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It has been a delightful week, weather-wise. (Well, also visitor-wise but that’s for another post.) Dawn starts at 3:30 am, and dusk ends at 11 pm, and we have had little to no rain.

Scout & I went for a long walk this morning, through the village, into the fields, and back through the woods. We saw (really, just I saw – she is oblivious) a half dozen rabbits, two deer, three dogs, one man, and zero cars.

Sunday morning in a Scottish village in June. Lovely.

I’m an okay, albeit erratic, gardener. Back home, every spring I start looking at plant catalogues, taking Scout for a walk through Terra Nurseries, and planning out my pots, annuals, and vegetable garden. I’m busy planting, watering, and weeding in May & June, I maintain some semblance of mowing in July & August, and by September I’ve lost interest and have hired a company to do fall clean-up in October.

I knew when I moved to Braidwood I’d have some work outside. My aunt and uncle have a small front lawn and a large, terraced back garden. I believe my aunt was all about the flowers, and my uncle was (rightly) very proud of his vegetable garden – a greenhouse full of tomatoes, as well as carrots and leeks being harvested well into late winter – just amazing. He was gardening until just a few months before his death, including climbing a ladder with a massive electric hedge trimmer last summer – my heart stopped when I came around the corner and saw that. And my cousin – well. Her garden in England is absolutely overflowing with beds, pots, and hanging baskets; and she and her husband are the president/treasurer (or something like that) of their community allotment (who knew allotments had leadership teams?). So when I arrived I was very intimidated by repairing/maintaining these gardens, patio, and walkways.

It doesn’t help when I see my nextdoor neighbours (all in their late 70s or 80s) out looking after their gardens for two or three hours each day. It’s even worse when I can see one tiny little couple (he has Parkinson’s) out helping each other up and down, digging and trenching, mulching and deadheading – all while I am inside making myself yet another cup of tea.

I have accepted that I am not going to begin to do these gardens justice. So we’ve hired someone to mow and weed, and I’m sure when Viv comes in July, she will show me how things should be done. For now I water, and watch the birds. C’est tout.

I’ve already shared this on Scout’s Instagram page, but it’s too good not to repeat.

Scout often sleeps on my bed, but equally often will lie on a mat on the floor by my bed, with her nose sort of pointing underneath the bed. Last night I was woken just after 3 a.m. (side note: it was starting to get light outside – these days it’s only pitch black between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.) by the sounds of scratching under the bed. I thought the dog was just rolling over or something, but then I heard a thump. I sat up and looked over the side of the bed. Over the course of the night she had shifted, and rolled, and managed somehow to get herself stuck fully under my bed. I don’t mean wedged in – there’s some clearance under there – she was just fully under the bed and not sure how to extricate herself.

Obviously, the first thing I did was to take a picture. I mean, come on. Then I tried encouraging her to come out, but she just wiggled about fruitlessly. I wasn’t going to grab her legs and haul her out, as that could hurt her. So I lay on my tummy on the floor in front of her and mimed dog-paddling, and lo and behold, she copied me and pulled herself out. And then lay back down on her bed and went to sleep.

It took me a while longer – it’s hard to get back to sleep after a full-on belly laugh with tears pourng down your cheeks.

It’s been one month since I left Orkney, and oddly, I don’t seem to think about it too much. Out of sight out of mind? Mostly when I do think about it is when it’s still light here at 10:00 p.m. or 4:00 a.m. – I had forgotten how far north all of Scotland is and had bemoaned the fact that I’d be leaving Orkney and missing out on the longest days of the year. (As far as latitudes go, it’s as if I’ve moved from Churchill south to Flin Flon. Carluke is still north of Moscow.)

I miss the friends I’d made there, of course, but I’ve been fairly busy settling in here and as I was already familiar with this house and neighbourhood, I haven’t felt any sense of ‘homesick’ for Orkney.

I’ve never been much of a Facebook person. In fact, the only reason I ever went on there was because I talked my women’s group in Milton into joining social media, so then I felt obliged to check in and promote our posts. But when I was moving to Orkney, it seemed social media was the way to find out about everything, so I joined several community pages. They were great – I found out about concerts, and beach clean-ups, and met at least two of my Orkney friends on there. (There was also the odd man with the 17-room house on Burray who wanted me to rent a ‘wing’ of the house from him, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Just realised I haven’t been on FB in quite a while, so opened it up this morning, and was hit with an absolute flood of Orkney updates – upcoming summer solstice events, updated menu from my favourite food truck, ads for the Community Fridge. A lot of people from away posting that they were moving to Orkney and looking for advice, just as I did two years ago. And then I was sad. Which is silly. So I’ve done the only sensible thing: I’ve Left group for all but one of the Orkney group sites that I was on, and for that last one, I’ve Unfollowed it so I won’t see posts unless I want to.

I have joined two Carluke/Lanark pages, which should help me become a part of my new community here.

When the removal guys came last winter to clear out the damaged furniture from the flood, they took away one piece too many. All the kitchen, living room, and dining room furniture had to go, as well as one bed. But, on top of all of that, they also accidently took away a bed frame that was supposed to stay – they did leave the mattress, which was good, but it now lies on the floor. Hmm.

My own bedroom furniture has filled the two front bedrooms nicely, and I’m quite pleased with how they look. But the wee back room with the mattress on the floor was getting on my nerves. It’s a crowded little room – my cousin doesn’t know it, but I’ve relegated a couple of pieces that she had set up in the front room to this third bedroom; I thought the living room looked nicer without them (I don’t think she reads this blog – here’s hoping). This means the back room is both crowded and messy.

So I went online and bought a bed frame without telling her. (If she doesn’t like it, she can donate it to charity when I’m gone; it was only £50.) It arrived on Friday and yesterday morning I unpacked it and started assembling it. According to the instructions, it should take two people one hour to complete. Well, they called it – it took me working solo 2 & 1/4 hours to bolt together 30 pieces of metal with 42 bolts using 22 washers and 20 locking nuts (I hate locking nuts). I put the frame in place, then dragged the mattress up onto the frame. See if you can tell why I spent the next several hours in a serious huff.

Why would it not have occurred to me that Uncle Ian used a 3/4 double bed? Why would I have thought to measure the mattress before ordering a frame? Why would I have crushed the packing box this stupid, ugly, oversized bed came in? How long am I going to sulk before I take the damned thing apart and package it back up? These are all questions with no answer.

Before anyone suggests it, yes, it probably would just be easier to ditch the current mattress and get one to fit the frame. But it is quite a small room, and a 3/4 bed really would be the better solution. (If you look to the right of the photo you will see the door which I am currently unable to close due to the size & position of the bed; every time I pass this open doorway, my hackles rise, and my mood drops.) I will return it, and I have seen an even uglier 3/4 frame which I will get around to ordering soon. Really, I will.

Postscript: Two hours after all of this, just as my mood was lifting, I looked out to see Scout lying in the grass in the backyard. Not unusual for her, the only things that were a little off were that she usually lies in the shade, and she seemed to have her head burrowed quite low. As I approached her to see what was different, I realised what was going on: she was lying in the grass quietly licking and gnawing on a dead bird. Of course she was.

Yesterday sucked.

In Canada, when someone honks at me, I assume they’re impatient and mostly just ignore them. Here, when someone honks at me, I assume the worst and my immediate thought is, “What did I do wrong?”

Ran a bunch of errands this morning – after the garden centre, the ATM, the grocery store, & the petrol station, I headed home. I was at a roundabout waiting to turn right (meaning I would be driving 3/4 of the way around the circle, clockwise) when the guy sort of behind, sort of beside me honked. Immediate thought: “Oh shoot, I must have done something wrong.”

I drove home from there, pondering, then fuming (the other guy had been turning left, so was no longer anywhere to be seen). I pondered about my mistake – this was a roundabout I’ve used literally dozens of times – how did I screw up? Came to the conclusion that I hadn’t, leading to the fuming. I’ve mentioned that here (or at least in Orkney), people trust when they see someone indicating, and will just drive into the traffic, assuming the other person will be turning as indicated. I can’t do that – I need to see the car start to turn as promised. Well, there was a car coming towards us through the roundabout, indicating that they were going to take the exit, so I could have gone. But I waited – a nanosecond at most – until they started to turn. Either way, the guy behind/beside me was in no way being inconvenienced by that nanosecond pause – he could have turned left any time he wanted. Hence the fuming. Dammit, he was wrong, I wasn’t.

Drove home in a funk. Got out of the car. Ah – my gas door was open, and the cap dangling from it.

Oops. Thank you, sir.

Here’s the difference between my street in Canada and my street in Scotland. In Canada, when I hear a tinny version of La Cucaracha outside, I know the ice cream truck has arrived, and kids will run out their front doors and line up to buy a popsicle or an ice cream cone. Here, every Thursday afternoon, when I hear a loud honking out on the street, I know the fish van has arrived, and senior citizens will come out of their front doors and queue up to buy haddock, or fish cakes, or tatties. We have a fish van.

This guy drives 2+ hours every week from the east coast and stops in neighbourhoods all over Lanarkshire, selling fish as well as baked goods and some produce. Today I bought haddock for this evening (I will bread it and serve it with grilled tomatoes and a cabbage slaw), smoked haddock for tomorrow (I will make Cullen Skink), and fish cakes for the the freezer.

In Orkney I lived less than a seven minute walk from the sea, but had to drive to buy my seafood. Here I live 40+ minute drive from the ocean, but the fish come to my front door.

There is a long time resident of this street a couple of doors down from me and it’s my understanding is that she has lost (or is losing) her eyesight. Scotland’s home care programs are amazing, and she has carers come in four times a day to help her with her daily activities and meals. I don’t know if her husband lives with her, or is even still alive, but I do see a couple of the neighbours pop in to visit her from time to time. I spend a lot of time at the window facing her front drive & walkway, so I see all the comings and goings. To be clear, it’s the kitchen window where I cook, wash, clean up, etc – I’m not peering out a window all day from behind net curtains, like my Mum’s neighbours in Bellshill did in the 40’s & 50’s (nothing went on up the North Road that the Misses Hamilton didn’t know about, believe me). No, it’s just the way the house is designed and the street is laid out – I see it all.

Every time I see the carers coming/going I get thinking about how we care for the elderly – either here or back home. I think it’s great that this lady is able to stay in her own home (and keep in mind, I am doing all this speculating without knowing a thing about this individual or her circumstances – I just can’t stop thinking about the bigger picture). But is it the best thing? I assume that for most of the day, she is alone in that house, as opposed to being in a community care facility where she would be interacting with other people. Granted, maybe she doesn’t want to interact with others, or leave the surroundings she is most familiar with. But is she lonelier than she need be?

Staying in your own home seems to be so important to many elderly people – continued independence? costs? familiarity with surroundings? limited services available? – but I often wonder if that wish is based purely on emotion. I remember my aunt and uncle talking about how, once she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she would be staying in their home; she would not be going into care, as there were so many in-home services available here in Scotland. Which was terrific to hear about Scotland (my cousin tells me it’s much better up here than down in England – Alba gu bràth!). And yet I remember when my Mum moved out of their apartment into Glendale Crossing, her days became much more active and interesting – she had people to watch, and things going on around her – my sisters and I believe she was truly happier then. I’m not criticizing Ian & Margaret, or my Mum & Dad; nor am I saying one decision is better than another; we do what’s right at the time, based on our own circumstances and the information at hand.

And I do get that many senior care facilities are substandard. CFUW Milton has been very active over the last few years in lobbying the Ford government to bring elder care up to acceptable levels. And I know nothing of what’s available in Lanarkshire for the elderly or infirm. I just can’t help it – every time I see the carers go in & out, I get thinking about it all over again.

I have made one decision: now that I’m settled here, I’m going to ask a couple of the neighbours if they think this lady might enjoy a periodic visit from a gentle, friendly dog. Scout can earn her keep on this street.

Way back in the autumn when my cousin and I started talking about my moving in here for the last several months of my stay in Scotland, we discussed the fact that Ian & Margaret had been here for 50+ years, latterly in poorer health. It meant the the house was pretty full – full of old knickknacks, dated pictures, boxes upon boxes of photos, and cleaning supplies (dear God, the cleaning supplies). Don’t get me wrong; my aunt & uncle weren’t hoarders by any stretch of the imagination; their house didn’t feel cluttered at all, more cosy and maybe a titch crowded. But still a lot of stuff.

My cousin wanted to clear out the junk and update the rooms, and ideally make this into their second home (they live in the south of England), and possibly even rent it out down the road. I could be on hand for whatever contractor work needed doing, replace the old-person furniture with my more modern things, and over time go through cupboards, closets, cabinets, the loft, and the garage and get rid of the excess stuff. Viv hates purging; I love it.

But then the flood and Viv’s amazing contractor – so instead of a cosy, dark, and dated house, I’ve moved into a modern, light, airy, and mostly empty cottage. But there’s still the cupboards, and the closets, and the cabinets. And the loft and the garage. I spent the first few weeks getting settled, moving things around, and sorting out the main living areas. But there are still the cupboards, etc, etc, etc . . .

So this week I started on them. Over the last three days I’ve emptied out the bedroom closets, dusted, wiped, and vacuumed them, and started sorting stuff. I’m feeling quite a sense of accomplishment. My bedroom is spotless (well, by my standards), the guest room is clean, empty, and organised, and the closet clean and sorted. No clutter: only items that should be kept.

The back room is still a work in progress; it had been Uncle Ian’s office until he retired, then his den, and since his death the recipient of all things that needed ‘shoved away’ – stuff. But things are moving fairly quickly – I anticipate being done with the ‘main floor’ by the end of May. Then the loft. And the garage.

And the garden – oh dear.

In an earlier post shortly after arriving in Scotland I talked about the ‘Idiot Tax’. A comedian had shared that anytime someone spent money foolishly, (e.g. came home with pickling salt when they meant to buy pickling spice, or paid £35 on a locally-made toque because they thought they hadn’t packed any hats from home) – anytime something like that happened, this comic’s FIL said that it was within this year’s Idiot Tax and it was okay to forgive yourself for it (the Idiot Tax cap, in this guy’s opinion, seemed to be around £1,000). *I don’t think the idea was that it was okay to fritter away £1,000 p.a., but rather that: shite happens, learn from your mistake, and move on. It helped the day I spent £8 on smoked scallops only to find I don’t like smoked scallops and I had to bin them because Scout didn’t like them either. Idiot Tax, move on.

Well, it’s started again: last week I bought tea at Tesco, only to remember Viv had shown me where the massive, unopened, Costco-sized package of tea was in the cupboard. Then I went to B&M (sort of HomeSense meets Walmart, but oh so tidy) and bought a large packet of Command Hook hangers only to find I already had tons of them from my last two moves (those things are bloody expensive and I can’t return them as I’d opened the package). Idiot Tax, move on.

But this is the one that has me in a lather: I sat down this morning to change my address on a bunch of forms and accounts. First one: Drivers Licence. Government websites here are so easy to follow – I brought up the form and started typing away. Entered my Current DL#, UK Passport #, Mother’s maiden name (I didn’t remember that from last time, but easy to forget, okay), and £49 fee. Didn’t remember that from last time either, but fair enough, so I paid it. It was about ten seconds after I hit Submit that I realized: this wasn’t a government site; this was an online service for immigrants – I had just clicked on the top site that had appeared when I googled DL change of address; the gov’t site was a few lines below. This service will address your paperwork for you for a fee, I guess for people new to the UK and unsure of how to navigate all the protocols. Dammit. I’ve just given an online company a ton of personal data, plus £. Dammit. I’m having a hard time shaking this one off – the company seems legit and actually has a decent user-rating, but. . . Dammit.

EDIT 29 hours later: I have just received an email from the online company, thanking me for my application and advising me that I only have one thing left to do – go to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s website and complete the change of address form and follow the instructions there. Link provided. I have just paid £49 to have them tell me to fill out the government form I had intended to complete when I started all this. Idiot Tax, move on.