John had a rugby tournament at home on Sunday morning, and he was especially excited because he finally had “kit” for the game and looked the part of a rugby player. He was ready to go by 8:30 am though the tournament didn’t start until 11. At 10, he and I headed over to the rugby fields, which are right in front of the Old Course Hotel. They are in a beautiful spot, but their location right on the ocean ensures that it’s about 10 degrees cooler on the sidelines of the pitch than pretty much anywhere else in St. Andrews. While John warmed up with his team, I did the same on the sidelines by doing the cha-cha back and forth and nodding at all the things that the other parents were saying, hoping that it looked as if I understood any of it (though I did have a breakthrough when I comprehended a woman saying in a strong Scottish accent to her child who was asking for a snack, “Da said your meal was sorted, then”…a sentence I definitely wouldn’t have picked up even a few weeks ago.)
John’s tournament included three teams, all of which played each other twice, so it took up the better part of two very cold hours. For me, at least. John enjoys every minute of rugby and has made some good friends with some of the kids on his team, most of whom have long hair and names like Fergus and Findlay. He loves that they all tease him about being American and having never seen a rugby match—even his coach (whose first name is Hendrik!) refers to him as Bob (“we call all Americans “Bob” in rugby,” he says). Despite his inexperience, though, he’s doing pretty well. Over the course of the day’s tournament, he had five “trys” (which is what they call scores or goals in rugby…forcing parents to shout out to kids who have just dropped the ball, “Nice attempt…”), though the first two were called back because he was carrying the ball with only one hand (the QB tuck-and-run from American football stuck with him, I guess), which is against the rules until a player is 12. The second time he did it, Coach Hendrik really gave it to him (a little excessively, I thought, but then a mother always does…) so he hung his head for a few plays and kind of checked out of the game. He recovered a bit later, though, and came back for three more trys towards the end of the tournament. We caught it all on tape (a mother always does…!) but the highlight film is about 20 minutes long, so definitely not post-able.
David and Emma had left the game a bit earlier to catch the church service and took the car with them, so John and I walked through town after the game. On our way to church, I asked if he wanted to stop for a juice, so we ducked into a little breakfast place where we ordered our first sausage rolls. I also got a “white coffee” which turned out to be a cross between coffee with cream in it and a latte. The sausage rolls were, predictably, delicious, though a piece of salty meat wrapped in flaky dough can’t really ever be anything but delicious, I suppose. We ran into one of John’s football mates in the shop who was carrying a big shopping bag. He came over and showed John the contents, which seemed to be mostly school supplies that he had just bought next door with his mother, and then asked a question that was completely indecipherable. I was shocked when John, who obviously had no problem figuring out what he said, answered him, and they had a two minute conversation—of which I only understood half. It made me realize that, of all of us, John seems to be the one to take to Scottish life the most easily, and also made me wonder, since he’s only seven, how much of this experience will stay with him. I know that I don’t remember much about being seven years old, but I also never had an experience like this, so perhaps this trip is significant enough to make a lasting impression on him. As long as he remembers to carry the football with only one hand when we go back to the States in the fall, of course!
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