Rudders at Home

Since my first year in the UK, I’ve stopped asking for care packages. I’ve given up on recreating my American home here exactly and have done my best to accept the fact that there are certain things I just won’t get here. For the most part, I can find suitable substitutes, and when a friend hears I’m at a loss of what might work, they are usually pretty good with suggestions.

But, as much as I think I may have adapted, sometimes you can’t beat a good old fashioned care package. I received one of those at the weekend. I don’t get them too often, but when I do, I’m very grateful. Everyone loves to receive mail, but there’s just something about receiving an actual package. Especially one filled with stuff from home! Just look at everything I got!

I think this was one of the best care packages ever, because not everything is shop bought. Clearly the chocolate chips and the cookie flipper you can barely see in the bottom left hand corner are from the store, but the rest is not. My mother sent along some moose meat sticks (a story I will have to elaborate on later), a sandwich holder which she made for me, as well as a striped plastic bag holder which was made for me as well. I can’t wait to try everything out!

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They don’t celebrate that here, the fourth of July.  I wouldn’t know why… 😉

All kidding about the UK and independence aside, I’m missing home terribly at the moment. With the warm weather starting to wane and London feeling a bit oppressive, I’m yearning for home and country again. Mainly it’s because I know what I’m missing back home that I won’t get here. I miss the hot days, swimming pools, back roads, and cookouts on top of the hill. Fireworks, county fairs, scratchy lawn chairs and laying out in the back yard. However, I must say that what I’m missing most of all, is a family tradition that I’m not sure we’re all familiar with, and my summers here are never complete without it.

My brother and sisters will know exactly what I’m talking about. For you, dear reader, I will need to explain further. I refer, of course, to the annual trimming of the hedge. It’s not a very exciting tradition, but it’s one that needs to be done.  Every year, around the fourth of July, my father trims the hedge in our yard. It’s no ordinary hedge; of course, it’s a fairly awkward hedge, situated on a bank at the side of the road.  See the suspect hedge below:

And that’s not the whole hedge! There is a bit more to it further on to the left. The picture doesn’t even do it justice. The hedge itself sits on a fairly steep-ish bank which doesn’t aid in the trimming process, and only hinders and makes things more difficult, or so I’m led to believe…

And my father doesn’t trim it on just any day of the year. Oh no, he trims this hedge on what is always the hottest day of the year. Guaranteed. You want a perfect day to go swimming? You just talk my father into trimming that hedge. Then forget about swimming, he’ll get you involved in the project.

Nope, it’s not just a solo activity. Dad likes to get the whole family involved if he can.  If it isn’t starting at the crack of dawn so the teenager in the house is awake by eight, then it involves someone fetching him a glass of water – or at least getting out of his way while he gets on himself!  I may make it sound entertaining, but if you’re smart, you’ll stay safely out of the way. I hear that this year he’s already done it, so we can be assured that the summer won’t be getting any hotter.

But, silly me, I miss weird things about home, and this has to be one of them. We may lament about the fact that dad insists on doing this task at the most inconvenient time of the summer, but it wouldn’t be summer without it.

I just have one thing to say: There’s only one hottest day of the year – why waste it? Sod the hedge, surely he’d rather be doing this:

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Here’s a bright eyed Paul on his way in to work this morning. Notice the sticker on his chest? His loving in-laws sent it to him for his birthday this year. Talk about gifts! Paul IS an incredibly smart, exciting, good-looking person!

Happy Birthday, Paul!

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 Honestly. I really do. Unconditionally, as you can see.

Just click on the image if you’d like to see it in it’s full scale glory.

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Here’s this week’s picture! Just thought I’d share mom’s gnomes with you all, and of course there’s a bit of a story to go along with it all!

Paul and I were driving mom and dad back the road to the place where we got married. It’s quite a rural route, lots of green stuff, woods, fields, sheep, etc. We’re driving back to the hotel, quite carefully, as it’s a one lane road, and at this time mom and dad are gawking around, acting like the tourists they are. You know the stuff, asking weird questions, taking pictures of sheep, exclaiming over how gorgeous Scotland is and how much they want to come and visit again – the usual tourist basics. When, all of a sudden, Mom yells out “there’s gnomes up there!” (okay, those may not have been her exact words, but you get the gist!)

On go the brakes, but it’s too late. We’re past and no one else spotted the illusive Scottish gnome. Of course this doesn’t go without comment. We all have a laugh, and Paul, being the nice guy he is, says, “We’ll keep an eye out on the way back, and have a better look.” Meanwhile I’m sure he’s rolling his eyes and thinking, How in the world did I get myself into this?!?!

And so, off we go on our merry little way. Enjoying the trip down through the Scottish countryside. We stop at Ardanaiseig Hotel, which being at the end of the road we were driving down, I’m not sure where else we’d go!

Ardanaiseig Hotel just happens to be the gorgeous place where Paul and I tied the knot a while back. We had a good wander around the grounds there. It was pretty muddy, but Dad and Paul wandered down to the waterside – Ardanaiseig is right on Loch Awe. That’s where Dad took this awesome picture. I’ve added the picture here because it is just simply something else. The place just looks so lovely. We even went inside and had a good nose around in there.

Having had all the fun we could, we hopped back in the car – ok, we didn’t exactly hop – but we got ourselves back in the car and headed down the road. Extra slowly. Just so we can see these gnomes! By now we’re all pretty interested.

Slowly, slowly we went. And low and behold, as you can see by the picture featured in this post, the woman was correct. There were indeed gnomes up there, hiding amongst the trees on the bank. So, like good tourists, we stopped and had a good old look. Dad climbed up onto the bank to have an even better look, and got that picture – just to prove mom’s NOT the crazy woman we were all thinking she was turning into.

It will have to be another day when that happens. And now we all know that gnomes DO exist. They live in the forests of Scotland, apparently.

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