A young man is inspired by the route taken by the poet Edwin Muir (described in Muir’s ‘Scottish Journey’) nearly a century before from Edinburgh to Orkney to make a broadly similar journey, by motorbike, stopping at many of the same places to consider how modern Scotland differs from the Scotland of the 1930s. I haven’t read Muir’s book and wonder how long he took and how long he stayed in each area. With only 10 days to complete not only the Edinburgh to Orkney leg but also the trip back to Edinburgh, and at the mercy of good old Scottish weather, James McEnaney cannot often afford more than the briefest glimpse of his surroundings as he speeds along. He has also arranged his overnight stops in advance, mostly in the homes of friends or friends of family so he has no easy way to deviate from his itinerary without putting people out. I began to expect a sentence at the end of each chapter along the lines of ‘if only I’d had more time, I’d have liked to spend longer here but I have to get on the road’. Well, yes, I’d have liked that too. The author is first to admit that he is presenting a series of snapshots of the mood of Scotland today.

The first couple of chapters cover his route through the Borders, Dumfries & Galloway and up the coast to Glasgow in rain and snow. A shame that the journey (and the book) should start this way since it means these chapters are a teensy bit dull. Never fear, the weather pick ups from then and he enjoys a stunningly scenic ride up the west coast, along the north coast, over to Orkney, much of it covering ground he has travelled before and it feels a little predictable.

Then, in a departure from Muir’s journey, he motors down the east coast all the way to Edinburgh. This whole east coast is new to him, and it shows. The tone of his observations is different: he stumbles across things he hadn’t expected and his surprise and enthusiasm are infectious (his delight in the Tarlair swimming pool springs to mind in particular). His musings on these final legs of the journey were by far the most enjoyable for me to follow - the precarious nature of Aberdeen’s prosperity, the tentative resurgence of Dundee, the golf course created by a US President Muir could surely not have imagined.

Overall I liked this. It is what it is - one man’s very personal reflections on the Scotland he loves, its past, its present and its future. I came away sharing his sense that the people of Scotland are in a state of anticipation, looking forward to change of some sort and eager to play their part in whatever new Scotland that change might bring about.