Blackberry Crisp and Driving Lessons and Marge's Replacement

My arms are a scritched and scratched and covered in nettle rash... all for the want of blackberry crumble. Being from a city in the States, I'm unfamiliar with the concept of being able to walk around and randomly eat fruit that grows on public foliage. It's really just not a done thing. So, in the excitement that is blackberry (bramble) season in the UK, I've thrown myself wholeheartedly into a tradition which most British people have got their fill of before their teenage years. Sinéad, loving partner that she is, has encouraged me in this pursuit and accompanies me around footpaths whilst I fling myself into bramble bushes and emerge with a grand total of three blackberries and stinging arms. Having returned home slightly scathed, there's now a blackberry crisp bubbling away in the oven which will taste all the more exciting because the berries were were there to be plucked by anyone... but it was me who got them.

When I'm not pursuing the joys of fresh roadside fruit (mmmm, taste the exhaust), I'm zipping around British roads in a snappy orange car with a big Learner pyramid on the top. For those Americans who wonder why I'm doing this despite the fact that I've been driving since the age of 15, it's because the UK, despite recognizing the driver's licenses from a gajillion countries but (I think for political reasons) not the US. So I have to start from scratch. I've passed my theory test and I have to pass my practical. In order to do this, I need to be affiliated with a school because I need a car to take the test in and I can't be insured on Sinéad's car because she's had her license for less than three years. It's all very complicated, very expensive, and a right pain in the butt. There are some interesting differences in how they teach you to take the test. For example, you can't sit at an intersection with your brake lights on because of the fear that you will dazzle other drivers. What?!?!?! Try sitting in rush hour traffic in DC and see how dazzled you get by the brake lights. Whatever.

All this brings me to Dunster, Sinéad's new car. A high end Peugeot 106. I say high end because we only paid £250 for Marge and we put £650 into Dunster. Classy chicks that we are. No power steering, though. I shudder to think.

Related Links

Exchanging for a UK Licence (yes, that's how they spell it here...)

Triple Berry Crisp

A Farewell to Marge

Alas, our poor dear Marge, lovely gray Peugeot that we purchased in November, failed her MOT with startling brilliant pizazz and has been sent to a home for the elderly vehicle in the hands of a banger-racer.

A weekend in Cork and a weekend in Glasgow and a weekend in London

Three weekends ago, we were back in Cork for the Month's Mind, essentially this is an Irish Catholic tradition in which the family pays more money to the church who then dedicates a mass to the family member on the month's anniversary of the funeral. Practically everyone who was at the funeral comes back and it's rather of short version of the three-day wake/funeral. We visited Ciaran's grave and mingled with family and ate too much and cried. I think it's good, despite it being another occasion on which the Church takes advantage of its congregation in that it seemed to bring closure to most of the family and friends. The grief was tempered and more heartfelt than that which immediately followed Ciaran's death. I'm glad to have been able to go and to support Sinéad and be there for her family. Even though it's a series of traditions which are alien to me (which I found exhausting simply from the toll of unfamiliarity not to mention everything else), I could understand a bit more the meaning behind them and how they evolved and the purpose that they're meant to serve. I find that to be comforting in some small, overly logical OCD part of myself.

The next weekend, Sinéad and I schlepped up to a well-deserved weekend in Glasgow to pay Helen back for about ten visits that's she made down South (admittedly usually piggy backing on some work jaunt). An eight hour drive after work does not happy bunnies make (particularly since it's Sinéad doing all the driving). Friday, while Helen worked, Sinéad slept until 3:30 (the mind boggles) and I had the first relaxing day in a long time, with not a lot of much to do except read the 7th Harry Potter. Heaven.



On Saturday we faffed about town and on Sunday we went to the Glasgow Show where I developed a passion for rowing, threw a caber (assisted by a very large man in a kilt), and saw Indian running ducks herded around an obstacle course by sheepdogs in training... actually a bit more entertaining than actual sheepdog trials, once you kicked all the kids out of the way so as to get a better view.



The weekend after Glasgow (no rest for the wicked) was Jim's big THREE OH fancy dress pah-tay in London. Pretty swish, fablus cake, and I combined the whole affair with dragging Sinéad to an exhibit at the Tate Modern on Global Cities which she found wanky and I found interesting. But I think I avoided the wanky looking aspects of the exhibit and focused on what I found interesting. It's all what you go in looking for, I imagine.







Related Links:


Month's Mind

The Glasgow Show

Indian Running Ducks

Tossing the Caber