After too many weeks, I am back at my laptop. Our guests are gone, my cold is gone, my voice is back and as our days as a bed and breakfast are over for at least a little while, my fingers are ready to type.
As you may already know, I live in Scotland. I have been here for almost seven months. I love it here. It is more like the US than France was but the countryside and the culture is different indeed.
My first week here was filled with the usual unpacking and trying to find my bearings in what was to be my new home. We live in a very small village in the Scottish countryside. There is one grocery store, but it's so small it's more like a 7-11 with a bit of fruit and vegetables and without the wall of soda. After several days of lifting and heaving and box cutting, I decided to go to the Cooperative, also referred to as the Copie (pronounced ko-pee), as told by my landlord. She mentioned a wee path. I knew it was close, but wasn't sure how to get there. I got the stroller ready, baby sitting happily and marched off in search of treasure.
Have I mentioned that I have a tendency to get lost? A lot? This is a particularly frustrating trait as my husband seems to have a GPS in his brain. At any rate, I set off. I walked for about eight minutes and then got nervous. I saw another mother on the other side of the road and asked for directions. She was clearly in a hurry and had no interest in giving directions, but said something quickly about going back. I thought she meant the turn in the opposite direction from the way I'd come. I turned around.
That didn't quite feel right though and while I hardly trust my instincts in such matters, after a few minutes, I decided to ask the elderly woman I saw having a chat with a neighbor. She was more than happy to oblige. The only problem was that her accent was so thick I couldn't make out more than ten percent of what she was saying. As she was old and I didn't want to be rude, I didn't ask her to repeat what I knew I wouldn't understand. I did, however, catch the words "wee path past the booshes". What in the world is a "boosh"? Oooohhhh, BUSH! Yes, I did see the bushes, thank you. Baby gibbering to herself, I turned back in the direction which I started out in the first place.
I turned at the bushes and saw what I would consider a wee path. I walked along and ended up in a neighborhood. I asked the postman how to get to the Copie and he described a "wee path" too. My problem was that my definition of a wee path was apparently wrong. After a few more minutes of retracing my steps, I did, in fact, see another path. I took said path and saw, almost to my amazement, the Cooperative. I went inside and got a jug of milk, carrots for carrot soup and bread.
With bounty in hand and a better sense of the village, I went home. It took less than ten minutes to walk back what had taken me thirty-five minutes to find. But hey, I did find it! And now I know where the wee path is. It's just past the booshes!
