In Retrospect

Two years ago, on 11-September, we had just moved into our first flat, here in Glasgow. D. still had his long hair, and was still taking photography using a film camera. We looked out at the building which was soon to become his part-time office building, and over a defunct bowling alley. We thought that we’d be there the entire time we were in Glasgow. Alas, they decided to tear the roof off the place, and to demolish the bowling alley, and it was just all to much noise for us.

By the next year, D. was working in the oh-so-convenient office building, and we’d made friends with a coworker whose parents owned a guest-house in Largs: the Tigh an Struan. We visited them, one year ago, to take some pictures of the place so that they could have some better promotional shots, and to take advantage of their cordial offer of hospitality and get out of Glasgow for the weekend, like everyone else seems to do. We’d moved into our second flat by then, and were already discovering why it’d been left empty, unsold, for so long. A month later we had no heat, no hot water, and were in for the three month prospect of plaster dust and workmen with pitying smiles and thick accents.

This year finds us in our third flat in Glasgow. With each move we’ve inched our way closer to Glasgow University, and into gradually better accommodation. Moving has meant giving up things, each time. But, we’ve given up in order to gain. This last move? Well, we may have gotten it right. There are drawbacks, of course – nowhere will be perfect in this city, simply because we’re not really city people. But, we finally put out a few pounds to buy five more lamps and an area rug. We’ve hung up a bit of artwork, and the house finally looks like a home. It only took us five months(!).

Classes start back, next week, with all sorts of meetings and whatnot. D. will be traipsing up the hill again, several times a week. T. will, also, as choir begins soon, as do evening language classes (Norwegian, if we can schedule things just right). Looks like we’re halfway through the UK adventure — or maybe more. D. is, at present, starting to tentatively explore the possibility of accelerating his PhD, and finishing by Christmas 2010. T. thinks this is a marvelous idea, but it’s still in the “let’s see” stages.

– D & T

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