Tag Archives: The Pineapple house

The Last Fat Friday

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Just like that, the Inchcolm adventure is over. It started with promise, but turned out to be my shortest ever stint in a practice. Remarkably, we parted amicably. Though it was uncomfortable, I was able to explain my reasons and be heard. Despite having flowers and cake, as well as a Fat portion of loaded fries, yesterday was mostly sad. As I drove away, It Must Have Been Love played on the radio, offering an appropriate level of melancholy.

I’m now back in Dumfries, returning too late to really do very much, other than go to bed. The future is wide open and I haven’t had confirmation of any if the possible jobs that might be lined up, but I have a week in Yorkshire to look forward to and I have faith that all will be resolved soon.

The house is a mess and the garden overgrown. Looking at it, the idea of going away yet again, and spending six weeks or more in another practice is rather frustrating. Before I left, it was finally starting to take shape. Still, the mortgage has to be paid, so I will do what I need to do and sort out the rest later.

Anyway, I have some lovely memories, both of the last two and a half months, and of the last week. Highlights of the last months include the daily commute from Airth to Dunfermline. Crossing the Forth every morning, driving through green and rolling fields, with Scotland as a backdrop was magical. I’m going to miss all the central Scotland radio stations. As I rolled down the hill around Abington, Smooth Radio died. Dumfries is an absolute dead space when it comes to FM stations and my 15 year old car can’t do anything more up to date.

I met some lovely people and I hope we’ll stay in touch. I promised to pop in if I was passing, which isn’t that unlikely, especially if I return to APHA.

It’s also been incredible living with Valerie and Charles. They’ve been wonderful company and I haven’t once felt that I was in the way or that they wanted their spare room back. Through them, I was baptised as a Christadelphian. I’ll be inviting myself back for next year’s Eurovision party. Kyle and Candice’s ceilidh is in September. I need to get into shape for dancing, so that’s my next project, whatever else comes along.

Val and I enjoyed the warm weather this week, heading out on Monday night to the Pineapple and on Wednesday to Fallin Bing.

As usual, the gardens at the Pineapple were beautiful. Everything is in full bloom at the moment.

Wednesday evening’s walk on Fallin Bing was a surprise. For those who don’t know, a bing is a slag heap, leftover waste from mining. I was half aware that Fallin had been a mining village, where Airth was a fishing village in past times. The mine closed in 1987, along with so many others in Scotland, which closed around the same time. I grew up near Bilston Glen Colliery and remember the miner’s strikes. Now both are long gone.

But the bing is beautiful. Once it would have been a black desert. Now it’s an oasis of Oxeye Daisies and silver birch trees.

I had better finish off. Before I went away, Donna invited me to a Mumma Mia Party, with dancing and singing, and bring your own bottle fun. I won’t say I’m properly introverted, but I am feeling some trepidation at the prospect. It’s generally worth pushing outside your comfort zone though. You never know what you’ll find out there. So I need to walk Triar and buy a bottle of something or other, before heading round to Donna’s just before twelve.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Old Haunts, New Discoveries

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I spent last weekend with my old friend, Valerie. Many years ago, when John and Anna were young, we moved there as Charlie (the children’s dad) went to study at Stirling University. I was introduced to Val at the door of a portacabin classroom. She too, had recently moved to the area, and her youngest child was enrolled into the same preschool class as John.

In an ironic twist, I was reluctant to become fast friends, or invest too much. I was sure Valerie would move on. Given I had probably moved more times that she had (though as she was from South Africa, I hadn’t moved as far) this makes me roll my eyes at my own preciousness now. Still, she was so lovely that I couldn’t resist for long and I very soon came to see her as one of my favourite people in the world. When Andrew was born, she babysat for me, when I couldn’t find a nursery or childminder, and I spent many happy hours with her, while our children played or attended swimming lessons.

During that time, one of our local haunts was the Pineapple. This bizarre architectural structure was a remnant from a time when exotic fruits were a novelty, so rare and expensive that only the aristocracy could enjoy them. Only the high walls and distinctive central edifice remain. The glass houses that once leaned against the high walls are long gone.

The original structure must have been even more imposing. It is built on a ridge with a steep slope in front, which is largely free of trees, presumably to maximise the hours of sunlight to the maximum available. At the time we visited though, one of the chief pleasures of our children was to lie on the grass and roll down that slope, landing dizzy and laughing at the bottom, as Valerie and I sat on the grass.

As well as the walled garden, with its cropped grass and landscaped trees and bushes, the house is surrounded by mature woodland, where there are well trodden paths through the trees, where there are ancient yews alongside sturdy oaks and lofty sycamores. Triar was with us and Valerie and I took him on a lovely walk.

We retraced our steps and ended our walk where we began, in the walled garden. It was here that Valerie noticed for the first time, after years of visiting, that one of the trees in the garden was a mulberry bush. Better still, it was replete with rapidly ripening fruit.

Other than the (mostly forgotten) nursery rhyme, “Here we go round the mulberry bush” I had never come across mulberries in any form. We found a few that were ripe and they were sweet and delicious, with a distinctive flavour. Valerie though, was reminded of her childhood in South Africa, where she had a mulberry bush in her garden and used to rear silkworms that they kept in containers, feeding them off the leaves and trading leaves for silkworms with her friends.

All in all, it was another wonderful weekend, with memories and love… as well as wine in the hot tub!

For those who read last week’s post, I have removed the section that perhaps should have remained private, on the request of my mum. That said, as ever, I appreciate the love and support of the many women who reached out to me. You know who you are, and I value all you have said to me very highly. You have helped in easing my mind.

Autumn is rapidly approaching. My house has been wonderfully cool over the summer, but is beginning to feel chilly and I am debating with myself about when to put the heating on. Given it is an ancient system, with a boiler whose functioning I don’t really understand, I am holding off for as long as I can. I should probably get a gas engineer out to check the boiler before winter and getting radiators with thermostats is on my list of things to do, but it will have to wait, for now. I hadn’t intended to buy a project house, but that is what I ended up doing, after all.

I’ll leave you with some autumnal pictures from Blackbird Lane, which currently has more blackberries than blackbirds, and will probably shortly be painted with purple bird poo!

Have a good week all!