Hoedown in England

 

I love this girl.

Tamara and Rob’s wedding was Saturday in Bedford, and it was, as they say, brilliant fun. The ceremony was short, beautiful and to the point, the vicar made a few comments about how much wine was to be drunk at the reception later, and then we all headed over for said reception.

Admittedly, the catering staff was crap, and it took over two hours to serve bangers and mash. After finally receving our table’s very cold potatoes, Tamara’s friend Martha declared ‘Don’t worry guys! We just need to get more drunk!’. And so more wine was poured.

After the meal and the speeches, the floor was cleared for the barn dance.

 

The barn dancing was led by a man who sparked the following debate, which lasted all night: Does he look more like Kenny Rogers or George Lucas? You decide.

Some of the barn dances went fairly smoothly; others were complete chaos and almost ended in injury. If ever someone was without a partner, Martha would run off and reappear with a random 72-year-old man on her arm, ready to dance. At one point, searching for a partner for someone, she yelled, ‘I’ll get the vicar!’. And so she did.

We waved Tamara and Rob off at the end of the night. They left early this morning for their three-week honeymoon in India. (Part of the trip will be spent on a basically deserted island).

I couldn’t wish more happiness on anyone.

Ode to My Pub

I am sitting in a pub in Bedford, England, having just consumed a microwaved fish and chips and a questionable pint. I placed my order at the bar, and my food materialized in front of me a few moments later, delivered by a waitress that said only ‘fish and chips, table 62′, before disappearing, never to be seen again. No ketchup, no brown sauce, to vinegar to be found with my fries, and no one to ask if I wanted some. That was no chef-prepared meal, and this pint of John Smith’s, my friends, is no Belhaven Best.

In short, I am missing my pub.

I arrived in England today, will attend Tamara’s wedding tomorrow, and will fly back to Edinburgh on Sunday. Then, I will start my very fancy ’shift supervisor training’, which means I get to change kegs and lock the door. And a raise!

I started working at my pub about three days after arriving in Edinburgh. It was mid-festival season, and was insanely busy at all hours. I made mistakes with the orders, didn’t know where to find anything, and generally felt that I was in the way. Now that I’ve settled in, and I don’t make mistakes, and the pace is much more manageable, I’ve come to feel comfortable there. It’s a wee family-run pub, and it starts to feel like the staff is family: The other girls there who are going to uni, and the boys who work in the kitchen; the owner and his (French-Canadian) wife who on Sunday had their first baby. The regulars.

We have two ‘pairs’ of regulars: John and John, and Bill and Bill. John and John are in almost every day (one drinks a pint of Belhaven Best, the other a double Famous Grouse with ice and a straw). Bill and Bill are best friends who come in every Friday. Chris is in at midday, every day, for two quick pints, and again later for another before heading home on the train. Stuart drinks white coffee and does the crossword puzzle, and goes outside for frequent cigarettes (I mean, uh, fags).

We have a chef, who makes good food from scratch. Haggis. Fish and Chips. Cullen Skink. Crofter’s Chicken. We have good wait staff, who are friendly as all hell, which is good because our customers are mostly tourists.

My favorite American tourist story, so far:

American tourist to Aussie bartender: ‘So when’s the best time to visit Australia?’

Aussie bartender: ‘Anytime really, but right now it’s getting to be our summer, so it’s going to be really hot. October is a good time.’

American tourist: ‘Right – your summer is our winter…’

Aussie bartender: ‘Yeah.’

American tourist: ‘So should I go in your October or our October?’

My other favorite is when American tourists are surprised to find out I’m not Scottish. Somehow it completely escapes them that I have almost the exact same accent that they do.

Anyway!

At the moment, from my table, I can see eight tables waiting to be cleaned off, and I’ve yet to see the waitress re-appear. I should know better than to expect more from Weatherspoons, but still.

In short, I’m back in England for a precise purpose, and happy to know I’ll be back in Scotland shortly.

 

 

 

 

jolly old

Since I got to England, I’ve felt as if everything is just a little bit off-kilter, like the world has shifted just a few degrees left. Our language is the same and the culture is so similar, but I feel a bit like a blundering idiot at the moment, not quite sure what I’m doing.

Take my arrival in Nailsea, where Tamara lives. I took the train from London and Tamara was picking me up at the station near her home. I knew the stop, when the driver announced it I got my bag, got up, and stood at one of the doors. The train stopped. The door didn’t open. I tried to find a handle to open the door – there wasn’t one. I thought maybe the train was just pausing before pulling up to the platform, I thought the doors must open automatically if there is no handle or button to open them, I thought surely the man standing in front of me by the door also looking like he was about to disembark would get off and I would just follow him.

None of those things happened. The train pulled away.

The man standing beside me saw the stricken look on my face.

“What stop did you want?”

“Nailsea.”

“You just missed it.”

“I KNOW.”

He informed me that to open the door you have to slide down the window and open it from the outside, and besides, you have to be in one of the front carriages to do that, this one was locked.

Shouldn’t there be a sign or something?

I got off at the next station, took the first train back the other direction, and fretted all the while that there was no way to tell Tamara why I hadn’t gotten off the train. Back at Nailsea I found a payphone and apologized profusely to her for causing her frantic stress.

“I’ve always said that was going to happen to someone,” she said. It made me feel a bit better about not being able to get off a bloody train.

Crossing the street is also a hazardous activity for a foreigner. I was expecting this, having been to Australia before. In London, and some places in Bristol, there are large white letters painted on the street at intersections saying “Look Right” or “Look Left”, with arrows, to help us folks who sit on the left side of the car from stepping out into traffic.

I spent two nights in London before getting to Tamara’s house – the first at Kirstin’s (who’s from Kyle, and is a teacher here), and Anna’s (my cousin from Calgary). I managed to see exactly no sights in London, which is how I wanted it. I knew I had very little time there, and will be in the UK for awhile, so I have time to go back and do a proper tour.

Instead, on our first night, Kirstin took us to the lawn bowling club down the street, of which she is a member, for the Friday night meat raffle. I won porkchops, and we drank a pint in the company of excellent old British men.

The next night Anna cooked me supper (tea?), and then took me for a pint at her local pub; it’s on a boat docked in the habour, and called The Wibbley Wobbley.

It turns out pubs in London close at 11 p.m., and they mean 11. We still had half a pint left each, but with the staff ringing the bell, flicking the lights on and off, stacking the chairs on the tables around us and giving us accusatory stares from the door, we decided to give in and leave our remaining drinks on the table. The next day she took me to the Greenwich markets before I caught the train.

I’m so grateful to have people that I know here, and to have Tamara to look after me. We met years ago, when we both worked at Second Cup in Calgary and she was in Canada on a working visa. Now she’s a lawyer in Bristol.

So far Tamara has secured me a job at her parents’ bed and breakfast, is allowing me to stay at her house for two weeks, gave me a pedal bike to ride this summer, a rain jacket, and her old cell phone so I didn’t have to buy my own. She prints me off maps and writes directions on them for me, and translates things into ‘Canadian’. I don’t know what I’d be doing without her.