Corinne Crawford
In Gourock I was staying in a room in someone’s apartment. I needed to be a bit frugal in my spending on accommodations. And because I would be there for 5 days, I wanted to be able to fix some basic meals instead of going out to eat all the time. I arrived with a little time to spare before I could check in so I popped into the one laundromat in town thinking I could pass the time doing much needed laundry. I walked in and asked if I could do a wash and dry self service and the man said, yes, but not today. We close in 5 minutes. So instead I grabbed a hamburger at one of the few restaurants in town and then I had a choice on how to get to the apartment. I could walk up a bunch of stairs with my luggage or go the long way around and simply go up a hill. I chose the hill but then still had to do a grip of stairs because the apartment was on the 3rd floor.
The concession was the views out the window of my room. I am pretty sure I was staying in the host’s actual bedroom and he was sleeping on the sofa in another room. He had another roommate in the spare room. I settled into my room, then went to the small grocery store in town to pick up a few things for my stay.
The following day I packed my dirty clothes into my backpack and headed down to the laundromat during their opening hours of 10am to 2pm. They only had 4 washing machines that were all full and 3 dryers so the lady at the counter told me to wait a wee bit, maybe 30 minutes, and then come back. I discovered that the accent is super strong in Scotland and people really do say “wee” a lot. A wee bit, a wee tired, a wee thing. When I returned and put my clothes in the washer, I sat on the one bench to wait for the cycle to finish next to another gentlemen doing the same thing. I got to chatting with him and the woman at the counter and they gave me some good information on the town and area and just regular chit chat. I found out that there is a stone in town called Granny Kempock. It relates back to a legend of a “witch”. It also turns out that the town a wee bit down the road was the hotbed for witch trials including torture and executions of women back in the mid to late 1600s.
After my laundry was done, I found the little set of stairs that took you up to the stone. It is said to be the witch herself turned to stone watching out over the ships but the story kind of wavered between the stone was good for ships or bad for ships. In any event, the stone was not far from my apartment so I took my clean clothes back and then loaded the back pack up again with my work computer and headed to the library to get some work done. There was Wi-Fi at the apartment but no real place to work, no desk, no kitchen or dining room table, so it was a lot easier to go somewhere else. I got to the library at about 12:30pm only to find that the library closes on Wednesdays at 1pm. So I went to the pub a few doors down and asked if they minded if I worked a wee bit. They were not busy at all at that time of the day so they obliged and I worked for several hours before heading back to the apartment yet again to take a nap and then maybe find a light dinner later. I had eaten lunch at the apartment using some of the provisions I had picked up at the store so really only needed a light bite to eat in the evening. I thought I would take a walk along the water for a bit and made my way to a pub about a 25 minute walk away. As I walked to the door of the pub, a sign outside said “kitchen closes at 7pm today, last order at 6:40pm”. It was 7:30pm. So I looked for something quick and simple on my way back and found fried pizza takeaway. It was not as bad as you would think.
