Appliance Travails

John has caught his first Scottish cold. He was really dragging on Tuesday when he came off the bus, and after our trip to the beach, fell asleep during dinnertime. On Wednesday, he woke up with a wet cough and a runny nose, so David phoned the school to say he would be staying home. He made a miraculous recovery mid-day, however, and we didn’t need to make a trip to the doctor after all. I attribute his turnaround to the medicine I found for him at the grocery store—not because he took any, but because he can now read labels, and this one said, “Mentholated bronchial balsam of menthol, squill tincture, and liquorice liquid extract for chesty cough.” Neither of us knows what squill tincture is, but we now know that just the thought of ingesting it can work wonders against a troublesome cough!

Since John was home, both David and I worked from home as well, which is a nice luxury. Our

house in St. Andrews is lovely, and

we are all quite comfortable here. We’re in a new neighborhood just a bit out of town, and we have plenty of space both inside and out. We have four bedrooms and two and a half baths, a sizeable kitchen and family room, and a “sun trap”—a name which is mostly wishful thinking on their part. Our house does suffer from one thing, however: European-style appliances. The first problem with these appliances is their size. The refrigerator in our kitchen is incredibly small…exactly the same size as the refrigerators that are sold every fall in the United States for use in a dorm room, and are made to the exact specifications and dimensions of two cases of beer. In our case, however, this is supposed to hold enough food for a family of four.

Once we put in a carton of milk and a quantity of yogurt that will sustain John for two days, it’s pretty much full. This means that we need to ask ourselves at the grocery store, before purchasing anything, “Is this refrigerator worthy?” If not, we need to consider how sick we might become if we choose to purchase it but leave it out on the counter for a period of time before it’s consumed. So, bread is a definite yes, butter is a maybe, and (breaking with Scottish tradition) eggs are a definite no.

The washing machine is similarly wee. I have always admired the European approach to clothing, which is to own fewer clothes, and to embrace the art of accessorizing to disguise the fact that one is wearing the same thing every day. I now know that this approach is not born of a superior sense of fashion but out of necessity—one cannot wash more than 3-4 articles of clothing at a time here, and each load takes about 3-4 times longer than it does in the States. I have no idea why this is, since the machines themselves are about the same size as ours, and the clothes don’t come out any better as a result of the extra time that went into cleaning them.

The second problem is related to the electrical outlets in the UK. Aside from the different shape of the plugs, the outlets are different in that each of them has its own on-off switch. At first, I liked this, because it seemed much safer to me to turn off the outlet, plug something in, then turn it back on. However, this grew annoying after a few turns with the vacuum (plug in, walk across the room, switch on vacuum, think “What the heck is the matter with this…oh…”, walk back across the room to turn on the outlet, then back to the vacuum…) or waking up to an uncharged computer after a night of having it plugged in to an outlet that hasn’t been turned on. The woman who owns our house has helpfully labeled all the outlets as well, because even the refrigerator and freezer have an on/off switch. Thankfully, our kids are too old to be consumed with electrical outlets, because I would love to know how one would go about baby-proofing an on/off switch to a refrigerator!

The third problem is just our lack of understanding how to use the bloody things! Our “hob” is pretty straight-forward, and has four gas burners, which I love. Our “cooker” (an oven to you and me!) is not as nice, and though there are two of them, stacked one on top of the other, I can’t figure out how to use either one. Last night for dinner, I “assembled” a roast of beef and a package of veg I found at the store: carrot, potato (of course!), leek and swede. The recipe called for 20g of butter, 50g of flour and a liter of stock, so I kind of just guessed and threw it all together. I don’t think they sell canned or boxed stock or broth here (or at least I can’t find it if they do) but I did find these strange little packets at the grocery store which resemble the jelly that one finds stacked up at a breakfast restaurant, but that are packed with a quivery beef-stock-like substance. Apparently, if one dilutes them in a measure of water, one can fashion a beef-stock-like substance out of them. So I threw some of that in as well. The whole mess looked incredibly disgusting, so I stuck it in the “cooker” hoping that it would turn into something edible. Forty-five minutes later, I carefully opened the cooker door, and though the red light on the outside was illuminated and the fan was going inside, it was still stone cold. I checked the outlet, and that was thankfully on, so David came over and just started pressing buttons. After a moment, it seemed to get a bit warmer, so we went with it. Another forty-five minutes later, it was nice and roasty, though still incredibly disgusting. My plan tonight is to give in to the kids’ demands for tacos…and to use the gas hob this time!