How Life Is

Life is pretty grand really. Especially today, after a successful trip to Roslin to see the Chapel, some cheese and oatcakes and World Cup rugby on the TV. A quick re-cap of things we've done in the last few weeks...

We went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, about an hour away by foot via our favourite Water of Leith walk. Halfway there we reached the old mill area, a part of the valley where all the old mills used to be; there are still some wells and buildings left over from that time. Including the mineral spring (below) which isn't normally open but for some reason was the day we went past. Inside was a revelation; it had been designed to look like a Roman temple, all blue and gold tiles and an elaborate fountain for the healing waters. Just incredible. The old lady who invited us in told us the history of it and invited Toby to try pumping for some water. Luckily he failed, otherwise we might have had to drink it.

Then onto the gardens, where surprisingly there was a large section dedicated to plants of a particular region in China...

...and some really big leaves...

...and great views across Edinburgh.


The next weekend we went to the National Gallery which is actually several galleries connected by tunnels. We skipped the Warhol exhibition due to its cost and instead wandered around some of the most amazing rooms I've ever been in. It was like being in a rich person's mansion. No new-fangled marble floors, white walls and proper lighting in this gallery. The paintings were displayed one on top of each other in rooms that felt like ballrooms. It all felt very opulent and luxurious. They had an exhibition on of William Blake's work, which was a revelation for me as I thought he'd only ever written poems.

We had a visitor in the form of Toby's mate Chris, who we'd discovered had actually been in Edinburgh for the last 2 months, living and working at a hostel near the Castle. We used it as an excuse to visit our local pubs, and that was how we discovered that our local pubs shut at 12. Not the most successful excursion but it was nice to have a friendly face around for a few days. He's now moved up to the highlands to work some more, so we may visit him sometime.

We had some really delicious Chinese food at a restaurant I would never have considered, partly because it was so bright red and yellow and partly because its name is Chop Chop. However the food was incredibly good, with the house speciality being dumplings, and very reasonably priced. We shall return (and also take any lucky visitors who come this way).

We had a weekend spent at home because the weather wasn't very good and we'd just booked an expensive trip to Amsterdam and wanted to save our money.

We went to a World Cup match because the stadium is less than 5 minutes' walk from our house. We saw Scotland annihilate Romania; Toby predicted a 60-0 final score, but in the end it was 42-0. You had to feel sorry for Romania - first the war, then this. It was a very Scottish experience, what with all the men in kilts (standard clothing for sporting events) and the Proclaimers being played every time Scotland scored a try. (We are now watching New Zealand annihilate Scotland in a similar manner on TV; the cheapest tickets for this game were 38 pounds as opposed to 9 pounds for the Romanian game, which explains our choice. While walking up to the bus stop earlier today we passed a massive number of All Blacks fans, but I think we still might have struggled to choose which side to cheer for, had we gone to the game.)

Random shot of the stadium from Toby's phone. Note the teeny tiny screen and the almost invisible scores. Not a place for blind bats.

Yesterday myself and another girl from work bussed out to the Gyle Centre (which is a small shopping mall out in an industrial area near the airport) in order to do some surveys. We were to be paid 7 pounds an hour for 3.5 hours, and get 150 responses between us. I must say I would never have volunteered for this job if I'd known what it would involve, but by the time I found out what 'doing surveys' meant, it was really too late to back out. Yvonne stood in the annexe between the carpark and the entrance, and I stood outside Marks & Spencers catching people coming from the other direction. Within 15 minutes we'd been asked to leave by security, who very nicely told us that our agency hadn't received permission for us to be there. We rang the girl from work who'd arranged the whole thing, and she didn't answer her phone. While we waited for her to call us back we had a coffee and browsed through Boots. 45 minutes later, we still hadn't heard anything and decided to call it a day. It goes without saying that we were both pretty relieved and not at all upset that our 3.5 hours had been cut down to 15 minutes. I'd been home for a while when the girl from the agency finally rang me; I couldn't tell who she was angry at, but I figured we'd done what we could and none of it was our fault. I didn't ask if we would still get paid but I will certainly be putting up a fight for us tomorrow. Never mind. Yvonne was a pleasant, interesting person to spend some time with. She went to university in Paris, her mother lives in Spain and her boyfriend in Venice so she has that jet-setting lifestyle I imagine all British having.

Today we decided it was time for an excursion, so after a brief bus mishap due to the fact that I can't read, we got on a bus out to Roslin. It's only 6-7 miles from the Edinburgh city centre but it felt a million miles away by the time we got out there. The chapel is going through major conservation work so from the outside it looked a little disappointing. Inside was a whole other story; it was extraordinary. I have never seen anything like it. The stories and the history add so much interest to what would already be an incredible space. I was glad to see a complete lack of Da Vinci-related paraphernalia, which is fitting considering the chapel has a much richer history than just Tom Hanks and Dan Brown. For people (like my lovely oblivious parents) who have totally missed the whole Da Vinci Code thing, the Rosslyn Chapel appears right at the end of the book. It was built in the 1440s, desecrated during the Reformation in the 1500s and wasn't used again until the 1800s. They have now embarked on a massive conservation project which won't finish for another 5 years. What's so special about the Chapel, apart from its elaborate and gorgeous carvings and architecture combining so many styles, are the mysteries in it; like the carved cubes in the ceiling, each with a unique symbol no one can figure out. Or the fact that one of the windows has carvings of corn along the top - even though America wasn't officially discovered until 50 years after the carvings were done.

The disappointing exterior


One of the amazing windows...check out all the carvings, especially the flowers around the top.

The good thing about the scaffolding is that you can climb up and get a close look at the outside of the Chapel, just as amazing as the inside, and also check out the views across the valley. Very cool.

Inside the crypt, which was freezing and creepy, as you'd expect.

The Mason's pillar

The Apprentice's pillar. According to the story, the Mason finished his pillar and headed off overseas to get inspiration for his second pillar. While he was gone the Apprentice knocked this up and when the Mason got back he was so jealous with rage he murdered the Apprentice (and was hanged for it). They are both immortalised in carvings inside the Chapel.

View of Rosslyn Castle from the top of the Chapel. The Castle is just a ruin now, a few walls and bridges left. But enough of it to make you appreciate heights, and what building a fortress was all about.

The outside of the Chapel, built in the 1880s. Still with all the carvings and what-not.

Outside of weekends, I continue to work the 9-5.30 grind at my office job in the city and Toby continues to play with his trading, build up his warcraft character and is now looking at volunteering for the Scottish SPCA. My job is going ok; at least, it pays the bills and the people are pleasant enough. There are a few things that continue to surprise me, including that no one uses an electronic diary, at least 50% of British people don't know their own phone number, and I have been asked by at least 5 people which option 'normal' is under 'sexuality' on the Equal Opportunity form they fill in. The first time it happened I put it down to an oddity of that particular young man. The second time I forgave her because she had a Nigerian passport. But now that it's happened several more times, I'm not sure where it's coming from. Maybe they don't cover that in sex ed here. In any case, it's weird. Other things falling into that category which have us constantly asking what is up with this country include tuna, can openers and mail that gets delivered on Saturdays. This week marked our 2 month anniversary of leaving home so hopefully we will start getting the hang of things soon.

Job Description, and let's all go to Amsterdam

My dad suggested I copy this section of my email to him into our blog so everyone knows what my job is. So:

I am the receptionist for a big UK company's recruitment arm at their Edinburgh branch. They do permanent and temporary jobs, public and private. The previous receptionist left at 2pm today so I'm on my own now. She'd only been there 2 weeks herself so I think I learnt as much from her as I could - now I need to pin someone else down and make them explain all the stuff I don't know. It's a very busy office, the phone barely stops ringing and they have lots of people coming in the doors. I had an odd experience today, an older man than normal came in - I thought he was in his 50s but his passport said 40s (maybe a hard drinker). I got him to fill in the form and because of his age double-checked with the consultant that he was supposed to do the assessments. When I went to interview last week I had to do an assessment as well - it's almost insulting, there's data entry and then literacy/numeracy which swung between being easy enough for monkeys, and difficult enough that it wasn't testing anything (like your ability to do long sums - hello we use computers now). So I sat the bloke down at a PC and was talking him through it and tried to make sure he knew it was just a standard test and not a reflection on him per se. He didn't believe me and told me what qualification he had and said he didn't want to do a literacy test. I offered to call the consultant and let her know so she could come down and chat anyway, but he was so offended by the idea someone wanted to assess him that he just left. I think that will happen occasionally, one of the consultants told me they get people who think temp work is beneath them so they behave poorly and of course get bad references and then it ends up back-firing on them. I felt like telling that guy I knew how insulting it was because I was in that seat last week, but I decided not to. So that was interesting. Otherwise I will just be setting up the office how I like it and trying to convince people that a filing cabinet and using an email calendar would be beneficial. I can't believe they don't use a calendar!!! Six years ago at Centacare, an organisation seeminly stuck in the dark ages, we were still using a calendar. Every morning I have to email the team to get their appointments for the day, and then I make up an excel spreadsheet so I can keep track of it (it was in word but I've moved it to excel - who uses word??) There are only 2 meeting rooms so if the consultants have double booked, we run out of rooms. An electronic diary seems an obvious solution and I find it hard to believe they don't have one. In some ways the UK does seem rather advanced, but in others it is so far behind it's laughable.

That was from Wednesday. Thursday and Friday went fine. The mornings tend to be manic; the phone doesn't stop ringing and the consultants all seem to book their interviews and assessments before lunch. With a small waiting room and only 2 assessment computers and 2 meeting rooms, there can occasionally be people standing around for something to free up; amazingly it doesn't happen too often, and most people can see why there's a wait. The older gentleman from my email has been the most awkward moment so far; most people who come through the doors are fairly young and know the ropes. What's really nice is to see the people who have been offered jobs; they are always so happy about it and often seem to not believe it was as easy as it was. I still can't believe I'm in a job where my duties include sorting mail, opening and closing the blinds, and tidying newspapers. I know there's a lot more I could be doing but I still haven't had someone to sit down with and go through it all. Friday was pay day for 500 temps so the phone did not stop at all; we only have one girl doing the payroll and she'd just got back from 2 days off so she was absolutely swamped. I told her she would have to show me some basic payroll stuff so I could answer the more basic questions; she laughed and said I didn't want to know. I wanted to tell her about my job at United and that I actually do want to know because it would save me, her and the people calling a lot of time, but she was too busy. There's also several folders on my desk of things I'm pretty sure I'm meant to do, if only I knew how. I'm still getting used to phone numbers and the names of companies (the woman who deals with the utilities contracts had to tell me that when I wrote 'SG' on my emails she didn't know if I meant Scotia Gas or Scottish Gas - who knew they were two different companies?) as well as accents - people everywhere say their names really fast and it's even worse with the accent. On Friday I got invited to after-work drinks and dancing afterwards. Because I knew Toby was going to make pizza for dinner I said yes to drinks and made them promise to invite me out dancing the next time they go. I figured I'd stay for one or two, and not be the first to leave. But at ten past 7 and after two drinks, even the staff I would have called the old ones were hanging on and the girl who said she'd come for 1 was halfway through her third. So I was the first one to leave. I was absolutely shattered from 4 whole days of work after 5 weeks off, and really wanted to get home.

Toby has taken to being a house husband with great gusto. Well not really but it's been nice to be cooked for, and have a clean house when I get home from work. I can see why housewives were so popular, with men anyway. We have had to agree that I will leave my 'hand wash only' garments in a different laundry basket from now on, to avoid any further confusion, but that's been the only misunderstanding so far. He's doing study for his Microsoft course and lots of investment kind of stuff which he would be better at explaining. I do know he's making fake money while we sleep, and that the beeping from the computer means something's happened on the world currency market.

Plans for the weekend include a trip to the Botanic Gardens, a movie and a drink tonight, and booking a trip to Amsterdam. We're both keen to get out a bit more which is the whole reason we're here after all. Love to all back home and happy Father's Day to all you dads (and dads-to-be).