A small window of opportunity arose to take a break from current stresses, and so you could say I fled to the hills. My goal to visit a spa that had been on the wishlist for years and enjoy a facial massage and a few hours in the hot tub. Well, actuality was an hour in the hot tub, because there were too many literary distractions in Aberfeldy, Perthshire.

The braes ascend like lofty wa’s,

The foamy stream deep-roaring fa’s,

O’erhung wi’ fragrant spreadings shaws,

The Birks of Aberfeldy

The Birks of Aberfeldy (3rd stanza) – Robert Burns

5 minutes from Moness resort is the entrance to the Birks of Aberfeldy walk with its gorge, the waterfalls and the giant birch trees (the birks), that were the inspiration for Burns’s poem. The walk is a 3 km circuit, rising and falling 150 m over its course. It takes approximately 1.5-2 hours to complete (depending on how many photographic stops you make). I was advised that the more experienced to go left at the bridge at the start of the walk. (Go right and you climb straight uphill to the top, go left and the ascent is a gradual one.)

So left it was. 10 minutes in, whom did I meet? The bard himself in deep contemplation.

Another half-hour, full of giant trees and waterfalls, and we arrive at the actual place where Burns composed his poem.

Spring of 2024 is late in coming, but it is on its way. There is some greenery at the bottom of the gorge but the contrast with colour palette at the top was noticeable.

Spring will properly spring …. eventually! In the meantime, with the sky typically clouding over, why don’t we seek refuge from the coming downpour in the Aberfeldy Watermill Bookshop, Gallery and Café, opened by Michael Palin in 2005, and voted UK Best Independent Bookshop in 2009.

I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.

Tahereh Mafi

It’s a lovely, cosy and quirky bookshop. Lots of nooks and crannies with a cafe in the basement for replenishing energy after a walk / gathering energy for a book browse and assessment of the stock. As always my first pass through the fiction section – count the number of translated German titles. Total 3, (1 Jenny Erpenbeck, 1 Hans Fallada, 1 Carsten Henn), so a bit scarce. However, I don’t suppose German fiction is high on the priority list for holiday makers touring the Scottish Highlands. So there was an abundance of Scottishness: national and local history, geography, tales and legend, crime and contemporary fiction. Kids have a room all to themselves, where there is a charming selection of illustrated Scottish tales and legends.

But the stock is not exclusively Scottish. There is plenty of choice. The non-fiction room is as big, if not bigger than the fiction section. There is also a small but well curated selection of stationery and other bookish gifts for holidaymakers to take back for the bookworms in their lives. Or (cough) for bookworms to take home for themselves ….