Heading to Scotland! August 25, 2010

Hiya, as the British say.  Just sitting around waiting for Friday.  We are leaving early Friday morning to go to Scotland for five days!  A vendor of Joe's (Neil) has invited us up to watch the Highland Games.  He lives in Scotland, so we are heading up for the games which will be on Saturday.  The Highland Games are in cities throughout the highlands (as opposed to the lowlands and central Scotland).  They are hosted by different cities throughout the summer.  We are going to the Lonarch Highland Games.  Neil lives a couple of hours away, this is his favorite.  It is an 8 hour drive, so we will leave early Friday, stop and have lunch with Neil and then keep heading north to our hotel, about 25 miles outside of where the games are held.  A couple of weeks ago I tried to get a hotel in the city where the games are (Strathdon) and there were no rooms available.  Finally one inn keeper told me that there were no rooms as the same families reserve the same rooms for years in advance for the games!  


I really don't know what to expect.  I know there will be lots of men in kilts!  They have all kinds of competitions including piping(?) and highland dancing, track and field events, and the heavy events.  These heavy events include hammer throwing, tug-of-war and tossing the caber.   I thought tossing the caber would be like a shot put type thing.  But I saw a picture online and it is a huge log!  Here is the description:  "This event involves a tree trunk weighing approximately 150 lbs., 18 feet long and 9" in diameter on one end, narrowing to 5" on the other.  The competitor laces his hands together under the narrow end and rests the length of the caber on his shoulder.  He then runs as fast as he can, stops dead and tosses the end he holds in the air so that the heavier end lands on the ground and the light end lands on the ground pointing away from him."  It sounds like entertainment to me!


After we spend Friday night and Saturday night there, we are going to drive to Edinburgh (Scotland's capital).  They have an ongoing festival for the whole month of August with street entertainment, shows, all kinds of stuff going on.  We will only be there for the day as our next two night lodging is an hour or two southwest of there in the Trossachs area of Scotland.


The Trossachs is a beautiful area of lochs (lakes or partially landlocked or protected bay) and hills.  This area is the setting of several novels written by Sir Walter Scott.  Throughout Scotland are many places that Mary Queen of Scots hid while fleeing from the armies of King Henry VIII.  One of those places is a priory in this area. Another neat thing is that we are going to be able to see the village where Rob Roy lived (Robert MacGregor) (remember the movie Rob Roy with Liam Neeson, if you haven't seen it you must), and his grave!  There is also a museum for him.  There is a very pretty village named Luss, which is supposed to be one of the prettiest villages in Scotland.  There is another village that has a fairly famous store called the Trossachs Woollen Mill  http://www.trossachswoollenmill.com/ that I can't wait to shop in!  It doesn't hurt that they sell homemade cakes, scones, biscuits and pancakes too!  This is supposed to be the relaxing part of our mini trip.  Joe is happy to let me do all the planning.  I was hoping we could stroll around the area and relax with some pretty scenery before he has to go back to work on Wednesday.


I hope to have lots to write about when we get home on Tuesday.  We are going to take our Flip camera that Joe's managers gave him before we moved here. What a GREAT gift guys! We've been using it and having fun with it.  Now I need to get busy and work out how to get a video put on this blog.


On the home front (in Maryland)


Our sweet little granddaughter Caroline went to her first day of Kindergarten yesterday.  Can you believe it?  There are pictures of this momentous day on Facebook.  She is very confident and independent.  After taking pictures when the bus picked her up, her mom followed in the car to see her to her classroom.  She informed her mom, "I know where I'm going" and off she went to put her backpack in her locker.  How cute!  Brian asked her when she got home what the best part of her day was and she said, "the bus"!  LOL.  I really miss those two grandkids.


On the home front (England)


I am getting very tired of my meals tasting blah!  The other night I made a lasagna.  One of Joe's favorite meals.  It was a Sunday and true to Joe's M.O. he didn't eat all day so he could be good and hungry for his lasagna.  I don't know how he does that, but oh well.  So I work in the kitchen for over an hour making the lasagna the way he likes it with large sausages on top and ground beef in the sauce.  I made a lovely spinach salad with mushrooms, croutons and tomatoes and my home made oil and vinegar dressing that never fails to delight.  Finally the meal is ready and we sit down to eat.  I was so disappointed by the outcome.  Everything tasted just OK.  It happens all the time and I am tired of it!  The lasagna didn't have a lot of flavor.  Joe asked me if I was using less beef now.  The sausages were flavorless and believe it or not, my own salad dressing didn't even taste good!  Joe asked me why I made so much salad and I told him that I was planning on having two big bowls of it!  As it was I didn't even finish one bowl.  Then had to throw the rest away as there was already dressing all over it.  Joe is so good about it and always says the right things.  He makes a good point that we are eating less because the food doesn't taste as good to us.  I laughed and said, "yeah, but there's so much leftover we have to eat it again tomorrow night"!  We both decided that maybe it will season up overnight.  We can always hope.


The tomato sauce here is called 'sieved tomatoes'.  I'm sure there's hardly any salt added as that seems to be a running issue in the food.  They are VERY health consciouse in their food products.  Many times I have a food item that I am reading the directions for and it will say on the package, "salt may be added, but remember the daily salt requirement is...".
I have never salted food that much, but I have to here.  And it still doesn't taste quite right.  The canned vegetables taste like you bought the kind that are low sodium at home.  The ground beef tastes different.  I don't think there's very much fat in it.  I guess its all healthier, but man, I just want to TASTE again!  Joe is desperate for good tasting beef.  My niece was having a cook out this weekend and put a picture of a huge beef brisket sandwich piled high with beef and oozing sauce.  Joe and I were sitting here salivating!  Of course that was right during the time that he was "fasting" for the wonderful lasagna dinner!  Ha!  


In the restaurants it all depends on where you are and what you order.  In the nicer restaurants the food is very good.  Of course restaurants anywhere are notorious for extra salt and butter because they have to make the food taste good.  But sometimes in the cafe types the food is just bland.  Many times I just don't even finish mine, something I never used to do.  I told Joe if it doesn't taste that good, then I'm not wasting calories on it!  He always finishes his though.  Old habits die hard.  I have to say though the fish and chips are wonderful here!  They huge pieces of fish with tons of batter and are fattening as all get out but YUM worth it.  They serve them with something called mushy peas.  They are actually mushy peas, a mound of that looks sort of like green mashed potatoes.  I love them!  To me the flavor is kind of like split pea soup.  But Joe likes split pea soup and doesn't like the peas so go figure.


The peanut butter here doesn't have as much fat in it either and is real pasty.  Kind of hard to spread on the bread.  I don't think they even used to have peanut butter so I guess we're lucky to have it at all.  They have a VERY small selection of crackers.  I bought a box of "vegetable crackers" that sort of looked like crackers you'd see at home.  YUCK!  I tried some with my lunch today and they were awful.  Threw the whole lot away.  They don't have anything remotely like saltines.  I guess no one here eats crackers in their soup.  You don't get served any with soup in restaurants.  When I asked in the grocery store they had no idea what I was talking about and showed me the salad croutons (of which there are VERY few).  
I looked at cake mixes at the store the other day.  They had Duncan Hines chocolate and marble.  That was IT.  Two flavors and no others, not even any other brands!  I COULD not believe it.  Joe is not a sweet eater, although he does like yellow cake once in a while.  But I knew if I bought the chocolate he wouldn't eat much and then YOU KNOW WHO would eat the whole thing.  I'll have to make him one from scratch one of these days.  Although the powdered sugar for the frostings is called "icing" so who knows, it may have some weird additives in it.


After saying all that, I have to admit that the British are not as fat as Americans.  Partly due to the food, the lack of fast food restaurants and the fact that they walk everywhere.  It is a pretty healthy society I must admit.  Except for the health care.  I am saving up a whole blog for that subject one of these days!  So I suppose the lack of additives in the food is all good in the long run.


I get very few calls on our home phone.  Mainly just Joe telling me he's on his way home from work.  But when I do get a call during the day after I answer they always say, "Is that Mrs. Hawkins?"  Is that Mrs. Hawkins???  What the heck?  But they all do it.  So I just say, "yes" and chuckle to myself.  They love our accent so after a few words they are so pleased to talk to you.  I was in a store the other day shopping and had a young sales girl helping me.  She said she loved my accent and I swear would hardly let me go!  So funny.  Many times watching TV I have to rewind something because I can't figure out what they said.  It's usually when its someone being interviewed or something, not a TV personality.  Their accents are not that thick.


I have a new favorite show.  Animal Cops.  I know we had it at home, but I hardly ever watched it.  Now I set the DVR to record all the shows from different cities (here and US) and watch them when Joe goes to bed.  I don't watch TV during the day.  We watch FOX news in the evening.  Although they are all the afternoon shows since the time difference is so big.  But that way we keep up on what's going on in the US.  Then Joe goes to bed and its me watching all the people being cruel to animals getting their animals taken away and sometimes even jail  or fines!  It is unbelievable how people neglect or abuse their animals.  No one MAKES them have pets, so why do they get them if they aren't going to take care of them?  I just don't get it!  My favorite is when the animals are all healed and happy and get new homes.  I SO long for an animal of my own.  The closest thing I have is that one kitty up the street who I pet when I see her.  (Previous blog has a picture of her).  


I wait for a nice sunny day to do laundry.  You need the sun and a breeze for the laundry to dry on the line.  The sky was blue, sun was shining and I had a load almost ready to be finished in the washer.  I went in and took a quick shower, came back out and the dark clouds have appeared and the wind is kicking up like crazy.  This is typical of the weather here.  Since England is basically one big island, we have a constant threat of rain and usually nice breezes.  It rains one minute and the sun comes out the next.  That's one rule of going outside here.  ALWAYS bring an umbrella. (I've been caught out on my bike three times when it started raining.)  So my clothes are out there whipping in the wind.  I'm hoping they dry before the rain comes.  If not, they'll get wet and then the sun will come out again and dry them.  If you are in a store, making small talk about the weather, usually someone will say, "well I hung my wash out so it will surely rain, oh well".  I don't think anyone here uses a clothes dryer.  They just make due.  I have finally started using my dryer for towels.  Got tired of drying off with stiff scratchy towels.


Joe and I receive mail here about once a week.  Don't get me wrong, they have delivery six days a week.  We just get ours sporadically.  All houses have mail slots, no boxes on streets for curbside delivery.  NONE.  We live down a long lane and my personal feeling is that the mail carrier doesn't want to walk down that lane until he gets a good handful of mail to make it worth it.  Because on the day we do get mail delivery it is usually a good amount.  I guess the Royal Mail does not have the strict rules of the Postal Service.  It was a firing offence to leave a first class letter, or any first class mail behind and not deliver it.  I guess I should be happy that I get the mail at all if they are that lax here.  A letter from our insurance was mailed on 7/19/10.  It would have gone to our VA address and then forwarded here.  The forwarding part would have taken about a week.  So what is the hold-up for the month following that?  Who knows!  However, if I order something online here, usually it is delivered to me the next day!  By other shipping companies, not the Royal Mail.  Most companies have UK divisions, like Amazon etc.  I am always amazed at how fast I get orders like that.  I have even ordered in the evening and many times still received the next day.  Of course the UK is small so the warehouse is probably not too far away.


One last update on the pet situation.  I contacted a shelter and am speaking to the woman in charge about fostering a dog.  They need fosters badly for dogs who are either ill or are not handling the kennels very well.  Right now she has several animals in need of foster.  The one I'm interested in is a lab mix that is eight years old.  His elderly owner just passed away and he is not doing well in the kennel situation at all.  She is mailing me forms to fill out.  I'm a little worried that the owners of our house won't want to agree to me having a pet.  I wouldn't even worry about it because the house is managed by a company and we have never even seen or heard from the owners at all.  But some of the shelters ask for written permission from the landlords. I'm hoping that the issue won't even come up!  Wish me luck!