@pfooti · 2026-06-30 · travel

June 28th and 29th: in which a basket is made.

In the car, if I see a cow, I'm the kind of person who moos at it. Not at every cow, of course - I'm not a serial killer. There's some kind of internal pressure that builds up with the moo wanting to escape, and then the next cow seen past some threshold it just bursts forth. I kind of wonder if I ever will go long enough without seeing a cow if I just will spontaneously moo for no reason. Maybe that's where hiccups come from.

Our willow baskets being constructed, in two three-hour sessions. Boy are my thumbs tired.

The bulk of our last two days was learning how to weave with willow rods. We made some simple creel baskets - historically they would have been quite a bit larger and carried by fishwives to display their wares. Our teacher, Anna, has been doing willow weaving for about 18 years. She had prepped the round outer forms already (they take some time to dry out), and walked us through the phases of weaving that pattern (lashing on the central two ribs, then cutting and inserting the outer ribs later, filling in, making the handle, and finishing off the basket).

I was excited to learn a new thing as usual (I try to channel curiosity as much as I can, it's my favorite thing about me, if I'm being honest), but I was a little surprised how intensely interested in the process I got right away. The design we were weaving helped a lot there - it was forgiving enough that I could cleanly make something that looks like a basket, all the while noting the mistakes and mixups that made me want to make a second one. I also started to get ideas about embellishments - extra short rows or more wrap arounds or braids that could add texture to the weave. This may end up being a Whole Thing when I get back to California, although maybe with a different medium. It is possible, but not easy, to get willow rods in California. Maybe I should stick with grasses.

This was a failed bird feeder that ended up looking kind of blair-witchey, so I hid it in the garden as a surprise for whoever comes next.

The hall where we had the lessons was the Bellfield Community Center. The remarkable thing about it is: there's a new-ish law in Scotland about places like churches and such- when they get sold, the community gets a right of first offer (over private developers who would turn it into a condo), and that community center was the first one to be purchased under that law. It had been a church, and now it is an inviting and connected community space. I love this, we need more things like it.

Dinner the first night was mall Thai, we were exhausted. The second night, though, we went to Tattu at the suggestion of my brothers friends sister. It was rad- they had three tiers of tasting menu in a modern upscale Asian vibe. There were several set-piece dry ice things going on with cocktails and desserts, but the food was delicious, the ambient music and conversations were muted enough (by beautiful fake cherry blossom boughs along the ceiling) that we could have a conversation with the other people we had dinner with.

The non-blair-witchy spiral weave bird feeder.

Yes, reader, that’s right: we went to dinner with three other folks from the tour group, kind of on our own. I was able to have a dinner conversation with three semi-strangers, on purpose, without being awkward or embarrassing myself. I even asked around to see who wanted to go do dinner with us. I feel like I'm really growing as a person.

In the Musselburgh museum, a case full of display relics we see an old store ledger, an eight track tape, and a bread roll done up in the shape of the Musselburgh town crest (there are, unsurprisingly, mussels on the crest). This dinner roll is fifty years old, and the docent tells me it's the best preserved of the rolls they have from that era.

Next up, we ride up to Aberdeen and hop on a ferry to Shetland.

Conversation happens inside — sign in to Overstory to read and write comments.