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In truth it felt very strange to be back in Scotland after nearly a year away. The two weeks that we spend in Inverurie (formerly Inverury, Nrurin and Inbhir Uraidh) were the longest that I'd been there since July 2006 when I left to spend an awful weekend in London. At that time I hadn't really realized that I wouldn't really be back permanently for the foreseeable future, and just a couple of years before I left, I had no idea what I would be doing with my life. I've very little idea how it all happened. But this isn't going to be a panicked entry about suddenly realizing I'm living three thousand miles away from the nearest Tesco sandwich (something that still hits me for just a moment at least once a week) - I'll save that for later.
Everything was almost the same, but a little unfamiliar. I'm still the only one who knows how to work the various bits and pieces connected up to the TV. My room (which I really shouldn't call my room any more, because it isn't, but it's difficult to let go of these things) still has the same furniture and miscellaneous items of junk in it, only most of it is in bits. The heating manages to maintain Arctic temperatures despite the new double-glazing (although this is probably just because we're used to living on the second floor and having all the heating from the flat below ours). The house windows, as a result of the previously mentioned point, are no longer blue. The house is still in a charming state of disrepair, the new characteristic being that the front door doesn't open unless you twist it in just the right direction. And the family are much the same except a hideous sort of mullet monster seems to have attached itself to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
quadralien's head. All my siblings are in Melville now. And I'm not.
We walked down the high street a few times, with my mum reassuring me that everything was as I left it while pointing to all the shops and going "That's closed... that's new... the furniture shop's gone... they're being taken over, they're selling the shop, that's gone, that's gone too..." Normal, gradual changes like this seem very large when you haven't been around to see them, but at least they haven't done what they used to do when I was in university and build a new roundabout every time my back was turned.
The visit to Scotland was also an opportunity to visit some friends that we hadn't seen for a while. I don't know if this is a common thing, but the group of people from school that I stayed in touch with after university was almost entirely exclusive from the group that I actually hung around with while inside it (that group formed a band, released an album and then went off to do engineering in Aberdeen).
The only large trip that we went on while there was to Inverness to see Don, who I can't refer to by Livejournal name because he's deleted his. Driving seemed to come naturally back to me after never having driven any considerable distance for two years, without ever stalling or being on the wrong side of the road despite the Fiesta's brake pads feeling like someone had cut gingerbread men out of them. We were headed for the hotel where Don works (which thanks to him we got at the staff rate, thanks very much) - it only took us about an hour and a half to navigate the insane three-lane head-on traffic road that leads there, and we spent a while wandering round a department store in Inverness before coming back to have dinner.
Probably because of being Scottish, I firmly prefer real and inelegant food rather than soup in a tower and rabbits stuffed with pigeons stuffed with quails, but dinner there was actually very nice and only faintly ridiculous. Their only real lapse was the weird sort of broccoli sandcastle that Whitney was given. Even though it's the only food that I actually have a moral objection to, I tried pate de fois gras for the first time because it came with my steak, and I am pleased to inform you that it's absolutely revolting. Not quite as bad, however, as when I realized later on that we hadn't been given any toothpaste and instead opted to brush my teeth with the little bottle of lavender body soap.
Back in Inverurie, we also saw some of the older family friends. As usual I was employed to fix the chronically ill computer of one of my neighbours, but I only got halfway through doing that before wanting to format the whole thing and start again. We also saw most of the old church group at the Hosiehoosie - a name which made Whitney laugh hysterically for almost a constant half hour. This prompted us to produce this diagram of what a wild Hosiehoosie might look like. (I'm not sure how large it is, why its mouth is in its leg, or whether that's a trunk or an extra leg growing out of its nose, but maybe it's the actual ingredient of Scotch pies.)
Speaking of food - korma. We went to the Indian restaurant at the end of the High Street, lacking the inclination (and available flat) to go down to St Andrews and get to Jahangir, but I would go so far as to say that the one in Inverurie was just as good. Perhaps, though, that's because thanks to America I'm now used to ordering korma and getting an exploding tomato soup rather than the coconut-based mild sauce it's clearly supposed to be. Ironic that one of the things I most miss about Scotland was in fact Indian, but we also made sure we paid a visit to the chip shop.
I needed an actual break, as opposed to the Thanksgiving week where we were constantly visiting grandmothers, zooming up the length of California, cutting down the builders and arguing with the tree. And after the luggage problem, that's exactly what this was - it's surprising how quickly days go past when you're not really doing anything with them.
Jetlag works better going West, as well - I'm now up at 6:30 each morning and working on some of the large array of music software and hardware that I got for Christmas until I leave for work at the new earlier time of half past nine, ensuring that I'm the first coder in the office by a decent hour.
Everything was almost the same, but a little unfamiliar. I'm still the only one who knows how to work the various bits and pieces connected up to the TV. My room (which I really shouldn't call my room any more, because it isn't, but it's difficult to let go of these things) still has the same furniture and miscellaneous items of junk in it, only most of it is in bits. The heating manages to maintain Arctic temperatures despite the new double-glazing (although this is probably just because we're used to living on the second floor and having all the heating from the flat below ours). The house windows, as a result of the previously mentioned point, are no longer blue. The house is still in a charming state of disrepair, the new characteristic being that the front door doesn't open unless you twist it in just the right direction. And the family are much the same except a hideous sort of mullet monster seems to have attached itself to
quadralien's head. All my siblings are in Melville now. And I'm not.We walked down the high street a few times, with my mum reassuring me that everything was as I left it while pointing to all the shops and going "That's closed... that's new... the furniture shop's gone... they're being taken over, they're selling the shop, that's gone, that's gone too..." Normal, gradual changes like this seem very large when you haven't been around to see them, but at least they haven't done what they used to do when I was in university and build a new roundabout every time my back was turned.
The visit to Scotland was also an opportunity to visit some friends that we hadn't seen for a while. I don't know if this is a common thing, but the group of people from school that I stayed in touch with after university was almost entirely exclusive from the group that I actually hung around with while inside it (that group formed a band, released an album and then went off to do engineering in Aberdeen).
The only large trip that we went on while there was to Inverness to see Don, who I can't refer to by Livejournal name because he's deleted his. Driving seemed to come naturally back to me after never having driven any considerable distance for two years, without ever stalling or being on the wrong side of the road despite the Fiesta's brake pads feeling like someone had cut gingerbread men out of them. We were headed for the hotel where Don works (which thanks to him we got at the staff rate, thanks very much) - it only took us about an hour and a half to navigate the insane three-lane head-on traffic road that leads there, and we spent a while wandering round a department store in Inverness before coming back to have dinner.
Probably because of being Scottish, I firmly prefer real and inelegant food rather than soup in a tower and rabbits stuffed with pigeons stuffed with quails, but dinner there was actually very nice and only faintly ridiculous. Their only real lapse was the weird sort of broccoli sandcastle that Whitney was given. Even though it's the only food that I actually have a moral objection to, I tried pate de fois gras for the first time because it came with my steak, and I am pleased to inform you that it's absolutely revolting. Not quite as bad, however, as when I realized later on that we hadn't been given any toothpaste and instead opted to brush my teeth with the little bottle of lavender body soap.
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If you were just skimming your Friends page, I bet this got your attention. |
Speaking of food - korma. We went to the Indian restaurant at the end of the High Street, lacking the inclination (and available flat) to go down to St Andrews and get to Jahangir, but I would go so far as to say that the one in Inverurie was just as good. Perhaps, though, that's because thanks to America I'm now used to ordering korma and getting an exploding tomato soup rather than the coconut-based mild sauce it's clearly supposed to be. Ironic that one of the things I most miss about Scotland was in fact Indian, but we also made sure we paid a visit to the chip shop.
I needed an actual break, as opposed to the Thanksgiving week where we were constantly visiting grandmothers, zooming up the length of California, cutting down the builders and arguing with the tree. And after the luggage problem, that's exactly what this was - it's surprising how quickly days go past when you're not really doing anything with them.
Jetlag works better going West, as well - I'm now up at 6:30 each morning and working on some of the large array of music software and hardware that I got for Christmas until I leave for work at the new earlier time of half past nine, ensuring that I'm the first coder in the office by a decent hour.
