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.

Off sick

So, how does it work when you're sick in Scotland?
Amazingly, if you're working in the public sector you don't need a doctor's letter for the first three days, and you are allowed to write your own sickie note for the next 4 days. Therefore you can be off work for 7 days before your boss requires an official letter from the doctor. 7 days!!

I say amazing, because the system seems to place a lot of trust in people. In South Africa you have two days of grace, and then you must produce a medical certificate. This has had the knock-on effect of creating a huge market for false certificates: just add the illness.

Recently, while getting my papers from the doctor, I asked how difficult it would be to bribe him for a certificate. He shared some funny requests he's had from patients coming to see him after more than 7 days off the job with trivial complaints like headache and runny nose, demanding a sick note. He assures me that although he takes all complaints very seriously (and he does, bless him!), he is not allowed to write a med cert in restrospect. Another case was a woman who worked two jobs at the same time, and one unfortunate day her shifts were going to clash. So she promptly asked the doctor to write a quick note to kindly help her out of the fix. He declined, of course, but still considers that one of his more memorable stories.

Compare this with my mother-in-law who, in South Africa, manages a large number of personnel. She received a call the other day, that went something like this:
Wife of employee: 'Good morning, I'm afraid my husband is unable to come to work today.'
Mum-in-law: 'Thank you for calling, is everything okay?'
Wife: 'No, he is not fine - he has a demon and cannot work.'
Mum-in-law: 'A what??!!' (Sure she must have heard wrong)
Wife: 'A demon. Very bad, very bad.'
Mum-in-law: 'I'm very sorry to hear about the demon, but your husband still need to get a sick certificate from the doctor...'

I have to remember to share this with my doctor when we next meet!