Familiar animals

My brother, his wife and my adorable two nieces, Emma and Anja, have arrived in Scotland. They form part of an apparent tsunami of South Africans with young kids who've come to see whether the grass is in fact greener on this side of the ocean. So far, they have not been disappointed.

The first week was spent in shell shock due to the cold climate and being squeezed into our humble Kelty abode. Another shock is how little their South African rands are worth, sjym, we look at something costing £7 and say 'That's cheap!' and their internal calculators go whizzz...brrrr...times14...THAT'S BLOODY EXPENSIVE! Maybe Christmas is not the best time of year to emigrate, but I think they've noticed and will never do it again.

The kids adore the parks. In Aberdour, which has a state-of-the-art kid's playpark, Emma declared it to be the best park ever, and they did not want to leave. Until we walked around the stunning Loch Ore and they discovered the playpark there, with a foefie slide! Anja declared that Scottish parks are much better than South Africa's - hear-hear!

No snow yet, but a round trip through the Cairngorm Mountains and Speyside made up for the disappointment. I love watching their reactions when seeing the fantastic scenery for the first time: the view of the bridges over the Firth of Forth; the sight of Edinburgh from the tiny road above Burntisland; the achingly green fields of Fife and, of course, the mountains.
Returning from our trip, my brother said: Do you realise we've seen half of Scotland in one day? Yep, so much to see in such a small space.

BEFORE

AFTER

Friends in Fife

I have been living in Fife now since March 2007, and I am still bowled over by the incredible friendliness of our neighbours and fellow Fifers. The first thing I noticed when we arrived here is that people actually greet you: in the shops, on your way to work, the postman as he delivers letters. In England I got used to being greeted by a middle finger on the road, or the most you got from fellow travellers on the trains/tube was an angry scowl or shove if you did something out of the ordinary. Initially I was a bit suspicious of this general goodwill - what's wrong with these people? Are they trying to sell me something or convert me to something? - but I've since come to accept this as just another good reason for living in Scotland.

As this news will bring a warm glow to the hearts and minds of my dear readers, I've decided to add just two more stories to remind of you of the extreme niceness of this place:

Story 1:
I arrived home on Monday to find two Christmas cards from different sets of neighbours, both welcoming us into the neighbourhood, and to have a happy Christmas.

Story 2:
The guy who sold us our new car phoned this morning to tell us he will drop off the extra set of keys at our place this afternoon.

A warm welcome, indeed.

The weather

How you experience the weather here in Scotland depends on your point of view.

This time of year, the sun (the wha'??!!!) rises at 8am and it looks like this:


It sets at 4pm, and looks like this:



So yes, all ye who warned of the darkness and bad BAD Scottish weather, it is dark, often. And wet, and cold. Seriously cold. I rush from the heat of our house straight into the car, which needs a few minutes' worth of idling in order to warm up. This time is used to scrape the frost from the windscreen. At work I rush into the warm classroom, where I'll stay most of the day.
If it is a sunny day (ha-ha!), the air is crisp and stark with cold. If it's raining, there isn't much to see and the day is wrapped in a gloomy blanket.
Therefore, if my preference had been for hot, endless days filled to the brim with sunshine and salad, then no, this weather would suck.

Luckily I love stew and soup. And snuggling, lots of it, under a tartan blankie next to a cosy fire with a book.

New beginnings

We are now inhabitants of Kelty. What an interesting place.

Heh-heh, sniggered the guitarist. Locals look down on Kelty and you do the smart thing and buy a house there. One day you'll have the last laugh.

The pub has a nasty reputation, my hairdresser adds politely. But it's a big mix of people living there now.

Kelty? exclaims the secretary. My husband refuses to live there. What's wrong with an old mining village? I grew up in one meself!

So what if we live in the black sheep of villages? We like it, and we have a great new hoose. Kelty is situated right next to the highway and with rising prices in Edinburgh, it's become a popular commuter town.

It's right in the middle of beautiful rural Fife:


The last say goes to Marge, our neighbour.
Kelty used to be lovely little place, she snorts, except for all these ootsiders comin in, yoos ken.
Sorry, says my husband politely.
Not yoos, she adds disgustingly, ootsiders from Dunfermline!
Which is the big town 5 minutes away.

Aboot the boot: Rugby World Cup 2007

Confession time: we don't watch rugby, cricket, or golf.
We don't have a tv, and just cannae be bothered...except this year. We are bothered.

Go Springboks!

I am mostly kept informed by my colleagues, in retrospect, of developments in these sporting multiverses. It usually goes like this:
I arrive at school in the morning and bump into Colleague 1.
'Hê-hê, we trashed the Boks fair last night,' he says, poking me conspiratorially in the ribs.
'Eh,' I respond.
'What did you think of the game last night?' asks Colleague 2 excitedly in front of the pigeon holes.
'Er, what game?' I reply tentatively.
At which an onimous silence descends over the entire staffroom, the copier stops working and the sports coach chokes on his coffee.
John, my head of department, gallantly comes to the rescue.
'Cricket. Scotland beat South Africa in the Super Minus 13?'

They are too nice ever to say anything, but my lack of involvement in these games (especially as a South African who represents limitless bantering potential) is a huge disappointment.

But this Saturday, we will have something in common: we will unite and cheer wildly for the mighty Springboks!

Scotland How-to: Money

Money can be confusing.







This guide should help prospective spenders heading for Scotland to get an inkling of what Scots currency looks like, and what you can do with it on a rainy morning.

These are the coins and they are actually worth something. The heavier the coin, the more it is worth, so you'll immediately feel that £2 will get you a few yards further than 50p.*
*£ = pound; p = pennies, or p's (pronounced 'pees', as in 'pee-pee')

All of the above coins will enable you to purchase

a large cappuccino from Costa Coffees.

I think you could squeeze in a croissant.
(Clearly, I need to do some research here.)




The next note of worth is the fiver.

With five pounds you can breathe a little more freely, and buy

two of you favourite magazines!
(Yours, not mine - I'm trying to appeal to a wider audience here.)








And then there is the twenty pound note (see image above), purple and proud. You can splurge out on several toasted sandwiches, an Americano and a copy of The Times to prolong the experience. And enjoy stories like Hologram Tam's banknote scam

Icons

A blog's look is vv important. The more blogs I read, the more selfconscious I become and explode into a flurry of changes. Faithful followers of my blog will attest to this (sorry).

After having discovered how to post pictures in the sidebar, a depression of the highest order descended. I needed an icon to summarise, in one elegant swoop, what I the blog is all about. I chose a rondavel.

WHY?!

It's a play of words, you see. My maiden name is 'Davel' and rond means 'round' (which is by no means a reference to my morphology), and should allude in a quasi-existential, neo-metaphysical way to the completeness of things, the circle of life and cake tins.

But a rondavel is something quintessentially African, and that is me.

What is the national icon for Scotland? It's not a rugby ball, neither is it a bloodthirsty highlander in the form of Mel Gibson, but it is the thistle. Humble, thorny, enduring and edible.

...just like most Scots.