Hobbits In Rivendell

Have no idea from whence that folksy saying comes, but it must have been one of those conditional-on-the-weather places. Who knew we lived in such a place? Our train into Glasgow from Stirling took an hour and twenty minutes last week; what is usually about a thirty minute ride (thirty-three – forty-four, depending on if you’re on an express, and what time of day it is) stretched onward into hideous eternity. T. fell asleep in self defense. D. played endless games of Klondike on his phone. The high winds had again slowed the trains to 50 mph, and then late trains were piled up on the tracks… so we mostly sat. And sat. If it weren’t for the fact that we had to attend our last rehearsal before a big concert, we would have stayed home. The temps hovered in the mid-thirties and the wind was in the 65 mph range, and — brrr! But that wasn’t even the most fun part.

Our burn flooded!

Our mills-turned-homes border a long, light-less rural road, lined with open fields where sheep placidly munch and ignore the wind, snow, sleet, rain, and dark of night. (Really, they’re amazing, but as we were told, with some asperity, “Well, an’ they’re Scottish sheep, aren’t they?” Yes. Well.) A stream, or burn runs along the road and under a bridge to a smaller field used as a playground for the neighborhood and a football pitch. We were riding home with our friend R., who kindly drops us off on Tuesdays, and we skidded for a bit coming off the freeway. This didn’t slow him down, och, noo. He lives in an area just up the pike from us – even more rural, so he’s fearless. We fishtailed down the road, hitting puddles, sheets of water rising in silvery wings on either side of the car. T. gripped the upholstery.

“Er, Rol, mind the turn at the bottom of the road,” she said. “It floods. You might want to slow down.”

Aaaand just at that moment, we hit one massive puddle and R. gripped the steering wheel as the car went slightly out of control. Fortunately, the road is single-track (one lane) and no one was coming the other way. He slowed a bit as we saw the lights on the first of the mills, and it’s a good thing he did — because the road was completely under water from that point on!

It’s an entirely eerie feeling to feel sloshing under your feet as a car is driving. It is not a feeling we want to feel again. R. said, “Um, I think I’ll have to take the high road back through town. Wouldn’t fancy driving that again.”

Indeed.

Sometimes it freezes after the burn floods. Fortunately, not this time. Next time it goes, we’ll have to take pictures. Meanwhile, our upstairs deck is somehow flooded… we have to wade out and pry up the paving stones that line the floor and see what is plugging up the pipe. Unfortunately, it’s thirty-two degrees at present, and it’s not a job either of us wants, though T. took a stab at it once already. Meh. It’ll keep.

Well, greetings of the winter holiday to one and all. The winter holidays are always odd for us – our first year, we’d just arrived, so didn’t plan to go home, and had a miserably cold and lonely time, fighting homesickness. Our second year, we gave up and went home, housesitting but not enjoying the whole experience because we both had the ‘flu to end all influenza. The third year we were home, and brought work with us, and last year we gave up and went to Iceland for a few days. Through all of this, T. either didn’t have access to her creché or didn’t unpack it… and hasn’t now for four years. Quite a change from the girl who badgered friends and family to sculpt her a new piece each year after Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t decorate anymore, because we never plan on being here… and this year was going to be the same. Except, we’ve found a stray American who had no plans. And we can’t let someone sit at home in a dark city with no one, when we have two perfectly good guest rooms and a mattress warmer.

And once one guest was invited, well. The floodgates. They opened.

So, out comes the Sculpey, and the clay creché figurines, and the paint, and thus begins the decoration and the fussing and the cookie baking and general making-an-effort-ness of it all. And you know? It’s probably not a bad thing. This is supposed to be a celebration of light over darkness, after all…

Somewhere, in the midst of all of our moves, we’ve managed to lose something tiny and precious – our candy thermometer. It’s horrible! We have had to go all old-school and use a glass of ice water and a shrewd eye to tell when our sugar syrups are boiled enough. Fortunately, you can’t really ruin much once sugar’s gotten past the soft-ball stage – either you’ll have individual sugared nuts, or brittle, right? We were aiming for brittle – and got some, but boy, we’ll have to perfect it. For one thing, the combination of cinnamon and cayenne pepper, while lovely, maybe should have gone into the syrup itself. Using a fine grater and grating cinnamon into the nuts meant it all fell to the bottom, as did the pepper. This made for some entertainment as people sampled — spots completely free of cayenne, other spots causing gasps and choked requests for water.

(Sadly, this caused us more amusement than it should have. Maybe we won’t change a thing.)

Secondly, the nuts probably shouldn’t have been mixed into the syrup, but laid out on the Silpat… and the syrup poured over them. Working with hot sugar brings on some sort of atavistic Lava Terror, and it’s hard to spread that stuff out fast enough – your hands and arms just chant, “Run away!” repeatedly. However, mixing the nuts into the syrup ensures much better coverage, so a heavier spatula and a fiercer attitude next time will have to work. Or something.

Either way, it’s good fun to get into the kitchen, and we’re expecting to bake carrot macaroons, Fauxreo “Coal” cookies, ABC gingerbread men, and a whole host of other fun stuff. Hope your holiday plans a.) do not find you with ice, unless it is in an iced drink or ice skates, b.) do not contain high water, unless you’re kayaking or surfing, and c.) do include exceptional cider and the best cookies you’ve ever had. Rest and peace and loved ones; hands to hold and babies to cuddle, and people with whom to watch bad movies, color, and squabble with over games and scores. Hot baths. Soft blankets. Sweet smells. Frosty air, experienced from a toasty warm distance. Gratitude, pure and deep: This we wish you.

Namaste. Pax. And Heavenly Peace.

Let us take a moment and be exactly like most people we meet, and talk endlessly about the weather:

Reports of a hurricane have been greatly exaggerated. Or, mostly exaggerated. The bit where there were Category 5 winds was real enough. The bit where it would knock you off of your feet if you went around corners incautiously was a bit too real. The part where it was 85 mph in our neighborhood alone was viciously real. But the Met Office won’t agree that it was a hurricane, despite the whole spinning clouds on the Doppler thing. Oh, well. Twittering Scots have deemed it a hurricane, and have given it a cheerfully derogatory name (which, since this is a family blog, and you have Google at your house, too, we won’t repeat), showing that they are cooler than any Category 5 storm. “Nature, bring it on!!!” is the general attitude. (Of course, those were not the actual words. We believe they were something like, “Come ahead, ya dobber!” You get the idea.)

We still can’t find our recycle bin. We found the lid, but the rest is blooown away somewhere…

Hard to believe, that within the same week as the wind, we had our first snow – and it had stuck around unpleasantly. There was ice everywhere, we got out our insulated boots and snow-cleats, and were hoping not to have a repeat of Snowpocalypse 2010. It was as blessing it was washed away by the rain before the wind came…

Today, the snow is back. It’s the picturesque kind – heavy and soggy, but good for photographs, and we’ll have some soon. We expect that the rain will return shortly and wash it away, but for now, we’re truly in a marshmallow world…

The sheep are back! The farmer apparently rotates the flock repeatedly, and we’re glad to see them again, as we enjoy watching their mild antics from the kitchen table and from the office. They’re quite peaceful, and fit in with our plans for Christmas: lounging about, eating a lot, and standing still… with no choir, no work, and no obligations to do anything constructive. Well, for D., anyway. He plans to catch up on some knitting (D. has a scarf he’s been knitting now for 2 whole years, although he’s only worked on it when he’s been in lectures), but T. has a monster pile of reading to finish for the Cybils (altogether 171 books. she’s halfway through), by the end of the month, plus she’s hoping for the positive conclusion of a Super Seekrit Project which is turning out to be a lot more work and aggravation than she expected. Finally, she hopes to finish one last book before New Year’s Eve, but that might just be hubris at this point.

One last push – our big, shiny Christmas Cracker Concert next weekend – and a few more days of breakneck work finishing projects, and then we’ll have earned our rest. We look forward to overnight visits from city friends and lots of baking, movie-watching, and general laziness. If we can’t be home in the States, we’ll at least have a good time with friends.

BIG NEWS: D. has finally AT LONG LAST been given a date for his viva voce exam: January 12th. Prayers ascending, candles lit, fingers crossed, and wood knocked upon that day, if you please. Post-exam we’ll know more about the immediate future, as after the grueling day they will inform him how much more work he has to do on the Big Paper before they let him go. After that, well. The serious feelers go out. Already D. is speaking to people about visas, and together we’re doing a bit of thinking about where we want to be. It’s actually difficult to think of, since we’ve been in Scotland for the past four years. When one takes the time to contemplate what one wants out of a community, where we’re going to make a serious effort to put down roots, suddenly the decision is a little harder…

We’ll keep on thinking, and see what turns up. Sometimes, when the weather is nasty (and the indoor temperature falls to 12°C/59°), or when it’s really dark (we’re down to 7 hours of “daylight” now), we think that D. ought to find a job someplace warm and sunny. In the Bahamas. Other times, though, we remember what we enjoy about life here – the rare clear, crisp days, the slower pace of the semi-rural environment, our weekly trip in to friends and civilization in Glasgow — and it’s difficult to think of leaving.

Well, we’ll keep you posted. Stay warm and dry and enjoy your weekend!

-D & T

Welcome to December!

The mornings routinely hover in the low thirties, unless it’s raining, which gives us the requisite five degrees more which allows it to rain and not snow. The snow is forecast for this weekend, however, and this morning we awakened with the Dumyat and the Ochils powdered with snow for the second time this autumn so far. The light – we don’t bother calling it sunrise most days – struggles up around twenty-five past eight, and gives up wearily at around half past three. We soon enter The Great Dark, and yet our spirits are not too diminished.

(Thank God.)

Thanksgiving was brief – D. came home from a late walk from work to a house with windows fogged from boiling, cooking, steaming, and baking (beige) things. (All comfort food is either brown or beige. It’s amazing how that works.) T. had roasted Brussels sprouts with garlic and herbs – which we’ve discovered that we really like – baked our traditional Thanksgiving haggis (well, as traditional as a faux haggis can get), pan-seared mushrooms and butternut ravioli (cheating – D. didn’t make the pasta this time), and finally, quinoa-stuffed eggplant, quite loosely based on a Michael Chiarello recipe she saw years ago.

If none of this sounds like Thanksgiving food, this is because neither of us could face mashed potatoes – T. didn’t feel like attempting to make a turkey, and we’re saving our cranberries for later in the winter when we’re really craving home foods. We’re stockpiling butternut squash, pumpkin, candy canes and cranberries against that day…

The real culinary star this meal was the dessert – carrot maple pie. The photograph didn’t do it justice at all, so we tossed it. T’s going to make it another one, and finish roughing out a reliable recipe, but we were surprised by how well carrots take the flavor of almond and vanilla, and though the pie filling, sweetened with a liquid and made of carrots boiled and mashed, tended toward a bit of excess in the liquid category, T. plans next time to roast them. Stay tuned for a really inexpensive and tasty and even semi-healthy dessert option.

This past weekend, our chorus had a contract to sing a few Christmas carols at An Unnamed Garden Center, just south of Edinburgh. We were supposed to sing for awhile, step outside to sing a song for the tree-lighting thing, sing for a bit more in-store, and then go home. Is anybody surprised that it didn’t work out quite that way?

Indoors, we piled three deep in a dim aisle, squinting at our music (as our director squinted at his pitch pipe) and through interminable garbled store announcements (Behold, beef burgers and hot-dogs available outside at the bus! Find your places now for the tree lighting, oh, ye hapless consumers!) tried gamely to sing about the birth of Christ. A few people applauded, one woman stood in the aisle and wept, small children tried to imitate our director, but most folk looked stunned or seemed dismayed that there were twenty people harmonizing in the tree aisle as they compared prices on plastic icicles and fiber optic light show trees.

And then, we had to go outside.

Turn your sound down – the above video is of the skirling of Santa’s pipe-band, as the fireworks went off. If you’ll note, the Christmas tree itself is … swaying, a bit. This is because we had wiiiiinds this past weekend; gusts of up to 70 mph. Of course that’s the time you want to be outside with your mouth open. This snippet shows the grand finale of the tree lighting, by this time we’d been standing outside for about 45 minutes, were freezing (the girls frantically dancing to keep their blood moving), and just wanted to be done.

Well, we gave it our best, for a few hours (and in the face of £15 in cab fare plus £18 in train fare, tried to make sure the experience gave us value for the money), only to be dropped off back at the train station in Edinburgh … where there were Mysterious Goings On. On the board we saw that our train had been canceled for lack of personnel. While we pondered what that could mean, we waited around for nearly 2 hours for ScotRail to organize a coach. (Did we mention that it was freezing? And that the drunk man standing behind T. complained bitterly about the lack of toilets on buses, and then proceeded to relieve himself on the wall behind her???) We were freezing and cranky by the time we were taken by bus back to Stirling, arriving home at 8:30 – three and a half hours after we’d finished singing.

Fa-la-la-la-la…brr.

Yesterday, the city stopped — under a general strike, so we finally figured out that many of the missing personnel just decided to start the strike early. Meanwhile, yesterday, just to make sure that the city stayed stopped, we had a deluge. The train lines, some train stations, parts of the Big City, and many villages flooded. Thank goodness our wee Cambusbarron is all uphill! We’ll struggle to reach it once it snows (heck, we struggle to reach it now), but it’ll never flood… Ah, the cold season in Scotland. It does make one count one’s blessings.

And, since it ’tis the season, we’ll be heading out into the weather again in a few weeks to sing more Christmas carols (plus some truly awful pop songs, but we’ll not dwell upon those). Meanwhile, at the University, the semester winds down. Christmas vacation is in sixteen days (not that anyone is counting), and D. is looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for hours at a time. Before the end of the month, T., meanwhile, has still a few hundred books to read (truly) for the Cybils, and many plans to force D. into baking hand pies, making pasta, and his special chocolate pudding, while working her way through our friend Mr. B’s list of Underrated Movies. (Mr. B. is a screenwriter and knows of what he speaks.)

D’s viva looks to be scheduled for mid-January, so we’ll be shelling out the funds to extend the student visas, which will have the expected effect on travel, bank accounts, and shopping for this time of year. On one hand, we’ll continue living in limbo until we can determine where to jump next. On the other – as long as we have this house and both can get some work done, we’re not quite homeless. Lots to be thankful for, so we’re just not going to obsess over the things we can’t control. Which is everything.

Roll on, vacation.

-D & T

Words on the subject @ T’s blog.

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. My breath is sweet to me. O, how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance, like flowers and sweet-scented herbs — is more elastic, starry, and immortal — that is your success.” — Thoreau

Cartoon clipped from The Philadelphia Enquirer in 2009 and passed along via email through many people.