There comes a time when too many thoughts, too much analysis, fills your head, and you just have to find a way to get it all out. Squabbling online with various trolls has proven less than satisfactory, so here goes with another personal blog to add to the millions out there.
It won’t be specific. There’s the name Grassick that I’ve occasionally researched, there’s the politics, there’s Scotland, there’s cycling advocacy, there’s the Green Party, and there’s Hibs. But there’s also the European wanderings, whether in Provence or Bremen or Lanzarote, there are the ever-widening family connections from Spain to Norway. How that European identity survives Brexit is one of these political and personal pre-occupations.
For now, my sense of my roots takes me back to Scotland and the ongoing struggle for independence. The photo at the top of this post is the ruin that was once my ancestors’ home. Located just west of Bridge of Brown on the old Tomintoul road. As far as I can tell, they lived there until the Highland Clearances sent my great-great grandfather James Grassick south to Edinburgh in search of work, sometime around 1860.
But this is the 2020s, so most of this blog is about today and the future. What will we, my generation, the baby boomers, be leaving for our kids? We have a hell of a lot to answer for.