A few more school days down...

We now have a few more weekdays under our belt, and certainly feel like we are moving forward a bit more each day. Today I left Leah at the nursery on her own for the first time, though only for a few hours, for one last “settling in” session before she starts full time. She got a bit quiet on the way into the nursery courtyard, and that turned into outright clinginess as I took off her snowsuit and boots and hung them on an empty hook. A group of toddlers wandered over, remembering us from yesterday, and each launched into thickly-accented stories about what their “mummy” packed them to wear, or what they had for breakfast, or something along those lines. One of the teachers who is called Gillian but goes by Gilly came over and tried to get Leah intrigued by a sand table, but Leah was fully aware of what was about to happen next. So as I said a quick goodbye, she started to cry and I had to dash out. I could hear her wails as I descended the steps of the loft, and if it weren’t for the loud coos of the doves in the barn rafters above that drowned out the sound, it would have been impossible to leave. When I returned two hours later, she was happily seated between girls called “Poppy” and “Ruby,” finishing her pudding. I have figured out that “pudding” is the name of the dessert course here, and is never actually pudding. Here, it often seems to be plain yogurt with some set honey stirred in, served alongside some sliced grapes. We have decided to start calling dessert “pudding” at home as well, and to use as much other British vocabulary as we can, at least for things related to nursery, so that Leah can understand and can make herself understood to her teachers. So, “diaper” is now “nappy” and “rainboots” are now “wellies,” and we are trying to use the phrase, “well done, clever girl” as much as possible. I can’t mimic their pronunciation, of course, so when one of her teachers referred to the “poor teddy” who had lost a button and made the word “poor” sound like my pronunciation of “pure,” I knew that was a lost cause. I am trying, though, and as I left the nursery with Leah today, I shouted over my shoulder a parting, “Oh, ta, see ya tama-rrrrha at half-eight. Cheers!”

Emma and John are also benefitting from a bit more experience at their school, and aren’t feeling so overwhelmed as they head off in the morning. They are still catching up, and Emma is frustrated that her teachers don’t seem to be too worried about the upcoming “prelims” tests, and aren’t providing any review materials for her to use in preparation. John, in S1, doesn’t have any impending tests to worry about, so he’s feeling more relaxed. He is enjoying the twice-weekly PE class because he likes the opportunity to show off his speed, especially for a kid his height. He’s also having a great time in the music class, which sounds like a bit of a free-for-all, with no one actually playing the same instrument for more than a class period or two. Can you imagine that racket? Emma’s favorite class is, surprisingly, geography. She was keen on taking drama (which they pronounce here with the most drawn out short "a” sound I have ever heard a human make…) but there wasn’t room, so geography was a second choice, and in fact she only chose that because some of the other courses offered during that time were on fashion or even (not kidding here) cake decorating. Though that sounded fun, she worried how that would look on her transcript, so she went with the safe choice.

They are also still making adjustments to their uniforms to match what they are seeing the other kids wear. The girls in Emma’s building seem to have decided collectively to ditch the no-jeans rule, and regularly turn up in black denim. Or, I should say, those girls who don’t show up in a pencil skirt so tight and short that it basically looks like a belt. The blazer also hasn’t made the cut for most of the girls, and it seems like the basic requirement is that they wear some kind of collared white shirt with the school tie on top. Emma is pressuring us to ease up on the dress code, though I am very reluctant as the head teacher just told us on Friday what the requirements were, and the front page of the school website features a large paragraph about how parental support for the uniform is essential. We feel it’s just too early to let her slide a bit, though I know this does put her in an uncomfortable position of appearing different from everyone else. I did relent just a bit today and took her to the H&M down the street after school to find some black ankle boots that were a replica of those worn by her friends.

The kids in John’s building seem to adhere to the dress code much more carefully, though they do still express some individuality through their shoes. The shoes have to be black, but the boys manage to come up with a number of variations of black in a variety of brands. Luckily, I had done some research on this before we left the U.S., and used the advice of a family who had spent a semester here previously, and bought John a pair of Nike Janoskis for Christmas. I have no idea who “Janoski” is, and neither does John, but the kids in his class apparently do, and John was thrilled to report after school yesterday that the boys were duly impressed with his treads. Unfortunately, we are now going to have a bit of problem with the rest of the dress code because John came out of the school today with a sheepish look, and said that he had ripped open the back seam of his blazer between classes. He said he did it by tripping on a step, and I didn’t even bother to point out the utter ridiculousness of this statement. I assured him, while trying to refrain from any eye-rolling, that it was fine and he could just borrow Emma’s rejected blazer while I searched out a tailor to make the repair.

One detail that I still can’t work out about their day is their lunch. They are both bringing money to school, and are spending the lunch break walking around the town with their friends, but neither of them are spending much of the money they have been given so far. John is a bit concerned that his group of friends head off to a “tuck shop” down the street and buy crisps and Irn-Bru for lunch. He’s worried about how unhealthy this is for some reason, though why, I have no idea, since this is normally not a worry for John. He is usually just as happy to request pizza or a burger for lunch as almost any kid. I actually think it has to do with the fact that he sees a number of kids from his school smoking, and this he finds absolutely appalling…so much so that when he saw two kids smoking in one section of the Lade Braes on the way home from school, he asked me if we could find a different way to walk home from now on. This lunch concern seems to be an issue for him, and so he just isn’t eating anything while he’s away from the house. We are going to have to find a work-around for this at some point, though he is flatly refusing to stick any food from home into his backpack as that’s just not done either. I’m not too worried about it, since John isn’t one to go hungry for long. Emma, on the other hand, is making her way around the St. Andrews sandwich shops with her friends, and comes home every day with a new report about which little tea room sells delicious lentil soup, and which one has a small packet of pomegranate seeds “on offer” for £1. I think overall that a number of the lunch places in St. Andrews are kind of pricey, so I’m still not sure how she has managed to buy herself lunch for the last three days, and still have some change from the £10 bill I gave her when we first arrived. I’m actually starting to think that some of the sandwich shops have an unpublished menu for the Madras kids, with some things ready for takeaway at a reduced price in the one hour they have off for lunch. When John is finished with it, I will have to borrow Emma’s Madras blazer and try out my theory!

A Sunday in St. Andrews

We ended our first weekend in Scotland with a lovely Sunday in town. We walked to church at 11, and though it was cold, it was sunny and lovely. The church, which is on the eastern-most street in town called The Scores and overlooks the ocean, was very cold inside and I noticed that almost everyone kept their coats on for the entire mass. After mass, I had made a reservation at a pub in town (probably unnecessary in the end, but I wanted to be safe) called the Vic, so we walked there, stopping on the way at the Boots pharmacy for some toiletries. Lunch was quite fun, and the Vic is clearly set up for kids, with walls papered full of cheeky adverts and children’s menus printed on Etch-A-Sketches. We all ordered burgers and took turns with Leah’s Etch-A-Sketch and with watching the BBC weather report on the TVs overhead which were showing photos of the snowy landscape that had been sent in by viewers across Scotland. One shot showed a small group of kids trying to sled down a hill that was dotted with patchy chunks of snow, and I saw John shaking his head at that. At least they owned sleds, right?

When we had arrived at the table, Emma noticed the group of girls who were seated next to us, and hissed to me, “I know those girls from Greyfriars, so don’t do anything embarrassing! And tell Dad!” Greyfriars is the primary school the kids attended in 2011, when we were last here. I was happy to oblige, though I’m not really sure what constitutes embarrassing in Emma’s mind. Is it talking too loud? Using baby talk with Leah? Poking at my phone during the whole meal and not speaking when spoken to? Or just being with one’s family in a pub on a Sunday afternoon? We all have different ideas of what might be embarrassing behavior by a family member, though I assume Emma meant the last one, and I couldn’t do anything about that. They were finishing their meal, though, and left after a few minutes without recognizing or acknowledging Emma, and I could tell Emma was much more at ease after that.

We did a bit more shopping in town after lunch, for school supplies mostly, and then I took Leah and John home while David and Emma stopped in a bookstore. On the way home, Leah noticed the cobblestone street and the sounds the cars made on them as their tires bumped over the stones. “There’s some-ping wong with these woads!” she said. Then she started up an impromptu jingle about Minnie Mouse, which made no sense at all, and sang it the whole way home. She’s still a little confused about what we mean by “going home” and “our house” but when I unlocked the door to Burns House, she went right in, kicked off her boots, and climbed into her castle to start the arduous task of rearranging all of her baby dolls and their various dish-towel and tissue blankets. Emma and David arrived about 20 minutes later, and Emma and I changed into sneakers and went for a walk along the Lade Braes. The sun was going to set at 4:09 pm and we wanted to get in a walk before it got dark, so we had to hurry. We walked the entire length of the Lade Braes, remembering what happened at what points on the path during our last visit, and though it was cold it was fun. When we returned home, we loaded everyone up in the car for a family trip to the Morrison’s. I let everyone choose one treat, and the kids had a good time checking out all the different types of candy in the treats aisle (it’s a long one here, as the Scots sure do love their sweeties!). John had been to Morrison’s with his school friends on Friday so he had insider information on what was good. Emma stuck with the tried and true Kinder Bueno, though I suspect she really just likes those because they used to be banned in the United States. Leah chose a packet of gummy candies, mostly because that’s the first thing she saw and she wasn’t going to be dissuaded after she had her hands on them. We also got some staples, and some fresh fish and veggies for dinner for the next few nights, along with some more pre-made Indian food for Sunday dinner. We loaded it all up in the car, and went home. The rest of the evening was uneventful, with everyone packing up for school the next day and putting away some laundry. Leah didn’t feel well as she went to bed (“too much gummy in my tummy” she cried) though I think the no-nap thing is creating more stress on her body than the sweets. We were all happy to go to sleep a bit early, with a full week of school, nursery, work and the arrival of our Colgate students ahead of us.

A Day of Shopping and Driving

Our first weekend in Scotland started a bit slowly, as the kids took a bit of a lie-in and slept until 11 am or so. That gave me a much-needed chance to get up early and do some work, as I am way behind schedule given the two separate moves. I had planned to have a little home-office corner set up in the dining room by now, but moving into this house has been a bit slower than I had anticipated. I am slowly warming up to the house in the end, and having it chock full of our stuff is helping a bit, if only because all of our things hide some of the dirt! I am working on the dirt and dust a bit at a time as well, and after a week or so I think I may make this place passable after all.

By far the best thing going for this house is the location, and for that reason alone this was the right choice for us. Emma and David can easily get back and forth to school on their own, and we have all of the shops and services in town literally at our doorstep. St. Andrews is a wonderfully beautiful and fascinating place, full of windy little streets, castle and cathedral ruins, two beaches, great food shops, a library, and all the little stores that cater to a student clientele, and it’s so convenient to be able to walk through all of that at any point in the day. We also have the Lade Braes path at our doorstep, which means we have a ready-made way to entertain Leah without resorting to Peppa Pig videos. There are two playgrounds along the Lade Braes, plus various stone bridges, small waterfalls, families of ducks, hidden doorways, and bunches of snowdrops peeking out from the stone walls on either side…perfect for a toddler with a sturdy pair of wellies. On top of all of this, we have a walled garden of our own, with three tiers full of perennials, a deck with an outdoor table for meals in warmer weather, and a tree with low hanging branches that are perfect for Leah to climb. There’s a stone walkway that moves between the three tiers, with wonderful lights at each step, and in the evening the effect is really magical. The stairs are a bit steep for Leah, but she is learning to manage them well.

The inside of the house is less magical, I’m afraid. It does have a very strange layout, and though we have been here for three days, I still couldn’t draw a layout of this house on paper. It’s built into a wall, and there’s no front door or front façade which proves confusing. It’s an angular house, so none of the walls meet at a 90 degree angle, and all of the windows are of different sizes, so it’s hard to tell when looking at the house from the outside which rooms are where on the inside. It’s also typical of the other Scottish homes I have seen in that each room has its own door, and those doors are typically left closed. The concept of the open floor plan hasn’t taken off in this country, so this is pretty standard. So, when you do manage to find a hallway, you can’t tell which door leads to a bathroom, a laundry room, or the family room. I’m trying to leave the doors open as much as possible to keep from walking into the wrong room all the time, but since the rooms are built at an angle to each other, it’s still unclear what is where because all you can see from the hallway is a series of blank white walls. It’s very disorienting.

On the first floor, we do have a really lovely dining room which has a huge white-lacquered table at the center with eight metal chairs around it. This room has a full wall of windows and doors that open to the patio, and now that those windows aren’t filthy (see previous post…) it’s quite nice. There’s a bit of storage at the back wall from a set of metal industrial-style bookcases, though we are trying not to use those too much as they aren’t mounted to the wall and I don’t want Leah to try to reach something on them and pull them down on herself. Next to the dining room is a large kitchen, with mint green cabinets with wood countertops. The whole house is done in a kind of industrial mint green, stainless steel and white (or what I assumed was white when it was first painted and was cleaner…) and it really does look great. The kitchen is functional too, though we did have to move almost everything around in the first day to make things work for us (pots and pans should go near the stove, dishes near the refrigerator, and cutting boards near the sink, right? Or am I just crazy? I assumed this was a universal…). There’s a staircase outside the kitchen, with a little alcove under it that doesn’t lead anywhere. We filled this space with a little pop-up tent that looks like a castle that is serving as Leah’s playhouse/toy storage. There’s also a closet there, though it doesn’t actually have anything in it but a bizarrely-placed towel bar on one side (what the heck?). We are piling our coats and shoes in a big heap on the floor there for now, waiting to come up with a better solution. The family room is behind the closet (at a weird 76 degree angle), and that has in it one futon, one broken chair, and two big white baskets on pedestals in which someone could possibly sit if supplied with enough pillows. There’s a coffee table in the middle with a glass top and a drawer set underneath, and the owner is displaying a collection of old albums underneath the glass. Emma and David love this, but Leah won’t go near it as she finds the picture on the front of the Eurythmics “Touch” album a bit frightening. Finally, there’s a bathroom that has a tub and a shower (though no mirror or storage), and a master bedroom with a wardrobe in it, which means in that room we actually do have room to store some of our things. Upstairs are two more bedrooms (Emma has one with a beautiful view over the town, and John and Leah are sharing the one with a lovely view of the stuccoed house next door), two closets, and a bathroom with just a shower. The second floor of the house is only half the size of the first floor, and I think the kitchen and dining room part of the house are one story, but again it’s hard to tell from looking at the house (bizarre, right?).

Leah's under-the-stairs playspot

 So, to remedy some of this, we had planned to drive back to Edinburgh today to stop at the IKEA and gather some items to make the house more liveable for the next few months. We had to go back anyway, since John had left his phone at the car dealer, so we figured this would work well. Leah and I had ventured into town in the morning while everyone else slept in, and we stopped at the library to renew our cards and ducked into the bakery for some fudge donuts (a St. Andrews thing). When we returned to the house, everyone was up and having leftovers from lunch. We headed out around two, after we managed to learn a bit more about the GPS in the rental car. At this point, we can at least input a postcode as a destination and so that does get us close to where we want to go. We made it to the car dealer after about an hour, though at one point we had to drive over a small stone bridge that was so narrow that we were sure we were headed in the wrong direction. We actually sat in front of the bridge, on the road, and waited until a car managed to cross in the other direction until we were confident that it was actually passable and that one could make it through with both sideview mirrors still intact. We stopped at the car dealership, retrieved the phone, and then fiddled with the GPS for another 20 minutes until we managed to input a destination that seemed close to the IKEA. Another 20 minutes later we had arrived at that destination, though there was no IKEA in sight. I resorted to using my phone at that point, and we headed back out on the road to try again. Another 20 minutes later, we had passed through a series of confusing roundabouts, senseless intersections, blocked entrances, one way roads, and off-limits loading zones, and neither David nor I were speaking to each other. David shoehorned the car into the tiniest parking spot I had ever seen and we set off on foot in search of some kitchenware and Swedish meatballs.

Leah meets her first fudge donut.

 We were at IKEA for over two hours, which gave us plenty of time to have dinner, change a nappy, explore the kiddy play place, and rehash the drive (“Why didn’t you just tell me that was the entrance?” and “Well, I would have if you weren’t driving so fast!” and “Well, everyone was driving that fast!” and “Well, everyone knows where they are going!”). We spent about an hour of that time shopping, and picked up some dishes, kitchen supplies, reading lamps, a clothes rack for the closet, and some suction-cupped storage for the bathrooms. Leah found a little doll bed that she liked, so we picked up that as well, and John found a stuffed soccer ball that he decided needed to be put into immediate use just as we passed through the wineglasses. It was not the most relaxing shopping trip, to say the least, and we were relieved at last to be loading our things into the back of the rental car (as were most of the IKEA employees who had been watching John and Leah tear through the store, I’m sure). As we loaded, we actually ran into the family from South Carolina that we met at the airport, which was incredible, and planned to get together with them sometime later in the semester. With the car loaded, we drove off, ready to go home and figure out how to assemble our coat rack using only a butter knife for a screwdriver and a heavy shoe for a hammer!

First Day at Madras

Emma and John had a full day of school on Friday, and were up early to assemble the various pieces of their school uniform. The Madras handbook says the uniform consists of black skirt or trousers (NOT called “pants” here, as I have learned…), a white collared shirt, a navy and white striped tie, a black jumper (their word for sweater), and a black blazer with the Madras College emblem on the chest. Around town, we have seen a very liberal interpretation of this uniform but to be safe I insisted that we play by the rules at first and follow the uniform policy as written. If the kids realize that some unwritten version of this uniform policy is actually practiced, then we will adjust. But for now, it’s full-on British prep school couture in this house!

Emma in her Madras College uniform

Emma’s school is just a five minute walk away, and very easy to find, so David accompanied her while I bundled Leah up in the stroller and walked with John to his school, which is about 20 minutes away. He was rehearsing what he would say to the registrar when he arrived, and kept instructing me to peel off when we got close to the school and he gave the signal. He said he planned to find Scott, his new rugby mate, as soon as possible, and go from there. As we walked, we started to fall in line with a number of other kids dressed in some version of the Madras assemblage, and he started to look a little worried. As we turned the corner to the school, he gave the signal and I let him go off on his own, with a parting reminder that I would be at this very spot at 3:20pm when school let out for the day.

Leah and I walked back home (I was reminded that St. Andrews is very, VERY hilly, and that cobblestone streets and plastic stroller wheels aren’t compatible) and got in the car for a 10:00 am appointment at her nursery school. We had planned to do a few “settling” sessions before she begins full-time next week, and I thought I would start one today. Her school is about a ten minute drive out of town, up in the hills on Kinaldy Farm. I packaged her up in the car, noting her surprise that I was sitting on the other side of the car, and drove off. As I left St. Andrews I noticed that there was a substantial bit of snow on the roads at the higher elevations, and this worked in my favor because it really slowed the other drivers down. I had no trouble with driving on the snow, but the whole driving-on-the-left-with-no-shoulder-of-which-to-speak thing was still taking some getting used to. I managed to get the satnav in the rental car to show a picture of where this farm was (we still can’t convince it to actually give us directions) and felt confident that I was going the right way when I ended up on a small, unpaved farm road because a friend of ours who had been to St. Andrews before, and who had sent his child to this nursery as well, had alerted me to this. It turns out that Leah’s nursery is really, actually, for sure on a working farm. I parked the car along the road and searched through the windows of the various barns for some kind of brightly colored plastic toys that might point the way to a preschool. I wasn’t quite sure I was in the right place, as I was just seeing animals, or various piles of stacked agricultural plastic pails, and then Gillian the nursery owner popped her head out of a small wooden door and ushered us in.

I didn't get a shot of Leah at her nursery, so took this one as we walked along the Lade Braes to get home for lunch.

Leah is going to be in a class with the older kids (2 ½ to about 4), which takes up the whole second floor of one of the barns. It’s a big room, and full of various play stations like any preschool, but with wooden grates placed over the windows that are overlooking the barn courtyard outside. (That courtyard turned out to be a big play area, but I was unable to see it under all the snow.) We had arrived during story time, which turned out to be ideal because it gave Leah some time to explore the space without being surrounded by kids. Leah is taking all of this change in quite well, but she is still a bit off-schedule and a bit unsure of what the heck is going on here, so I assumed that flooding her with Scottish three-year-olds upon arrival wasn’t going to go well. As the teacher wrapped up her story, she started to get the kids sorted for going outside, and a few of them made their way over to Leah to check her out. Leah has quickly found a naked babydoll to hold, and one little girl came over to tell Leah that there was also a baby blanket to be had somewhere in the pile. She informed us that she was Ruby, and that she liked to play dolls too but that she had to put on her wellies just now and would be right back. The other kids were peering at Leah through some cutouts in the play station, and Leah found this intriguing enough to follow them outside. We spent about twenty minutes walking around the snowy courtyard, trying out the various ride-on toys and introducing Leah to all of the teachers, then Leah decided she had had enough and announced that she was going home. She tromped off towards the gate and I followed her, deciding that I shouldn’t rush things. I told the head teacher we would be back on Monday for a second day of settling, and then loaded Leah back in the car and drove off down the road.

Leah fell asleep in the car on the way down the hill, which was too bad because it is an incredibly beautiful drive. Though it was covered in snow, I could still see the various farm plots, separated by those ubiquitous stacked-stone walls, with the town of St. Andrews lying at the edge, and the blue, blue ocean spread out just beyond. It was another gorgeously sunny day, and if there hadn’t been so much snow, and there had been some kind of shoulder, I would have pulled over to take a picture. Driving through the countryside is one of my favorite things to do in Scotland, because it’s so peaceful and calm. It’s unlike America in that there are no billboards or roadside drive-in restaurants or drugstore chains…just small stone houses and taverns built right up against the road. In the horizon is the ocean, or when you get inland, green hills full of sheep. Though it’s January now and the days are short and can get a bit gray, I know that in a few weeks this drive to Leah’s school will get even lovelier as the grass gets greener and the snowdrops and winter aconite starts to bloom.

When we got home, Leah said she was ready for “cereal and more nap” so I fed her and put her to bed. David was holed up in the other room, trying to finish a paper that was due today, so I had a chance to try to get some more of the dust and grime off the kitchen floor and wash the windows (no comments, please…they were REALLY bad!). At 3, I woke her up for another walk to John’s school. Though she was a bit grouchy at the idea, I mentioned to her the ducks that we had seen on the morning walk down the Lade Braes and the idea of seeing them again proved interesting enough to get her to agree to sit in the stroller (the digestive covered with Nutella might have helped too…). We arrived at the school and waited for a few minutes before we saw John headed towards us with two friends, one of whom had hair so red that I really do think it must have been dyed as that color is just not possible without chemicals. He said he wanted to walk home with these guys, and I was hesitant as I couldn’t imagine he knew where we lived. I wanted to write down our address and my phone number for him, but he gave me the wide-eyed warning that always means, “Mom, back off…you’re embarrassing me!” so I let him go. Leah and I walked home, and I ran through the various scenarios in my mind about how I was going to find him again once he got desperately lost.

When we got home, Emma was there and telling David about her school. She had managed quite well, having stuck by Alana’s side most of the day. She said the maths class was frightfully easy, but the English class was confusing as they were working on poetry she hadn’t read. She had some trouble finding friends in history, but said her French class went well because they seem to be doing things Emma’s class did in eighth grade at home. For lunch, she walked into town with Alana and few of her friends, and had gathered information from them about how girls actually dress. She was snapchatting them as she talked to us, which I took to be another good sign. She did say that many of the kids were asking her about America, and about why she was here. When she told them that her dad was here to teach a class in philosophy, one of the boys remarked, “oh, I have always been terrible at science.” Emma took that as a sign that she shouldn’t worry too much about the curriculum here.

After about an hour of talking with Emma, I started to really worry about John since it had been dark outside for a while. I sent David off to find him, mentioning that I remembered Scott saying he also lived on the Lade Braes but near the bus stop. The only bus stop I remember seeing anywhere near the Lade Braes was near the house we rented in 2011, about a 20 minute walk the other way out of town, so I told him to head in that direction in search of John. He did find him eventually, at that end of the Lade Braes, walking with the redhead who turned out to be the son of Emma and John’s French teacher. Scott had apparently peeled off when his mother started to text frantically about his whereabouts, and so John followed this other boy home and explained to the French teacher where he lived. The teacher insisted that her son walk John home, so even if David hadn’t come upon them, I think he would have found his way home. In the grand scheme of worrying-inducing things coming from John, this was a small one, but still…I’m sure I do have one more gray hair on my head as a result!

John in his Madras College uniform

John said his day had gone well too, and that the school has assigned Scott to be his buddy. That helped him to find his classes, and to find his way at lunch. Both boys bought some lunch from a food truck that pulls up outside, and John said he was a bit confused by the menu so just pointed to chips and a soda for lunch. The guy selling the food told John that he had a cool accent, and high-fived him when John told him he was from New York (see, I said we get a lot of mileage out of that fact here!). John also said that he had seen a number of kids in his class sitting outside at lunch smoking e-cigarettes, which he found disturbing. He assured me, though, that he had stayed far away. Other than that, though, I didn’t get too much more information from him about what he had done in his classes, but that’s typical so I didn’t press it.

Burns House and Madras School

Yesterday was full of several small, much-needed successes. The plumber banged on the door of Kinbrae House early in the morning to tell me he was …well, I couldn’t understand what he said but assumed it meant he was going to work on the heat in Burns House. At 10, David and John and I left Emma and Leah at home and drove to John’s school to meet with the depute head teacher at the Madras College on Kilrymont Road. John and Emma will both attend Madras College, but as the school has 1,200 students spread over grades S1 to S6, they are split into two buildings about a 20 minute walk from each other. John’s school doesn’t look like much on the outside, but it’s not bad on the inside and the depute head teacher seems to be a great guy. He said that he would pair John up with a buddy on the first day to help him find his way around. I can tell they are accustomed to having kids come and go here, and they were able to “get John sorted” very quickly. On the way out, John balked at the idea of starting school the very next day, but we convinced him that it’s better to start on a Friday when everyone’s in a great mood than wait until next Monday morning.

I phoned the Fife Council after our meeting to discuss a long-term parking pass for the car park near our house. Burns House is on the Lade Braes, which is a long, lovely walking path that meanders throughout the town. In 2011, I used it as a running path, and fell in love with all of the beautifully Scottish homes alongside, with stone walls and little wrought iron gates leading to secret gardens full of heather and daffodils in the spring. I was thrilled to find one to let for this visit, though I did note that I wasn’t able to get a good look at it on Google Maps since it’s not on a road. The description on the letting agent’s side said on-street parking was nearby, but now that we are here we realize that is unlikely as the on-street parking is the only free parking in town and fills up with folks who travel in to work in St. Andrews. If we were to ever get a parking spot there, we wouldn’t be able to move our car for fear of losing it. The Fife Council guy on the other end of the phone was wonderfully helpful, and informed me that he could get me a year-long pass for the car park there because we were living on the Lade Braes. He did have some difficulty getting my email address straight, and after a few tries he read it back to me correctly, then added “funny ‘un, ‘at!”

After visiting John’s school we stopped at Burns House to see how the plumber was getting on, and were happy to see that he was gone and the house was warming up. We went back to Kinbrae, stuffed all of our stuff back into our suitcases, and dragged them down Argyle Street to the new house. Burns House is actually quite small, and after all of the suitcases were piled into the kitchen, I realized that it was going to be a tight squeeze. There’s very little storage space, and as we unpacked we easily started to fill the small dressers and cubbies that must be considered closets. As we unpacked I tried to clean away the thin film of gunky residue that was clinging to the kitchen surfaces without thinking about the neat and tidy and residue-free kitchen back home in New York. I also rearranged some of the cooking pans and dishes, as the owner had put the plates and glasses in a floor-level cabinet that was accessible only with a removeable and ill-fitting key. There’s no way that situation was going to work with a toddler around, so some rearranging was in order.

We stopped mid-move to make a 2:30 appointment at Emma’s Madras College building. Her school is gorgeous from the outside, and when we walked through the front stone arch (there’s no front door) and into a courtyard that looked like a Harry Potter set, we were all impressed. Her depute headteacher was very kind and welcomed Emma to the school as had John’s. He was a bit of a mumbler, and must have said the phrase “a wee tour” about 43 times, but he also picked up on Emma’s apprehension at starting a new school and was very reassuring. He called a girl named Alana down to his office to meet Emma, and told her that Alana would be her buddy the next day, and help her to find her way. The “wee tour” showed that the rest of the school building wasn’t quite as nice, and as he led us into various outbuildings that were progressively more shabby, he started to apologize for the state of the place. It was surprisingly run-down, though we were expecting this, as a quick google search for Madras College will bring up news articles about the “sad state” of the school, and the “deplorable conditions” faced by Madras students every day. I could tell as we walked along that Emma was becoming quite thankful that this was a temporary move, and that she would be safely re-enrolled in the brightly-lit and soundly-built Hamilton Central again in the fall.

After Emma’s appointment, I braved the rental car for the first time and took Emma to the Morrison’s grocery store down the road. We did a proper shopping trip since we now had a house, and managed to pull together enough staples for a few meals. We were in a bit of a hurry because John was scheduled to start rugby training that evening and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to find the place. We took our groceries home, and heated a quick dinner of bangers and mash and mushy peas (vegetarian bangers for Emma), then got back in the car with John and drove to the Madras Rugby Club. I remembered well how to get there, but the road to the club was closed in the end, which caused me to panic a bit and head the wrong direction. I thought I could access it from a road that goes along the beach, but when that didn’t work out, I got flustered, turned around, and just forgot to drive on the left. I was on the right for a good long while, actually, and then came upon a car in my lane who flashed his lights at me enough to remind me that I was on the wrong side. That never happened to me on our last visit, so my confidence in driving was a bit shaken.

I did manage to find an alternate way to get into the rugby club, and walked John in. There were a number of boys in there already, and so I introduced John to the rugby coach with whom I had been corresponding by email. He was pleased to hear that John had brought along a “gumshield” and even more pleased to hear that John plays American football and ice hockey. “He can take a hit, then?” I didn’t know if I should affirm that or not, so let it slide. He took John over to his teammates and introduced him. “This is John, then, he’s just come from America.” One of the boys asked from what state, and looked impressed when John said New York. We have learned quickly that it’s not terribly impressive to be an American here, but if you do add that you live in New York (and leave out the Upstate part, which they don’t understand) you are somehow redeemed. I just tell the kids that if someone asks specifically about something in the city, to say we live outside Manhattan and leave it at that. Anyway, the coach continued his introduction and added, “John plays American football and ice hockey” and another of the boys patted the seat next to him. “Come sit next to me, lad,” he said. “I like ye already!” I didn’t stay for the practice, but when I returned John had already made a friend called Scott, and had exchanged phone numbers. He said he felt much more confident at the idea of starting school tomorrow, having met at least one friend.