Helps Celtic Mission

Saturday we visited the Falkirk wheel. This was something we have been looking forward to for some time. It was closed when we arrived in Scotland, and has been open for a couple of months now. We decided that we were going, rain or shine. The weather chose rain. Falkirk Wheel. Boat entering lower gondola We invited our new mission president, Pres Macdonald and his wife and daughter to go with us and we hope that a good time was had by all. Having invited people to accompany us, we instantly felt responsible for the general jollification, and our instinctive reaction was to bring food with us. We took along home-made Eccles cakes and apples and pears. Eccles cakes are utterly delicious and not in the least healthy, so we hoped the fruit would somehow cancel out the effects of the pastries.  Have you ever had Eccles cakes? We discovered them when we were in the Lake District in 2012, and from that time onward have purchased them whenever and wherever they have been avail...

A collection of semi-random short notes Whither the Weather? One of the interesting things about living in Scotland is that the weather is taken rather more seriously than we consider necessary. Every time the temperature drops below 39 degrees our car pings at us, to warn us that there may be ice on the roads and potential snow. If rain is expected, the weather forecast warns us of 'potential disruptions'; this has a 'boy who cried wolf' effect. So when the weather forecast, and various warning signs on the motorway warned of potential disruptions due to high winds on Thursday and Thursday night, we took it about as seriously as we take all the other warnings. The wind did blow mightily, mind you. And then, when we went for an early morning walk in our favourite  Holyrood Park on Friday, this is what we saw. The wind blows all the time in Edinburgh, but this was something exceptional. We saw many broken trees, and some branches a foot in diameter were down...

We have been in Scotland for six months and are one third of the way through our mission, so it's time for a spot of retrospective mulling over of life in general and our mission in particular.  We were, frankly, surprised when we were called to work in the mission office. Neither of us has ever done an "office" type job before and had you asked us what we expected to be doing on our mission we would have said either leadership support or teaching, with a very real possibility of Richard's being involved in some sort of technology coordination.  We could have done very well in those things; our mission would have been something we could have flown through (figuratively speaking) with all four of our hands tied behind our backs (to commit a mixed metaphor). And we could have really enjoyed the whole experience. As it is, not only have we been assigned to work in an office, but Richard was assigned to do the stuff Louise is really good at - finance and accounting - an...

Oh ye'll tak the high road and I'll tak the low road, and I'll be in Scotland afore ye ... Remember Loch Lomond, that most famous and melodious of lochs? Well, we finally got there. We have been intending to get up there for weeks, (it is a trifle north of us, hence the "up")  but, well, life got in the way. Everything from personal injuries, to exhaustion, to needing to be in town for missionary farewells and arrivals intervened.  Life has been hectic at the office the past few weeks,  as both of us try to complete several projects for the benefit of the mission. Louise has been working on revamping the Area Books (useful books containing practical and emergency information as well as a record of working with people in a specific area), while Richard has been trying to arrange for the missionaries to get better phones, and these are in addition to dealing with flat issues, or illness or unhappiness, interspersed with running huge quantities of luggage to the ai...

So, today we decided (again) that we were going to Berwick on Tweed. It's pronounced Berrick, by the way, although Lerwick (in the Shetland Islands) is pronounced just the way it looks and we plan to go there too someday. Ever since we arrived in Scotland, we have seen signs for Berwick on Tweed. If we are heading for Glasgow or Stirling, we will see signs for Glasgow, Stirling, The Forth Bridge, and Berwick on Tweed. If we are just heading for Costco and are using a reasonably major route, we will see signs for the Forth Bridge and Berwick on Tweed.  If we are driving home from church, we see signs for Berwick on Tweed, but not the other places. Sounds like a pretty important place, don't you think? Either that, or the city has the most remarkable tourism/public relations department. We have been to Glasgow, Stirling, Costco and the Forth Bridge, multiple times each, but have not yet made it to Berwick on Tweed, despite our deciding a few months ago that we would go there,...