The Mist

There is a mist coming up from the river just barely visible in this photo. It's moving at a divinely creepy pace.

Ya Daft Cow

This story probably works better when you can hear our accents, so try to get them in your head first. Today, me test driving a car and trying to negotiate a 3-lane roundabout for the first time . . .

E&W : Get in the right lane.

Me : The right lane? But that means I'm going almost all the way around.

E&W : Yes. 

Me : Can't I just take a left?

E&W : No. Pull up. Okay? Go now.

I move the car forward into the roundabout while practically yelling at myself : And don't close your eyes. Don't close your eyes! Don't close your eyes!

E&W : What are you saying?! Close your eyes?! No you don't close your eyes! Indicate and move over.

Me : While not closing my eyes. Not closing my eyes.

E&W : Exit here. Well done, ya daft cow!!!

Okay. He didn't say it. But he was totally thinking it loud enough for me to hear. 

And I was totally thinking, Just close your eyes and do it. Do it. Wait! No! Don't close your eyes! 

But I did it!! 

With eyes wide open!!

The Post About Roads

This is the (edited) post I was trying to write when my other computer starting having issues. I've driven on my own since this many times and my confidence is definitely better. 

So this happened. 

Actually, it happened while we were in quarantine. I drove to Lockerbie and back. I even backed into the insanely narrow space next to the house.

I've actually driven during previous visits to Scotland, but it's a lot nicer driving your own car instead of your mother-in-law's car, even if I still don't think of the Volvo as "ours".  It just isn't; yet. It is a very nice car and I do like it, but it's a wide car and on Scottish roads, it feels gargantuan, and not like it belongs to us. I am getting use to it though and finding it far less intimidating, but we are going to look for a smaller second car in the near future.

This seems like a good time to talk about Scottish roads. There are several types of roads here and there is very little comparison for roads back home, except maybe Interstates.

Along the M74 headed towards the hills of Moffat

Here, there are "M" roads. M for Motorway which is an Interstate or Highway in the States. A large, wide, multi-lane road that is well taken care of.  I can drive on these with no problem at all. The area we are wanting to move to is along the M74.  It is, in fact, the main road going up through the middle of Scotland. We can hop on it and be at Marion's (my mother-in-law's) house in about 2 hours. It is a pretty easy drive and we currently use it daily to get to and from school. (Yesterday, the tops of the hills in the picture were covered with clouds.)

Next, there are "A" roads, which are like state roads.  Back home, the best comparison I can think of would be Franklin Road, Old Hickory Boulevard, or Hillsboro Road. A's are main roads that connect small towns to larger towns. They are usually 2 lanes, but can briefly be 4 for passing. These tend to be wider and taken care of. I can drive on these with ease and they are actually some of my favorite roads. 

An A Road

But don't be fooled. We drove down an A the other day which was crazy narrow for an A.  When a lorry (aka 18-wheeler) went by us, we literally moved as far off the road as possible (which wasn't far as there was a drop off) and held our breath. Hugh could have reached his hand out the window and easily touched the truck. I'm guessing there might have been 4-inches clearance. I actually asked if the truck was allowed to be on that road. The answer was yes. I wanted to know what happened if two trucks were coming from opposite directions. The answer? Let's hope we never find out.

One of the B roads we take to school

Next there are "B" roads. Some B roads want to be A roads, and a few could measure up, but on the whole, B roads definitely have their own character and I can't think of an equivalent in the US.  B roads are usually about a lane and a half wide with traffic in both directions. (So maybe a US neighborhood road, but I can't think of any that are that narrow.)  Sounds easy enough but add blinding curves, bicyclists, and people walking their dogs on the sides of the road and it becomes nerve wracking. 

If two cars are coming along in opposite directions, one, or both cars, have to move over to let the other pass. Who moves depends on several factors like who has the room to move over. Sometimes there are actual places to pull over but more often than not there is a ditch or a wall or a house on the side of the road. Sometimes it also depends entirely on the aggressiveness of the drivers. I'm not an aggressive driver. I'd much rather pull over, feel safe, and let the other person pass. I'm sure that it will change slightly as I gain confidence. I will say that, if anything, drivers are usually exceptionally polite and a quick wave is given to one another as people pass, be it a 'thank you' or a 'you're welcome'. And no, after a while, there's nothing exceedingly weird about it. It's just the way things are.

Following a school bus down a B road

South Lodge, our cottage, is on a B road, right on a curve. How people walk along these roads is beyond me, but they do and quite often with their dogs or children. Getting across to see the cows and cricket match in the fields across the street the other day was an exercise in faith. It isn't necessarily a busy road, but it is traveled and not by people going what I would call cautiously. Anthony said once we were out of quarantine, we could walk to the pub in Dalton, but it would take an extraordinary amount of gumption to make it down that road on foot.

After that, roads aren't actually classified by anyone but me. My next level are "C" roads for absolute crap. Not one way, but two-way single lane roads so narrow you can see the line side mirrors have created in the flora and fauna growing on the side of the road. These are rarely, if ever, taken care of, but they are there and you can use them. They usually connect small towns to smaller villages.

The bus and a car passing

Finally, there are gravel roads used to gain access to farms and logging sites. Not used frequently by the public, but can be used just the same.  When we've been here in the past, I've driven down a gravel logging road to get to a riding facility for the kids to ride horses.

Any road, except M's, can narrow down to a single lane. When that happens, because "why fix something that isn't broken?", there are stop lights set up on either side of where the road narrows to a single lane; usually when the part that is narrow is long and/or curvy.  Other times, when visibility is better, there's no stop light at all.

An A road that narrows to a single lane

The single lane bridge over the River Annan on the way to school

When I say houses right on the road, I mean it.

So that's roads. Signs and roundabouts are their own things. I will, however, end this with one of my favorite signs so far. It was at the entrance to the recycling center.

Not just slow. 

Dead Slow. 

Like quarantine. 

😂

Randomness

Evening Number 1

Beatrice : Are you sure about this? Like, this isn't some front for serial killers is it? It kinda feels like it could be. No, it definitely feels that way. It is so dark out here. We are literally in the middle of nowhere and there are no lights to speak of. We are nowhere. In the dark. No one could hear us scream. This feels weird. We've been lured to a cottage just so we could be killed. I've seen murder shows like this. Are you sure about the people renting it to us? I mean, it's a farm. You can feed people to pigs. Can you feed them to sheep? In the dark? In the middle of nowhere? Where no one can hear you scream?
Me : Um. Beatrice, you are not making this better.
Beatrice : So you were thinking it too, huh?
Me: That is totally beside the point.

_______________________

Morning Number 2

Me : Why on earth do my bedroom slippers feel wet when I put them on in the morning?! I mean, they're not. It just feels that way.

E&W : It's the cold.

Me : Um. Oh. 🙄 Wait. It's only August.

_______________________

Coal fires are hard to start, hard to refuel, and are missing one primal element. The dreamy aroma of burning wood. 

Oh, and heat. It warms the room so slowly you may not even notice until someone opens any door to the room. At which point you can kiss that built up heat goodbye.

_______________________

At night, giant snails / slugs climb up the outside walls of the cottage. Not just one or two. ALOT of them.

I bet you didn't need to know that any more than Helena and I did.

_______________________

Because random pictures of bright-eyed Lollipop makes every one happy.

As does random pictures of sheep

_______________________

A small conversation about villages . . . 

E&W : Which do you think is bigger, Abington or Biggar?
Me : Biggar?
E&W : Abington or Biggar?
Me : Biggar.
E&W : Biggar or Moffat?
Me : Biggar.

E&W : Lockerbie or Biggar?
Me : Biggar.
E&W : Are you saying Biggar is bigger because it's bigger or because it's Biggar?
Me : Yes.

_______________________

While quarantining in the car . . .

Me : How do you farm ice cream?
Through laughter, E&W : What?

Me : That sign back there said Ice Cream Farm.
Helena, laughing : No, it said Dunreider or something Farm on the first line and ice cream on the second.

Me, totally lost in thought : Oh. Is it like a dairy farm or do they actually plant ice cream? How would one do that? 
E&W : Maybe they plant the base flavors, like vanilla and chocolate and strawberry, and then grow added ingredients separately.
Helena : We need to go home. You two have had enough for one day.

Short-term Interim Stopgap

We have been in the United Kingdom for 21 days.  In some ways, it feels like months and in others ways, it feels like hours.

We made it through quarantine, which is probably a post in and of itself.  

The kids started school, which is definitely a post in and of itself.

We've made it through innumerable challenges. And, in the time of Covid, no good plan or challenge goes unpunished. And so it is with us.

We had plans to stay in our cottage, South Lodge, for about a month. In that time, we would quarantine and look for a long term (3-6 month) rental to stay in until we find a house.  Surely, we could find something in four weeks. A flat, a house, a cottage? Anything?

No, not really.

Well, realistically there were places to rent; just not any for a family of 5 and a dog. If anyone needs a 1 or 2-bedroom apartment (often in an attic) where pets are not allowed, I can point you in the right direction with ease. There are plenty of those; even some with a little green space for dogs. Every now and then there's a 3-bedroom bungalow or cottage. They are usually smaller than what we are in now and outside a livable distance to school. (We are currently 40 minutes away from the school.) Finding a large 3 bedroom or a 4 bedroom house proved to be . . . annoying, frustrating, depressing, disheartening, and a plethora of other emotions, but not completely impossible; if we were willing to waive some wants.

We found . . . you can count them on one hand . . . 2; one online and one through an agent.

Crawford

The first, we called Crawford because it was in the little village of Crawford about 20 minutes north of Moffat along the easily traveled M74. Online and around the outside, it was a great big dream come true. Five bedrooms, a cinema room, 3 full bathrooms, living room, dining room, and a beautiful kitchen with a little yard (garden) for the dog.  It was even partially furnished. Being at the north end of the village, without a house directly across the street, the view out the front looked out over a little valley full of sheep and the Clyde River. Even better, it was only 20 minutes to the school; about half the time from where we are now. It was slightly above the price range we wanted, but not impossibly too much.

We went to visit it while the kids were in school, prepared to sign, and move in this week. 

Mold & Stains

Clearly that did not happen. We knew it wasn't going to go well when we walked in the front door and the agent showing it to us, who was very friendly, said that it was her first time seeing the property and was stunned that they were allowing it to be shown. It had some issues that would take some time to deal with so it was not move-in ready. The downstairs was gorgeous. The utility room and the upstairs were filthy messes which included a massive black mold problem, a damp issue, and a horribly huge carpet stain in the master suite. 

The agent couldn't answer any of our basic questions; like, How long before it's ready? Would they be willing to come down on the price? Did it come with a dryer? (The agent, by the way, agreed with us; it wasn't worth the price in it's current state; even fixed up, it would be 200-300 less.) It struck us both as odd, so E&W later asked our realtor to look into it. Here, you have to have a "renter's number" in order to rent property to others. Our realtor found that the owner's of the property had an invalid number.

Needless to say, we kept the appointment to see the next property, Patervan Farmhouse.

The view from Patervan Farmhouse

Patervan was a little further away, in the hills outside of Moffat, on a scenic road to Edinburgh. You have to cross the River Tweed at the bottom of the drive to get to it. We'd been told about it early on as having a Broughton address, so we got out of the cottage during quarantine to quarantine in the car by driving to Broughton. It was far too far away and we were discouraged. But now, with the dream house not so dreamy, we made our way to it anyway. Luckily, it was alot further south than Broughton, making it only 25 minutes to the school. 

We drove there in the POURING rain and as we arrived, the sun came out to make the little yellow farmhouse a bright ray of sunshine. The view was spectacular.

Patervan is a "character property". It has ALOT of charm as well as 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and a giant yard, not to mention a smaller fenced one, for a dog to run gloriously through. There's even a creek at the back of the house. It's owned by and was shown to us by a fabulous, take-no-crap woman named Caroline. She is converting it for her son and his family, but he won't move into it for a year or more, so she wants to rent it out in the meantime. Lucky for us. 

The Front Door at Patervan

And, yes, you read that correctly. She is currently "converting" it. It's not move-in ready. At. All. It needs flooring and paint and final touches. Our first question, "When will it be done?" was answered immediately; the end of September. In fact, she answered all our questions and was simply wonderful.  We had more faith that the farmhouse would get done before Crawford ever did.  Clearly, we leaned towards Patervan.

But that left us with a problem.  No where to live between South Lodge and Patervan. We went back to Anthony, our landlord at South Lodge, but to no avail.  He has other renters for South Lodge after the 13th. He regretfully can't switch them (or us) to another property because the other rentals on the farm are all booked. There is a two bedroom, one bathroom cottage which E&W considered long enough to suggest it to me, but I'm sure the look on my face said it all. And, if it didn't, me blurting out, "Are you *&%$@* insane?" did, but desperation makes you think funny things. The truth is, we just can't go smaller. Well, we could, but then people would go insane and others would die and that wouldn't be pretty. And I'm still wondering, who did he think would be sleeping on the couch? 

There was a final rental on the farm but it is a stunning 5-star farmhouse that rents for 3000 more than Crawford. Ouch. 

So the desperate search for a short-term interim stopgap rental began. In earnest. Coming up empty did not make us pretty people. We searched AirBnB and VRBO and other similar sites. We considered a lot of crazy ideas, like finding two smaller rentals near one another and splitting our day between them; bedrooms in one; living space in another. We got a little scared and a lot moody.  Just to not feel completely vulnerable and wiped out, we agreed a hotel would work and would be our (rather expensive and therefore final) backup plan.

Then, as I drove to school to get the kids, E&W called and said that he thought he'd found a hard-to-get holiday property that had suddenly opened up (we guess because of a cancellation). 

Aldersyde, the pinkish one with red trim

Aldersyde Holiday House. In the HEART of Moffat; literally just off the end of the public "square" (High Street), and within walking distance to the school. Bigger than where we are now, furnished, four bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and allowed pets (even if you have to walk a distance to . . . well, walk her). Three weeks in it would cost close to the same as 2 months in Patervan Farmhouse. Horrified, wide-eyed, and thrilled, we rented it through October 8th. We wanted to give Caroline plenty of time to get the Farmhouse finished and if it's finished on time, we can take our time furnishing it. 

Because, that's right, Patervan Farmhouse is not furnished and our furniture (what was left of it after the great purge) is somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.

Welcome to our next challenge on the game show we call Life.

Food : Taco Dinner or Taco Disaster

Taco Disaster.

Well, not entirely. Just mostly.

Needless to say, taco night, requested by RM, ran into a few challenges.

Even though I could find Old El Paso online at Tesco's, I couldn't find what I would consider pretty basic things; like mild taco mix or taco shells. In the US, I would just get basics or a couple of taco kits that included either (or both) hard and soft taco shells, seasoning mix, and red salsa. Not being able to find what I was looking for individually, I went looking for kits and with some relief, I found one.  The "taco boat" kit, complete with taco boat shells, taco mix, and seasoning packet. Close enough. So I added two to our basket.

However, they didn't have two when our order was filled. They had one. And substituted the other with a nacho kit. Which would have been fine if the nacho kit had been for "meaty" nachos and included taco mix, but it wasn't and it didn't. So I had one taco mix packet for 2 pounds of meat and it takes two.  The extra seasoning packet that came in the kit was a ranch powder to put on top. We sometimes used a ranch salsa, so that didn't throw us off, but no one put the powder on their tacos.

The taco mix that came in the taco boat kit wasn't the dry mix we're use to. It was a gelatinous sauce. The nacho kit came with two salsa packets, so I attempted to mix some of the salsa (which was a rather odd orange-ish brown color, not red, gelatinous sauce) into the meat. I can't say that it worked. 

What amused H and I was the packaging. Looks similar to the US, but the directions were another thing.  Add cucumbers and carrots? Umm. Not usually.

On top of the struggle with seasoning, shredded cheese (aka grated cheese) over here is hard to come by unless it's British Cheddar. I guess I should say, hard to come by when shopping online. I couldn't find queso, Monterrey Jack, or even Colby. Not even in chunks that I could grate myself. Perhaps I will be able to find some later, but I got the cheddar just to have some cheese. Let's just say that British Cheddar is not the best cheese choice for poorly-flavored taco meat (and I'm just going to guess fully flavored taco meat too), but is exceptional otherwise.

The lettuce was exceptionally bitter. We gave the remainder to the hens.

B and I love guacamole and I found some "smashed avocado with a touch of lime". I think it was more lime with a touch of avocado, but I like both so it was a small bright spot. Still, I think for our next attempt at taco night (and yes, there will be one after I can get to the store in person), I will get avocados and make my own guacamole. It's always best homemade anyway.

The true gem of the evening, which was in dire need of something to shine, were the tomatoes. Given to us by Jilly, a friend who grew them in her garden, they were tomatoes on steroids. Absolutely BURSTING with flavor.

The good news is the men declared, "Not what we're use to, but not bad!" and ate it anyway.

The girls, including myself, were a bit harder and declared it, "Horrible!"

Needless to say, we will try, try again. When I can explore more than one store. In person.

New Friends

Before leaving the US, the B sent her email address to the her new school and asked it it could be forwarded to some of the kids in her grade.

A day or so after we arrived, she was contacted by 2 girls and a day or so later, by a third, who is in H's grade. They have been communicating ever since and sharing great information.

One of the girls has a younger brother RM's age, but they've been slower to communicate. I'm guessing because they are boys.

Yesterday, Monday, about lunch time, the girls' phones lit up with friend requests from Scotland in a couple of their social media accounts. One of the girls had clearly told her friends at school about the new kids who would be attending next week.

Today, at lunch time, this arrived on the B's phone . . .

I have never wanted to hug such a wonderful group of kids more in my life and y'all know I know more wonderful kids than you can imagine. I hope I get to meet them all and say thank you in person!!

Oh, my weary Mama's heart!

😭❤