After 9 days of being lulled into a fall sense of comfort by moderate weather and inland locations, Scout & I got our first taste of what the next two years will feel like. We stopped in the Highland coastal village of Golspie to have some lunch (yet another Tesco sandwich – I’ve decided the basic bacon and ketchup is my favorite) and stretch our legs at the beach. Well, we stepped out of the car, the wind came up, the rain came down, and oh my God it was . . . . we’ll say invigorating. My planned 40 minute stroll along the seawall turned into 8 minutes of my begging Scout to hurry up and do her business, followed by a mad dash back to the now slightly steamy car. That’s when we saw the polar bears. No not ursus maritimus, but two ladies in bathing suits running into the sea for a 10-minute swim. Mad.
Our next break was also a beach, and was much better that time: (a) no rain, and (b) I had added 2 layers of clothing from the bottom of a suitcase. The tide was going out at Thurso, so while we waited for the ferry, Scout had the time of her life.
Once the car issue was settled, Scout & I began our road trip north to Orkney. We’ve taken our time, driving in short bouts, doing some sightseeing, checking into a different hotel every couple of nights. And, apart from the occasional errors with the SatNav (I could see the computer store, I could get near the computer store, I just couldn’t get into the parking lot of the computer store – at least 10 minutes of driving around a shopping mall parking lot full of roundabouts and dead ends), and a hotel that claims to be pet-friendly on Expedia but not in person, it has been a lovely trip. We’ve had some rain, some mist, and some overcast skies, but mostly the weather here in Scotland has been pretty nice.
We’ve walked to the Falls of Bruar (beautiful, and the first time Scout has been off-leash since we left Milton – she was ecstatic), been to the Holy Rude Church in Stirling (James VI was coronated there by the Bishop of Orkney while John Knox preached – you don’t get more Scottish than that), and walked along the River Ness, crossing over to the Ness Islands on footbridges built in Victorian times.
The worst thing about British hotels? The cost. I had no idea that rooms in smaller cities and towns in Scotland would cost at least $150/night – I had investigated online in August; I had just assumed that by mid-October prices would be much lower. My budget has gone completely sideways.
The best thing about British hotel rooms? Every room has a proper kettle, real tea bags, milk, and even little biscuits. This is such a nice change after all those years of business travel, making tea in the Mr Coffee maker with water just shy of the boil, and drinking each morning’s cup of tea with that hint o’mocha that I really hadn’t wanted. This is civilized travel.
The past week has been spent trying to buy and insure a car. I simply had no idea how complicated this was going to be. The list of things that went wildly wrong is too long to elaborate on; suffice it to say that between: unfamiliar makes & models, staying in one town with the dealership in the next, a foreign cell phone + roam package, a compromised debit card, online insurance companies, and an international driver’s license, well, my first week in Scotland was not the relaxing yet efficient travel launch point I had hoped for. There were tears.
But the week had its highlights. My mother and father grew up less than 5 miles from the Arnold Clark dealership in Motherwell. I have relatives who speak with a Scottish accent; I watch a lot of UK TV; and I have a pretty good ear for accents. But the nice young man who sold me my car – well, dear God, I struggled to follow our conversations. I truly only understood about 1 word in 3 and did my best to glean the rest from context and guesswork. I asked him to repeat himself so often he must have thought I was deaf. It was like those videos of a Scotsman getting in a voice-activated elevator. Nevertheless, we got there in the end, and I think I drove off the lot with the car he intended for me to have.
The other highlight was finalising my car insurance – as I said, it would take too long to explain why I was having the issues I was, I just was. When it finally came down to the last few details and no one would accept a Canadian credit card, I remembered a friend living in Oxford. For the last 20 years, we have seen each other exactly only once a year (COVID excepted) when she came to Ontario for Christmas. And yet, this friend, whom I met in 1973 and stayed friends with ever since, stepped in and paid for my insurance, no questions asked; calling the call centre, offering her financial details, and sitting on the phone for 20 minutes while a sales rep read her the small print of the contract. (All in the clear understanding that I will pay her back, of course. The cheque is in the mail.) Old friends truly are the best friends.
Was it worth all the grief? Well here is the car, with all my worldly possessions awaiting loading. Yes, they all fit, and yes, Scout has the entire back seat to stretch out in. A peppy little Vauxhall Corsa – easy to handle, easy to park. Now I just need to figure out all the buttons, bells, and whistles on the dashboard.
Since I arrived, every day has been go, go, go. I woke up to sun this morning and decided it was time for some sightseeing. Troon is only 45 minutes away, so off we went. A beautiful drive through the countryside with minimal stresses (when will driving in this country ever not be stressful?). We started with a walk along the docks, past the yacht club, past what seemed to be a lumber mill(?), and over to the Wee Hurrie fish & chip shop where I had a mug of soup and Scout had a chat with a sea lion. But I wanted a bit more lunch so we went into the “dug friendly” Harbour Inn. I love that dogs are welcome at (some) pubs in the U.K.!
Then off to the seawall walk where Scout was in heaven. We couldn’t go down to the tidal pools because the tide was coming in, but it was a glorious day and we walked for miles and miles along the shore all the way to a sandy beach. Scout and I were both completely content – no worries about car insurance, or finding a place to live, or the expenses of hotels and rental cars – just salty air and sunshine.
What a great way to wrap up our first week in Scotland.
I knew when I moved here I would spend a fair amount of time up front converting things mentally: miles to kilometres [1.6](why, after having converted everything else to metric, would the Brits hold on so tight to miles? baffling); GBP£ to CAD$ [1.7]; pounds to stones [14], and even dining out [about 2:1]. Oddly, groceries right now seem to be running about par. Most of my meals at present are Tesco sandwiches or John West Lunches on the Go, and they seem to be about the same price as similar products at Longos or Loblaws. I do know a point will come where I will just start thinking in the new measurements, but not quite there yet.
The one conversion I hadn’t anticipated, but which is turning out to be a constant is ETAs. When my TomTom says it will take 32 minutes to arrive somewhere, I now know to convert that by about 1.7 (much like the currency) and that I will be there in about 55 minutes. That is not entirely my fault. I think TomTom needs to be held responsible for about 30% of that: it’s an offline GPS, working from downloaded maps. And when, for example, the on-ramp to the A74 south was closed for construction and I was forced to head north to Glasgow on my way home last Thursday, I suppose we can’t really blame TomTom for that. (Altho, as I wended my way through Bothwell, Uddingston, Bellshill, and Craigneuk before ultimately getting back on track in Wishaw, it was hard not to). And the UK road systems are accountable for some degree for my extended travel time – why oh why don’t Brits label their roads? They seem to think that if you are coming from a smaller road (usually labelled) to a larger one, you instinctively will know the name of the larger street?!?! FFS.
But yes, I think it is fair to say that 60% of my driving overtime is my fault. What with mis-counting exits at round-abouts, an unwillingness to make right turns in rush hour traffic, and the fact that the skies are overcast more often than not, screwing up my sense of direction, I have spent a great deal of time on the Lanarkshire road system craning my neck to see the next turn and waiting for Kevin, the Aussie voice in my TomTom, to re-calibrate and re-instruct after each misstep on my part.
It had not occurred to me that my uncle would have zero access to the internet (although to be fair, his daughter had given me a head’s-up – it just hadn’t fully registered how devoid of connectivity I would be). I had the NHS chasing me for my Day-2 COVID test, the car dealership asking for my input on car choices, the Animal Transport company providing updates on Scout’s progress across three countries, and 25+ friends and family all asking how I was and where I was and, most importantly, how Scout was. And no way to deal with it.
Thank heavens for a kind next door neighbour who let me sit in her front room and/or front garden and use her wifi on and off for the next 2 days.
But, boy oh boy, people were getting antsy to hear updates (again, the interest centered mostly around the dog). Clearly my one-word answers were not what they were looking for.
All is resolved now, and the lines of communication are re-opened. Scout sits behind me in my hotel room, supervising my work.
What a 24 hours! I woke at 3:10 am on D-Day, and was go, go, go for the next 13 hours. I left Scout with Animal Transport in the morning, and had someone been standing near me as I left they would have heard, “I’m not going to cry; I’m not going to cry. Damn, I’m going to cry.” But, the good news was, I still had so much to do that I stopped crying pretty quickly. By the time Sibling 1 and I got to the checkout desk at Pearson six hours later, there was only one last thing to do: say good-bye. Again, without crying. Hmm. Well, whatever. I tried.
Then it seemed like no time and we had landed in Dublin. Then on to Edinburgh, to what turned out to be the easiest customs crossing I’d ever done. I had my vaccination certificate ready, along with my negative COVID test, my passport, you name it. But they just waved me through. Really? Okay. Then on to rent the car, program the GPS (SatNav), and brave the streets of Scotland. I was so wound up, and so anxious; it wasn’t until I’d been driving for 20 minutes before it dawned on me: “You’re here. You’re really here! You started thinking about this in December 2019 and now, 21 months later, you’re here. Take a breath, look around, and appreciate the moment.”
So I did. I was gliding along the motorway on a sunny day, through the beautiful Scottish countryside. It felt wonderful.
I don’t post a lot on social media – I’ll re-post good causes from friends, but that’s about it. But the one post I knew I was going to do was from the airplane, as we were taking off, announcing my departure on my big adventure. Except, for the first time that I’m aware of, Facebook had shut down. Completely. Well, how annoying. Nonetheless, the plane took off and the adventure began, Mr. Zuckerberg et al notwithstanding.
4:13 a.m. I’ve been up since 3 o’clock. I drop Scout off at 9:00 a.m. for her 5:30 p.m. flight with KLM, then my Aer Lingus flight is 5:45 this afternoon.
Yesterday was quite the day – friend JK came to say good bye to Scout (and me, but mostly Scout), one friend did me a favour of driving me all over Halton to drop off thank you gifts at other friends’ houses. Sibling 2 had me over for dinner, and the the neighbours hosted a lovely send-off party. I will miss this street very much (but, you’re coming back, Elaine; you’re coming back).
Still feels like lots to do: packing is at about 85%; I have to return modem and satellite boxes via post office; there are still boxes for storage not yet fully packed (!); and I have just emptied the fridge of the last of the food – homemade applesauce and hard boiled eggs for breakfast and lunch today.
If I hadn’t hired a property manager/handy man – I don’t know where I would be right now. I am walking away from so many tasks that I had intended to complete myself, and there are boxes that I am just never going to fit in the storage room. Fortunately, I can count on SB for that – what a load off my mind all that delegation has been.
Time to sort out the last of Scout’s paperwork – and then, we’re off!
Up until now I’ve been focused on the organizing, and the process, and the newness of everything. Then, a couple of week ago, Sibling 1 offered to host an early Thanksgiving and Farewell Elaine dinner for the family. Whoa. “Farewell dinner”. Then some good friends sent me a beautiful going-away card. And my neighbours want to get together for a final drink. Suddenly excitement is turning to something else – this is starting to sink in. I’m leaving. I’m going away. I won’t see many of these people for two years – I’m not exactly sad, but this is not going to be easy. I know COVID has taught me you don’t have to be in the same room with someone to stay in touch, but this is the other side of a very big ocean.
Well, if homesickness comes, I’ll ride it out and focus on the positive. (and call my sisters. A lot.)
