Rain!

Scottish life
The students have been back for spring semester for 2 weeks now but even so the campus still seems empty; that was one of the first things that struck me when I started my new job - there was barely anyone around! I realised it’s just because London & the south-east are so heavily populated that I wasn’t used to so few people in that amount of space. Just to put it in perspective, Scotland has a population of around 5 million while London alone has 7.5 million meaning that in terms of density London has an average of 4,000 people per square kilometre, while Scotland only has 64! Stirling itself is a very small city with around 44,000 inhabitants (the same number as Inverness apparently).

We both seem to have spent a bit of time in ‘the big city’ (Glasgow and Edinburgh) this week. Michael had a visit to an animation company (called ‘Once were Farmers’, although I don’t think they ever were) in Glasgow where he is hoping to get some work experience as part of his course (but having seen his work they are interested in him doing some freelance work for them -result!). On Friday I had to go to Edinburgh for a seminar which happened to have a free wine reception afterwards (that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to go, of course)– it was nice to get out of Stirling for a change but it was very cold! Some of the girls were going out to a salsa club afterwards but I hadn't planned on going out so left them to it.

This weekend the weather has been so bad that we decided not to do any hill walks or outdoors stuff- every time we went out of the house we got soaked! Saturday we spent in Stirling then today we went into Glasgow to try and get us both some hiking boots and trousers (we got neither!) – the weather changed every 5 minutes but the torrential rain managed to coincide with whenever we left a shop!

Charlie in another of his favourite 'pogs', trying to stop me surfing the net.

The direct train to Glasgow from Stirling is really quick and only takes half an hour, whereas the Edinburgh train never seems to be direct and takes a whole hour. I’m not looking forward to my commute from November this year when my job changes over to be at Edinburgh university.

I was wrong when I said Scotland only had 2 official languages, apparently we now have a 3rd official language- added to English and Gaelic we have Scots – it’s a bit like speaking English with a broad Scottish accent sprinkled with some uniquely Scottish vocab – see this speech translated into Scots using phonetics http://scotslanguage.999design.com/articles/view/471

Here’s a short excerpt (see if you can make sense of it):
‘In the Scots Government, we'v heich hopes for the future o Scotland. Forby thon, we threap that sovereignty in oor kintrie belangs wi its fowk. As a sovereign fowk, the fowk o Scotland - an us oor lane - his the richt tae decide the wey we'r govern't.’

Speaking of languages, I went to see an excellent French film this week at the uni cinema– Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon (in English called ‘The diving bell & the butterfly’) which tells the story of the former editor of French Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby who after a massive stroke was locked into a paralysed body. He could only blink his eyes and dictated an entire novel using this method. It was really moving but also frightening to think just how vulnerable you are to other people’s wishes when you can’t move or speak.

The French film festival is on just now across in Glasgow & Edinburgh so I’m hoping to see a few more films. We are also having a visit from a French film director Lionel Bailliu next week at the university – I’ve never heard of him but he’s screening one of his films for free so I’m going to go!

I'm part of the uni French Society that meets weekly to talk French and also goes to films, cultural events etc- Michael has dubbed me a nerd because that will make 2 clubs I'm a member of if I also officially join the hillwalking group (which is part of the Ramblers' Association, definitely not cool... - think Janet Street-Porter and red woolly socks)!

‘Twitcher’ France reports
We have a small resident flock of blue and great tits in our garden which keep pecking at the windows and doors – they do it so often that even the cat has given up running to watch them when he hears the tapping. Michael even spotted one tapping the car wing mirror! We thought they were being territorial by challenging their own reflections in the glass but that doesn’t explain why they would tap the unglazed front door! Maybe they’re trying to get in…. (Actually, I recently noticed that the door handle is reflective so it must be that)!
Cheeky blue tit pecking kitchen window from bird feeder.

I bought a Perspex bird feeder to attach to the kitchen window and it has proved a complete failure- the birds haven’t touched the seed in it (which is now wet and soggy cos of the rain)- they just use it as a convenient perch for tapping the window! It took me ages to get an in-focus photo of one of them!