A Scottish tradition

I just can't start writing without acknowledging the fact that I have been away from the blog for six months. I don't know how it happened or where that time has gone. I didn't think it had been THAT long... yikes. Makes sense though considering the past nine and a half months have been the fastest I have ever experienced, even though every day is taken up with virtually the same things - preparing food, feeding, nursing, wiping, cuddling, playing, singing, rocking, walking, carrying, lifting, hoisting, comforting, washing, drying, cleaning, picking things up, putting things away, and going for coffee with other mums. And every free mental micro-moment that is not taken up with all those things, I am preparing for the class that I started teaching each Thursday. It's an intro Acting class through the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Lifelong Learning via the Strathclyde Theatre Group/Ramshorn Theatre. More on that later ... (I know. Promises, promises...)

So, all the above introduction is just to lay the scene for my daily life in which this post's true topic was a lovely and humbling moment.

I was just coming out of the Co-Op grocery store this afternoon, passing a man who sometimes stands outside selling The Big Issue magazine (the UK homeless publication), when he called out to me despite my having just guiltily declined to buy a copy. I was pushing Gil in his stroller and the man approached us with a coin asking if he could perform "the Scottish tradition". He touched the 20p piece to each of Gil's cheeks, wishing him health, wealth and prosperity, and tucked the coin into the pram, saying that it was meant for his piggy bank. He then said (and I wish I didn't still have to struggle to understand a true Glaswegian) either that Gil would hopefully not have to sell The Big Issue, OR that he hoped Gil would be one to buy the Big Issue in the future. I'm not sure which. Although I suppose they both amount to the same wish.

But I do know that I walked away thoroughly humbled, moved and finally understanding a similar incident that had happened when Gil was not even a month old. My mom and I were walking with him in the city centre and a young woman (who seemed perhaps somewhat synthetically happy, but genuine nonetheless) came up to us, looked in the pram and touched Gil's hand, obviously in love with him. Then she ran over to her boyfriend for something and came back with some change that she tucked in the lining of the pram, wished us well and skipped off. My mom and I were a little bewildered as we had no idea this was a custom, though we guessed it must be. But now I have confirmation.

It is a lovely gesture and I have to say that I'm humbled by the fact that both strangers who have bestowed this tradition on us appeared to have been able to ill afford it. Gil now has a very special 20p piece to hang on to.

The Day that Changed our Life

We are in the heart of autumn here. I have to say the weather has been beautiful. Many blue skies with puffy white clouds and the low-angled autumnal sun that you get in northern climes catching you in the side of the face. Also there's that crisp clear air that you can enjoy when you're bundled up, even if the tip of your nose gets cold.

Do I sound contented? Happy, even? I have to say, I am. I was told ages ago that it would take me about 6 months to a year to settle in and, though at the time that was not comforting, it was true, and I do feel settled now. And it's a good feeling.

Before I jump back in time to begin the first installment of "The great catch up on the summer", I have to just mention something I saw today, that if I had had any doubt that I was in Scotland would have cleared that right up. I was walking up the pedestrian mall Buchanan Street and there was a little tent booth set up. Looked like free samples of something, so of course I wandered over to see, and, lo and behold, it was a taste test, not of colas or breakfast cereal, but of potatoes.

Different kinds of potatoes.

I love it.

Someone said to me the other day that in Scotland "yer meat and two veg" is a steak with some mashed potatoes and some boiled potatoes.

Alright.

Now the catch up begins.

So think back, waaaaaaayyyy back to May 18 of this year. That was my due date.

I don't know what you were doing, but I was having contractions. All day.

I woke up at 3:30am on the 18th, with intermittent cramping in my back wrapping around to the front to my abdomen. I was very excited. I lay there for about a half hour and then got up because I couldn't sleep anymore, partly from excitement and partly from discomfort. I sat up at the computer, and played some Word Twist on Facebook while timing my contractions which were coming between 10-15 minutes apart. "Wow," I thought, "this is really happening. The curry we had last night is working! Who knows how long it will be before they are down to 5 minutes apart which is when we should be going to hospital. I should wake Aaron up." So I went back into the bedroom and said to my sleepy husband: "I'm in labour."

Little did either of us know that I would be "in labour" (ie. having contractions of varying lengths and strengths) for the next 42 hours. Yes, all that day I tried to relax and carry on with daily life, which was hard because although the contractions weren't all that strong (compared to what was coming) it was impossible to get comfortable and I was having to focus and breathe my way through them - Aaron was already helping me out with the massage techniques we had learned and practiced - and then there was the anticipation, which we had already spread across the pond by calling the Grandparents-in-waiting sometime that day to let them know things were underway. So, it was with some disappointment and resignation that we went to bed, after watching a movie that was supposed to be a distraction but was so terrible it was just annoying ("Shoot em up" - very disappointing and weird). I didn't sleep much beyond an hour or two before getting up again to hang out in the living room on my hands and knees, the only position I had any relief in. I remember thinking "If only I could sleep like this..."

By ten o'clock the next morning, I called the hospital hoping they would tell me to come in even though the contractions were still only 7-10 minutes apart. They were definitely stronger and I was getting tired having hardly slept for two days. The midwife at the Southern General Hospital encouraged me to stay home longer. And by 1pm, I phoned again to say I was coming, regardless. Our friends John and Vibeka drove us to the hospital with our big bag. Terribly exciting! And even though I had a couple of contractions in the car, I was keeping my cool, breathing and squeezing Aaron's left hand while he massaged my lower back with his right.

When we got to the hospital, they kissed us and wished us well, and we made our way to the labour ward. We didn't wait long before we were taken into the triage area, where one of the midwives checked me out, and told us, with a sympathetic tone that I was only 2.5 cm dilated. A ways to go to get to 10. I couldn't believe it or do much to hide my disappointment as I was getting so tired. She counseled us that if we wanted to avoid any possible "interventions" - some kind of "augmentation" to speed things along - that we were better off to go back home and continue labouring there. I could hardly face another car ride, but, when she said that if we stayed at the hospital and I hadn't progressed into full labour by 8pm Aaron would have to then leave and get called back when I was fully dilated (!!!), we called a cab.

This is the point at which my memory gets really fuzzy. I know that we got back to our flat around 3pm. Someone had suggested that walking around would help - "Go for a walk..." - so we walked down into the ravine by the Kelvin river (my favorite spot) and climbed the bank up the the Botanical Gardens, and walked back along Great Western road. All this took over an hour and I had to stop several times for some pretty hefty contractions. I remember hanging onto wrought-iron fences both along the river and along the road with a ferocious grip, trying to focus and puffing out determined breaths. Then I remember being back at home alternating between being in the shower, on hands and knees and hanging over our bed for an hour and a half or so before my water finally broke. Yay! Now we had to go to the hospital, and surely this was what they call "established labour". Surely to God...

We got back into a cab with a very friendly and reassuring driver, who joked with us asking us to please not give birth in his cab, and who expressed some mild but genuine alarm upon hearing that my contractions were 3 minutes apart. He got us there safe and sound and swiftly, and as we made our way back to the labour ward, the reality of our situation - that this was finally it, the moment I had been imagining for months was finally upon me - hit me. I had to work hard to keep my focus and not get swept away by the huge wave of mixed emotions welling up inside me while we waited for what seemed to me like a long time in the waiting room before getting into triage again.

Now something that is important to remember, I think, if you are in labour or with someone in labour, is that when you are in transit (ie. getting to the hospital) your contractions slow down. I read this. Its as if your body knows you aren't in a safe place yet to deliver. And so, though my contractions had been 3 minutes apart when we left, they were now back at around 7. Back in triage, the midwife attending to me, going on the simple fact that I was at 7 mins, told me not to be disappointed if I wasn't much further dilated, like 4cm or something. I didn't believe that, but by this point I wasn't sure if I really didn't or I just didn't want to. However when she did her exam, I heard her say to Aaron: "Oh. Do you want to see the head?"

!

Only seconds after that, I had my first "transition" contraction - the ones that are really painful - and I finally understood just what has so many women screaming for drugs. I had, all along, actually been planning and hoping for a water birth. I picked the Southern General Hospital partly because it had a birthing pool. But when I was told the baby had passed meconium and could be in distress, meaning I couldn't use the pool, I couldn't have cared less. They moved me to the labour room, I started pushing and in less than two hours he was out.

At 11:45pm on May 19.

Of course there was a lot more to those two hours than that, but my memory of it is compressed and dreamlike. I do remember thinking right before he was born that I didn't know if I was going to have the energy to keep going, but then I thought that not having the energy was just not an option. That may have been the moment I really became a mother; that moment you freely accept that it is never just going to be about you ever again. As for other details of those two hours, I think they have been burned into Aaron's memory as he had an equally visceral though quite different perspective than I did. You can ask him.

I do have to say that the midwives who helped us deliver were fantastic. Gentle, calm, encouraging, accommodating and respectful of my wishes (I didn't want to be on my back), they offered Aaron the chance to cut the cord, which he did, and when it was all over, they brought me tea and toast. The best meal I ever had.

We had a good hour and a half then, mostly alone, with our little bundle. Our minds were exploding and bodies exhausted (Aaron had a couple of bruised knuckles from when I had unknowingly ground his hand into the bed-frame, and his right arm which had massaged my lower back almost constantly for nine hours must have been quivering), and we finally met the someone we had been aching to meet for months, and possibly years. We just couldn't get enough of looking. It was a quiet, extraordinary time that certainly is the closest I've ever come to what it must feel like to land on the moon.

Upcoming posts: Continuing with the catch up - Gil's first days, Family visits and summer events, but also Our Day at Loch Lomond and other more recent updates

Fall

Several people have told me that September is one of the more beautiful months for Glasgow, and this past weekend has certainly won me to that opinion. Bright sunshine combined with a fresh breeze, smells of new mown grass and fallen leaves. Today those smells were overpowered by the malty, burned toast smell of the Tennents brewery, which must be working over time to produce enough lager to meet the needs of all the Uni and college students during "freshers week".

The past four days of sunshine have made my daily walks with our little sprog especially enjoyable, and have allowed me to venture a little further and longer, prompting me to seek out open sunny spaces to walk, like along the Forth/Clyde canal, instead of under the treed canopy beside the Kelvin.

The "sprog" (or "the wee bairn") is pushing four months now - hard to believe - and is heart-meltingly adorable, says his mother and father, especially when he laughs, smiles, sighs, sticks his tongue out, sucks his toes, and sleeps.

There is so much to catch up on, blogwise, from the past four months that I have decided to do it in short little entries that won't seem so daunting to me. Especially since life has changed so much, as they say it does when you have kids. Daily life and life in general. "Changing priorities ahead." There just isn't as much time as there used to be to write, to read, to talk on the phone, to play games, to plan theatrical productions, whereas there is lots of time for feeding the baby, washing nappies, playing peek-a-boo, singing the "Capitol I" song, taking walks in the park so the baby will nap - a kind of enforced outdoor exercise and relaxation time. Yes, life has changed.

Our new home

(This is an old post which I created the day before I went into labour, and so never finished and posted. Thus it is a bit of a time warp, but a good place to get y'all started on the big catch up of our eventful spring/summer.)

As some of you may know, we moved to a new flat in March. Nearly two months ago. The time has flown, as the fact that I am only writing about this now will attest to, but even from the first week here we felt very at home.

We managed to still stay in the same neighborhood as we were before, but a little further east, which puts us right on the cusp between an older, more upscale area of flats (that Aaron would refer to as a "leafy-profy area" - prof=short for professor), and a more working-class area, that feels like its struggling a bit. There is a discount grocery store in that area, where you can get decent produce and cheap but good cheese and oatcakes, or you can buy flats of pop, giant bags of crisps, and frozen chips. Not to mention cheap beer, wine and spirits. Still getting used to that. Booze in the grocery stores. Actually as my due date approaches, I getting more excited about that prospect...

A glass of wine.....ahhhhhh.....

Our flat is in an old tenement building, with high ceilings (11 feet, I think). We have a spare bedroom and a spare living room. Well, I guess we have a living room, and then a dining room which adjoins the kitchen and where we tend to spend much of our time. Its a very friendly room. We feel a bit spoiled for space here, especially as the flat we just moved from was rather small. When we sit in the dining room sometimes we imagine how 65 years ago there was probably a family of 8 living here, a younger couple with a baby, like us (almost), a set of grandparents, a newly wed brother and sister-in-law, who sleep on the fold out couch in the living room and a lodger who sleeps on the couch or a roll-away cot in the dining room at night.

Our cats are our only lodgers here at the moment, and very happy here. They were rolling on their backs purring, within hours of moving in. Expressing our sentiments exactly.

15 Random Pictures of Glasgow

Here they are, folks.  We've had random facts and now we have random photos.  Hope you like.

Pics: (from top, left to right) 

- Celtic Cross at the Necropolis

- The old Lyceum on Govan Road

- Detail on an archway of Lansdowne Parish Church, 1863

- Graffiti art on West Princes Street

- The detailing on this block of flats down the street from us is lion heads and, strangely enough, bundles of sticks with axes, a symbol closely associated with Mussolini's fascist party in the 1930's.  Curious about that story...

- A sunny afternoon at the Botanic Gardens

- Blossoms on West Princes Street

- Twenty's Plenty

- Inspiring message under Great Western Bridge

- Outside the Southern General, our chosen maternity hospital

- Old fence and tree

- Glasgow's city crest

- Spring in Kelvingrove Park

- George Square at Christmas

- Mural at the Glasgow School of Art

  

Inveraray at last

I know this is the post you've all been waiting for.  I've been talking about it for months. So I'm finally here to tell you about the trip that Aaron and I took to Inveraray, just before Christmas.  As it happens, it is the only trip, besides our day trip to Edinburgh in my first week here, that we have taken together here.  And it was really lovely.

Inveraray is a little town on Loch Fyne which is a "sea-loch", meaning that it is technically a long inlet, like a fijord. It is about a two-hour bus ride to the north-west of Glasgow, a rather hilly area.  On our way there we passed Loch Lomond, and climbed up to a high pass with rocky waterfalls streaming down the hills, known as Rest And Be Thankful.  I think who ever named that place is one of the people I'd like to meet in the afterlife.  

It was raining for most of our bus-ride, and by the time we arrived, Inveraray was in the midst of a monsoon.  We were a few hours early to check in at our B&B, and with the inhospitable weather putting a damper (sorry...) on any sightseeing, we found the nearest tea-shop and squished in for tea and scones.  I'd been avoiding caffeine up until that morning, but under the circumstances, I just asked for hot tea and didn't get into "do you have any herbal?"  The roof of the shop was low and the walls were thick plaster.  It must have been a real local, because the next person who blew in after us, was a thin little old lady in a mack and plastic rain kercheif, and everyone in the place knew her name and sang it in friendly banter. 

"Windy, isn't it, Isobel? Toast and tea, Isobel? That's two pounds, Isobel."    

After we'd made our stop for tea last about as long as we could manage, we headed back out into the rain and down the street along the water's edge, to our B&B - "The Old Rectory", to find two big boxer dogs and our host Chris enjoying a roaring fire in the lounge.  We were perhaps a bit surprised though not dismayed to see that much of the common area seemed to be... under renovation.  Chris was really casual, and seemed a bit more the type to be running a hostel than a B&B, with his work shirt and boots still on from hauling and chopping wood for the fire, which seemed to be his favorite chore.  He didn't mind us putting our bags in our room before he'd finished making it up, and we didn't mind the rustic nature of his hospitality, or the lack of a shade on the lamp in our room.  We took the opportunity to change out of our wet things and get an extra sweater on, then headed back into town to have a look around.  

This only took about an hour given how tiny the town is, basically only one street and a few lanes.  We were getting hungry and so went to a great place called Brambles for lunch, where Aaron had lentil soup, salad and rollmops, and I had an Orkney Cheddar Ploughman's lunch.  Lots of pickles and cheese. Perfect for pregnancy. 

 Then we poked around in various shops including a gallery, the whisky shop, the boot shop (where I got some psychedelic Wellingtons, out of great soaking necessity) and then the Woolen Mill, which sold everything from kilts to cookies, and where we sampled some amazing strawberry wine.   

After exhausting the shops, we walked out onto the pier, even though it was still raining and blowing, to check out the clearly closed Maritime museum, which was on a boat, moored up and battened down.  We stood there getting soaked like dumb tourists, before heading back toward the B&B, stopping in at the George Hotel on the way for a drink and to dry off a bit.  We fell in love with its low ceilings, fire places, rough-hewn wood and stone, and came back in dry clothes after a nap, for supper.  Fish and chips and breaded scampi, by candles and mini-Christmas lights. 

I woke up the next morning, unsure if the scampi had become a gas bubble passing through my gut or if I was feeling our baby doing the backstroke. ( As it turns out, it was a baby blorp which was absolutely amazing, and which in coming days I would be able to discern more clearly.  )

We got up around 7:45, and looked out our window at the water.  The sky was lightening and cloudless over the exposed low-tide pebble shore.  We could actually see the hills on the other side of the water, and all around.  

Aaron went down to the lounge to see if we could have breakfast, which on the website said it was served between 7:30-8:30.  Apparently, Chris was asleep on the couch, and when he heard the door open, sat bolt upright and barked "Ach. Breakfast!"  Then he asked Aaron what time it was and went into the kitchen.   There was still a glass and a mostly emptied bottle of red wine on the floor beside the couch. 

I went outside to get some air and check the weather, and once I had walked across the road to the water and down some steps to the shore, I caught my first real whiff of sea-smell as my pink psychedelic Wellies crunched down on some sea-weed.  It was a gorgeous morning, kind of warm, mild and calm.  Aaron came out too, to tell me breakfast was on the way.  

And after our breakfast, about 30 mins. later, we agreed we wouldn't have to eat for hours and hours. There was cereal, juice, tea and coffee to start, and THEN came the full (and I mean full) Scottish breakfast of eggs, sausages, rashers of back bacon, fried mushrooms, fried tomatoes and toast.  We were absolutely stuffed, and fully prepared for a day of walking.

It was shaping up to be a beautiful day, and we went out the back gate into the muddy lane that took us into the centre of the town.  We walked right through and out the other side and along the highway in search of the trail that would take us up to a stone watchtower we could see from the town. We are always climbing hills on our trips, Aaron and I.  

It turns out we overshot the entrance to the path by a mile down the highway, but our mistake took us for a great seaside walk in the sunshine and to a very old graveyard, which was absolutely amazing - enchanted.  It was overgrown and mossy, and some gravestones that weren't completely crumbling bore dates from the late 1700's.  Lots of Campbells there.  This is Campbell country after all and we were thinking of Tim all day.  

Though we were glad of our mistaken discovery, we turned around and went back to Inveraray Castle grounds and found where we were supposed to be.  We weren't as awed by the castle up close, as it seemed a bit drab and ungainly in its design. (Listen to me - the castle critic...) But maybe it was just the season.  It was certainly very closed.  But the grounds were quite lovely in that they were open sheep pastures with big old gnarled oaks and lots of wooly sheep.

We found the trailhead and started a beautiful walk through a beech grove that had mossy covered foundations of old buildings throughout.  This gave way on to a meadow which we crossed to get to the edge of a thick evergreen forest - fir, pine and huge fragrant cedars, almost reminiscent of coastal BC cedars.  We came across some more ruins, and they were much more than foundations, and we puzzled over what kind of building it was.  Then we started a long climb that continued through beautiful lush forest.   

Being a pregnut, I needed to rest, so we sat down on some moss and ate apples, before continuing on at a slow pace, but eventually I told Aaron to go ahead without me and I would see how far I could get.  My hip flexor was seizing up, making the climb painful and slow for me, and the only relief I could get was to actually grab the front of my leg by the jeans and lift it.  In this somewhat ridiculous way, I actually made it up the rest of the hill, and Aaron who was returning to get me found me almost at the top.   I was so glad I made it because the views were spectacular.  And I had no pain on the way down - using different muscles I guess- thus I was able to enjoy the trail more on the return.  There were some gorgeous sections of the path where we were surrounded by emerald green mossy tree trunks that seemed to sprout from what would have been a solid carpet of moss, were it not occasionally broken up by a mini waterfall or creek burbling down the hill.  And the footpath often was a rusty soft carpet of dry pine/fir needles,  a stunning contrast to the lush green on either side.  

Once down at the castle again, as we were heading back out along the epic driveway towards the town, Aaron stopped by part of the hedge where there was a little wren-like bird with a rosy breast  perched quite close to us.  A robin.  Unlike our North American robins, the ones here are much smaller and fatter, and bolder we learned, as this one actually flew right up to us at the edge of the hedge to size us up and cheep at us brashly.

Back again in the town, we were finally really hungry and went to Brambles again for lunch, and the George Pub again for a drink.  We also got a few souvenirs, including a whisky Aaron thought would be a nice Christmas Day treat.  We found ourselves (surprise, surprise) back at the George Hotel for dinner, and as it was a very busy night with all kinds of Christmas Party bookings, we were given a little table in a different room that had a sign outside that said "Public Bar" left over from a time when there was a private bar, I suppose.  And some carolers came through (soaking wet, poor souls, but very lively) and sang some Christmas carols in the bar, making me all choked up.   

Although something that also could have been choking me up was the coal they were burning in the fireplace.  We made the fearful discovery earlier in the day in a small gallery/craft shop, that people here do indeed burn lumps of coal in open fireplaces, and the vile smell I have noticed at times in Glasgow and noticed a lot here in a small town, is the smell of burning coal.  I have to say that I was always under the impression that coal is a terrible pollutant (and certainly smells like something that should not be burning) and I'm really surprised that people still use it.  But apparently it is much longer burning than wood and cheaper, and there certainly is a lot of it here.   

On another note, when we returned to our B&B after dinner, our host had a lovely smelling wood fire burning in his faithful quest to never let it die.  And the next morning, prepared us another great scottish breakfast, which I suspected he made so big that we couldn't finish it and he could give our leftover sausages to his dogs.  The rain was back, so we were especially grateful for the glorious day we'd had the day before, as we clambered on to our bus back to Glasgow.  

Some Inveraray Pictures

(From Top to Bottom)

1. On our hill climb

2. (top right) Graveyard

3. and 4. Views from the top o' the hill

5. The Rectory Boxers

6. The Castle and sheep meadows

7. The street our B&B was on

8. The first day - on the pier

9. The George

10. Our B&B room