As we headed over to our next farm, we were unsure what to expect. We had a great time at the first farm, got to see plenty of neat stuff, and did a fair amount of different activities. It was going to be tough to top that.
When we finally arrived at the new place, we realized we’d be doing something completely different, and be doing that for quite a while.
So to make a long two week story short, Elizabeth spent her time “strimming”, which here in the US is called weed-eating. I spent my time watching a WWOOFer cut down trees and then we hauled the logs up a hill.
The second farm we were working on used wood to heat their homes during the colder months. In Scotland, that’s almost year round. They needed lots of wood. We were adding very little to their total use, but every little bit helped.
We worked with two parts of a family. The matriarch housed us, and told us what she wanted completed. The son, who lived across the berm from his childhood home, helped us figure out what to do day to day. Both families were pleasant, polite, good humored, and enjoyable to be around. We had dinner with the families occasionally. One night, after much discussion about biscuits, Elizabeth took it upon herself to bake proper biscuits for our British host. Not British biscuits of course, which are American cookies, but American biscuits, which are close to scones. Not exactly like a scone, but pretty close.
At this farm, I developed my tea addiction. Having enjoyed high tea back in London and then continuing the tea drinking in Borgue, I decided I might as well enjoy more tea while in West Calder. We drank quite a bit each and every day. It’s a lovely ritual that I have tried to continue even back home.
After our work was completed for the day, we had the chance to enjoy some international fun. We enjoyed the Olympics (aka: one the Elizabeth’s favorite things in life) from a cozy living room in Scotland. It was fun to be in another country and see their commentary. The UK has invested hundreds of millions back into their Olympics programs lately, much of the funds from their lottery. It has paid off considerably. But since we’re American, we spent much of our |BBC viewing trying to catch the US in action. We were fortunate to see live coverage of a few gold medals and the gymnastics team do so well.
On our off days, we made treks to Edinburgh and Glasgow. On our first two off days, we went to Edinburgh. We tried a fair amount of local food, from haggis to black pudding. I’m not sure what the fuss is about either. We thought both were really good and don’t know why people have such an aversion to the delicacies.
Now if you were to complain about the bland baked beans they serve with breakfast, that would make sense. Or the whole roasted hog they served at one of the lunch places we visited. The pork was tender, but they don’t smoke it. Not sure why you would cook an entire pig without cooking it over hickory, but whatever. Maybe Scotland can figure it out in a few hundred years.
We also did the usual walking tour in Edinburgh. It consisted mostly of talking about how bad the English treated the Scottish, a not to uncommon theme over there, and would continue when we traveled over to Ireland. We did learn about the literary history of Scotland and also about the significance Scotland, specifically Edinburgh, was in the Harry Potter books.
We visited a cemetery on the walking tour that included some important Potter related names, none more so than Tom Riddle. It was neat to see locations that were inspirations for such a famous series of books.
We closed out one of our days with a scotch tasting and then taking some home with us. We are not scotch people. I think it tastes like liquid charcoal, but “when in Rome”. So after a few tastings of varying opinions, we bought a collection of four different scotch samples. I can confirm each tasted different. I can also confirm that not only are we not scotch people, but I think I’ve had my fill of scotch for a decade or two. Long Live Beer.
A few days later, and on a Sunday, we headed off to our second soccer match of our European adventure. Our first, back in March in Spain, left a lot to be desired. After talking to a lot of Europeans, they let us know our experience was an exception, not the rule. I had my doubts, but a local team, the Heart of Midlothian (just called Hearts), were playing in Edinburgh against a big rival from Glasgow, Celtic.
Now Celtic is a big deal in Scottish soccer, not that you or I would know. Hearts are not a big deal. So to give you an idea, the city of Glasgow has two teams that have won about 90% of all championships. The Rangers and the Celtics. The Rangers are Alabama and Celtic is Notre Dame, this analogy will do well since Celtic is the Catholic team in Scotland.
Imagine that the Hearts, the team we are going to cheer for is Mississippi State. Constantly the plucky underdog, hardly ever winning anything ever. No other team besides the Rangers or Celtic has won the regular season since the 80’s, Hearts having not won the regular season since the 1959-60 season. And the Hearts are decidedly not Catholic.
You might be wondering why the whole Catholic thing is being brought up. It’s because when I attempted to buy tickets for this game, I was told it would not be possible. And when I called the soccer headquarters to speak with someone else to get tickets, I was told it would still not be possible.
Why? Because of historical violence between Catholic and Protestant fans at these matches. And since we had never bought tickets before to a Hearts game, they could not confirm that I was not a crazy person determined to start a massive brawl, storm the field attacking players or referees, or cause death and destruction in any other creative ways .
Well this wasn’t going to work for me. I had no interest in being told I couldn’t do something. There is always a way to get what you want, if you work hard enough, bitch enough, or go above someone’s head. I tried one and two. It was on to #3. So I emailed some people in hospitality and suite department of Hearts. I explained that my wife and I are boring Americans, we know nothing about soccer, particularly Scottish soccer, the history of sectarian violence among these two teams, and then linked our blog to the email so they could see I was telling the truth. I told them I just wanted regular tickets, nothing fancy, and was more than willing to pay full price.
I also told them it would be a real shame we couldn’t go to the game, since we had met some Hearts fans back in Spain and they were such nice people. Then I told them it would be a bigger shame because their chief rival in town (Hibernian) played a few days later, and I would hate to spend my money supporting another team in Edinburgh (which also turned out to be the Catholic team).
I got an email back the next day letting me know tickets would be at will call on the day of the game.
So away we went to the game. Our tickets were waiting on us. We bought toboggans. We cheered. We went to a bar where rival fans were not allowed, nor was anyone even wearing the rival team’s color (those colors are not allowed in the bar on match day to ensure a nonviolent atmosphere). We ate meat pies in the bar and at the game. We drank mediocre beer. We saw a police barricade outside the stadium to prevent fans from fighting, and saw a similar occurrence inside the stadium. I even got a hot dog.
And the Hearts lost.
It was an unsurprising finish to a great little day.
cornetravel 