Lessons from a house move

Moving, as people will cheerfully tell you, is only slightly less stressful than divorce or death. I have come out the other side. Here is my survival guide.


1. Do not develop a horrendous chest infection the day before relocating 600 miles. It will make the whole thing rather more challenging.

2. Before arriving at the Van Hire company, do check that your license photocard is in date. Turns out, they expire.

3. Accept from the beginning that you will not leave sufficient time to pack and will, at the final hour, be forced to throw any old crap in boxes at speed.

4. Cleaning your house will take much longer than expected. You will find dirt that you didn't know existed. Use the clothes you just cannot face packing to clean it up.

5. Do not forget that you have to clean the fridge. You will be repulsed by the horrors within.

6.  Do not try and reverse a long wheel base van. It's amazing how one relies on the view out of that back window.

7. Enlist the help of family members, but do not inform them of how long their train journey back home will take. There is a chance they will retract the offer of assistance.

8. There is a reason why you are advised to label your boxes. 

9. If your bedbase snaps en route, duct tape will prove surprisingly effective at holding it together.

10. When all you own is finally boxed and packed precariously in the back of van, you will have an uncharacteristic moment of melancholy. And then you will be excited about what is next to come.

 Goodbye Edinburgh, it's been a blast.

Hunting for supper

I love it when a simple walk turns into adventure. And food adventure is my favourite kind. So imagine my delight when, on a wander along the Water of Leith, I see blackberries growing in the shrubbery. Am I about to forage? I think I am.

Wild Blackberries in the shrubbery

The Boyfriend was on hand to throw himself head-first into the task. Not content with the blackberries growing right by the path, he insisted on scaling the bank. And on my taking his picture. Typical. 

Action shot

A bit of effort and a few thorny cuts (the Boyfriend told me to 'man up' at every thorny yelp) and we had a small bag full of ripe blackberries.

Urban foraging

Just the perfect ingredient for a crumble, wouldn't you say?

So a bit of sugar, butter and flour, the addition of an apple and a squeeze of lemon later, and we had ourselves a crumble. And all the sweeter it tasted for having harvested the fruit ourselves down by the river.

Blackberry crumble and cream

And as we finished the last morsels, I suddenly wondered if I hadn't got ahead of myself in all this foraging excitement. Were wild blackberries even edible? Oh crap. 

Next time I'll be googling first, but you'll be glad to know, we've survived.

For more information about foraging wild blackberries, here's a handy link. Found moments after I'd licked the bowl clean.

Heatwave? What heatwave?

The boyfriend recently relocated from Brighton to Edinburgh. You might have seen Brighton in the news this past weekend. No? Think pictures of a packed beach, bikini clad southerners and plenty of white flesh. Yes – that was Brighton.

The hottest weather in October, ever.

Not here in Edinburgh. We were enjoying a spot of very seasonal (and very heavy) rain. He was not best pleased.

It’s for the best really. Brits don’t really know how to cope with the summer. We can’t even dress for sunshine. I don’t blame us of course; it isn’t as though we have much opportunity to practice.

So those of us north of the border may have missed out on a vitamin D dose, but at least we also missed the spectacle of ‘British men burning with their tops off.’ 

It really is a national horror. Why don’t our men turn that glorious olive shade of the men on the med? Why do they all go lobster pink? Why do none of them wear sun-cream?

When the sun finally puts his hat on, well people go a bit mad don’t they? You see them in Sainsbury's, in their flip-flops and shorts, buying the last disposable bbq, forgetting they live in Manchester - not Melbourne.

They walk down the high-street baring flesh. Flesh that last saw sunlight in the ‘heatwave of 2003.’ Then they pass a woman who clearly didn’t read the weather forecast and is wearing her winter coat. It’s totally bizarre.

And the weather- forecasters. Their delight at being able to announce the good news. Finally summer has arrived, and they are going to be the ones to tell us. Yes, it’s only going to be 2 days long - and yes - we know that your sarong is packed in the loft because summer is theoretically over, but quick – find your flip flops . Oh and that bbq you couldn’t use in August because it rained non-stop? Well it’s time –so get the burgers in.

And then the weatherman briefly turns his attention to Scotland, muttering in apologetic tones that there is a high chance of rain. 

But whatever the weather, we Brits can fine reason to complain.

Well yes of course it’s gorgeous having the sun out – but really; it’s too hot isn’t it? Bloody hell I’m sweating- are you sweating?  Best pop inside for a lie down.  I actually got sun-burnt in October, can you imagine? And we’ve got the central heating all set up, so we didn’t want to turn it off. Yes, the parks were packed with people, and the beaches – you should see the bodies. You can’t enjoy it when it’s like that can you?

No, my boyfriend should be glad we were spared the heat-wave. The uncertainty of it would have been too much.  I really have no idea where the flip-flops are. We waved farewell to daylight in August, and that’s just fine. Who needs vitamin D anyway?

It's the American way

I have just landed back in Edinburgh from America.

What this means is that I am now in that dreadful state of ‘jet-lagged.’ Somehow I lost the night (and the sleep that the night tends to encourage) in a hop, skip and a jump across the Atlantic.

I feel a little drunk. Not the good kind of drunk where you are the funniest person you’ve ever met, are singing ‘don’t stop me now’, and dancing on table. No, the kind of drunk where you realise it’s time for  you to go home, have to hold onto the bed owing to the spinning, or even more likely, the kind where you find yourself, sitting on the kerb, head in your hands, shoes in the gutter and sick in your hair.

So, before I go and crawl into bed or collapse right here at the desk, I thought I’d share a little about my time state-side.

Let’s start with the most important question. Why does every American think that every Brit loves Monty Python? I was asked no less than 20 times (within a week) on my feelings towards the show.  In the end I just lied that I loved it.

And what is wrong with the understatement? I missed understatements this past week. Not quite as much as I missed a well made cuppa, but a fair bit. The Americans do not understate. We’re part of the ‘E’ for excellent team – don’t you know.

But the problem is that the Brits are ‘E’ for expert in the understatement team. We are not trying to be witty, we are just endlessly un-enthused.  Of course the reasons for the understatement are quite clear to see. As a nation we do not like gushing, emotional outpouring or boasting, and as such must go to the opposite end and feign utter indifference.

When we are seriously ill, it’s a ‘bit of a nuisance’, a dreadful experience is ‘not ideal’ and something incredibly impressive is simply ‘alright.’

We do not admit to ‘wanting to become an unstoppable force,’ to ‘paving the way to success’ or to being ‘exceptionally exceptional.’ I do however like the idea that when you run out of superlatives, you just repeat them.

We Brits much prefer a spot of modesty. Even if we are bright, successful and rich, we must deal with the embarrassment of having succeeded by making a self deprecating joke of the whole sorry matter. Of course this rarely works in our interactions with foreigners. They do not understand our hatred of boasting, and therefore tend to take our ‘witty’ downplaying remarks at face value.

And then we’re really stuck. We can’t very well shout after them, ‘no no – sorry – I’m playing down my achievements to conform to our culture. I’m actually blooming marvellous,’ can we? No. Of course not. Perhaps we’d be better off saying we were exceptionally exceptional from the outset.

However, when people were crying  (one woman was practically wailing) at the end of the conference I was attending, I was suddenly glad of our British emotional repression. We are a nation of the stiff upper lip, and would certainly not see fit to quote Martin Luther King in a closing plenary.

When I was the only one not partaking in the standing ovation I felt the fullest force of peer pressure.

I was thinking about this blog post as my plane came into land just a few hours ago. As we touched down (after a pleasingly non-eventful flight) the many American’s applauded and cheered. ‘Hurrah, we didn’t crash.’ ‘Amen, we survived.’

Now I am all for praise where praise is due, but if a pilot cannot land a plane with a pretty high success rate, he really should reconsider his career choice. 

I admire this generosity of praise, the ability to cry in public, the willingness to express emotions, to openly talk about what their therapist has suggested, and of course the TV series  - ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.’

Maybe the Americans are just nicer?

Or maybe not. I’ll end with a joke, from a guy from Georgia, which I rather liked.

Person 1: ‘Where y’all from?’

Person 2: ‘Where I’m from we don’t end our sentences with a preposition.’

Person 1: ‘Oh I’m sorry. Where y’all from, bitch?’