Root Veg, Pink Hair and Ice Cream

Spring is coming to Glasgow.

Never mind that it’s still sluicing down rain, and our feet freeze when we walk through the park from the University at night. We know Spring is coming, because T. is lying awake most nights, a victim of light-induced insomnia — apparently her brain got used to sunrise being at 9 a.m., and now any hint of light prior to that confuses her into thinking 3 a.m. is the time to begin the day.

We know Spring is coming, because of the way the park smells — like a mixture of old Christmas trees — which have been chipped and tucked atop the beds of naked earth in which the bulbs are sprouting — and river water, which is sluggishly rising. The wind is also rising, yet we carry our coats, or wear cardigans with our scarves and gloves. Mainly we know Spring is coming because of the root veg. and ice cream.

The ice cream seller we know has many guises. In Latino communities, he has the push cart with the little bell, and even on the most scorching days, he walks his route, dispensing helados of all kinds. In the ‘burbs, s/he’s in a pastel-colored truck that plays a seriously annoying tune that sounds like it comes from a broken music box, but it draws kids away from their water fights and playing with their Slip-n-Slides on the front lawn to buy Popsicles and It’s-Its (the dubiously named ice cream sandwich which may be only known to people from the West Coast). In more rural areas, s/he works behind a counter at an ancient drug store, but the common denominator is that the ice cream seller is synonymous with long, simmering warm days, languid freedom, and the smell of sunblock.

Which is why it’s so utterly bewildering to us that the ice cream in our neighborhood comes in January. And February. And a couple of times in December.

Usually, it’s at about six in the evening and the screechy, off-key midway music will start to play. We decided this was a sign of Spring only because our other option was to call it a sign of insanity. Or, do they sell Bovril out of those trucks? Though we’ve run out every time, we’ve never managed to catch the ice cream person, which also defies logic. Do they really intend to sell anything at all? Or is the truck for other, more nefarious purposes?

Quite possibly only The Shadow knows. And he’s not telling.

No matter that the temperature is only four degrees warmer than it was a few days ago in what was officially The Deep Of Winter, the subtle shift is enough to make the potatoes cast their eyes, the garlic to push out pale green and pungent shoots, and the onions to go squishy inside. Parsnips actually put out leaves this time of year, sometimes even if they’re refrigerated (though we don’t really have a fridge, since the Appliance Formerly Known as Refrigerator FREEZES everything) so, while we humans still shiver, the earth is revving up for Opening Day.

We’re looking forward to the explosion of daffodils in the park. There are green shoots poking through lawns everywhere, and though they seem a little early this year, it’s been gray and blah for so long that we’ll take all the color and life we can get. I think pretty much all of Glasgow feels that way. At least the chicks with the pink hair must.

Living in a flat so close to an office park last winter was an education. The British working public is really big on professional black suits and overcoats, and as D. would cycle off to classes, T. would look down on the swarm of women and men in black, and kind of cringe. What happens to the people who like color? she worried, wondering if tragic high school students lit out for parts unknown after graduation, simply to avoid becoming one of the black-garbed masses. We got our answer about what happens to the color-lovers around mid-February. After Valentine’s Day, we noticed a disproportionate number of redheads in the crowd making their way to the office.

By mid-March, the color had spread — and lightened. There were shades of bronze and penny copper in amongst the more subdued auburns. By April, when the hyacinths were blooming we were in the pink — a seriously bright, shrieking pink. The color isn’t determined by age, and not really even by gender, though it’s mostly women sporting the titian tinted tresses. T.’s most amusing moment was exchanging a delighted look with a woman who must have been well into her seventies with an asymmetrical burgundy bob. The woman looked at T.’s glasses frames and gushed, “Oh, I love your glasses!” And T. gushed back, “And I love your hair!”

Gem, our nineteen-year-old Eye on Glasgow informs us that all of her “nerdy” friends take part in this annual pinkening ritual, so T. has dutifully purchased a box of burgundy hair colorant.

It wouldn’t do to let down the side for the nerds, after all.

Some of you ask after The Gaping Hole in the Wall and The Neighbors Down Under from time to time, and let us just inform you that they are both indeed alive and well, and the neighbors, at least, must be slowly losing their hearing. Just last weekend, D. strolled down for a quick morning chat — at 4:45 a.m., their preferred time to talk to us, apparently — and he discovered the cozy coffee house atmosphere of smokes and drinks, LIVE music, chairs in the hall, and skateboarders.

THIS week, the neighbors upstairs discovered the vagrants.

Yes. Apparently the coffee house doesn’t close — when the performers wear themselves out, they stick around. So now, there are people sleeping in the hallway in front of the neighbor’s house under abandoned furniture…!

As always, our lives here are an education. One thing we’ve learned again? When to move.

– D & T

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.