“PEACE to grow up. I’ve very nearly grown up now. I have discovered most of the things I can do and the things I can’t. I know the things I like and the things I don’t.”
Alison knitted her brows. “That’s not much good. So do I. The thing to find out is, what you can do best and what you like most. You told me a year ago that that was what you were after. Have you decided?”
“No,” was the glum answer. “I think I have collected the material, so to speak, but I haven’t sorted it out. I was looking to you to help me this summer in the Canonry,* and now you’re bolting to Italy or somewhere.”
“Not Italy, my dear. A spot called Unnutz in the Tirol. You’re not very good at geography.”
“Mayn’t I come too?”
“No, you mayn’t. You’d simply loath it. A landscape like a picture postcard.”*
The Canonry is an area of southwest Scotland in the district of Carrick, just north of Galloway, and nowadays part of South Ayrshire.
The Unnutz is a vertiginous mountain ridge in Tyrol, Austria, popular with hikers and snowshoe walkers; see photos at Unsplash; it was all quite unlike the quiet lochs and heather of Jaikie’s beloved Galloway, and it would also prove to be a lot more fast-paced than Alison imagined.