VILLAGE LIVING

Some trivia about living in the village:

1. Kate sells her chicken's eggs for one pound (about $2) for six. It feels like daylight robbery. They are large brown eggs, with large orange yolks and they taste like - eggs!

2. An elderly lady who comes to the knitting group and coffee mornings, used to live in the end terrace. This was a 'one up, one down' and all 17 of her family lived there. It has now been knocked into the terrace next door. She was a tweenie maid up at the Big House. That meant she worked 'in between stairs' and passed things from the downstairs maid to the upstairs maid.

3. The road between here and Pitlochry is closed during the day for three weeks for road works. But it opens 12.00-12.30 every day. Unfortunately the biggest (well, the only) department store in the area, the very upmarket, expensive House of Bruar is located just outside Pitlochry and unless one can time the journey very precisely, it is impossible to get to.

4. There is a regular weekly email (or maybe it's twice weekly, anyway I seem to get a lot of them) that is circulated to us locals with all the dates of the upcoming events in the village. I have had to start keeping a diary as there are far more things on than I could possibly remember. I already have three carol services, three mince pie events, and three day trips organised. This is in addition to the usual coffee mornings, Womens Institute etc. There are countless other things I have passed up on including live music at the pub. A flyer was slipped into my newspaper, but I was put off by the picture advertising the event: Julie Andrews dressed as a nun in The Sound of Music, arms outstretched and dancing across a meadow, with the caption 'The Hills are Alive'.

5. The village shop sent the wrong dates out for the Tuesday coffee morning. It is supposed to be once a fortnight, but somehow an extra Tuesday has crept in next week (making it three weeks in a row). So we will all go anyway, otherwise cakes will be baked with no one to eat them - besides, it's another excuse for a cup of tea and a natter.

6. There will be no carol service on Christmas Day, apparently. I cannot get to the bottom of the reason/s for this. My suspicion is that the vicar has family obligations but surely on this day of all days, Jesus's birthday should take precedence?

7. Every morning at 8.00am I hear four footsteps crunching on the gravel underneath my bedroom window, then they stop. This freaked me out the first few times, these disembodied footsteps that seemed to appear from nowhere and then go nowhere. A bit of sleuthing, and I worked out that it is Ian next door (the one who left me two potatoes the day I arrived) leaving for work and he cuts across the lawn.

8. It now gets dark by 4.00pm. I'm not sure what time it gets light. 7.30-ish I think, but I do not poke my nose above the bedcovers until the heating has kicked in and I have heard Ian next door leave for work.

9. It is important to clean out the ashes, collect coal and wood on dry days. Doing this job in the rain means (a) it's miserable (b) the wood is wet and (c) the fire won't light, meaning (d) the warm and welcoming hearth is just a far-distant memory.

10. Always warm the teapot first with boiling water, before making tea. Pour the milk in the cup before the tea. Always serve biscuits or cake with tea, although it is doubtful anyone will want to eat anything. Even in the village, women are on permanent diets. Plus ca change!