Ave Scotland
Well, we finished our Summer in Kintyre, and a fine summer it was too.
We went across to Stirling for the Imp National - this is Rosemary Smith in her genuine 60's rally car, fully restored by Clark Dawson. We had a fabulous weekend and were mightily impressed with Stirling. Really, no holiday is a holiday unless you spend sometime with an Imp! Tich was determined to have a miserable time, but failed completely. It was truly superb. The people are lovely, friendly, down to earth (I suppose they have to be if they drive imps). It was one of the best Car Nationals we've been to - we've only been to 2 mind you, but the other was the MX5 club one just before we left, and I have to say, for enjoyment and value for money, the Imp one was miles ahead. Anyway,enough of that. Stirling is a wonderful city. We went to the Wallace Monument - an amazing feat of engineering for this day and age, let alone 200 years ago - a truly marvelous edifice and a wonderful tribute to William Wallace.
Tich worked on at Campbeltown hospital till we left and after a couple of painting jobs I mostly helped Pav towards the finish; we took on a few "2 man" jobs he wouldn't normally have taken, including cleaning the inside of this bakery:
We went to Thailand for 10 days in September. It was Geoff's 21st on 20th September, which coincided with our company's AGM, so we killed 2 birds with 1 stone and met Geoff, Colin and Nerys, Stu and Pam, Geoff and Bec, Shelley and Pav in Bangkok, then traveled together to Koh Chang Island (near Cambodia). What a trip!
Apart from the fact that they announced a military coup in Thailand the day before we were due to fly out and Tich having a couple of ribs broken (on the second day) while having a Thai massage (yes, really!) and the fact that it was the end of the monsoon season and the road washed away while we were there, we had a fantastic time. We hired a scooter per couple for all of $25 AUD each per week and saw most of the island that way - we shopped till we dropped, rode Indian elephants,
ate, at what Mike and Pav called 'Cholera Carts', swam in the resort pool and in the sea, and generally had a wonderful family catch up. Koh Chang Island is highly recommended. Wonderful, inexpensive holiday but sadly there are signs of it becoming just another Thai destination because of the enormous amount of resorts being built over there and will inevitably lose its wild charm, but that's progress for you :(( We were lucky to be there before it all becomes too built up.
Our next assignment, Turkey, kind of evolved as we went along. Originally planned for 6 months (three at each of two different housesits), it finished up as 10 days! But to read that story, you need to go to the
"Round the World in 80 Ways" Europe Blog!!
Wind power
When you go up over the pristine Scottish highlands up past Paul McCartney's farms at the back of Tangy, your view of the spectacular scenery is blighted by these abominations.
YES I am vehemently opposedto wind power, which is in existence only because it is heavily subsidised, through flawed ideology. Practically and econmomically it doesn't work - mainly for the simple reason that the total conventional power generating capacity is hardly reduced (because there are times when the wind doesn't blow) so when the turbines are actually turning the conventional power stations are operating at sub optimum rates (they operate most efficiently at full design power)
Get yer @rse into Gigha
Gigha (pronounced "gear") - a small Island off the Kintyre coast.
Coming up to Tich's 50th birthday, we had decided to go to one of the Islands for the night. A couple of weeks before, up at hospital, they asked her, "how would you like to go to Gigha?" "Oh yes" she says, thinking it was a staff outing or something."No, to work.." - apparently the community nurse there has broken her finger and needs a temp replacement. You take your husband with you, and there's a wee NHS house to stay in and a wee car there to use. Work is mainly handing out aspros to old ladies, but there's a lot of responsibility being the only health professional on the Island of 140 residents. So that turned out to be the Birthday Island, with Shelly and Pav coming over for the big day for dinner at "The Boathouse". Watch this Blog!
Picture: The Paps of Jura, from Gigha at sunset. Just a holiday snap with our Fuji digital camera; yes, its really this glorious.
Schmaaly
A whole post on Schmaaly? You bet!
When the Kintyre house sit first came up, they wanted a start in April. We couldn't really get away from Australia in that time, so, knowing the ski season was about done in Austria, we suggested that we had a daughter who may be able to cover the base till we could get there. A bit schmaaly, but a heart of gold. That suited the owner, so Schmaaly agreed to go on to Campbeltown for us.
At first we had thought to have our rally Imp (Chamois) to use in Scotland, and Schmaal was going to drive it up. But Marty gave it the motorway test and declared it unfit for such a trip, so in the end she bused up to Richard and Blanche's in Lancashire, and they very kindly took Shelly (and her new bicycle) up to the cottages.
We were in our Samford house sit by then, watching the UK eather forecast, which was for one degree C and sleet. A text message finally turned up on our phone:
"Right. Well, I've arrived in Goose Crotch, Scotland"
It nearly cracked us up.
Well anyway after a week of riding her bike through the wind and sleet Shelley got a job in the Kilbrannan Bar, and promptly found herself a boyfriend. He's a Czech called Pavel. Can't understand what she sees in him:
Actually, apart from a habit of appearing naked on Kintyre beaches he's quite a fine fellow. We hope to see him in Oz one day and he'll definitely be in Thailand in September for Geoff's 21st.
Tarbert, and Yellow Pages
Kilberry Castle
We took on, as well as the local Stewarton and Macrihanish run, a big run at a place called Tarbert. It's a very picturesque little harbour town, where the Kintyre peninsula is almost severed from the mainland. It is here that King Magnus in 1093 dragged his longboat across the isthmus, thus "sailing" around Kintyre in order to win "all the land he could sail around"
Read the story hereThe Tarbert run was about 900 books, which we did in three trips. The little Pugeot was fairly laden first up in the morning,with 300 Yellow Pages on board. It handled it well, but we did knock the exhaust off on the first day. It was a Sunday, and town was chokkers because it was the local yachting week. They wanted more than the car is worth to come out and fix it, so in the finish I took the silencer off altogether and, using Tich's beanie for insulation, hooked the pipe back up. It sounded real sporty! We actually finished all the YP deliveries like that, figuring that the loads and rough farm tracks you have to go on would only knock it off again; on one farm (are you listening, High Tifergus??) even with only the pipe it came off four times :( When it was finished I took it to the local exhaust shop and it was only a fiver to fix!
One thing about YellowPages is you have to go everywhere, so its a really great way to explore. We saw grotty tenements, quaint cottages, castles and all sorts. One farm had fantastic standing stones in the yard, and a flock of peacocks. There was some fantastic country, especially around Killberry, and we went through some magic fairy glens; moss covered walls and trees, and little brooks and waterfalls. And Tarbert itself is magnificent, with the yachts in Loch Fyne it's a real sight.
Otters & Other Things
One of the things we really wanted to see while in Kintyre was Otters. There's lots of birds around the farms hedgerows, and a large variety of sea birds. We saw wild deer - one came wandering into our car park at the cottages - and heaps of rabbits and so forth. But otters aren't so easily spotted.
Whe the opportunity came up to goto Gghia for a few days we thought our chance had come, and so it had. Asking around, we found that a few places on Gigha have otters, but one of the reliable ones is the South Pier, where they are said to run around the boats at night.
After getting feasted on by the midges one night, we tried again next day but even later - well after 10 o'clock and nearly dark. As we went quietly up the pier, we saw a "V" in the water heading out from the rocks, and sure enough it was Mr Otter heading out for a scavenge. We stayed silently on the pier for a while and in due course heard the crunching of otter teeth on something crunchy, presumably a crab or something. It was hard to see because they were wandering about down amongst the pier beams in the semi dark, but one swam out and around a couple of times, giving a clear view.
A fisherman appeared out of one of the boats and told us that they are really tame, and will eat fish from their hands. He tried one but they wouldn't come, and when he threw it on the pier afterwards it missd the beam and went in the water. We thought they'd eat it but he said they never take dead fish in the water. He also told us they are a nuisance to fishermen, running about the decks when they're trying to sleep.
The Local Vernacular
They've got a really different way of speaking doon in Campbeltoon ("the wee toon"). Even by Scottish standards, they're unintelligible.
In particular, there are more sayings and idioms here than generally in the rest of Scotland.
Pretty much anything that is definitely so, is "right enough". For emphasis, "so it is". So, "nice day" might be greeted with the response, "Aye, it's warrrm, reet enuff, so it is"
When a person has had enough (of anything), that's them!
Leaving the bar? "That'll be me, then".
Fed up with doing something that isn't working e.g. the machine keeps picking up stones or whatever?: "That's me, I'm off hame" (present tense) "That was me, I went hame." (past tense)
What's really a hoot is that
what is pronounced hoot.
I kid you not - they say "hoot ye doin'?" or "I'll tell ye hoot" or "dirra I tell ye aboot hoot ol Mac was sayin'?" "och no, ye didna tell me hoot ol Mac was sayin' aboot, reet enuff. Hoot was ol Mac saying then?"
Shelley has learnt some Campbeltoonian from working in the bar, as when drink is at stake, great efforts will be made to communicate effectively. If there's anyone unruly in the bar she can be heard to say: "get oot, gorn, get oot me barrr"
Everybody knows small is wee, but did you know to make it even less large is to make it "wee-er"? Me neither.
And ... according to Campbell (one of the locals) Shelley is a wee wild greetin' wain.*
Right, that'll be me, then, reet enuff.
*Roughtly translated: Small grizzling kid
Work
We don't need a lot to live on, as our accommodation is covered by caretaking the cottages. But, although basic cost of living is cheap here, at $2.50 to the pound, it soon eats up your spare dollars. We've plenty of capital, but we have set ourselves a target not to use it on our travels.
Tich had got her Nursing registration renewed before we left, and pretty much as expected, the hospital and old folks home here were pretty keen to get her. BUT - you have to get a "Disclosure Scotland" clearance, which can take six weeks. This despite the fact that you've never lived in Scotland before, and have an Australian Police clearance. However, when push comes to shove, things happen. They're desperately short of nurses, so the next week they say she can start as long as she's under supervision. Within a fortnight they're trying to push six shifts a week on her (thanks, but no thanks) and she's in charge of the hospital :) Then they need somebody to releive the community nurse on the Island of Gigha, who is off sick, so we scored that one too. .
Read the separate post!Mike got a casual job redecorating a flat for a guy who had basically left it too late. He was away working in Fort William but he had to have it ready to move in by the next weekend. The whole thing needed painting and fettling, and we think his hope was that we might get the worst of it covered with one coat. In the finish we put in 60 hours that week and got it all done except a corner where we'd replaced the wallpaper which needed a top coat.
Then, to add a bit of pressure, Mike got the contract to deliver the local Yellow Pages. Actually, not knowing at the time about the decorating job, we asked for two contracts and got the Tarbert one as well. Read the
separate post about that! So it was a busy couple of weeks.
Mike's been doing most of the cottage work and being "Mr Mom" until after this Gigha stint is finished, then we'll get on to looking for more work options again
"Aye, but do ye like the wind, and the wet?"
Our first house sit was actually in Brisbane. Our house at Cashmere sold much more quickly than we'd thought (looking for an estate agent in Pine Rivers? Len Worthington is your man) and we were still six to eight weeks away from ready to go. We found a house sit in Samford, starting the day after our place settled, and up to a week before we left for Scotland! So we looked after two cats, three dogs and an acre and a half at Samford while their owner went to the US on a series of courses and conferences.
We weren't sure exactly where we would start off. We scanned the various Internet sources to see what popped up. Pretty soon one came up: caretaker of
Kilchrist Castle cottages, on the Kintyre peninsula, only a few miles from the famous Mull. We took it!
There are five cottages, four of which are in one building, the Old Byre of Kilchrist. We live in the fifth, detached cottage which presumably would have been the shepherd's cottage. The Old Byre was also a "dove coote", and the holes in the attic wall that the doves flew in and out of are still there. The Castle (a bit pretentious, it was built as Kilchrist House by the under Sherrif of Argyll in 1824) and cottages were sold about five years ago on the death of old Campbell Angus, to an Englishman who is rarely here. He sold off the cottages to the present owner, a lady from Yorkshire. They stood empty for most of that five years, so there's a lot of "maintaining" to do.
When we had been here a couple of days, we were at the printers getting some CVs done up. Recognising our accent, the bright young printer said "you'll notice the difference in temperature, compared to where you're from". "Oh no", says Tich, veteran of two Scottish winter visits, "we like the cold". Unbeknown to us, an old Scotsman had come in. The dour voice came from behind us: "Aye, but do ye like the wind, and the wet?"
Actually, the weather hasn't been too bad. There's been wet and windy days, but plenty of brilliant sunny ones too.
Apart from the fact that they announced a military coup in Thailand the day before we were due to fly out and Tich having a couple of ribs broken (on the second day) while having a Thai massage (yes, really!) and the fact that it was the end of the monsoon season and the road washed away while we were there, we had a fantastic time. We hired a scooter per couple for all of $25 AUD each per week and saw most of the island that way - we shopped till we dropped, rode Indian elephants,
ate, at what Mike and Pav called 'Cholera Carts', swam in the resort pool and in the sea, and generally had a wonderful family catch up. Koh Chang Island is highly recommended. Wonderful, inexpensive holiday but sadly there are signs of it becoming just another Thai destination because of the enormous amount of resorts being built over there and will inevitably lose its wild charm, but that's progress for you :(( We were lucky to be there before it all becomes too built up.
