Demolition is Fun

Hi all.

Demolition is a lovely word. I got rid of a built-in bookcase which took up too much space in our wee sitting room, and was, in fact, completely useless. It took a bit of muscle to get it out of there. I thought for a minute it might actually have doubled as a bomb shelter, so soundly was it constructed. Alas, the club hammer and pry bar proved too much for it in the end.


Do you know what I found had fallen behind and under the bookcase? Some neatly typed notes from the local Temperance Committee, circa 1952. I think that lends some credence to my notion that the interior of the house has not been updated since roughly the stone age. At any rate, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the ladies were working diligently to 'counteract the superstition that the coming of a New Year must be celebrated in whisky.'

Alas, the whisky industry outlived the Temperance movement. Actually, the bookcase outlived it as well. Let's drink to that.

Before

After. 

Notice the fireplace just to the left of the former bookcase. Can you guess what happened to all that scrap wood?

What's Cookin'?

Christmas at Dalbeattie 2010

Well, folks, the Holiday Season came and went without a post. And do you know what? According to the stats section, it was the busiest time yet for traffic to this blog. I was amazed to find that we've had visitors from the following nations in addition to the US and the UK: Canada, China, Columbia, France, Netherlands, and Slovenia. Welcome one and all!

The reason I haven't posted is that I hit the pavement looking for work...and found it. I produced a little flyer advertising my kitchen services to local restaurants in the event they needed emergency or temporary help. A couple of local restaurants responded and I worked various shifts for them. One of the owners sang my praises to friends who own the Anchor Hotel in Kippford (four miles from our little village) and pretty soon, I had a regular job doing prep and starters. I have found it's very helpful to have a background in kitchen work, because you can almost always find a job. Given the economy and given the fact that my data management skill set needs updating, kitchen work seemed a good option.  Americans, I'm pleased to say, are seen as industrious, positive, and hard-working. So even if the average Brit is baffled by our politicians, they have a general fondness for the average American. And America is widely regarded for it's friendliness and customer service. The customer service is sadly lacking in many places in the UK, and I'm not sure why that should be as the people are generally polite, friendly and love to go out to eat and drink. You'd think it would be a customer service dream.

What is the food like, you ask? Not as grim as you've been led to believe. I have found that the UK is a 'foodie' culture. The old stereotype of totally overcooked meat and veg is outdated. With the mix of cultures in the UK, the average Brit probably has a better grasp of ethnic food than the average American. There are many amazing restaurants in the UK. But you want to know what's on the menu at a pub/hotel, don't you?

Standard menu items for starters include soup, pate, crab on toast, smoked salmon, fried brie, garlic mushrooms. Their sauce for prawn cocktail, what most Americans would refer to as shrimp cocktail, is a marie rose sauce (mayo, ketchup, worcestershire sauce) which is a bit creamier and less spicy than the cocktail sauce I'm used to. It's basically Thousand Island without the chunky bits. One of the more popular starters is nachos. As in America, it seems to be served in a variety of ways, but I think I can safely say, they don't  have the same sense of what standard salsa is like. For example, the freshly made salsa where I work is an absolutely gorgeous deep red with tomatoes, herbs, and red onions in it. It seems to get its color from a sweet chili sauce, which is definitely an asian touch. It tastes wonderful and it would be familiar to the British palate as they do have a love of Asian and Indian foods here. But it really isn't what an American would think of as salsa. It's more like a chutney. Aside from nachos as a starter, there is very little Mexican influence on the mainstream restaurants here and Mexican restaurants are few and far between.  I've daydreamed of opening a little Mexican food stand. I could call it Nacho Mama. I know. It's an old one, but a good one.

For mains there are the usual fish and chips (most often haddock), steaks, burgers, and salads; you will also find steak pie (often a dish of beef stew with a square of puff pastry on top), curry, pork medallions, lamb cutlets, sea bass, and a fair amount of duck, pheasant, and venison. And they don't hold back on serving sauces and gravy. Delicious. Comforting. And definitely not dreary. What's the difference between the English pub food and the Scottish pub food? In a word, haggis. If you come to the Anchor and order the smoked duck salad starter, your strips of gorgeous duck breast will come on a bed of greens lovingly tossed with walnuts and a light vinagrette and topped with artistically placed deep-fried haggis balls. Arranged with special care by yours truly. Or if you are very into haggis, you could order the haggis fritters: two slices of haggis, battered and fried topped with a lovely gravy. What kind of gravy? No idea. Or if you are not into haggis but you are into deep fried things, you could order a deep fried mars bar. Sadly, that does not come with gravy. Not even chocolate gravy. 

This is my home version of a starter from work: tower of smoked salmon, cucumber and prawn. Christmas Eve lunch.

Also this fall we said goodbye to an old friend, Lily (1994 - 2010)

Kirkcudbright is 'Dy-no-mite!'

Kirkcudbright, a recent destination for one of our famous day trips, is a lovely, arty town located at the estuary of the River Dee in Galloway.

First order of business: I had to learn how to pronounce the name properly. It is most definitely not pronounced how it looks: kur (to rhyme with fur) KOO (to rhyme with fu manchu) bree (to rhyme with tree). So that's kur-KOO-bree, emphasis on the KOO. I guess I should apologize for the title of this post, then. Sorry. Sorry Kirkcudbright. Sorry Jimmy Walker of Good Times fame. Sorry.

There are several noticable things about Kirkcudbright. The ruin of Maclellan's Castle dominates one end of the town, where Castle Street and Cuthbert Street meet. I didn't think the castle was particulary nice to look at, but see a nicely drawn town map here.

Another noticeable thing about the town, something I haven't seen much of in the UK, is wide streets. They aren't as wide as Salt Lake City's streets, or the streets in Las Vegas (which you need to file something akin to a flight plan before you cross), but they are very wide for British streets.

Kirkcudbright has one of the more interesting WWI memorials I've seen. It is a statue of a man with a sword and shield protecting a small boy. Usually they are just a stone pillar with names on them. Something interesting to note is that the WWI memorials in these little towns have a lot (I'm not kidding) of soldier's names on them, about twice as many as WWII. I'm always moved by seeing those lists of names, especially when in a very small village. I look around and think my God, nearly all of the men from this little town were lost. And then twenty years later, another world war. It is sobering.

Another thing you notice is that the town does pride itself on being home to a lot of artists. I think a town that promotes the arts is a very good town indeed. In keeping with the arty feeling, the citizens seem to have agreed that it would be really cool to paint their houses interesting colors, so you do get that seaside town feeling when you look around.

Here are a few pics of Kirkcudbright. Enjoy. 

Click for the larger pic and you'll see the house near the end of the street is purple

This lovely church was turned into several private flats

You better not misbehave in Kirkcudbright

 

 Loved Ones Lost at Sea

'To The Glorious Dead: 1914 - 1918'

Fishing boat in Kirkcudbright Harbour along the river Dee

 You are not allowed to drive your car into the harbour

Beachcombing in Galloway

Standing on the beach looking back at Carsethorn, The Steamboat Inn, and shrouded Criffel.

Galloway is a wonderful place for beachcombers. In one visit to Kippford in June, we doubled the size of our collection of sea glass. Just the other day at the beach at Carsethorn, we doubled it again.  Even found a chunky blue bit of glass. I wonder if sea glass just isn't a big deal here. The beaches all over Puget Sound are usually picked clean. I made some truly wonderful finds in the non-glass areas as well. We'll have a bit of show-and-tell just below.

And in a bit of related news for you, I have started a new blog.  This one is dedicated to beach-combing pics with a little bit of info thrown in. It's a work in progress, but there are already pics posted. Please join in the fun. I'm looking to promote it and improve it.

A bit of an Oriental ceramic piece, smooth to the touch

 

 

 

 

Wonderfully faded Dutch ceramic piece, no bigger than a ten pence.

Blue row boat.

It's all about the blue.

Village Life 2: The Sounds of Dalbeattie

respice prospice.
learn from the past - look to the future.

I notice sounds here in the UK even more than I did in the States. I think this is because everything is so new to me. I have to pay close attention; I have to listen well, particularly here in Scotland, in order to understand what people are saying to me. The accents and indeed the vocabulary is very different from England and from the States. It takes a bit of getting used to, and I admit, if someone is a fast-talker I miss about half of what is said. I listen for key words and tone of voice, and look at facial expression to capture meaning in context; failing that, I look to my partner who very kindly translates for me. I am usually understood when I speak (though not always). I think this has more to do with speaking in a slow, western drawl than with the overall mildness of my accent. In fact, the very notion of my 'mild accent' is beginning to erode. It took me a while to admit that I even had an accent; my denials were met with guffaws. I switched to espousing the idea that, although I might have an accent, it is without question a very, very mild one. This was met with bemused looks, and pats on the head. Of course I have an accent. It is a western drawl of the North American variety. Okay. Fine. Let's move on.

By far the most pleasant sound we encounter is the friendly banter between locals that we hear from the downstairs café. It opens at 9am and by 9:30am a group of regulars are in and chatting. We can't make out what is said but we hear the tone, cadence and accent. It is punctuated with much laughter. To my ear it sounds roughly like: hee hah hoh ahhh, oh aye HAHAHAHAHA! It's like a babbling brook of friendliness. It always puts a smile on my face.

And that last bit (oh, aye HAHAHAHAHA!) is standard and oft heard in Dalbeattie. As is the greeting 'HiYAHH.' Emphasis on the drawn out YAHH. It's not like a karate chop (HIYA!!) like Miss Piggy is famous for; and it's not as clipped as the greeting I commonly use (hiya). Anyway, we think it is a local custom. We haven't heard it said like that anywhere else.

Another local custom is for the young of the village to hang out at The Cross on Friday and Saturday nights, into the wee hours of the morning. They chat, shout, sing, and slurr incomprehensibly as the night goes on. Living in noisy Canterbury with 40,000 college students was good practice for living at The Cross. To be fair, there isn't much in Dalbeattie for the young to do on a weekend, and the fact that they are out (in good weather) singing and laughing instead of texting or playing video games or creating teen pregnancies is something to be glad about. However, I must admit to sometimes praying for a rain shower that lasts from 11pm to 3am. They tend to scurry away when it rains. Which should be most of the winter, I would think. The sound of rain is a lovely thing in itself.

Because we are in the center of town where there are restaurants, small supermarkets and pubs, we also hear the early morning delivery trucks roll in. We hear the drivers operating the tailgates and moving racks of things around as they make their deliveries. It's the sound of commerce; this, in a small town, in a difficult economy, is a welcome sound. Doesn't bother me a bit. Not even the especially loud 4am delivery truck.

One of the most soothing sounds of Dalbeattie is the rushing of the burn. Note: burn is a Scots word to mean small river. The burn flows right through the center of Dalbeattie towards the River Urr. We like to walk along the bank and listen to the water. And there's always Dalbeattie Forest with it's chirping birds and chattering red squirrels. The forest is adjacent to the town, and once inside, it's amazing how quickly the sounds of human endeavor drop away.

The sounds of Dalbeattie range from the friendly banter of locals to machines of commerce to the soothing sounds of nature. All within a small radius, a ten minute walk.

on the bank of the burn

aprapos of 'HiYAHH' this is the only bit of graffiti i've discovered in Dalbeattie thus far.
note the artistic shadow of the camera and my hand.
for comparison purposes, see my past blog entry about graffiti, the peace of wild things.

Village Life 1: Loads of Granite

As I write this, I'm looking out one of the windows at our place in southwest Scotland. Our granite building is a good couple of hundred years old and situated at the top of a T junction called The Cross, in the center of a little village called Dalbeattie. That's Dail Bheithe in Gaelic, meaning something close to 'valley of the birch trees.' The window glass is old and uneven and makes the village outside look a bit wobbly. I can see the stately granite building, marked 1883, at one corner, and next to it the bright blue building that houses one of the local butchers. Beyond that the steeple of a church points skyward.

On the other corner across the street is the Kings Arms Hotel, another granite building. It is a small hotel, restaurant, lounge and public bar. The public bar has its own entrance and that is where the men drink. You could go in there if you are a woman, but all of the patrons will stop drinking, stop talking, and turn to stare at you. Not unfriendly exactly, but you can hear a pin drop. Ask me how I know this [smiles sweetly]. I do enjoy the locally brewed ale they have on tap. The staff is friendly, the lounge and garden lovely and the food gets an A.

But back to the granite. Dalbeattie is famous for its granite, which is extremely hard and light grey in colour. As I'm sure you've gathered, many buildings in the town center are made of it. The local quarries supplied granite to places worldwide, including London, Liverpool, Manchester, the United States, and Sri Lanka (go figure). It has been used for buildings, lighthouses and roadworks (as crushed granite). Dalbeattie is the first place in the world where granite was polished on a commercial scale. This started in the 1830s and created a boom in granite polishing as Dalbeattie granite workers took their craft to various places around the world.

Did you know that granite is a natural source of radiation? I prefer my radiation from natural sources.

we live above three shops: a wonderful little restaurant (with delicious food of the sort that makes cardiologists rich) and two undertakers. 'nuff said.

small fern. big granite wall.

One Year On...

Hi folks.

I've got the computer situation sorted finally. I have a little netbook. It's a Windows environment, which I haven't used for about four years. Has Windows gotten better in the last four years, you ask? Nope. But I'm running Windows 7 Starter which seems fine and is far less a memory hog than the full version.


Today is the one year anniversary of my arrival in the UK. Hooray! I've enjoyed it and the UK government has seen fit to let me stay for two more years, at which time I'll apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. That sounds like mixed messages, doesn't it? Leave to remain? Huh? Another example of BritSpeak. There was one the other day, too, when my partner asked me if her car was centered in the parking place and I told her she needed to pull up about three feet. I meant pull forward and she thought I meant pull back. I couldn't figure out why she had reversed. We exchanged confused looks and then had a good laugh. It's never dull, except possibly for this particular blog. I apologize for the lapse in entries.

We are right in the middle of our move to Scotland. All our stuff is in store waiting for the removal man to load it on his truck. I'm looking forward to settling in to a quiet life in the village. After busy Canterbury I'm sure it will seem quiet in our little town even though we will basically be living right in the center of the High Street. I'll update you all on our adventures refurbishing the property and getting to know the locals.