This week’s restaurant has been on my to-do list for about three years now, not least because it sounded so intriguing. Home in Dumfries offers a tasting menu with puzzling dish names such as “messy mozzarella”, “steak and lasagne” and “cheese and potato”, which read a bit as if a child had written out the courses for a pretend dinner party, though online reviews and photographs of the food suggest that the place is actually rather fancy, as well as much loved.
Still, it was sidelined in my rush to the shiny, new, big-city openings of Glasgow or Edinburgh. Or Aberdeen or Inverness or, well, anywhere apart from Dumfries. This Scottish town of 30,000 is not terribly far from England, so it tends to fly under the radar for both tourists and fellow Scots, who perhaps feel it’s “not Scottish enough”, which is is flagrant nonsense. Circa 1605, James I of England and VI of Scotland, ever the optimist, decreed that the vast border area taking in the likes of Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire and Northumberland, should be called the Middle Shires. This new, inclusive, touchy-feely name for the Borders would reflect the cosy unity between the two countries he planned to usher in during the 17th century. Scotland? England? Who cares? Lines on maps wouldn’t matter – we could all come together as one! The big, soft sod.
