Hobbits In Rivendell

Despite the mail strike, my editor’s packet of proofs has found me. And with only eight days to get it back to her, I should really be working, but… well, as I write this, the West Coast of the United States, where I actually live, are all – the good citizens, at least – asleep. This makes me singularly unmotivated to get going, so I shall instead busy myself with other things…

A friend who has lived abroad frequently writes, “I’ve found that the period after the initial excitement and newness wears off is the hardest stretch. But after weathering that few months it just gets better and better. Maybe you won’t experience this but if you do feel blue – just hang in there and wait for spring to bloom. It will be worth the wait.”

As each morning the sun rises later and later, I know her advice to ‘wait’ is right. I wouldn’t have much to say for Scotland, nor really for the UK as a whole if I took the impressions I have now and kept them. Though both of us are cheerful, there’s a little bit of grimness in our cheer, a bit of “chin-up-it-has-to-get-better” going on.

It does have to, right?

I‘m going to chase down someone from the shipping company and demand tights, our kitchen items and our winter clothes. I feel awful walking D. out on wet mornings, he without a thermos of something hot, without his wool caps and his leather gloves. He shoving his hands into a stretchy microfiber pair of mine — desperate times and all that. The company said 45 days – we’re at 70 days and counting. Unless the ship sank – which one would think they would have mentioned — we have no information on the reasons behind the delay. Our friend Lorne told us our things would be shipped to Shanghai by way of New Zealand. (Lorne — if our things ARE in Shanghai– we blame you…)

British Telecomm is …making a bad word of its name. You see, we have the wrong telephone number, have had the wrong telephone number since they hooked up our phone. They gave us a number, we faithfully wrote it down, told the University and various other places and people – including business contacts – our number. We dial out from a different number, our billing reflects a different number, and — who is using the original number given to us, pray? How long does it honestly take to get something like that figured out? Thus far, three weeks and counting… Honestly, we don’t actually care what number we have — let’s just settle on one — preferably one that matches what’s on our bill…? Is this impossible? Yes? Sigh.

D. is finding his entrance into academia quite difficult. Not that he’s not an academic, but the British educational system is …vastly different. He’s had two weeks of lectures, and today is his first tutorial. Lecturers aren’t like American professors, who both teach and discuss and grade. Lecturers just… lecture, and you go and have a chat with your tutor and tutorial group in order to get grades, write papers, etc. For a person who processes information verbally, who speaks in order to think, it’s been really hard for D. not to be able to have widely ranging, robust discussions.

The discussions in which he has participated are very rigidly controlled, run like horrific committee meetings where an idea can be dismissed and no one allowed to discuss it further. Which is really — an unique way of having a “discussion.” Also, it’s been hard not to have any feedback as to how he’s doing. I think after today he’ll be a bit more assured that he does, in fact, understand what he’s been studying for the last couple of weeks, and he’ll feel more confident. As it stands, he’s pretty sure he’s annoying all of the professors, as he has a lot of things he wants to throw out for discussion, and new ideas seem to give some of them a distinct rash…

On the plus side…

The convection oven, which coughed and breathed its last about a week and a half ago, gets a new fan today — we have been faithfully promised; we have discovered that the cryptic markings on the sink are not instructions on what not to put down the drain, but are, in fact, an engraved coat of arms (How cool is that?), and best of all, despite the coldness of the weather and the early darkness we’ve been invited — out.

The Wellington Church (they of the previously mentioned “free student dinners in the Crypt,” which we have since learned is the name of their café – whew!) on University Avenue is a hoary old beauty, and is the main University church. It has an International Club, and they have hired an instructor for country dances and reels. We are invited to a CEILIDH in two weeks time.

What’s a céilidh, you ask? First, say it céilí, or “kay-lee,” which is the Scottish Gaelic word for ‘visit.’ It’s …kind of like informal, in-house square dancing. Only, it’s not, I’m informed, and if you took square dancing in high school, it won’t really help you. I don’t expect anything will really help any of us, if it’s the international group we’ve already met. Thor and Frieda! The Pakistani couple! The Muslim families! The African family! I can just see us all leaping and crashing about, laughing hysterically… and I think that’s maybe the whole point.

Wellington Church has a number of these weekly get-togethers, where one can get to know the history of the church building, meet some of the members, bring food from one’s home country, get an explanation of bonfire day, or Guy Fawkes Day… and just hang around with them every weekend. It is truly one of the most painless evangelism invitations I’ve ever seen; socializing, eating, leaping about embarrassing oneself doing the Britannia Two-Step, the Strip the Willow, the Circassian Circle and the Dashing White Sergeant (heee!). Oh, and then there’s church at some point, too. If you want.

It is so dark out in the mornings, it grows dark early in the evenings, but where all the fun is, all the lights and voices are, and the food and the music and smiles – are at church. Well played, Presbyterians.

We’ve also been invited out to the Southwestern Scottish coast to a little town called Balbeattie for Bonfire Night. It all sounds so historical — Bonfire Night. Actually, it sounds like Friday Nights at the Window Tree freshman year in college where we built a fire the size of a small car, and stood around and roasted our faces. I’m not social enough to want to do something like that every single weekend, but it does sound fun to burn things and stand around in the crisp, dark cold, defying the death of the season with one more brilliant night of stars… I love this time of year. It has already snowed in the Highlands and at Lake Tahoe!! It will be a surprising winter, I think. (And I wish for you, East Coast of the United States, FROST. Quickly. No more disgustingly humid 90+ degree days. Amen.)

I have decided on yet one more thing to schlepp back when we come to the U.S. for a visit – tea. I am having Celestial Seasonings withdrawal. Okay, it’s not that bad, but tea here is either black, white or green. Herbal – even in restaurants – is met with polite bewilderment, and then peppermint and ginger are brought forth with reassuring smiles. No, my dears. There is nothing wrong with my gastrointestinal tract. Unless we want me clambering on the furniture, we should limit my caffeine intake, okay? Herbal tea, I guess I also have to find in a wholefood / healthfood store. Fortunately, tea is light; I’ll simply go home and pack myself a bunch and pop it in the mail. If the strike is finished…

And speaking of mail has brought me ’round again to the work that is before me, the work I have been assiduously avoiding. Proofs. Stay tuned as I finish this last go on my manuscript, then try to figure out where a FedEx office might be… I still haven’t figured out how to post a letter from my building, much less a FedEx package, but hope springs eternal…

Meanwhile, thanks for all of the email and care packages, the little videos of the nephew and the pictures of your kids. It’s so fun hearing from so many of you who are members of our church at home, who aren’t exactly tech-savvy. We appreciate your notes (even if you don’t know how to leave them here on the ‘Comments’ section), and we appreciate you. Take care and blessings on you all,

– D & T

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There are many things I have discovered, many things that I need to tell you. They are in a grab bag of thoughts, mental detritus set aside in a place I think, “Ooh, I should tell someone that. And so here you are and here I go.

FYI: There is a mail strike going on.The stack of stamped post cards I planned on sending to you are sitting, because I have no place to put them. The card for Ruth, recovering from surgery, the note of sympathy to her husband; the books, the short stories for contests, the manuscript to return to my editor, the gifts for my sibs, including uniquely UK candies (I mean, wine gums. Yet they contain no actual wine? Plenty of suspicious gelatin, though.) — all of these things sitting in drifts around the house, waiting. I’m all for supporting the people against the establishment — Go Postmen! — but right now the strike is filling me with a tiny but growing shriek of “Aaaaaargh!”

Another small item of information: Envelopes are different here. I haven’t had to use many, as we’ve mainly confined our bills to direct deposit, and our business dealings to telephone and internet, but we had to pick up a couple of envelopes a week or so ago. I looked at them, figured out how they worked, and then promptly tried to only pull down one flap to seal the letters in. No. Pull one pre-gummed flap up, pull one flap down. Not so hard, but it’s counterintuitive for me, as both flaps are bent down, and it makes me smile every time…

FYI: There is something to be said for haggis, I’m sure, but not by me. Haggis is one of those obvious foods that everyone hears about as a specialty of Scotland and then cringes and rolls around and says “Eeew!” and “Ooh” and vows never to eat. Well, no one minds; people who like haggis just figure there’s more for them, people who don’t can rest easy with their chips. Haggis, I’ve found, is one of those things like turkey at Thanksgiving; unless it’s Robert Burns Day, not many people have it on their everyday menus – at least not here in the city, although it’s on the menu at touristy restaurants we pass. But what we have found on many menus – at snack trucks (what we might call a ‘Roach Coach’ in the U.S.) and sandwich shops we’ve passed is the word ‘Bovril” on the menu.

After saying the words back and forth to each other for a couple of weeks, we finally remembered to look it up while we were thinking about it. It’s a slippery word, it is — Bovril. It reminds me of bovine, and ‘boll weevil,’ all run together. At any rate — we looked it up. And it was Marmite and Vegemite all over again. Only Bovril has some kind of beef extract in it, which can be drunk as (the ubiquitous in British novels) beef tea.

Now, this is a serious question — I’d like to know why Americans haven’t got a national taste for yeast paste foods. And no, it’s not because Americans make healthier choices – we’re probably twice as salt-addicted as the UK, Australia and NZ and Canada where these things are relished. Is it because of the UK’s link with food processing, or producing war foods? Is it because… ? What? I don’t get it. I really don’t. Bovril. Hm.

Is it me, or does this coffee shop in Central Station look too much like another one? I mean, do their beans come from Seattle?!

The other day it seemed that this right-side-driver’s-seat thing had finally sunk into my brain. On the freeway, people merge in nicely. The roundabouts, while still somewhat confusing, are driven by the cabbies with an air of ‘what the heck, just jump in,’ and I think we’ve got the hang of the signaling — mostly. A gentleman has even offered D. the use of his car (dear, sweet, generous and completely delusional Englishman…), and so, we feel it is only a matter of time before we’ll be able to wrestle with and win through the UK roads.

Maybe one of us will. The other of us still can’t figure out from which direction the bus is coming, despite the fact that the bus shelter has an ADVERTISEMENT on one wall, making it opaque, and leaving the other clear to see the approaching traffic. No, she simply steps beyond the advertisement, and scans the road… and jumps, as the buses pull up behind her, gears grinding and brakes squealing…

There are tons of other things I meant to tell you, I’m sure, but they’ll have to wait. The sun is shining, which means I must throw some laundry in immediately to take advantage of the puddle of sun on the living room floor and position my laundry rack in order to speed drying. Air drying leaves all of our towels with quite an exfoliating effect, but we certainly don’t have to iron our jeans and cords anymore!

– D & T

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One of the interesting things about being in another country is the signage. Amongst the odd street signs (yield signs are apparently painted upon the ground here as upside-down triangles, rather than being upon a post as they are in the US), we found this beauty. It’s outside the park next to our building, and is absolutely fabulous. In case you can’t read the fine print:

Allowing your dog to foul this place is an offence and may result in you being prosecuted and fined up to £500 unless you immediately “Lift it, Bag it and Bin it.“

Not that anybody actually pays attention to the sign, mind you, except to encourage their dogs to foul the sidewalk around our building rather than the park. I’d imagine that the threat of that fine is an awfully good incentive – as, in US Dollars, it works out to $1,020. That’s an awfully big incentive.

– D & T

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T. has been teased and hassled about her purses. For one thing, they tend to be — massive. More like luggage, really, filled with bits of this and that — books, snacks, colored pencils, bobby pens, and a buried wad of keys — identified by a large silver bell.

The contents of T’s purses grew over time. At one point, they must have contained just the usual contents of a girl’s bag – wallet, license, phone, but over time, there came…

– the inevitable note boooks for stray thoughts and church communication,

the half-read paperback,

the hard candies for her diabetic friend in high school,

the packs of gum to entertain younger sibs in church.

The glucose pills for the hypoglycemic boyfriend,

the beesting kit, the First Aid kit,

the nail clipper, the earplugs for the sound sensitive spouse,

the painkillers,

the spare pair of glasses,

the lip glosses, hair scrunchies, and the nail polish,

the handkerchief,

the Kleenex for Mom’s inevitable church weepies,

and on and on and on…

People laughed. And then asked her for an Advil or a nail file. And she had what was needed, every time.

Partly the purse packing came from a sense that people needed someone to have someone to take care of things, to remember a book of matches for an impromptu birthday celebration, or a pair of tweezers to remove a splinter. Rubber gloves and First Aid kits she carried in case someone was cut and bleeding — and most of the time, the things came in handy, and gave her a sense of …purpose.

But the purse packing also came from a sense of, well, paranoia, really. The world was sometimes just a — blur. People were running around and driving around at a horribly fast clip, and sometimes T. felt like she needed a few extra things to, maybe, ground her. So she carried a piece of home with her, wherever she went. A bit of the cabinet over the bathroom sink. A bit of her library. A bit of security. There was nowhere home wasn’t, and she was always, always, always prepared. She would never be bored, never be bleeding, never uncoiffed, never blind, never stuck wanting for anything. The Ultimate Girl Scout.

Except, most of us know that the world just doesn’t work that way. Sometimes, things happen, and nothing in one’s purse will make a bit of difference at all. Planes will crash, buildings will fall, people will die, and nothing, nothing, nothing will change that. That’s the world.

And, once she crossed the world and came to Glasgow, T. realized a few other things. One, that large bags and shopping on foot — didn’t match. Two, that she was surrounded by strangers, and strangers weren’t the least bit interested in her spare tweezers. (Well, they might have been, but then that would make them doubly — strange.) Deciding she didn’t really need all she carried, she dropped down a bag size.

She carried: a notebook – because there was too much information coming in, and she was afraid there would be some things — several thousand somethings — she would forget. She carried a stack of postcards, pre-stamped, in case she was somewhere she could write. She carried only one book, and tried to be sure it was small. She carried her wallet. She carried her passport, and D.’s too. She carried a change purse for the inevitable heavy coins of the realm. She stuffed what room was left with hard candies and gum and hair scrunchies and her spare glasses case.

It was still too heavy.

And T. realized most of what she carried was based on… fear. This bothered her. She knew very well it did no good to plan against the inevitable day after day after day. The inevitable…happens. Why was she carrying her passport everywhere every day when she could lose it? Did she really need to pack food as if her next meal wasn’t certain, and books as if she wasn’t someplace new and could open her eyes and observe the world around her? Did she really have to carry her whole life with her, on her back? Dropping another bag size wasn’t the answer. Dropping some habits seemed a better plan.

The contents of her purse T. dumped out, sorted, and put away. A little string wallet from Bangladesh seems just small enough. She goes out with keys, phone, a change purse, sometimes lip gloss or sunglasses. It feels… like not enough. The string purse goes over her shoulder, and she’s not weighed down with the world. It feels distinctly unsettling. Walking across the street, she realizes that if disaster were to strike — a reckless bus, an explosion — nothing she could carry would be enough to make a difference. There is no way she can control everything around her, and carrying enough stuff to feed, bandage and entertain the world isn’t realistic. So. She goes with what she has…

…out the front door, in faith that she will come in again.

– D & T

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I doubt very much when we signed up for the trip that anyone knew where we were going. Chaplain Avril said something about crannogs… which were… these things. Built… underwater or something. People used to live in them… And that was enough to get us on the bus.

If you are ever new to a country, the best way to get a feel for some of its edges is to go on a tour. Now, we are not tour people – preferring to travel on our own (and get lost on our own, apparently), but the University has kindly encouraged its international students to tour in a group, with a bus they charter, in order to reveal to us the country outside of the city. Most of us are without cars, so it’s a treat to climb aboard and just sit, taking in the heather and gorse-covered hills, the curly horned sheep, the castles in the distance. Lest we forget from being in Glasgow where there are check-by-jowl people, blocks of sandstone tenements and concrete, Scotland itself is largely agrarian and beautiful.

Our first stop was Dunkeld, which is above Edinburgh and to the East. Dunkeld is a small village whose name comes from ‘the fort in the wood,’ in Gaelic, and indeed, it had been a fort in the woods when it was settled in 730 A.D. by monks. In the mid 800’s, it was the spiritual center for Scotland, and had its most beautiful cathedral. All of the religious relics in the country were moved there to protect them from Viking raids.

It is an ancient, lonely church situated next to the gorgeous River Tay, surrounded by the sheep-dotted Perthshire hills. Though it is still in use, the greater weight of the ages seems to lie in the graves that are all around, and the crumbling ruins of the nave. The rector, resplendent in his white shirt, plaid vest and slacks, insisted that the cathedral was still very much alive, as it scheduled something like fifty weddings a year from non-local visitors. Evensongs and village services round out the rest of its year, and we were glad to know that even among so many graves, life goes on.

As we were leaving, we stumbled into the beginning of a wedding — and watched (with some minor horror) for a chance to escape — everyone was in their finery, the piper was wearing a full kilt and helmet, even, and we very obviously didn’t fit in… but the bridal party seemed to ignore us completely; when you marry in a National Trust cathedral, you expect the odd tourist, I suppose. (And we were VERY odd, knowing that it might rain, we were in coats — and because it was chilly, gloves. The people in this country don’t seem to feel the chill, and were in sleeveless dresses festooned with filmy shawls. Except for the men, who were in worsted wool. Eventually we’ll figure out the dress code here!!!!) We did take a few quick pictures of the wedding party… because there is nothing like seeing a man resplendent in his kilt and sporran, pushing a stroller with a shrieking baby on board… sort of cuts down on all of the pageantry!

With barely a moment to spare, we got back on the bus for the next leg of our journey. The reconstructed crannog on Loch Tay, with the Ben Lawers (mountain – one of the highest in the southern Highlands) behind was really neat. Crannogs were used as defensive dwellings from as early as the Neolithic Age (almost five thousand years ago) to as late as the 17th Century. They were built by driving timber piles into shallow parts of the ‘lochbed,’ which then became the supporting frame for the round house itself.

We had a chance to live the Iron Age life at the Crannog Center. Touring through an interactive display and doing the ‘daily Iron Age activities’ activity (trying to make fire — far harder than it looks, especially when attempting to make a spark with a bow-spinner) took up a pleasant — and suddenly sunny — afternoon. We walked the scary few yards over the River Tay into the crannog… and it WAS scary, as we were walking on nothing but alder boughs. Trees are strong, but there were quite a few of us! Our guide was a collegiate archaeologist from Edinburgh University. He was one of a team whose sub-aqua research on the Oakbank Crannog (about 5 miles further along Loch Tay) was the model they used to create the Perthshire Crannog. It took the archaeologists three years to construct the crannog (when it appears that the people in 600 A.D. did them in a season), but it’s quite cool inside, once you get over the scary alder sidewalk bit.

The woven hazel walls are stuffed with wool, goat hair, and bracken (ferns, which grow all over everything) to help keep out the draft. A range of dried herbs and plants hang from the rafters and are sometimes strewn across the bracken-covered floor, to keep down the smell, which is a bit… animal-ish, as the ancient people kept their cattle indoors with them, as well as their drying meat, curing hides, and their less-than-daily-bathing selves. I imagine in the summertime, the smell is quite whiffy! But the midges won’t go that far from shore, so at least it’s that-kind-of-bug free… we won’t go into the unique webs we saw inside…

This crannog community reminded T. of Mrs. Wallace’s fourth grade projects on Native Americans, where the class ground acorn flour and constructed pine branch tipis. It also reminded both of us tremendously of summer camp… If anyone ever has a chance to visit Perthshire, this is a fun family place to spend an afternoon. Hopefully we’ll have more pictures to show you soon!

(Photograph of the tower at Dunkeld Cathedral by Flickr user Snaik. Photograph of the Loch Tay Crannog by Dave Morris. Both photographs licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0.)

– D & T

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As always, there is a moment of disconnect when anyone asks from where we have emigrated. It happened on Friday, when we met with the International Student chaplain and the other international students and ESL teachers, and it happened again the following day, as we climbed on the bus with a friendly bunch of people, intent on seeing who-knows-what, but game to go anyway.

“Do you need English lessons? Where are you from?” the earnest Scottish boy asked us, helpfully holding out the application for ESL classes.

“California, and, no thank-you,” T. said automatically, but D. grinned. “Nope, already did those, got the degree,” he joked. I was surprised to be mistaken for a non-English speaker, but the Northern European couple (whom we have nicknamed Thor and Frieda) were asked as well. Which taught us one thing: no one looks like an English speaker… because there isn’t a look for speaking English.

As we joined the line (or queue) for the bus, a friendly young Muslim couple (or so we assume from her headcovering) asked us where we were from. “California,” we replied. “This weather is nothing like home, is it?” we mused. No. Nothing like home for either of us. And where is home, anyway? California? Since when did California become a country?

It’s an interesting thing to realize the difference between the United Kingdom and the United States. Americans cherished their individuality to the point of being unable to say we lived in a united state, and States Rights were still a Big Deal when the country came together, and remain a big deal on many levels. The United Kingdom is one kingdom, sure, but in name only — Scotland certainly has its share of people pulling to leave the Kingdom and be their own country, and Northern Ireland has struggled unsuccessfully to leave the overfond embrace of the monarchy for years. If the United States were less contentious and more united, I wonder if when people asked us where we were from, we would say “America.” “The United States.” Or maybe it’s just that we’re treading lightly on the perceived negatives of being from the U.S. and hopefully highlighting what we see as positives when we mention being from the West Coast.

I think it’s about individuality for us as well. It’s “Yes, I’m from the U.S., but please don’t lump me in with [pick an attitude, pick an extreme opinion, pick an obnoxious cultural habit].” It’s an unconscious distancing of ourselves from being the spokespersons for an entire nation. It’s being all too aware that when we mention the United States, people think they’ve got a reading on us, think they’ve narrowed us down, know something of who and what we are, and can put us into a labeled box in a pigeonhole. It’s a different kind of pre-judging than we’re accustomed to in the U.S… in an American airport, for example, if you say you’re from California, people have other preset notions that include San Francisco, “liberal,” granola, and other trigger words that are not necessarily applicable to anyone personally.

(Frankly, we feel sorry for the Canadians. To the Scottish ear, they sound American… how must they feel about being lumped in with the vast negatives the United States attracts?)

There is something distinctly anti-social in many of the Americans we’ve run across, in that I think the majority of us are here because we disagree with much of what is seen as the American Ideology, with what our country has been and has become. Not that all of us are radical dissidents or political activists, not that there is not a deep love for “home,” but there is the overall recognition of the United States as a sandbox bully, and so as a group we seem to distance ourselves not only by having moved abroad, but by treating each other with a wary friendliness that disallows much socializing. Americans meet, smile, and … move to opposite sides of the room. From a sociological standpoint, it’s actually kind of fascinating. (We’re sure that if the Americans in question were younger, undergraduate aged, or not in the company of children, etc., it would be a different result, but so far, our observations have remained fairly consistent.)

It was troubling and awkward to meet the bright-eyed, ebullient couple who left Pakistan three weeks ago and realize – Oh. Yes. The country in which I was born seems intent on grinding your country of origin into dust. Please realize: it’s not me. Even before having met you, I liked you just fine.. D. has had classroom discussions where people have thrown spurs into the conversation such as “Well, the United States won’t enforce the Kyoto Protocol, is there any reason for the rest of us to do anything? It’s a superpower that is dragging us all down!” and look to him to defend the indefensible, ready to hurl fierce arguments against anything he might say.

And of course, he doesn’t take the bait. We both have strongly voluble opinions, but we’re not here to do American politics. We’re from California… a whole ‘nother country. Hadn’t you heard?

– D & T

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The first line of the Choral Society website says, “The Choral Society welcomes new members, especially tenors.” Think they might be glad to see D. coming? Since the first rehearsal is this Thursday night, I guess we’ve already found a reasonable temporary substitute for the Chancel Choir back home. It won’t be the same without the pink — er, dusty rose robes and gray stoles, but we’ll do our best to get by with tuxedos and black dresses… We’ll be rehearsing for a December performance of Haydn’s The Creation.

Meanwhile, here’s another tidbit you may not have heard — there are student unions at this university — real ones, with the power that Student Senate has in many colleges in the US. Of course, the very first day, Mr. Student got himself elected faculty liaison, as his classmates looked at him and found someone… coherent, and not afraid to get up early to attend a few extra meetings. It’s very funny to me that even away from home, some of us manage to get voted to sweet talk the brass!

A trip to the doctor today was amusing, as we stood on a scale that measured kilograms and …stones. No pounds. We go back tomorrow to see a doctor (today was for the district nurse – if you need a prescription for anything, it’s a separate visit), and hope they can be talked into providing a few more immunizations.

Our shipment is meant to arrive this Friday — we hope that next time we chat, we can show you photos of the disaster formerly known as our flat. We look forward to decent mixing bowls — and a few more pans, and our long awaited bikes and boots and gloves (WHAT were we thinking, shipping the gloves!? The little WeatherGoth in the corner says it’s forty five degrees! It’s not even winter yet!). Meanwhile, we’ve been warned to expect cornstarch to be called corn flour in the store, cornmeal to be milled so finely as to be mistaken for flour (it’s a great soup thickener, though; you have to admit), and molasses to be called ‘black treacle.’ We are now on the hunt for unsulphured molasses — having forgotten that one can buy sulphured, in the US, but there’s normally a choice or a default to unsulphured – not so here. Oh! – Happily, the green grocer down the street has promised to go on the hunt for Thai lime leaves (also called magrut leaves). He says he gets Freshman shoppers usually, so he carries good fruits and vegetable, but usually no one wants anything but stir fry ingredients. Had to chuckle at that — at least the “Freshers” here eat vegetables. I believe we tried to subsist on ramen noodles and bagels…

We can now report that the mint plant is bouncing back, thanks to Mary’s timely rescue of some soil (flung frantically in a shopping bag before we raced out to catch the last bus back to Glasgow), a trim and a new pot. It’s showing frantic new growth, and the basil, rosemary, thyme and varied mints rooting on the sink will hopefully follow it into little pots as well. Meanwhile, I’ve already warned my sister that I’m going to have to steal some of my plants back when I visit next…

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday cards, the welcome-to-the-UK keepsakes and all the email, good wishes and great advice. You’re making our lives much sweeter!

– D & T

*Postcard by Jim Byrne ©2000.

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