Elaine

I know this sounds highly implausible, but it happened. As I was leaving the hotel on our way home that last day, a double rainbow broke out, right over the Scottish/English border. I should be clear here – the ‘border’ is like the Quebec/Ontario border, or the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border: non-existent except for a road sign. Well, that and Hadrian’s Wall, but you can only see that at certain points along the border. But really, there was a massive double rainbow, and the inner rainbow was fully visible, all the way up from the ground, along the arc, and back right to the ground. The outer one had gaps. It was magnificent, it straddled the highway, and as I drove towards it I half expected to hear choirs of angels singing from on high.

The trip home was relatively uneventful: 233 miles of beautiful, sunny Scottish countryside. Except for Glasgow. I’ve come to realize that Glasgow is like Woodstock Ontario – you know how it can be clear and sunny in Milton, and also in London, but there will be white-outs in Woodstock? Well, regardless of the weather elsewhere in Scotland, it always rains in Glasgow, at least anytime I’m driving near it.

And then there’s Dundee. I was taking a slightly different route home this time, taking the 7-hour ferry out of Aberdeen to Kirkwall, as it involves almost three hours less driving than usual. Which meant going through Dundee (the home of marmalade, according to legend). My Dad always hated that part of the trip as there are so many traffic-circles just to get through that one city. Well, he was right. I counted: eleven round-abouts over a ten-mile stretch. I know if you’ve ever used the round-about on Tremaine Rd in Milton, or the one on Wonderland North in London, Ont, you’re probably thinking, “so what, what’s the big deal?”. Well, when you are in the midst of busy traffic, with anywhere from three to six exits coming off a single round-about, or worse, are in a double-barreled figure-8 round-about, and you’re averaging more than one of these per mile, well, you’d be a lot less smug than you are right now.

I had booked a reclining ‘pod’ for myself for the ferry, and Scout stayed in the car – thanks heavens for smooth sailing. It was 11:00pm when we arrived home to my freezing house. But we’d made it.

I had booked us in at an inn/restaurant that had been highlighted on a major restaurant review site for our last night in England. This was meant to be at the end of a day of leisurely driving (all nice easy-peasy motorway), where we’d arrive at 4pm, in time to enjoy the sunset as we went for a walk around the village. Did I mention the flat tyre? The brutal traffic? The endless rain? This was not a day that was going in my favour.

The first clue as to how my day might end came after I left a message at the hotel explaining that I’d had a flat tyre and would be late for my dinner reservation. I’ve had dealings with posh restaurants before – they do not like it when reservations are missed – I know of several in Toronto and in London (England) who will charge your credit card if you miss your time slot. So I was braced when I got a phone call back from the hotel. It was a very concerned receptionist, worried about my safety and telling me not to give another thought to the reservations; they’d have a table waiting whenever I arrived. Okaaay . . .

The drive still took longer than I had anticipated and it was late when we walked in the door. Anna jumped up from her desk, concerned for my wellbeing and happy to see us, took Scout’s leash, and conducted us to our room. She was most apologetic because the room I had been assigned was no longer available (the guests the night before had spilled a cup of coffee all over the rug), so they’d had to put us in a room with a frayed carpet. (The fraying was negligible at best – I wouldn’t have noticed it had they not mentioned it.) To make it up to me (!?!) they had arranged that my breakfast the next morning would be on the house. Okaaay . . .

She advised me that there were still plenty of diners so I wouldn’t be solo and therefore not to feel rushed, and my table was waiting with a water dish for the dog whenever we were ready. My meal was delish: beef tartare, then duck with crab apple gravy, with a lovely wine, and Scout was thoroughly fawned over. The next morning the staff again apologised for the state of the carpet, and the manager had arranged for a sausage for Scout for breakfast. Okaaay . . .

I have absolutely no idea if anyone reading this will ever be travelling through the Cumbria region of England (the Scottish/English border), but if so, stay at The Fleece at Ruleholme. Trust me.

*Oh, and yes, that is a kipper on my breakfast plate.

I TOLD her not to say “it can’t get any worse.” It had been a wonderful visit: my cousin, her hubby, their offspring and significant others had been so fun and so friendly.  Final morning came, and I was ready. I had my two-day trip home from England carefully planned out: I knew exactly when to leave, which petrol stations to stop at, how much extra time to leave in order to be able to explore the peedie village I would be staying at on the first night, and I factored in some last-walk-of -the-day time before my dinner reservation.

Hugged everyone good-bye, shoved the dog onto the backseat, loaded up the car, put the car in gear, and felt the bu-bump, bu-bump of a seriously flat tyre. Dammit.  Fortunately, even though it was clear that there wasn’t a spare in the boot (I had oh-so-carefully packed the trunk (boot) like some sort of a Tetrus cube but that was all ruined in the blink of an eye), my CIL kept digging anyway, and found the most wonderful invention tucked in a corner: a digital tyre inflator that plugs into your cigarette lighter (do they still call them that?) and hooks up to the tyre nozzle.  Moved some of the stuff from front seat back to the boot (trunk), pumped the tyre, drove to the mechanic’s, was taken almost immediately, drove back to get the dog and more good-bye hugs, then back in the car, only 75 minutes later than planned.  But that’s okay, I had factored in enough time – if I shortened the two rest-stops, we could still make it to Irthington by 4:00 (in time to beat the sunset and avoid driving in the dark).

Ah, yes.  Well, someone who has spent her entire adult life within five minutes of the 401 should know better.  Between the traffic, and the rain, and the traffic, it was not a fun drive.  The M25 was a parking lot (that sounds just like a line from a British TV show), and the subsequent three motorways were not much better. Poor Scout got 1 (yes, ONE) pee-stop six hours after being loaded in the car in the morning.

We arrived at the hotel just before 8 o’clock, so my great plan to avoid driving in the dark had failed miserably.

But the hotel! Well, that’s for another time.

Oh, and the first thing I buy when I get home is one of those inflator do-hickeys.  Genius.

Mid-December I noticed that businesses along Albert Street were being boarded up. Massive 2″ x 6″ beams were being bolted across many of the windows and doorways in the centre of town. Why was my hairdresser’s salon under siege? Were the Vikings coming? Did I need to buy a chainmail vest? Fashion a broadsword out of my car’s bumper? Not quite.

A year ago I mentioned that The Ba’ had been scheduled for the first time since COVID, then promptly cancelled due to Omicron. The Ba’ is a series of events that takes place on Christmas Day & New Year’s Day. On each of those days there are two Ba’s: the Boys in the morning and the Men in the afternoon.

The Ba’ is a scrum where dozens of men from Kirkwall and surrounding area (the teams are Uppies, and Doonies, and it has something to do with where you were born, or who you are related to, or how you first arrived in Kirkwall, or something. Beats me.) try to move a ball (the ba’) either up past one of the churches, or down to the harbour. It can last hours. And this shit matters. Check out the newspaper photos of the two teams arriving. These are local farmers, business men, lorry drivers, neighbours, etc in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s out to play a game for an afternoon. No wonder the Scots of long ago scared the bejeezus out of opposing English armies, as they came into battle.

And, it seems, The Ba’ can include damage to property – well, with 100+ men pushing and shoving up and down the road, that makes sense. So the local council boards up windows and doorways along the route. These planks are bolted into the cement. Bolted. The above picture on the left is two shops on the high street, and the one on the right is people’s homes. Yep, for the month of December, people in Orkney have to duck under a barrier to enter and leave their houses.

It seems The Ba’ doesn’t make it to my house; but it comes close. Scout & I will be checking out the New Year’s Ba’ – more to come – stay tuned!

I had ordered some Canadian ‘delicacies’ for my cousin’s family to try over the holidays: Lipton Onion Soup Mix for chip dip, SmartFood Cheddar popcorn, and Kraft Dinner.

We took the SmartFood to a friend’s for Boxing Day dinner, and I was surprised at the lukewarm reaction.  I mean, what’s not to love about cheesy, yummy, tasty popcorn?  But popcorn is not a thing over here, and while everyone was pleasant, no one took more  than one handful (infidels). (*Okay, I’ll admit it here now – I really really wanted to take the remainder of the bag of popcorn home with me – I LOVE SmartFood, and knowing it would likely be binned was killing me. But Norma Reid’s daughter knows better than that.)

The chip dip was a hit, as I had anticipated, and I left the second soup mix packet with them for future use.

And then there was the KD.  I hadn’t taken it to impress them with North American mac & cheese; I had been explaining its ubiquity to my cousin and decided she needed to experience it at least once.  (Let’s be clear here  – it’s not exactly in my top 10, or 20, or 100 favourite foods either).  But I had explained that it is something that almost every Canadian toddler and then school child would have on firm rotation, much like the UK baked beans on toast, or Spaghetti-O’s on toast.  And in pre-ramen days, university students lived on it. 

Well they made it for the family to try the day after I left.  As suspected, it didn’t go down especially well (“Interesting” was the comment – how polite).  I had to laugh at one text from my cousin; it seems her daughter had thought adding grated cheddar to the final product might improve it.  I’m struggling to imagine what that would have tasted like; it’s not something I’ve ever tried.  Anyway, it seems they ate it.  I doubt they will be asking for a repeat any time soon.

Chrimbo is a thing. It’s a British word for Christmas-time. I’ve seen it in TV and magazine ads, and I’ve heard it referenced on the radio. It can’t be that they’re trying to shorten the word: both Christmas and Chrimbo have two syllables. How odd.

Other Christmas oddities: you know Bill Nighy’s character in Love Actually? Well, having ‘UK Christmas No 1’ is really a thing. It’s announced each year whose song has been named No 1, and it seems a group called Ladbaby has won the last five years in a row. God, I’m old.

Department store Christmas TV commercials are much anticipated, with John Lewis’s being the biggy. They’re discussed at water coolers and covered in the mainstream news media.

Red cabbage, like Brussel Sprouts, is a must at the Christmas dinner: I counted seven separate recipes in: the Guardian, the BBC news, and British morning TV shows. (My host’s was very good; I had seconds.)

Mince tarts are practically a religion. Enclosed or open? Sugar-dusted or not? Shortcrust pastry or shortbread casing? With nuts or without? Feelings run strong.

Everyone is so kind. Neighbours of my cousins invited the family (myself included) for Christmas dinner. Which, by the way, is served in the early afternoon in England, and is called lunch.

There were seven of us, so we had a little parade marching down the street, the young men carrying dining chairs, my cousin with the appetizers, and I (of course) had the champers.

Dinner was amazing – turkey (obvs), roast tatties, brussel sprouts, homemade cranberry sauce (Delia Smith’s recipe), parmesan-breaded parsnips (OMG – they were magnificent), gravy, and bread sauce. Bread sauce is a uniquely British condiment, served with poultry, and comprised of nothing more than bread, onion, and milk, cooked into a thin gruel-like consistency. I may not be selling it well; Brits love it but in my experience, North Americans, well, not so much. Oh and my cousin just reminded me of the braised red cabbage – it was very good and it seems it’s de rigeur on every Christmas dinner table.

The plum pud was quite the dramatic finale: our host’s son was in charge of lighting the pudding. But none of this ‘pour over the brandy and get out the BBQ lighter crap’: at the head of the table he heated the brandy in a large silver spoon held over a candle, tilting it ever so slightly to catch the flame and light up, then tipped it on to the pudding, all while being coached by the other nine guests at the top of their lungs. Ah, tradition.

I’m not sure the post-dinner board game involving Fascists and Liberals is equally traditional, but it was fun nonetheless. Perhaps my cousin and I shouldn’t have stayed up another three hours drinking champagne and talking, but you’ll be pleased to hear we have solved most of the world’s problems.

All in all, the best Christmas I have had since COVID.

I understand I’ve missed the “North American Storm of the Century”. It looked pretty scary, with power outages and pile-ups. I hope everyone who reads this had a safe and happy holiday.

Things were a tad less dramatic here in the south of England. My wonderful cousins took me and the dogs out for a walk (that wasn’t well worded) this afternoon. It was a very different Christmas Eve from last year, and an equally different one from what I’ve experienced in Canada.

Last year at this time, in spite of a kind invitation from said cousins to spend the holidays with them, I’d been too intimidated to drive anywhere other than the relatively barren roads of the Highlands to venture down here. And there was Omicron. So 365 days ago, I was sitting in the lobby of the Oban Hotel, social distancing, admiring the view, and reading a book, all whilst on a typical British Coach Tour Holiday. It was fine, but hardly festive.

But today was also quite different from what I’ve experienced every other Christmas Eve of my life (all of which were spent in southern Ontario). We still did the lazy late-morning-breakfast-running-into-lunch, and, just as back home, took the dogs for a walk. Unlike Canada’s current snowed-in status, the south of England is having a very green Christmas (let’s face it, when we say we’re having a ‘green Christmas’ in the GTA, we really mean we’re having a dull browny beige & grey Christmas). My youngest cousin is an avid rider, with her horse Pete stabled just near here, so she was off on the traditional Christmas Eve horsey pub crawl. It’s a thing. Hunh.

We brought the dogs – Hector is my cousin’s adorable little Lakeland Terrier (see Instagram) – and met the riders on Keston Common. Much of the local English population was there, sitting on the patios of the village pubs and cafes, or standing about on the common, chatting with friends and feeding the horses carrots. The riders had their pints while the horses nibbled on the grass, and it was all so very, very . . . English. Then the riders hopped back up on their horses to amble off to the next wee village, and my cousin, CIL, and I took the dogs and headed down the trails into the woods.

It was an delightful Christmas Eve.

Last spring I posted how I had been an absolutely delightful houseguest to my cousin and her husband: getting sick halfway through the visit, commandeering a bathroom and the sofa, and thereby forcing my cousin to wait on me for the remainder of my stay.

Well, the streak continued: my first morning here Viv & I took the dog for a walk through the woods around Charles Darwin’s house (as you do), and I went over on my ankle. It felt okay, so we kept walking and then headed into town to finish up some last minute shopping.

By evening my ankle had swelled up and was throbbing, and I had had to strap it with a tensor bandage (not a term they knew) and sit with it up on a cushion while everyone else made meals, and handed me things, and gave me wine & Ibuprofen (I know, I know, don’t say it). All I could think was: I’m here for several more days, this is a very active family, they have other things going on in their lives at the moment, and how could I be imposing on them like this yet again.

I hobbled off to bed, feeling horribly guilty. But it seems that, all common sense to the contrary, a cocktail of sparkling wine and anti-inflammatories actually works (kids, don’t try this at home). So, while I am still walking carefully when out on the hiking trails, it turns out I am not the burden on my cousins’ hospitality that I had feared (don’t speak too soon, Lainey, the visit is just beginning).

Before all hell broke loose with my cousin’s life, I had booked my car trip from her Dad’s after the funeral down to her house in Kent for Christmas. As it would be on the shortest day of the year, and I DO NOT drive in the dark in the UK if at all possible, I decided to break my journey about halfway. After much planning, phoning, and mapping, I booked us (Scout & me) in at the White Lion pub & inn in Hampton In Arden, a wee village near Birmingham.

Well, it seemed I had landed us in my first truly posh, absolutely rah-rah, tree-lined, mansion-filled, quintessential English Village. There is a large church and the church grounds are full of graves (not quite the same as a cemetery – a cemetery seems to me to be something cordoned off to one side of the church, and there was one of those too, but there were others up against the paths, or under trees in the front ‘garden’ of the church). These graves were all around the grounds and I saw one from 2021, right next to one dated 16-something – wow. Every other car parked along the street was a mud-splashed Land Rover, and all the houses were red-bricked and lit up with tasteful Christmas decorations.

The pub wasn’t quite as old as the village – the village was named in the Domesday Book in 1086, whereas the pub/inn is a mere youngster, barely 400 years old.

The stairs to the rooms had tiny little treads but risers at least 6″ high, the floors were uneven, the window panes were bubbled, and every ceiling was slanted. It was perfect! Granted, the management doesn’t stay on the premises after the pub closes, and the doors are all alarmed after midnight, which had me lying awake at 2 a.m. thinking, “I know ghosts aren’t real, but if they were, would they come in this room?” Really.

The pub itself was also very ‘country-English’. Delicious pub food, lots of beers on tap, and a clientele that seemed to dress entirely in Barbour jackets, wellies, tweed caps, and cordorouy trousers. Everyone knew everyone else, and dogs roamed about, off-leash.

I was at a tiny table with a small bench and a couple of stools. I had a book, and my wine and was just enjoying a quiet evening observing the locals. But the pub was busy, and my table’s stools were empty, so over the course of the evening two different couples sat down and joined me for a drink. One was working class and one was middle class. I am not saying that out of any sense of judgement: each couple told me where they stood on the social ladder. (!) The working class couple regaled me with stories of the past year: the deaths in the family, the nutty relatives, and it’s safe to say the husband hadn’t met a sentence he couldn’t interrupt. They were so nice and so friendly.

The middle class couple were also very pleasant to visit with – they loved Scout and we talked dogs, and travel, and COVID – it was a great half hour’s chat, before they headed off to walk home. I continue to be amazed at how friendly Brits are – I’m not sure where their reputation for coldness came from. Certainly not Hampton In Arden.