Overheard on the bus...

This week has been a string of blazingly sunny day, though it has been quite cold for Scotland this time of year (about 42 degrees F…I know, boo hoo, right?) and very windy. Of course, since I heard that Hamilton received so much snow on Monday that sidewalks are now closely resembling tunnels, I feel as if I don’t really have the right to complain about the weather. Also, since the sun is coming up at a reasonable time at last, I can finally go for a run before the kids get up and out for school. When I leave the house, it’s always a bit frosty, but since there are very few cars out on the road at 7:00 am (and most importantly, very few pensioners out walking their dog on the Lade Braes at that time in the morning!) it’s a great time to run.

On Monday, when I got back, I saw by email that Colgate was opening late due to an overnight snowfall of 18 inches, so figured that no one would be on email for part of the day and headed into town with David to run some errands. John has worn away most of his sneakers and needed a new pair, and so I bought those, then went to the public library to exchange a few books. I found several, and with the shoes, had way too much to carry home to walk. So, I decided to take the bus, which I haven’t yet had to do, since we have a car here. I was a wee bit early for the bus, so had the opportunity to stand at the stop for a few minutes, and overhear the following conversation between two older people: one man and one woman.

“Hiya, then, whaur’s the missis?”

“Ah, she sent me to toon for ah wee tick o tea when she run oot o it.”

“Right, then, we, en, I ha’ an eetchy hand and went tae get a creem at the droogest.”

“Well, ya owen moonee then ta a body. That’s what an eetchy hand means, ya kin.”

“No, no, I'm not owing anybody...my rents all paid. I’m just givin out the money for to get bay, right?”

“Jings that’s troo...that winna dae at a!”

“Well, it’s a wee bit wendy today, eh? Did ye no’ bring a jumpa wi ye’? Ye no fancy goin’ oot in thes wend witout the proper claes!”

Et cetera. Et cera. Right, then….

Anyway, shopping in St. Andrews is quite fun, I must admit. Because of the students and the golf tourists, the town is a bit more cosmopolitan than the average small Scottish town, and the shop owners have adjusted their merchandise accordingly. The butcher, for example, sells a fair bit of haggis, of course, but also carries a good selection of mortadella for the Continental kids. And the cheese shop has Isle of Mull cheddar alongside the French chevre. There’s a fabulous Italian grocery store on Bell Street that stocks various bottles of truffle oil and bags of dried squid ink fettucine. Even the drugstores stock bars of Toblerone next to all the Cadbury next to the till! There are a few cashmere/shortbread/golf paraphernalia/kilt shops that cater to the tourists in town, but for the most part, one can spend a good part of the morning going from quaint shop to shop, and at least in part feeling as if one is in a much larger European city.

This morning, David and Franny McCabe were set to arrive at the Edinburgh airport. My David is a better driver than I am here, especially on narrow roads, but I’m better with directions, so we decided that I would be the one to go since the road involved lots of major roads that were confusing, but roomier than those in St. Andrews. I was a bit nervous about the trip because it involved driving over the Forth Road Bridge, a huge suspension bridge that crosses the Firth of Forth into Edinburgh, and I’m not a big fan of bridges in general. The good news, however, is that that drive cured me of my fear, because my newfound fear of the multi-lane roundabout (of which there are several between St. Andrews and Edinburgh) is so acute that bridges will bother me no longer from here on out!

Since I went, David was responsible for getting the kids out the door and to the school bus on his own, and when I returned from the airport with the McCabes, he said that the morning went well. Apparently, they spent a good part of it watching the hiphopopotamus vs. rhymenoceros Flight of the Concords video on YouTube, and then he did admit that John left for school in the morning singing, “I’m the motherflippin’…I’m the motherflippin’…” So I have to hope that the people on the bus won’t be able to understand him, I guess!