The Highland Chieftain

Our departure from the village did not go quite as anticipated. The final plan – which we made over a few glasses of fireside Edradour the night before -  was to drive ourselves to the station and leave at about 11.00am to get to Pitlochry to catch the 12.27 Inverness-London train. Plenty of time to have a leisurely breakfast, pack, water the plants, turn down the radiators and leave everything spick and span.

At 8.25am Jeanette phoned. I padded across my bedroom, still in my pyjamas.

“Can you be ready to leave in ten minutes? There’s only one train leaving Inverness today and it gets into Pitlochry at 9.25. Jean is going to drive us!”

Galvanised into action, I threw clothes and gifts into a case, grabbed my laptop and knitting, dressed and headed out into the still dark morning where Jean – herself dragged from bed with no breakfast – was trying to open her passenger car door which had frozen to its frame.

As it happened, we made it in plenty of time because the train was running 30 minutes late. A signal failure down the line caused a two-hour hiatus in Newcastle and later, someone pulled the emergency cord. We each knitted a teddy, drank lots of cups of tea, but eventually made our Christmas destinations.

The return journey, a week later, ran perfectly to schedule. Leaving from York, in the station Waiting Room I bumped into one of the villagers, Lavender, with her daughter – also returning from a family festivity. We reminisced about last year, when Lavender’s cottage had caught fire on Boxing Day. It turned out mice had chewed through the wiring. She had a family contingent staying which rather blighted their Christmas but luckily no one was hurt. All year Lavender has lived in her barn while rebuilding takes place.

A point of interest, hereabouts you don’t catch a train, you travel on The Highland Chieftain. The guard – who behaves in a similar fashion to an airplane pilot or head steward, constantly giving out helpful information about your journey – refers reverently to his engine, thus:

“You are travelling on The Highland Chieftain, stopping at Edinburgh, Stirling, Gleneagles, Perth, Pitlochry, Aviemore and Inverness.”

“The Highland Chieftain is approaching Gleneagles. Passengers at the rear of the train in first class please move up to Coach L as the train is longer than the platform and you won’t be able to get off.”

“Luggage blocking the aisles and doorways will be removed without notice. If you are travelling to Inverness at the next station please place your bags in the guard’s van which at the current time is empty.”

“You are reminded that this is a no-smoking train. A no-smoking train. If you are found smoking you will be removed from the train. Once again, this is a no-smoking train.”

“Please be vairy careful stepping out of the train. There is a lot of snow and ice still about and it slippery underfoot.”

“Coach B is the quiet coach. No mobile phones please for the comfort of your fellow passengers. Once again, Coach B is the quiet coach.” This announcement was much louder than the others, presumably for added effect.

And once again, in a very agitated and aggravated tone:

“We can smell smoke on this train! This is a no smoking train. Anyone found smoking will be removed. This is A NO SMOKING TRAIN. A NO SMOKING TRAIN.”

We pulled into Pitlochry a few minutes late and heeding the guard’s advice made our way carefully up the still snowy, slushy platform, pulling our cases through the mounds of ice. Jean was there to meet us and after a very foggy drive, finally it was Home Sweet Home.

Presentation Day

Several weeks ago Petrina, who runs all the village activities, resigned from the community committee after 18 years. Her long service is to be honoured with a surprise presentation at today’s Clicking Needles. We have all been charged with bringing a plate of food, so that this can be celebrated with a traditional afternoon tea.  The only smallish hiccough is that Petrina is snowed in and as she can’t get her car out, has said she won’t be coming into work today.

The village machinery whirred into action to avert the embarrassment of today’s ceremony lacking the guest of honour.

Andrew has been co-opted, together with his Land Rover, to collect Petrina at 2.15. As Petrina has also gone down with a nasty cold, he had to slightly let the cat out of the bag in order to persuade her to turn out, so she has an inkling that something special is afoot.

Despite the appalling conditions, most of the Clicking Needle ladies managed to make their way to the village hall - even those snowed in were offered lifts from neighbours with snow tyres or they walked down with crampons strapped to their boots. 

Platters of food including smoked salmon, mince pies, shortbread and Christmas cake made a steady appearance. The knitters brought out their needles and handiwork from the past week. The teddies are coming along splendidly, and I proudly showed off my two bears (Edward and Mrs Simpson).

Sally, who set us the task to knit bears, is still working on her first bear – a brave endeavour considering she has never knitted before, but she is having a little difficulty with increasing and decreasing stitches. Her teddy has somewhat lopsided ears.

Jeanette’s teddy is perfect, except for the fact that one arm is rather skinny and stunted, giving him a slightly deformed persona. Theresa, as usual, outdid us all by sitting and knitting four teddies on one set of needles, all in different colours. We have now set our target to be 100 teddy bears.

Once all the knitters, non-knitters and even several men appeared in this bastion of female enterprise, Andrew made a charming speech, reflecting on Petrina’s triumphs over the past 18 years and we clapped as she received her engraved crystal flower vase, and toasted her in time honoured tradition with a cup of tea.

I was introduced to Giles, one of the committee members, who is a mine of information about the village. He is adamant I must return in August for The Gathering. Yes, I know it sounds rather sinister and cultish, but it is in fact a sort of mini Highland Games. And in 2011 the very first World Tug Of War will be held in our village! Apparently contestants are coming from as far flung as Canada and Australia. There will also be a re-enactment of the battle of the Stewarts from c. 1745, so it is going to be a fine Gathering and about 1500 people are expected to flock to the village to take part.

I told Giles about my great great great great great great great great great great grand-daddy, Oliver Cromwell, and the battle he had fought right here, in the churchyard in 1653. Whilst impressed about my heritage, as Giles was well aware that most direct descendants had died out after five generations, he was unable to shed any more light on Cromwell’s skirmish as although he is an historian he has only studied the village history from the 18^th century onwards. I am invited to tea in the new year however, so that we can delve more into these matters of historical significance.

Talk turned to the snow, ice, snow and further layers of ice. Jean reckons if you are going to shovel your lane you have to do it while the snow is soft, but you also have to shovel right down to the ice, otherwise you may as well not bother. I could use a shovel right now, just to find the path outside my front door:

We hear Heathrow Airport has become zoolike, with hundreds if not thousands of stranded passengers, many of whom are now spending their fourth night sleeping on makeshift beds at the various terminals. People have queued for five hours to get on the Eurostar train to Paris and now there are no bookings available before new year.  Traffic on the roads is at a crawl and in some places at a standstill, with tales of people trapped for up to 20 hours in their cars in freezing conditions. Visitors from overseas cannot understand how the British can be so incompetent at managing their transport system because of a few inches of snow. No comment.

Jeanette and I are due to leave for England tomorrow and have abandoned the idea of driving to Pitlochry railway station – not for fear we will not get there (although this is a consideration, given the road is covered in snow and so far no snow plough has come through to clear it) but because when we come back our vehicles might be buried deep and irrecoverable.  The railway line from Inverness to Edinburgh – the very one we have tickets for - is closed today. Worse, the line to London (Jeanette’s final destination) is also closed; we are not sure about my connection from Edinburgh to York. The forecast is for worse weather, so over a few sups of Edradour whisky this evening, we have devised several Plans.

Plan A: hitch a lift with a friendly neighbour (Jean) north to Pitlochry station in the morning to see if the Inverness train is back on line (sorry, bad pun). If the train is cancelled ....

Plan B: hitch a lift with friendly neighbours (Mahri and Gilmore) south to Perth, leave the car, catch a bus from Perth to Edinburgh to get our train connections.  If no trains are leaving Edinburgh we are, in a nutshell, stuffed ... so

Plan C: we will hole up at the best 5 star hotel we can find and celebrate Christmas with copious amounts of champagne.

Theresa has reassured us – nay, informed us - that should we not be able to get across the border, we will be both be having Christmas dinner at her house, which is Plan D.

So with some trepidation, I am now heading south for yuletide festivities, back in a week – Happy Christmas to all my blog followers and trust you have a safe and happy holiday.

Bad things comes in threes

This morning, I turned on the taps to fill the bath while I brushed my teeth. Suddenly, I heard a gurgling sound. I looked down and the bath plug had leapt from its moorings. Quickly, I pushed it back into the hole, and returned to my teeth.

I heard the gurgle again. The plug was out, and water was pushing up like a small geyser. Fearful I would lose all the hot water in bath, once again I pressed the plug back into the hole, but once again it sprung out.

Ah! I thought, perhaps the cold water from the basin tap is causing some pressure to build up. I turned off the tap, and bath plug stayed safely in place. All was well. Until, that is, I went to empty the bath and no water drained out.

I phoned Jeanette.

“Have you had a bath today?”

“A bath? No. Why?”

“Or filled your basin? Or had a shower?”

“No ... I’m still in bed.”

“Well, I think we have frozen pipes,” and I explained my plight.

“I’ll call Gordon. And Eric.”

Gordon it transpired was on a train to Ikea and uncontactable.

“Eric’s away down to Dundee just now, but he thinks it’s the outside pipe. He said not to pour boiling water on the pipes as they might crack, but to pour boiling water down the basin,” said Jeanette.

Two kettlefuls of boiling water and the bath water has not shifted.

Ian from next door is roused from his sick bed to find plungers. Together with his son, they dig out the sewer plates from under the snow, and a long discussion ensues whilst snow begins to fall.

“Aye, it could be the kitchen pipe. “

“Or the bathroom pipe.”

“On mebbe something stuck down the drain.”

I am sent inside to run hot water down the kitchen sink. It pours out of the outside drain. The men establish that it must be the top of the pipe that is frozen.

“Its nay frozen before, and its bin colder than this.” They shake their heads uncomprehendingly.

Eric, my saviour, in whom I have utmost faith to fix anything, will be home from Dundee this evening. He will be co-opted to take apart the U-bend. Meanwhile, the snow is falling quite heavily as we continue to stand around in the garden debating what has caused the blockage.

Jeanette is still in her pyjamas, with her coat thrown over the top, looking cold and miserable, so I persuade her to come to the village shop for a coffee to warm up.

Jean is there.

“Have you fixed your water problem?” she asks me.

I am gobsmacked.

“Omigod, it only just happened – how did you know about it already?” I ask, stupefied. Word sure does travel fast in this neck of the woods. She just grins knowingly at me.

As we drink our coffee, it occurs to me that I have brought the snow, had my mortice lock jam and now got frozen pipes. I am bad luck, I say.

“Och nae,” says Jean. “Bad things always come in threes.”

Back in the cottage, we find a bottle of highly toxic drain fluid and tip it down the basin.

Ronnie from the end cottage comes to inspect the problem.

“Aye, look at the ice doon your wall,” he says.

“That’s the problem.”

Or it might be the solution – Jeanette and I are not quite sure. He advises that we leave the drain fluid as long as possible before flushing it out with hot water. Or we could put a spoonful of sulphuric acid down the sink, but that sounds a bit drastic and dangerous, especially as Ronnie impresses on us that we would have to flush it outstraightaway to stop the pipes corroding.

Ronnie pops home and drops me back a sink plunger. The snow is now a blizzard.

Gordon phones. He is worried about the ice that is forming on the outside wall. I am told to keep checking my dining room ceiling for water leaks. If I see any, we are to panic and go on red alert.

I turn on the hot tap to see if the drain cleaner has worked. All that happens is dirty brown water gurgles up into the bath, turning it a nasty shade of orange.  Jeanette says she will phone Johnnie to see if he has any bright ideas. The whole village is being mobilised, it seems.

Eric arrives. He has just been to Dundee to buy a car for his grandson. The roads are terrible, he says. Cars skidding around on the ice and broken down everywhere, banked up against the snow. His wife is at work and won’t be able to get home tonight, he says.

He eyes the ice on the pipe.

“It’s blocked,” he says and takes Ronnie’s plunger to the bathroom. I go to make him a cup of tea while he valiantly plunges the bathtub and basin. The water does not go down.

He decides to go and get his heat gun so he can warm up the pipe and melt that stubborn tract of ice which he thinks is the cause of all this mischief. He stands outside, gloveless, arms upstretched with his gun trained onto the pipe, with an occasional sip of tea to keep him warm.

Then we hear it – a sound that is like nectar to our ears (in my excitement, forgive the mixed metaphor) – a rumbling, spluttering gush of water sloshing down the pipes,  magnificent and glorious.

Eric, my hero, has saved the day again!

The cocktail party

It is past eight o’clock when Jeanette and I finally set out for Mahri and Gilmore’s, laden with desserts and Christmas presents. Due to our hurried change, we have both fretted about our outfits. I am wearing a short skirt with Ugg boots because having warm feet has taken precedence over looking glam, and Jeanette cosies up in a frothy purple scarf which she thinks is a bit outré and a black dress which once caused Jean to ask ‘when’s the baby due?’. But it’s too late to change again.

When we arrive, it is apparent the tom toms have arrived before us, and everyone already knows why we are late – although there is confusion over whether the key got stuck in lock, there was something stuck in the lock, the key got lost or it was in fact, Jeanette’s cottage that we were locked out from. Regardless, it is a tale that by the end of tomorrow the entire village with be familiar with, albeit slightly different versions of the truth.

Cocktails means cocktails. Only cocktails. Served with dinner, rather than canapés (although we probably missed these). To my mind, a much better way of doing things because judging by the Harvey Wallbanger that I was presented with, I will need a decent amount of food to mop up the alcohol.

Everyone is in slippers, except Jeanette and I. Apparently we did not receive the written invitation which said shoes were to be left in the hall.

“For the first time in twenty-five years, Gilmore has had the carpet cleaned,” says Mahri, marvelling that he would choose to do this before the party and 40 snowy feet descended on their living room, so she told everyone to bring slippers. A trail of mud is spied across the pristine carpet, the culprit must be either Jeanette or I but by now – of course - the bottoms of our boots are clear of any muck.

A second Harvey Wallbanger and I am being regaled with Paul’s story of being fitted for his new golf clubs. He goes through the detail of each selection in meticulous detail – how he swung the club, the pro’s amazement at how far he drove the ball, the number of times he was told he should really be playing off a nine handicap, not 13. He bought nine new clubs, and each required a few practice swings (nearly decapitating a few guests each time). The story took a while to tell. He is still playing off 13, however.

Dinner is served, and I have a cocktail of vodka, pomegranate and apple and ginger ale. It is very sweet and a fuzzy purple colour. I chat to Barry who runs the village shop. We discuss his staff issues, particularly how to stop one lady from taking several daily smoko breaks outside the shop and leaning, in full view of customers, on the pump. The petrol pump, that is.

Groups start to form and settle into armchairs to eat dessert. I meet VJ who raises piglets.

“Do you breed them?” I ask.

“No, I just eat them for myself,” she says, admitting that pork can get monotonous and she did once ask a shooter if she could swap a pig for a deer. He happily obliged and left a dead deer on her doorstep. Tony snorted and said he wasn’t surprised, shooters had no use for deer which really weren’t worth much, they were just shooting fodder, but a pig! – well a pig was a valuable commodity. In his opinion, she had a poor trade.

Over in the corner, I hear Gilmore mention the name Jake.

“Oh, is that Black Jake,” I ingenuously ask. It seems most people know him as Jake and I’m afraid I cannot explain how he came to be called Black Jake, only that Eric described him thus.

 “Mind you, I can only understand every third word Eric says,” and the assembly titters, perhaps at my lack of an ear for the Scottish dialect or in sympathy for deciphering Eric’s broad brogue.

Gilmore continues the story of Black Jake’s recent brush with violence.

A well known local identity, let’s call him Harry, often seen propping up the various bars around the village although he has been banned a couple of times from the inn and the pub (“A couple of times!” hooted Jackie. “Did he forget he was banned the first time?”), recently approached Gilmore – who is a barrister - with a legal problem.

“If someone asks you to mend their chainsaw, and you forget, and then they want it back, and you don’t have it any more, is that stealing?” asked Harry to Gilmore.

“Well,” said Gilmore, treading carefully, “that would depend on the circumstances.”

Henry looked thoughtful. “It was a crap chainsaw anyway,” he said.

Which is how Harry’s tyres MAY have come to be slashed. There is no proof of course, but the money is on Black Jake, the owner of the missing chainsaw.

The next round of cocktails is sloe gin with tonic. Sloe gin is made with cranberries, is bright pink and quite lethal. But after Harvey Wallbangers and the purple pomegranate concoction, who cares?

Mahri reminisces about her first Sambuca.

“I didn’t know you were supposed to blow the flame out before you drank it. I singed my fringe quite badly,” she said, in a bemused voice.

Whilst on the subject of coiffure, she told us about her recent trip to Perth to have her hair permed. She forgot to put any money in the Pay Machine at the carpark, and only remembered once she was settled at the hairdressers. With her hair in rollers, cotton wool framing her face and a shower cap over her head, she sprinted the considerable distance across the city to the carpark.

“Did anyone stare at you?” asks Hannah (seriously).

It is time to go home. John, a carpenter, says goodnight and kindly offers his services should I get home and be unable to unlock my door.

“But call Eric first,” he says.

A day of drama

It’s Mahri and Gilmore’s cocktail party tonight. I rang to ask what I could bring. Wine perhaps?

“Bring grapes,” she said.

“Or mixers. Like lemonade.”

Later I spoke to her again, just to check.

“Bring dessert.”

“How many people?”

“About 20.” She expressed a preference for profiteroles.

Jeanette and I are going to Dundee with her friend Rhoda where I am sure we can find desserts. Jan is making a lemon cheesecake. We hope that M&S has profiteroles.

On our way to Dundee, we stop at the craft shop, handily situated in the middle of nowhere. Jeanette needs lampshade moulds. We end up buying more balls of Can Can wool.

“Tea?”

In the craft shop cafe, a sign tells us to ring for service. A rather doddery old fellow in his 80s appears, dressed in baggy blue denim jeans tied with a belt but also held up by wide braces – he looks like a cross between John Wayne and Mick Jagger. We order pancakes and truffles with our tea, and he coughs rather nastily as he shakily reaches for the cakes. We all try to pretend we didn’t notice - because we are thirsty and hungry and there is nowhere else nearby for refreshments – and cross our fingers behind our backs that he is not harbouring any infectious disease.

Rhoda pours her tea, stirs in the sugar, and takes a sip.

“Ow, that tastes foul! It tastes like poison!”

Jeanette pokes her nose into the teapot.

“Och, I think someone’s left detergent in the pot, it smells awful. Send it back,” she says.

The doddery man duly returns with a replacement pot.

Rhoda pours her tea, reaches for the sugar, rips the top off the sachet and is about to pour it into the cup.

“Oh my, it’s pepper – silly me.”

“Do you think you put pepper in the other cup?” Jeanette asks. We scrabble around on the tabletop and find an offending empty sachet of salt, which we all find hysterically funny. At least Rhoda is not the victim of a strychnine attempt.

In Dundee I purchase chocolate brownie cake, raspberry roulade, cherry friand and a large tub of double cream – M&S is clean out of profiteroles. We walk through the town centre, finalise some Christmas shopping and head back to the village. It is dark, and 6.30pm, when we pull into the lane. Mahri’s party starts at 7.00pm so we are in a rush to get home and change into our party frocks before heading up the hill.

But when I reach my cottage, disaster strikes. No matter which way I try, my key will not turn in the lock. Jeanette uses the light of the screen of her mobile phone to act as a torch, and we see a small piece of metal lodged in the keyhole.

“Let’s get Eric!” so we head back into the village to find Eric, the local handyman and fixer.

“He might be having his tea,” I say, when our banging on his door raises no response, despite there being lights on inside. Jeanette phones him from her mobile. He says he is in the shower as he is very dirty, but will be come on over once he has cleaned up.

This is an emergency, so Jeanette and I realise there is nothing else for it but a cup of tea and a mince pie to keep up our strength, while we wait for Eric.

Eric arrives and examines the lock. He shakes his head solemnly.

“Aye, this is the worst thing that can happen,” he says. “The worst thing.”

According to Eric, the only way to get into my cottage is to break the door down, tearing it from its jamb. Before he does this, he will see if a knitting needle will do the trick.

Jeanette calls Gordon, who is always calm and full of good advice in a crisis. All Gordon says is, “I’m glad I’m not there”. He also suggests we get the ladders out of the shed and send Eric up to break and enter via one of the upstairs  bedroom windows. Then he can open one of the double-glazed windows downstairs and I will be climb in that way (Santa-wise, ho ho ho). Tomorrow we can get a locksmith.

Eric is mortified that he cannot find a way to open the mortice lock; the knitting needle failed. Determined not to let us down, he decides to try the key one more time. We hear him stomp back down the lane.

“I am one lucky man! It’s opened!”

With the wind at about minus 10, we all hop around for joy and declare Eric a hero, but his rescue mission is not complete yet. With the front door wide open, and Jeanette holding the torch, he proceeds to pull apart the door lock and handle which are both stuck fast.

“It’s okay, Eric,” I say. “Come back in the daylight. I don’t mind not locking the front door.”

“Och nay,” says Eric. “Black Jake might get ya.” And while he tells us how recent events have caused Black Jake’s ire to well and truly rise to heights of supreme anger which might lead to heavens knows what other mayhem, he pieces together and replaces the lock, squeezes Fairy Liquid on it (I was out of WD40) and heads back to Gladys and his tea.

Reader, the story of Black Jake will have to wait for another day, for right now we are late for cocktails at Mahri and Gilmore’s.

Village (social) life

Last year when I was here I was a curiosity; this year, having proven my credentials and intent by actually returning to the scene, I seem to be ‘one of them’. Or as Theresa put it, ‘You’re the most interesting thing to happen around here all year’.

However, I am pretty certain that this village is not typical in this regard. Certainly, I have always had the inkling that in small Scottish communities until you can prove three generations of residency (preferably in the same homestead), you will always be considered an ‘incomer’ or from ‘down south’ (across the border in England). I’m also not sure the level of social interaction and planned events that happen here is usual either.  There are apparently about 400 residents, so as you can see, we are not a large group, yet the amount of activity that goes on is prolific.

Of course, last year, I only gradually met the locals – this year, I returned already know a lot of people, in varying degrees of acquaintance-ship and friendship, yet many of those I hardly knew have now welcomed me back as if I were, well, one of the more interesting things to have occurred recently. I suspect being banked up behind several feet of snow for large tracts of time may have some bearing.

Regardless, my social calendar is jam-packed. There has not been a day when I have not been dashing about getting myself to a dinner, lunch, tea party, coffee get together, shopping trip, knitting circle, drinks, more tea .... it is hectic. Those of you wondering how The Great Novel is progressing can rest assured that last Sunday I penned 1100 words (yes, pathetic, I know) and I have high hopes again for this Sunday. 

However, manoevring oneself around the local social mores is quite another matter. It would be so easy to inadvertently do the wrong thing and be forever outlawed. So for any of you planning to bury yourself in a small Scottish village at some time in your future, here are a few hints to help you survive. Oh, but I would just add, please don’t take these as gospel, for all I know, everyone is discussing my social eccentricities behind my back and having a good laugh, too polite to let me know that my way most definitely is not the way they do things round ‘ere.

Gifts should not be extravagant, it is the thought that counts. Or more precisely, if you don’t have the thought, that will count even more – against you. If in doubt, take a small and suitable gift when you visit for lunch or dinner and the first time you receive a tea invite. Any event involving a meal for more than about six people usually means you’re expected to take a plate of food (therein lies another minefield which probably deserves its own chapter).

Phoning is fine, but if you want to ensure face to face interaction, just drop in. You can pretend you didn’t have the phone number (or even a phone) if the person you drop in on looks as if dropping in isn’t quite what they had planned / has other visitors / just on way out / run out of tea bags etc. SMS-ing is highly popular, except for Dawn, 85, who is grappling with predictive texting on her ancient Nokia. You might wonder why, at her advanced years, she would want to learn but she has a deaf friend who misunderstands arrangements made by phone.

“I can’t make it tomorrow, dear,” says Dawn.

“I’ll see you in the morning then!’ her friend replies.

Going to the pub for a drink or a meal does not happen much, well not in this village. Mostly people eat at home and the blokes occasionally meet for a beer. Stamp your status and personality on the village by arranging pub dinners or drinks. The locals will find this a charming way of socialising that they don’t often do, proof of which is when you return a year later and at your welcome home party at the pub, the majority say it’s the first time they’ve been back since you left. The landlord will also approve.

Ceilidhs are Scottish dances and you need to dress down and dress light. It gets extremely hot, all that jigging about, and if you’re the one in the party frock and stilettos you will stand out like the fairy on the Christmas tree amongst the blokes in their hobnail boots, women in jeans and the occasional kilted native. (Hogmanay and weddings excepted)

Posh anything - clothes, jewellery, accent – are all frightening and unnecessary. Avoid. Unless you are leading a fashion revival, such as wearing a mink coat and your neighbours can jump on the bandwagon by rummaging in their attics to find auntie’s long lost fox fur, you will just look like a ponce.

Be wary of your sense of humour. It is quite likely your new friends will (a) not understand your accent or your joke (b) misunderstand your joke and take offence or (c) not even realise you are telling a joke and take you seriously. Equally, be careful what you laugh at – whilst you might think the local wag is telling a joke, he might be describing the eulogy at old Frank’s funeral (which admittedly may be very funny but as you didn’t know Frank it would be inappropriate to laugh).  Laughing out loud at what you think is a joke but didn’t understand a word of the Scottish brogue or lingo signal the death knell for your acceptance into the local community.

Repay your debts instantly and to the penny. This is, after all, Scotland.

Tall tales

There’s a chap who has set the challenge to knitters across the globe to knit one million teddy bears. So at Clicking Needles we were handed a bear pattern and our teddies will be sent to children in third world countries with AIDS – apparently children recover better if they have a teddy to hug. It won’t be a big hug though as the teddy pattern is very wee.  So far I have knitted one half of my Edward Bear, in traditional mid-brown. I noticed the other ladies were using multi-coloured bright wools so my next effort will be in blue.

Before I could get started on my teddy, I first had to furnish my Malawi hand puppet with eyes, nose and mouth. Let me tell you, it is quite difficult to knit a smiley face.

In other news, Gordon told me about a fellow from neighbouring land, who I think must be a laird of large acreage, who sent his messenger to Edinburgh. This messenger apparently can run very fast, and in no time (well, maybe several hours) he had run to Edinburgh, delivered his message and run all the way back to the castle. Exhausted, he curled up under the kitchen table and fell asleep. The laird saw him there and was absolutely appalled as his message was for none other than Her Majesty  The Queen herself – he assumed the messenger was being an idle lout and had not yet set off on his journey, preferring to take a nap instead. In his anger he cut off his head.

“Oh my goodness!”  I said. “Was this just recently?”

“Och, quite a few hundred years ago,” said Gordon, who is keen that I should tell the readers of my blog the various stories that will make your hair curl about the goings-on hereabouts.

Sadly, some of them refer to the living and may be libellous so best avoided. Although I quite liked the one about the lover who was found drowned in the river that runs along the end of our garden. His cries were heard in the night by the man next door, who was unable to work out where the screams were coming from so he rolled over and went back to sleep - but it seems highly likely the lover was murdered by his scorned mistress. It remains a local mystery to this day.

In further news, already I am feeling the symptoms of withdrawal as there will be no more daily chats with the Indians at the call centre for me – my golf clubs arrived late yesterday evening, in a somewhat damp bag, but all in one piece.

To satisfy my yearning and desire to be placed on endless hold and listen to bad music and an annoying woman telling me how important my call is to her,  just one more time I placed a final call to find out about compensation for non-delivery of bags.

“Oh madam, you need to dial another number,” said Jane in an Indian accent.

So I dialled the new number/option 5.

“Customer relations!” answered a cheery Indian voice.

I relayed my tale of delayed luggage.

“Oh madam, you have to go online or write to Customer Relations for this.

“And please accept my sincere condolences for all the inconvenience this has caused you.”

That’s nice, I thought, at least four colonials have now apologised for my troubles, what a polite lot.

So, I have now written to Customer Relations and apparently I will receive a reply in three weeks. If I don’t, I shall be renewing my acquaintance with my Indian pals quick-smartish, who I feel certain will be full of empathy for my position – even if powerless to do anything other than refer me on to yet another department (Customer Relations Complaints, perhaps?).

A Winter's Fairy Tale

Snow is just white stuff that apparently only slightly inconveniences the local populace. Now that a semi-thaw has set in, they are bemoaning the fact it may not, after all, be a White Christmas, whilst at the same time proudly claiming the worst winter in forty years.

They may have short memories, I do not. My first week back in the village can be categorised as follows:

Friday.  I leave Sydney knowing the Edinburgh Airport is closed, due to snowstorms. I hope and pray that in the next 24 hours it re-opens.  I arrive at dawn at Heathrow Airport, but miss my connection. After bouncing around between terminals 3, 5 and 1, I eventually get a seat on a British Midlands flight which flies low over Britain, giving a clear view of an extraordinary snow-covered land. I arrive at Edinburgh Airport having changed into a winter outfit I thoughtfully – and propitiously as it turns out – put into my hand luggage. Although I am here, my bags are not. I queue to give my details and am told my luggage will follow on the next flight and be delivered to the cottage. At least I have a 4WD booked!

The car rental carpark is outdoors and is a mound of snowhills. I am grateful I do not have to try and push a trolley with three cases across the snow and ice to find my car, because at this stage I am still living in a fantasy world and believing in the luggage fairy who will deliver my bags to me later today.

Saturday.  The world is very white and very pretty. I am here, safe and sound and joyfully take some photos of the pretty scene outside my door. With Gordon and Jeanette, we head towards the Cairngorms, the roads reasonably passable in a 4WD. Gordon tells me this snow will last now all winter, I wonder why I packed my golf clubs, especially when all that can be seen of the course is little flags poking up here and there out of the white world to denote deeply submersed putting greens.

No luggage. I call the airline and speak to Eric in the Indian call centre. It has been picked up by the courier. It will arrive tomorrow!

Sunday. Thank heavens I left a few clothes behind last year. I can cobble together three outfits although the third one is a bit patchy – thermal leggings and thermal top with a baggy old sweatshirt on top. Still, everyone here thinks I’m bit eccentric so I may as well live up to my reputation. Gordon clears the icicles from the roof, they are hanging down, more than a foot long, and look very lethal.

A young girl, 14, in the Borders suffers spinal injuries when snow she was clearing off a roof slid down,  and landed on her back.

No sign of my luggage. I call the airline and speak to Natalie in the Indian call centre. It will arrive before 10.00pm tonight.

Monday.  As I walk to the village hall for knitting, I spot Mahri running through the snow. She gets stir crazy if she has to stay indoors. Plain crazy, I think.

My luggage wasn’t delivered last night. We have signs on Jeanette’s front door and my front door, saying “Bag delivery: leave at door”. I cannot risk the courier taking them away if no one is at home to take delivery.

Tuesday. The roads have been gritted and salted. I have an appointment in Blairgowrie but cannot get my car to reverse out of our back lane because the snow is too deep. Gordon – dear Gordon! – gets out the shovel and eventually after several tries we finally get the car out.

In Blairgowrie, I visit Frivols where last year I purchased a (second-hand bargain) mink coat. The owner remembers me and is surprised, in these minus 15 degree temperatures, I am not wearing it.  I woefully explain it is currently wrapped around my golf clubs, deep in an airport warehouse or courier truck somewhere in Perthshire. She has a beautiful fully lined full length sheepskin coat. It fits me like a glove.

“Can I trade in the mink when it gets here?” I ask. Yes, she says, and the deal is done.

Home and no luggage. I call the airline.

“It was picked up yesterday,” says Jeremy in the Indian call centre. “You will have it by 11.00pm tonight.”

“But yesterday you told me it was picked up on Saturday.”

“I am very, very sorry for the inconvenience,” says Jeremy and hangs up to talk to another bagless customer, and re-iterate his condolences at their loss.

Wednesday. The garbage collectors can now resume pick-up.  An email has been sent with the following instructions:

*    Ensure bin lid is free of ice and snow and is not frozen shut as this can prevent it from emptying when it is lifted by the collection vehicle.

*    Wrap food waste in newspaper before placing it in bin bags to avoid it freezing to the side of the bin.

*    Put a piece of cardboard at the bottom of the bin when it is empty to try to stop the contents freezing to the bottom and remaining in the bin when it is emptied.

*    Store bin somewhere that it is less likely to freeze the day before collection, for example in a garage, or a place that gets the sun in the morning.

*    Clear a path from the bin presentation area to the road to assist the crew in wheeling the bin to the rear of the vehicle for emptying.  If possible, bins should be presented at the edge of the kerbside.
No luggage.  I decide not to call the Indians in the call centre today but then I wonder if I can get compensation. So I call anyway. I speak to a nice Indian lady called Felicity or something equally unlikely. She apologises for my inconvenience and tells me I may be entitled to 50 pounds. It will hardly be worth the bother.

Thursday.  Jeanette, Gordon and I go to Perth. The Perth Council is a disgrace, the roads are icy and treacherous, even the 4WD skids everywhere.  The talk everywhere is of a thaw and three days of milder weather before the next cold snap.  I am very pleased I purchased the sheepskin coat. Maybe this fella could use one:

It is 5.00pm when we get home, and dark. But there is a partially discernible mound outside the cottage door. Yes! One of my cases awaits. As I unpack the frozen contents, I marvel at all the clothes I have brought with me, and wonder what on earth I need them all for. After all, I have managed very well on three outfits and two pairs of knickers.

Friday. Temperatures are rising. Tempers are rising. Paul and Therese arrived back from New York last Thursday and they wait for their luggage too. Paul is a conspiracy theorist. He says my luggage has been delivered because I had a Priority sticker on it. Personally, I think it was just nearer than his to the loading dock door of the warehouse, but he will have none of it.

Where the sun permeates, the snow is thawing. Where it is dark, it merely melts and then turns to sheet ice. Walking anywhere is a triumph of balance over hope.

I call my Indian friends to find out when my other bag will be delivered.

“To be honest with you madam, I have no idea,” says Nathan or Neil.

An expert knitter

No longer do I shuffle apologetically into the wool shop. All year I have been practising my knitting skills and now confidently turn a cable stitch, whip up natty lace work scarves and have a back catalogue of baby knits and sweaters for every family member to my credit. 

So, with the air of a maestro, I strode into The Workbasket, barely able to contain my excitement and impatience because I had seen a sign on the door “WE CAN CAN CAN”. Yes! The latest fashion in wool is back in stock.

At the Monday afternoon’s knitting circle, Clicking Needles, I had hoped to prove that the ladies’ schooling last year had paid dividends and show off my latest endeavour: a cashmere cardigan. Unfortunately, my wool and needles are packed in my golf bag (which is still yet to arrive, but that’s another story), so I rootled around in the village hall’s cupboard and founds some balls of double-knit, borrowed a pair of size 8 needles and settled down to knit a finger puppet for a child in Malawi  - “Make sure you knit the face in brown wool, please!”:

Yes, I appreciate the wee fella needs his features stitching in, but you get the general idea.

Jean and Janet, meanwhile, were knitting lady mice in the style of Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tittlemouse whilst Therese and Jeanette were drooling over their ribbon lace wool, a triumph in ingenuity and the latest craze to sweep through the Highland knitters: Can Can wool.

I want it, I cried, salivating at its sheer beauty and elegance. You could get it at The Woolbasket, they said, but it’s all sold out.

So you can now appreciate that it was with racing heart and mustering all my self-control that I steadily walked to the counter of The Workbasket, praying the sign on the door wasn’t a hoax.

The lady behind the counter – she who had so patiently and long-sufferingly dealt with my pathetic queries just 12 months ago – was, I think, somewhat surprised that I would want Can Can wool as she evidently remembered my tussles with garter stitch and wool tension. But she is a professional – and she recovered herself to show me a whole shelf of Can Can wool in various colours. I chose the red and then – and this is slightly shameful – I asked her if it came with instructions.

She sighed – obviously it was too good to be true that the returning Aussie had indeed upskilled sufficiently to master Can Can wool – and she unravelled the wool and gave me a step by step lesson, referring me to YouTube should I falter when left to my own devices.

“There’s two hundred grams to the ball and that’ll make two scarves,” she said.

“Oh! How will I know when I’m half way through the ball?”

“Just weigh the wool.” Of course. Silly me.

Later that night I began on my first, practice, scarf.  Jeanette wants the second one so I am under pressure and scrutiny from one of the village’s leading craftsladies to prove that I really am now ‘one of them’.

Be amazed .... be very amazed:

Fakery & duplicity

Plastic foliage abounds, and I don’t get it. Here we are, in the depths of the countryside, surrounded by trees and with florists in abundance, yet there seems to be a predeliction for plastic. Plastic of the type that mysteriously allows one to purchase essentials and frivolities, yes I do get. Even plastic greenery where plantlife cannot thrive, perhaps. But here, in leafy Scotland?

My first flirtation with plastic was last winter, when after several weeks of religiously  watering the plant in my bedroom twice weekly, I noticed it wasn’t flowering. I also noticed it was plastic,  albeit a good likeness (obviously, I would hardly deliberately water an imposter).

A digression for a moment: on arrival last week, I saw that Jeanette had put a vase of towering pussy willows in the dining room – I remembered she had admired the ones I had bought last year, and thanked her for her thoughtfulness in getting some more.

“Och, nae,” she said. “They’re the ones ye left last year.”

So, really, who needs plastic if real ones last 12 months?

Scottish thriftiness around here even extends to my Christmas tree. We had plans to crank up our 4WDs and go on an expedition into Blairgowrie on Sunday to buy a (real) tree. Then Gordon remembered that he had in fact planted out last year’s tree. Rather than waste money on a new one, he would recycle the old one. I told him I would leave the cottage open so he could bring it in, and then I headed off to do some shopping.

Half way to Blairgowrie, I had a horrible thought. I had left Hot Sex – which has a bright lurid in-your-face-screaming-notice-me pink cover – on the coffee table in my living room, right next to where I had cleared a space for the tree. What sort of woman was Gordon to think I am? I tried out a few possible explanations but none of them sounded quite plausible.

“Um, that book, Hot Sex, it’s not mine, it’s your wife’s” (could get me into trouble with Jeanette)

“ Ha ha! Bet you wondered about that book on the table!  Just something I’m promoting for a client” (unlikely story)

When I got home, Gordon had just brought in my tree which was in a state of petrification and was missing its top branches, but all in all, with some judicious decorations, once thawed, I thought it would do nicely.

“Oh,” I said casually, “You must have wondered about the book ....”

“What book?” said Gordon. Maybe he was being deliberately obtuse but he didn’t wink or frown or stutter so I decided to drop the matter pronto rather than wade into deep water.

As I approached the village shop I saw that the fairy lights and waving santa had been installed. Through the window I saw Gilmore and Mahri alongside a large Christmas tree which appeared to have lost its branches down one side. I went to say hello and saw that they were painstakingly straightening out the plastic fronds! Meanwhile, outside the shop, propped up against the wall, stood a variety of Norwegian pines for sale. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

But the instance that takes the biscuit is a wedding Jeanette recently attended. The bride had a beautiful bouquet of flowers which she carefully laid on an antique desk so she could sign the wedding register. As Jeanette leaned forward to admire the flowers, she noticed on the base a barcode and price sticker.  Yup - fake!