Last Bus @ New Pitsligo



A year or so back a pal suggested that New Pitsligo, a village in Aberdeenshire, might be host to Scotland’s most northern vegan café. I was of course sceptical about the claim. I mean, the notion that a settlement in rural Aberdeenshire could even contemplate such a thing as veganism seemed at the very least misguided. New Pitsligo after all is a place famed mainly for its curtain twitchers.

The vegan café claim led to quite a few visits to the place. An actor pal from Edinburgh once accompanied me and on subsequent visits both Janice and son Ben were suitably amazed. On another occasion Scottish film star Jake Williams was ensconced prior to a village hall performance of a RightLines play entitled something like ‘From These Parts’. Jake, as I recall, was then showing anyone who would look at it a cutting from the Telegraph regaling his starring performance in the Ben Rivers Bogancloth Treehouse arthouse production of the film ‘Two Years at sea’. Bogancloth is of course one of the UK’s most sought after AirBnB locations. Sited some 13ft above ground level, the venue boasts a shabby interior and dry composting toilet at ground level plus a strapline advising guests to bring their own sheets for a mere £17 per night.

An interview for an article about that vegan cafe, indeed for a series of lucrative articles with that vegan café owner, was eventually arranged. The intention was of course to record the trip to China of Scotland’s first bus from Pitsligo to Beijing.  A TV follow-up was discussed and some press coverage was arranged at a cost of a good few pounds.
Then, nothing happened. Except that an e-mail was received breaking off all contact and including the comment “I have no idea why I even contemplated getting involved in this venture – or something similar.
I last met the Last Bus vegan chef at Pitfour but avoided eye-contact just in case of an infection of that negativity of purpose which had evidently infected him and his mores. And, of course, he failed to recognise the chaos which he had landed me with.
That’s vegans for you I suppose. Best avoided by a mile in my regal opinion.
With suitable apologies to the likes of the Healy family. They are, of course, good vegans.

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