Corstorphine Abbey

Dear Amy,

Have you ever played the lottery? I did, once on my 18th birthday, and once in my early twenties when I was feeling particularly romantic and also very poor. I (obviously) didn't win. But I think I finally understood why people play week after week.

It's the dreaming. The "What would you do with 28 million dollars?" It's fun. Fun to dream the (near) impossible dream. Sure, it's probably not going to happen, but dreaming is fun, especially when it's the kind of dream that just might happen one day. It probably won't, but it could. And that's exciting.

Jon and I have am (almost) unattainable dream. We talk about it every once in a while - when the AF gets us down, or we get a particular wanderlust, or we just feel like dreaming a little bit. (okay, how many times can I say dream in one post? turn it into a drinking contest, if that's your kind of thing.) Are you ready for this?

Yes. The grass really is that green.

We want to buy that place. Christmastime 2011, we hopped across the pond to London and Edinburgh for a quick European vacation. And whilst in Edinburgh (which, oh my goodness, is particularly amazing) we came across this old, giant abbey for sale. It was about a mile outside of the bustling part of Edinburgh, still inside the city limits, and just as dreamy as you are imagining (drink up). We immediately started thinking about buying the place and what we would do with it once we were the proud new owners.

Now, unfortunately neither of us comes from money. We don't have trust funds floating around. And as I mentioned before, I haven't won the lottery. So buying this beautiful, romantic building, which we have come to call Corstorphine Abbey, is not exactly in the budget right now. BUT, if it was...

We would love to turn the building into a beautiful boutique hotel. Modern, yet reminiscent of a time  when it was, what I can only assume, bustling. Beautiful. And with a wing to ourselves. Us and our kids, two Scottish Wolfhounds, and a cat or two. We'd run the hotel, I wearing the chapeau of the resident event planner, and Jon in the chef's hat. We'd take long walks on the grounds. And we'd pop into Edinburgh for bangers and mash and sticky toffee pudding at our favorite pub.

I'm not joking when I say Corstorphine Abbey is a weekly topic of conversation in our home. What we wouldn't give to live out that big (unrealistic, but oh so fantastic) dream. And as happenstance would have it, Corstorphine Abbey was the topic of conversation Saturday night when Jon found this in his Scotch.

And I made him pose with it.

It was one of those "HA" moments, as Jon was just telling me Corstorphine Abbey was an impossible dream. Fun to think of, but 100% out of our reach. I was trying to convince him that while it is an unlikely dream, it's not 100% out of reach... maybe just 98%. The inside of this little advert said "What dream have you always wanted to fulfill?" So who knows. Maybe Glenfiddich is trying to tell us something...

Do you have a dream like this? A dream that seems frivolous or silly or impossible, but is a favorite source of entertainment and whimsy? I feel like everyone should have something like this. Just to remind us to stay hopeful.

Dreamily yours (bottoms up),
Mallory