It’s done!

We made the move over the water and are now officially Fifers! The stress of moving has not whitened my hair (that I know of!) but on the day itself it was all quite hairy when the packers had been and gone and we were told that the hotel had not paid yet. Oh my goodness, we had to wait till 4 p.m. before the cheque was put in the bank and we finally had the keys. It is all a hazy memory now, even the onerous task of drinking up the dregs from the booze cupboard. I valiantly finished strange concoctions, like melon midori

and ancient quarter bottles of sherry and cherry brandy, whilst John just glugged his whisky with no sacrifice at all.

The boxes are all unpacked, the pictures up, the rugs down and the new curtains lying waiting to be hung. These are the fabulous Chinese prints from Martin and Frost, so reminiscent of my first ever purchase for the house in Glenelg. They will just frame the windows for already we just stare out at the sea, morning, noon and night.

Indeed the feeling of the lounge is not dissimilar to our apartment in Doha, with wooden floor and open views with twinkling lights.

Outside the garden just fringes the sea, and yuccas, pampas grasses and huge clumps of hebe rule the roost. All our plants from the city are sitting in pots, waiting for their place in this seaside situation, and the question is, will they survive the salty winds? Delphiniums and roses and my beloved trillium. We spent a great day snipping and planting, and John has already raked up horrid gravel, and we have plans for a mini lawn.

Whilst waiting for the BIG MOVE, we did take a trip down to Hadrian’s Wall and marched for a while in a straight line, and marvelled at the perseverance of those ancient soldiers who built such comfortable barracks, with baths and what not to soothe their aching limbs.

It was nice to be out, and blown about in the autumn wilderness of Northumberland. Some people make a trip of it, and follow the whole wall, but we just did a sampler, and who knows, we may return again.

Another birthday came and went, and it was celebrated with Gerry, now very large and expectant.

She is blooming and looking so well, and had made a delicious birthday lunch. All was perfect until we watched the rugby world cup and watched poor Scotland’s disastrous defeat. I suppose we joined the throngs of thousands shouting and shaking our fists at the ref, sadly to no avail.

Ah well, onwards and upwards. We finally got the internet connected yesterday, I literally met the engineer with open arms – I think he blushed.

Today John is browsing furiously, looking for a mermaid. He thinks a large bronze statue on the wall would be just the thing. I remember being vaguely disappointed seeing the famous one in Copenhagen, she was just so much smaller than I had imagined. Mind you the one that seems to be the most favoured at the moment is only 2ft long. Not exactly the siren that will lure sailors to their deaths on our rocky foreshore. Perhaps a good thing.

I have been reading about Robinson Crusoe, probably because I am a bit obsessed with the sea at the moment. I keep muttering that poem, Sea Fever, by John Masefield:

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

Anyway, here I am, settling into a village, don’t know a soul, but our immediate neighbours seem nice; one middle-aged lady is obsessed with ping pong, and talks about ‘the gang’, so maybe I should look out for this crowd, and quietly keep to the shadows. I haven’t played table tennis since school days, and I wasn’t very good then. John and I did venture forth to meet the locals on Saturday night at the pub, but ended up alone in the cosy room beside the fire, chatting about our day, as we hadn’t really seen each other since morning. He was digging, I was being VERY busy somewhere else, so it was quite companionable, but we are still none the wiser who is local and who are sightseers.

I suppose many people who retire put a sign up in front of their house, ‘Dunromin’ or some such thing, and get cats and dogs and start growing roots, but for us, I think that may be a while off. This is why I was thinking about Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe, after a total of 54 years abroad, returned home, an old, weathered man, and lived out his remaining days in peace, never to take to the sea again. I remember loving the story as a child, fancying the life of an islander with my own Man Friday. The novel is based on the real-life adventures of a man named Alexander Selkirk, A Scottish sailor from Lower Largo in Fife (just along the way), who was marooned for over four years on an island called Juan Fernandez in the South Pacific. William Cowper’s poem called ‘The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk’ tickled my fancy:

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

Hmmm. I feel like I am the lady of all my shore, lording it over the crabs and crows and the seals and gulls. No brutes though. What is a brute actually?

So, here we are, settled, and now looking at the calendar for we are about to depart for distant shores again. Away we fly, off to India again, to discover the south of that fabulous country.

We haven’t ‘Dunromin’ just yet!

And just a wee PS, my beloved Bonnie is growing, but still looks like the little mite that she is!