How We Spent Our Summer Solstice

This year, Summer Solstice (June 21) landed on a Saturday...and we were in St Andrews for it. What better place to be at the height of summer? The sun sets around 11 p.m., but leaves a wonderful glow on the horizon, until it comes up again by 4 or 4:30 in the morning. A number of times during our visit, I awoke around 4:30 a.m. and looked out the window to see people walking down the street as if it were already 8:00 in the morning. I mean, where do you go at 4:30 in the morning? The pubs close by 1:00 a.m. and nothing opens until who knows when.

OK, so on the Summer Solstice, we went to the pub where the elusive offspring works as a "bar man." Over here, we call them "bartender." In old western movies, they used to call them "bar keep." I just call him "Thomas." My favorite husband calls him "Mr. President." Ok, bad joke (but that's what H would say when EO was a baby, and people would ask "what do you call him, Tom or Tommy or Thomas"). Back to the story. My son's friends are delightful, all 45 of them. Every time we'd see any of them in town, they would invite us to join them, or they would come join us. When the pub closed on this fine Summer Solstice night at 1:00 in the morning, and my son had to stay behind to help clean up, his friends urged us to come along with them to the sand under the castle ruins and EO could catch up with us later. There on the sand, they built a bonfire (two competing bonfires, actually) and sat around playing guitars and singing and drinking beer and whisky. I was very glad for the fire, because it was cold. But the cold didn't stop two girls from stripping down to their underwear and jumping into the 50-degree water -- what's that in celsius, 9 or 10 degrees? They didn't stay in the water very long, and luckily there was that warm fire waiting for them. Not to be outdone, a guy did the same thing...I was more than a little worried about him because he was quite drunk already and I was afraid he'd fall on the rocks. Fortunately, no one got hurt.

I sat on a cold hard rock with Alice and thought that this tradition of making a bonfire and welcoming the sun on the summer solstice must be hundreds of years old. And St Andrews students have done it, year after year, for decades, centuries. St Andrews University was founded around 1410...and St Andrews castle was built a couple hundred years before that! 800 years ago.

I managed to take a photo of what it looks like at the darkest point of the longest day of the year in St Andrews, Scotland. You have to stand really still for the camera to capture. Even so, this does not really capture it. The smell of the bonfire, the sound of the ocean, the singing, the cold air, the little bit of wind blowing across the sand. What an appropriate way to celebrate Summer Solstice in the land of the druids.



A little post-script: H and I left around 3 or 3:30 a.m., leaving EO to sing with his friends. Most everyone else left around 5:30 a.m., after the sun was well up. EO crashed at a friend's flat and we didn't see him until around 11 a.m. The impressive thing was that everyone brought plastic bags to carry out all the beer and whisky bottles and trash. And later on in the day, all that was left was ash from the bonfires mixed into the sand. This must be why no one ever complains about these little bonfire events.