Soaking up the sun in my old stomping ground

I think the last time I was in The Botanic Gardens in Glasgow was at the end of my first year at Uni when I was studying for my Chemistry re-sit in 1984! It was a lovely, sunny day in July and I can remember lying on the grass - kidding myself on that I was studying, when I was actually sunbathing - and cursing myself for not having worked harder to pass the exam first time around! I was totally skint, and I can actually remember swithering about whether I should buy a double nougat from the van, or be sensible and keep every penny I had for sensible things like bread and milk! The double nougat won. Shortly after that, I moved out of my student bedsit in Kelvinside and from then on did my sunba....studying in a different West End park.

So, it was lovely to spend a wee while today sitting on a bench in The Botanic Gardens soaking up the sun. (Yes, it is February and, yes, we are talking about Scotland!) I’ve had a busy time recently, what with one thing and another, and decided to treat myself to a bit of time out with a good friend. She’s recently moved to the Kelvinside area (the posh bit, not the studenty bit where I once lived) and, after a wee donner down Queen Margaret Drive, we spent a lazy couple of hours blethering on a park-bench in the Gardens. I’ve even got a bit of sunburn on my nose!! (Yes, it is February and, yes, we are talking about Scotland!) I had a nice day, and it brought back lots of happy memories of the time I’d spent living in the Dear Green Place.

Alex and I moved through to the Stirling area, after living in Glasgow for around six years, because I’d just started a new job (which meant I’d be working mostly in the Central Belt) and Alex had just been awarded his first ‘big’ contract since becoming self-employed (to carry out large-scale restoration works at The Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling). It was a wee bit like coming home, in some ways, for Alex as his three-year masonry apprenticeship had been served at Stirling Castle, but we loved living in Glasgow and we definitely intended moving back at some time in the not-too-distant-future.

Twenty two years later we’re still here in the Stirling area! And we’ve not once considered moving back to Glasgow since settling here. But, it’s always lovely to spend some time in our old stomping ground; especially on a sunny day with an old friend. ....and especially when I’m not fretting over re-sits or wondering if I’ve got enough pennies in my pocket to pay for some pan bread....

Justifying Gemma's rent

If you have young kids and you have any inkling at all that they might end up going to University, the best advice I could give you is: START SAVING!! Now, before I go any further, I should stress that - as far as my kids are concerned - I wouldn’t have things any other way (Gemma’s going into her third year at St Andrews, Ross is about to start his first at Strathclyde and Gordon doesn’t know what he wants to do when he leaves school), but it doesn’t change the fact that this further education lark’s an expensive business! We’re extremely proud of how hard Gemma and Ross both work at their respective jobs to help pay their way but, like most parents nowadays, we still have to make a hefty contribution to make studying at Uni possible.

One of the biggest expenses is the accommodation fee and it’s especially frustrating that many student flats have a twelve month tenancy contract. Letting agencies and private landlords know that students scrabble for accommodation and, to save the owners the hassle of looking for short-term lets over the summer months, they often set up 12 month leases - knowing full-well that the vast majority of students won’t be occupying the flat over those summer months. Fair enough I suppose; they don’t owe the students anything and they know they have a captive market. Consequently, we’re still making rent payments for a flat that Gemma moved out of 2 months ago. Shorter leases are sometimes available (such as in the flat Gemma’s going into next term) but what we’ve found is that this is simply balanced out by a much higher monthly rent being charged.

Anyway, to make this all little less galling, Alex and I have taken a few days off work and are having a wee break - staying in Gemma’s student flat. If work work wasn’t so hectic at the moment, we would’ve used the flat a bit more often over the summer but, still, it’s lovely just to have these few days away. Even better, we’re mixing our little holiday with a series of races that Alex and Ross are competing in called The Tour of Fife; five races over the course of five days held in different parts of Fife. It started on Wednesday night with a hill race, was followed on Thursday night with a trail race, Friday was the ‘Alpe d’Huez’ Time trial Event’ (just like in the Tour de France – are you getting it?!), tonight’s the St Andrews Beach Race and it finishes with the Twisted Chicken Run (don’t ask as I don’t yet know why it’s called that!) on Sunday. Just like the real ‘Tour’, all the competitors have to do all the races, there’s a leader board and a yellow vest – it’s brilliant fun and deserves a blog post of its own; so, watch this space!

Anyway, back to our wee holiday. We arrived late on Wednesday evening – straight from the first race on the Tour - and, after making up the mattress (we’re in a student flat remember – no such luxury as a bed!) we hit the sack. The flat’s in an old tenement-style building and is, generally, a bit shabby. However, the room that Gemma rented is a modern attic conversion with fantastic velux windows. If you open them up and stand on your tippy-toes, the vista across St Andrews Bay is pretty awesome. What’s not so awesome however - we discovered at four o’clock in the morning - is the sound of the squawking f***ing (and I meant that quite literally folks) seagull orgy that’s going on a few feet above your head! One of them even had the audacity, every now and then, to take a break from his activities (a kind of cigarette break, I suppose) to wander over to the velux, look through the glass - down at us lying on the mattress staring straight back up - then peck on the window, as if to say, ‘Haw You! What you doin? Why you there? You not student. You old gits. Why you awake? Dadada...dadada....dadada.... and so it went on till he went back to join his squawking f***ing pals. By six thirty we’d given up trying to get any sleep, so we headed out for a walk in the early morning sunshine instead.

After a delicious big Scottish breakfast in a lovely wee Scottish Deli, we stepped back outside, ready for a lazy day on the beach. Unfortunately though, while we’d been recharging our batteries, the clouds had gathered, the sun had disappeared and the heavens had opened. So, following a quick change from sandals to sensible shoes, we headed off for a morning of rainy day activities! There’s always a positive slant; if it hadn’t been for the rain, we would never have ventured in to the St Andrews University Museum, and we’d have missed a wee gem. I learnt such a lot of really interesting stuff about Scotland’s oldest University. For instance, I didn’t know that St Andrews Uni was the first in the UK to accept female students, and I would never have thought that it was the first European University to teach in English rather than Latin. It has such a reputation for being stuffy and sticking to old traditions – but it is (and turns out always has been) quite a progressive and, to a greater extent than I thought, pretty inclusive place.

The rest of the day was spent lazily reading and snoozing before the second race of the Tour in the evening. Another great night spent with a fantastic bunch of folk from the running fraternity followed and, fortunately, we were both so knackered by the time we got back to the flat that no amount of frivolity by our feathered friends could keep us awake.

Yesterday was dry. Hooray! We started the day with a walk down by the harbour. Predictably, when we got to the end of the pier, Alex said, ‘I should’ve brought the fishing gear’. Now, our garage is full of high-falutin fishing rods, reels, feathery things and bits of lead, but every time we go away anywhere in Scotland, Alex forgets to pack them. Then, every time we’re away, he says, ‘Should’ve brought the fishing gear’. Then we go and find a wee shop that sells cheap wee rods and reels. Then, we go somewhere for Alex to fish, for me to read (or write), and for him not to catch any fish. And that’s pretty much how it went yesterday! It was absolutely baltic and Alex didn’t catch any fish. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed sitting, wrapped up like a Granny, doing my thing and watching Alex be a wee boy yet again.

The sun came out, at last, in the afternoon – long after the fishing had been abandoned – so we spent it lazing around just watching the world (and some really poncy looking golfers) go by!   The third race in the series was another fantastic event, made even better by the fact that Ross was coming straight from it to join us for the rest of our stay in St Andrews. It means that all chat now is based around running, beer, grub and running – with lots of laughs in between!

This morning finds me sitting in Starbucks in Market Street (as it has free internet access!), rattling up this wee blog post. Ross and Alex are sitting opposite me, laughing and comparing notes over the races in the Tour so far. It’s been a lovely morning; our good friends, Elaine and Eric, happen to be up in St Andrews at the moment too, so we met up with them earlier for breakfast, then had a wander to a local speciality beer shop to stock up for the post-race celebrations later, before stopping off for a quick cuppa and internet fix!

So, that’s a wee run down of my few days holiday in St Andrews so far – nothing wildly exciting, no tropical sunshine, no lounging on a sunbed by the Mediterranean Sea (sighs longingly...), but it’s been brilliant. Not even those frisky seagulls have spoiled it – and justifying paying that extra rent on Gemma’s student flat has definitely made me feel great!