Half-Term Time

Emma and John have been out of school for a few days on "half-term." Since they aren't involved in any extracurriculars (other than rugby) neither of them have a whole lot going on, and it didn't seem as if any of their new Scottish friends were doing much over the mini-break either so they have had pretty open schedules. Emma has spent most of the time in her room, working her way through the stack of books she brought from home. John convinced David to buy him a "football" and when they came back from their walk into town, he was also carrying a ripstick that they had found in a charity shop for £5. He was beside himself with excitement about this, and headed off down the path towards a big park where he could practice.

We did manage to take Leah down to a duck pond at the other end of the path one afternoon after school. We had brought a heel of bread, and she had a grand time feeding it bit by bit to the ducks. The ducks saw her coming and surrounded her within minutes, so I gather we aren't the only ones making use of our bread butts in this way.

About a week ago I had gone to the Morrison's grocery store with the kids and while I was waiting for them at the till, I started to check out some of the community announcements on the bulletin board. I saw a call for volunteers from a local "bloom" group. This is a small group of folks who do community gardening, and there seems to be a bloom group in most towns in the UK...even the very small ones. I dashed off an email to the address on the flier, and received a prompt invitation in return to join the group for their next meeting. So, on Thursday evening, I walked "down the lane" to the address they had included for the meeting. It can be difficult to find places in St. Andrews because the path on which we live runs parallel to a main road, and that means that there are two or three layers of homes in one place with the same street number. Predictably, when I found a placard with the correct street number mounted onto the stone wall, I wandered around the surrounding houses for about 10 minutes before I managed to find the right place. I was about ten minutes late for the meeting as a result, and as I rang the doorbell to the house of the hostess, a man who was also apparently lost pulled up in a car behind me and shouted through his rolled-down window, "You must be trying to find the same meeting as me, then?" I said, simply, "Yes, I think so." He responded with, "Oh, well I can tell who you are from your accent!" so I quickly figured out that word had spread that there was a new American volunteer for the group. I was surprised that he could read my accent with only four words, but I'm getting used to being identified as an "other" the moment I open my mouth here.

The meeting had already started, and the folks around the table were halfway through their agenda as well as thei scones and tea by the time I was seated. They said they would proceed, then hear from me at the end of the meeting if I had any questions. I was able to follow the proceedings pretty well, though as they were discussing their fundraising efforts their use of the word "bid" when I would have used the word "application" caused me a bit of confusion at one point. There was one member of the group who spoke with a very thick Scottish accent and I did need to focus very intently on her to understand what she was saying, and then there was another woman whose accent was so very, very pronounced that I decided she must have been speaking in gaelic and I gave up on trying to decipher her words. At one point in the meeting, it was revealed that the group had been contacted by the BBC to be included in an upcoming special they were making about Fife (the council area in which St. Andrews is located). They wanted to film some of the activities of the group, and had asked if they could film an upcoming meeting. I thought this sounded promising, as did some of the other members, but then one chap pointed out that they would have no control over how the footage was used, and it was possible that the BBC might do something like dub over their voices with disparaging comments about the council leaders. Given the kinds of outlandish reality-based programming I have seen on the telly since we have been here, I can understand the concern. 

The meeting ended with some preliminary plans for cleaning up the group greenhouses in a week, and then some details about how they would go about changing out the spring bulbs in all the community containers for the summer starts. I let them know that I was happy to help in whatever way I could, which launched a discussion about gardening gear. There was some mention of "a gilet" in a member's "boot"and I was proud that I was able to understand that one, when I certainly would have missed the meaning of that when we were here in 2011. As we left, I thanked the woman who had hosted, and complimented her on her tidy house. "Oh, this is just the granny flat," she said with a wave of her hand. Another woman jumped in, "Aye! You should see her real house down the lane!"  I loved this, of course...the idea of checking out some high-end Scottish real estate makes me even more eager to join up!