Rugby and Cream Tea

It's a rainy Monday morning here, and a bank holiday (for May Day) so everyone is home from school. We had planned a short road trip to a safari park about 90 minutes away, but since everyone is sleeping in and it looks a bit soggy outside, I think it's more likely that we will stay put for the day. We had a lovely weekend, and at last John has made a friend, Josh, who lives very close to us on the Lade Braes who is as keen as John is to spend the whole day riding bikes and taking scooters to the local skate park. John and Josh spent the whole afternoon together on Friday after school, and ended up at the basketball court at the end of the Lade Braes with a small team of lads from Madras until well after sunset. At one point, Josh's mum showed up at our door, looking a bit concerned that she hadn't heard from her son. It seems this was the first time he had stayed out past dark without checking in. I apologized for the situation, since it's likely not a coincidence that the first time he does something rather irresponsible is also the first time he does something with John! She said she wasn't terribly concerned, as long as we knew where they were, and mostly she had just been concerned that Josh went off telling her only that he was going to hang out with "some American boy named John who lives in a rather thin house on the Lade Braes." I'm quite surprised that she was actually able to track us down from that small bit of information...apparently our neighbors are paying more attention to us than I assumed they were! In any case, she asked us to check in on the boys, and so we sent David off after them with the car. As she left, she said, "I really don't mind, you know...it's just...is your son a rather sensible boy? Because my son is the sort who is easily led." I assured her that John was quite sensible and there was no cause for concern. Still, when David found them, he reported that Josh asked more than once, "So, me mum came round because she was concerned, is it? Not because she was cross? Just concerned?"

John's rugby team had a tournament planned for Saturday, and it was a "sevens" tournament, meaning they have a small subset of the team play, and they sort the teams AYSO-style (U14, U15, U18, etc.) rather than by school year. Not all the boys play, as only some are selected for the smaller teams, and they tend to be the quick ones. I thought John hadn't been selected, as I'm still not fully able to understand his coaches when they talk about upcoming fixtures. But, one of them emailed me on Friday night to ask if John was able to play. So, on Saturday morning, Leah and I packed up her pushchair and went down to the pitch, armed with lots of nappies and some money for the tuck shop at the clubhouse. David and Emma stayed home as they both had to catch up on work and studying (Emma has a Nationals exam on Wednesday for which she needs to prepare, as it is covering the year's worth of material and she has only been in the class for four months!) The tournament was an all-day affair, and so by the time we left in the late afternoon, Leah had consumed two bacon rolls, a cup of spicy sweet potato coconut soup, a bag of crisps, a doughnut and a scone from the clubhouse. John's team made it all the way to the final game, which they won, (though he wasn't playing at that point) so it was 4:00 pm by the time we left the tournament.

Rugby Tournament in St. Andrews (note the snow on the hills in the background!)

On the way home, we stopped at the playground down the lane, and Leah quickly made a new friend, a girl with dark curly hair named Darcy. They were both on a long metal slide at the same time, and since Leah was wearing a full-body snowsuit, she was really rocketing down the slide. Darcy's clothing was creating a bit more "drag" so after a few minutes, Leah managed to catch up with her and they started to slide down together. After a bit, they moved on to new sections of the park, and David and I followed, along with Darcy's dad, a young guy with dark, curly hair. We started by smiling meekly at each other, as parents do at the playground, but after a bit it was clear that the girls intended to travel as a team and so we started to talk with him a bit. I'm never one to chat up parents at a playground, so it wasn't a full blown conversation by any means...more along the lines of a, "Well, they will sleep well tonight, won't they?" conversation. We did manage to coordinate the messages of "one more time down the slide, darling" so we ended up leaving the playground at the same time. Leah and Darcy walked away hand in hand, and I'm still gutted that I didn't have a camera with which to take a picture! But, Darcy wasn't too pleased when they reached their car and it was clear that we were going to continue on foot. She pitched a bit of a fit and insisted that she was going home with us, and that ended in Darcy's dad chasing Darcy down the path a bit. At that point, I'm sure he was glad that I didn't have a camera with me after all.

On Sunday after church, Leah and Emma and I decided to visit Falkland Palace, which is about 30 minutes up the road from St. Andrews. It's a royal palace, and one of the few Renaissance palaces in Scotland, and it has a long history that involves (naturally) imprisonment, murder and Mary Queen of Scots. Only a portion of the palace is standing as fire damaged much of it shortly after the Union of the Crowns in 1606. As a result, it's more well known for its gardens, and for its tennis court, which is the world's oldest tennis court still in use. Because it was a weekend, the rooms were staffed by National Trust volunteers who pointed out various items of interest in each room and answered questions. Leah was given a kid's trail that highlighted various images and items of children to be found in each room, and that kept her relatively well-occupied as we toured the rooms. As we exited the house and passed through the gift shop, the staff there gave her a small chocolate Easter bunny, left over from the Easter trail held at the Palace a few weeks before. This left quite an impression on her, and she happily munched on the bunny's ears as we walked through the gardens. After a tour of the lily pond, the glasshouses, the aforementioned tennis court and a living labyrinth made of willow trees, we left the palace and walked through the charming village of Falkland. We ended up at a tea room which was off to the side of a small craft shop. It was a bit precious, so it was probably good that the boys weren't there as it wouldn't have been their "cup of tea" so to speak. But for the three of us, it was lovely, and we ordered a cream tea for the three of us to share. They brought out tea in small pots covered with knitted cozies, and a hot chocolate for Leah, along with a two-tier stand of tarts, traybakes, meringues and scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. The three of us had a lovely meal, though Emma and I left the table in a bit of a sugary-sleepy daze while Leah was positively bouncing off the stone walls of the shop as we paid our bill!