Scottish Manners

You might remember that we are renting a house in St. Andrews this semester from a woman who lives in Edinburgh, who usually rents it out week-by-week to golfers visiting one of the town's courses. The house is in a newer development of homes about a five minute drive from the city center, and is a family neighborhood. The family across the street has two small kids, and there are two other small kids who trike over to our house on Saturday mornings and talk at us in their Scottish accents while we are getting ready for rugby--and there's not much cuter in this world than a four year old speaking in a Scottish accent! Emma especially loves them, and she and John still talk about the time when we first arrived and were playing in the back yard and those kids shouted at us over the fence, "What are you? What are you?"

It's pretty clear that our house is the only house in the neighborhood that is not owner-occupied, and from our first day of arrival, it was also pretty clear that the woman who lives directly next door to us does not approve of us being here. While our other neighbors have been very nice and have stopped us on our walks through the neighborhood to introduce themselves, she has remained indoors. Periodically, when I walk past her house, I will casually glance at her house. Since the houses are right up next to the road, you automatically look IN the windows if you look at the house. So, when I glance in I will see her sitting at her computer desk and glowering up at me. It's pretty frightening to see a hostile face right at the window like that. So, in general, I have avoided her--I wait to take out our trash until she has hers out, and won't take the bin away from the curb until she has sorted hers, for example. Once, Emma and John kicked their football into her backyard by accident and rang her doorbell to retrieve it. They reported that she was quite rude to them, and that she complained about another set of kids doing damage to her fence in years past, but since I wasn't there to hear it, I dismissed it. Then, yesterday, David was playing with the kids in the front yard, and apparently when John cut across the corner of her front lawn, she banged on her window and yelled at him to get off the lawn. When David didn't seem clear about what she was saying to him, she opened her windows and yelled at him, "It's just a matter of manners not to walk on someone's lawn." This didn't make David too happy, so when he challenged her by saying, "A matter of manners?" she added, "Yes, SCOTTISH manners!" I think this made David want to go over there and show her some American manners, but he fortunately refrained!

Both of us are quite angry at her behaviour, and I think the reason is that everyone we have met so far in Scotland has been quite polite and kind (except Miss Manners next door, of course!). People at our church and at the kids school have been exceedingly welcoming, even though we are only here for a short time. There are a few stores that I frequent in town (the clothing store Ness, especially) in which the salesperson remembers me and even asks about Emma, who is often with me after school. On one of our first days here, we got library cards and the librarian who registered us for the cards still greets us when we come in for more books and asks about our time here so far. And yesterday at the grocery store, I had a long conversation with the woman at the till about a recipe that had been in the grocery store's magazine a few months back, while she helped me pack up my groceries. Generally, Scots are known for being a bit reserved, so when we arrived we were prepared not to get to know people here, but haven't found that to be the case at all. They are also quite nice about our being American, and needing a bit of extra help with public transportation or the use of our American credit cards in their chip and pin system, and while I'm always apologetic about it, they're always quick to brush my apology aside, and sometimes even mention how happy they are to have visitors in their country.

The Scots are also supposedly known for being a bit frugal with their spending money. I'm not sure where this comes from, or even it that's really true, since we haven't been here long enough to gather evidence about it. If it is true, I theorize that it's because their money is so heavy--the pound coin is the piece of currency that one uses most often here. If I am buying something that costs only a few pounds and use a ten-pound note, I will inevitably get all coins back as change. Once I learned to count the money quickly to verify that the change was correct, it didn't bother me so much. It still drives David crazy, though, since he's always walking around with about £20 worth of coins. "This is ridiculous," he says, as he counts out enough change to pay a £12 bill. "I feel like a pirate!"

Though I haven't found the Scots to be notably frugal, I have noticed that the English generally consider this to be the case. With that in mind, here's a joke that's often told by the English about the Scots: an Englishman and a Scotsman are having a pint in a pub together. The Englishman spots a fly in his beer and, complaining bitterly, demands a new pint from the barman. The Scotsman likewise sees a fly in his drink, gingerly picks it out from the froth and holding it in front of his face by the legs hisses, "Spit it out ya wee bastard!"