Edinburgh Elephant House Adventure

The entrance to Elephant House, a cafe just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the birthplace of the Harry Potter books.

J.K. Rowling inspires me.

I knew she was all right when evangelicals began trying to ban her books in American libraries.

When her wealth began to rival that of the Queen of England, she became the hero of all writers.

The crowd inside the Elephant House. Table 10, Rowling's favorite, is frequently reserved.

We no longer have to apologize for spending long hours in solitude, or for fits of relative poverty. The cost-benefit analysis of our souls has been permanently silenced.

Edinburgh, Scotland is vividly Rowling’s inspiration. The Medieval roots of witchcraft, British class stratification, and the value of experiential education play themselves out daily in this landscape of castles, old trade streets, and universities.

Yours Truly and my friend budding Hungarian writer and translator Bence Molnar.

As the staff will share with you, Rowling never intended on renewing the writer’s relationship to the cafe. Elephant House was the only public place in Edinburgh she could keep her infant daughter from crying.

Children's drawings of elephants near the cafe counter.

Trophy cases in the cafe are arrayed with elephants: cut of onyx, carved of wood, stuffed with cotton. The music in the cafe is typically smooth jazz or bright, classical piano work.

Fan art, scribbled on napkins or bits of paper by children, is posted on a wall with Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling notices just to the left.

The picture windows at the back catch the south east side of Edinburgh Castle. You can also catch a sliver of Greyfriar’s Kirk graveyard.

Settling In at Strathyre's Rosebank House

The entrance to Rosebank House in Strathyre, Scotland

Strathyre’s Rosebank House proprietress Mal Dingle is picking me up in nearby Callander.

She’s 5’8” and hearty, gray hair elegantly fringing her face, delivering the anticipated accent without theatricality or irony.

Will she give into it? After decades of familiarity with Scotland? After leaving for art school in London, finding love and fortune and returning to funnel her life into B and B work mode?

Yours Truly and Mal Dingle

The abbreviated definite articles and the word “wee” emerge from her with sincerity. Her love of Scotland and for looking after people is genuine. She txts me twice as my bus approaches it’s destination. When I disembark, she wants to know how I am “getting on.”

“It is so beautiful up here,” I say, “I can’t stop smiling.”

A view of the River Balvag from Rosebank House

I do not intend to come to Scotland. My international invitations for 2011 include an artist’s colony and English-only dude ranch in Japan, some gay-owned B and Bs in Germany, and a sober, vegan commune off the coast of Vancouver.

Somehow, a guy from the Scottish travel board and a college classmate prevail upon me. Mal invites me to stay in the Forest Suite while her sister, my Facebook friend, is also visiting. The last pieces of the journey come together as I am boarding my flight from SFO.

The banks of the River Balvag

It’s an unusually sunny two weeks. No one can remember the weather being this clear for so long. “Did you bring it with you?” Mal asks.

It is probably a good thing the Scots can only count on a few hours of cloudbreak a day: the sun is brighter up here.

The clarity of the sun, the intense light, generates, to my eye, greater color and detail. I tromp through gorse and under budding rowan in the sun. In the shade, my open hands brush against ferns, mosses, lichens, and mushrooms. My eyes are fully dialated: I’m tripping on nature.

The garden behind Rosebank House in Strathyre

Across from Rosebank, cyclists tour and walkers stroll either side of the River Balvag. Mal’s Mountain Room overlooks both paths.

The Rose Room, Garden Room, and Forest Room (where I am booked) look onto a garden of red azaela and other bedding plants. There is a cast iron picnic area for socializing and a quaint log cabin for solitude.

(above top to bottom)

The spacious Forest Suite, huge key fobs won't get lost while you recreate, a view of the village from the bathroom skylight.

In inclement hours, guests can get close to the elements from the comfort of a glassed in gazebo on the second floor. Alternatively, Rosebankers can tipple a few in the comfy lounge fully distracted by DVDs, television, wi-fi, books, or games.

This weekend, I have the pleasure of meeting two of Mal’s first customers. Roger comes back frequently. It is typical for him to bring three of his pals from Yorkshire. William liked his inital stay at Rosebank so much, he basically moved in, so Mal always has at least one paying guest, like a lucky charm.

There can be a “wee” bit of confusion in the marketplace. Mal reports of at least five B&Bs named Rosebank House here in Scotland. This is the only Rosebank in Strathyre, however, and certainly the only one where Mal’s touch is evident.

The global hugback can be felt in pages of the guest book. I note visitors from South Africa, Florida, The Netherlands, and Japan on a single page. And daily guests from the U.K. are about mingling in the garden, the lounge, or at the breakfast table.

Vegan haggis: not an oxymoron!

My days at Rosebank begin with a breakfast of vegan haggis, toast, juice, fried mushrooms and tomatoes. If the weather holds, I plan a hike up a Munro, Corbett, or a Graham. When it rains, Mal approaches me with suggestions for indoor activity day trips. Perth for shopping, Stirling for history.

My nights are filled with games of Skat, quiet reading, and coffee-fueled chats. Mal says many of their guests become familiar friends. I look forward to my return as one of that number.

Yours Truly in the garden at Rosebank House