy beach where the seabirds fed and the seals lolloped playfully in the shallows. Nature at its wildest and best.

A constant is the steady onshore wind. It is this which gives its name to a little tea shop we came across. Scone With The Wind is no more than a wooden summerhouse in a local garden, where those brave souls hiking the coast can help themselves to homemade scones, tea and jam.

They are baked by the owner who lives in the house nearby. All that is asked in return is that you put a cash donation in an honesty box.

If you wish, you can sit down at one of the tables and enjoy the coastal view while you eat. The table cloths, china and napkins I think are a very civilised touch.

On the day of our visit, the flavours were Plain (Well Fired) and Cheese & Herb. We took ours away (having made our donation) and ate them later, spread with butter alongside a cup of tea, on a picnic between motorhome stopovers.

The owner also makes available any leftover one-day-old scones without any request for a donation. Callers are merely asked to Pay It Forward i.e. carry out a similar act of kindness to someone else in turn.

Now there’s a concept that could potentially reshape the world economy: what if we just decided to replace money with random acts of kindness to others as payment in commercial transactions?

Makes you think – and it all starts with a Scottish homemade scone.

We’ve been playing a lot of Scottish artists and bands over Android Auto as we drive along in the motorhome, especially as DAB radio doesn’t seem to have reached the Highlands yet. Here’s a track that goes well with the rugged landscapes we’ve been travelling through, featuring Stuart Adamson’s unmistakable bagpipe-guitar sound. Big Country with In a Big Country.