Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Royal Highland Show 2014: An American Perspective

 Last Sunday we went to the 2014 Royal Highland Show.  I had wanted to go since last June, because the day I left Scotland (after having an interview for the job I currently hold) was the first day of the RHS 2013, and the taxi company made me leave Dundee at 5:30 am for a 9:30 am flight out of Edinburgh, even though the trip is only about 1 hour. The Royal Highland show is THAT popular.  And, apparently, that close to the airport. So I thought there must be something to it.  The BBC reported this year that close to 200,000 people attended the show - that's more than the population of Dundee.

It turned out that some of our friends here are lifetime members of the Royal Highland show, so they get tickets for all 4 days of the show, every year. They couldn't go on Sunday so they gave us their tickets, their fancy member tags, and their parking pass. Bonanza!

So what is the Royal Highland Show? Call it a celebration of rural living, and things eminently Scottish. 

There were...Horses, including heavy horses, like Clydesdales and Percherons, small horses like Shetland Ponies, and pony club ponies. The (20-second) video below is the Young Masters Show Jumpers warming up.

Winner of the Heavy Horse Turnout, Team of 6

Girls watching the Clydesdale Young Handlers












And Cows. Seriously, more types of cows than I have ever seen. I tried to capture the breadth of cows by photographing the Parade of Cows (really...and cows like being paraded a lot less than horses, if the distressed mooing was any indication) but there were maybe 20 of each of 10 types of cows and I ultimately gave up. See the 2014 RHS Livestock Showing Timetable for an idea of all the breeds and categories.

Trying to capture the breadth of cows, maybe 5 types in this photo.


The Grand Prize winner, perhaps an Aberdeen Angus cow, but don't quote me. He was humongous.                                                                        
A Highland cow. I know these - you don't get them elsewhere!


And of course there were sheep and goats.

Amazing horns.










And there was Food: Haggis, beefburgers, and (I wish I had gotten a picture of this) a Yorkshire pudding as big as a dinner plate on which you could have sausages and mash OR haggis, neeps and tatties.  Not many veggie choices - I made do with a huge jacket potato with beans & cheese.

It wouldn't be a Scottish festival without a person dressed as a Haggis.

An entire tent of Poultry. Another tent of Rare Breeds (no dogs allowed in this tent). A zillion Dogs, with their people (to amuse the kids we started counting them as we walked across the show area - we stopped at 35).  A small herd of Llamas.  A show called (I kid you not) The Drakes of Hazard, involving a gaggle of running ducks, herded by a dog, who navigated an obstacle course.  I didn't get a picture of that show, because I spent most of it in the bathroom with Claire. This is what happens when you take a potty-training almost three-year-old, well, anywhere.    

Claire pretending to milk the fiberglass cow.



We probably only saw a third of what was there.  We skipped by most of the agricultural equipment. We barely saw the sheep. We only saw a tiny bit of horse riding (show jumping finals). We didn't visit any of the sponsors tents (even the Marks & Spencer farm-to-table tent that was larger than any Marks & Spencer store in Dundee). 

As for the American perspective: while this event bore some resemblance to county fairs we have attended (Pima County Fair in Arizona, for example) it was much bigger and seemed truly representative of Scotland, which is still by and large a rural economy.  Drive 30 minutes from even the largest city, and you'll be among rolling green hills, dotted with sheep and cows. Through its focus on the agricultural diversity of Scotland, the Royal Highland Show captures this feeling.  Chances are, we'll be back next year to see some of what we missed.   

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Happy Father's Day, Dad

Dad and Claire in London, April 2014
When I was a kid, I didn't know what my father did for work.  He liked his work, and he seemed to do it a lot...he left for work at 7:30 in the morning and came back at 7:30 at night. And he traveled too. Sometimes it seemed like he was gone all week and only back at the weekend.  I remember a lot of sweatshirts from colleges around the U.S., too.

It was only later that I figured out what he did, and realized it's not that different from what I do today. The applications were different, but really Dad was a researcher, an interviewer, an ethnographer - he traveled to companies, figured out what their underlying motivations were, then talked to people at universities and heard their stories of how the chemical or environmental substance he was interested in behaved under various conditions. And then instead of writing an academic paper about it (like me) he developed a coherent story and put on a Spectacular Spectacular, with a vast supporting cast (thank you Moulin Rouge: Youtube Clip Here) and with some Razzle Dazzle (Chicago, the Musical: Youtube Clip Here). And voila, a magical settlement. A bit more exciting than your average corporate attorney, don't you think? But we always knew Dad was special.

Now that I've had the chance to see Dad as his alter-ego "Papa" (He and Nana decided 6 years ago that they weren't the Grandpa and Grandma type). I've had the chance to enjoy all the bits I don't remember from being a kid (I have a really poor memory of most everything before I was about 9) - dad making silly faces and sounds with the girls, singing "The Noble Duke of York" and bouncing them on his foot, reading endless numbers of books and generally entertaining them by being Papa.

I see your influence (not to mention your face) when I look at myself and what I'm doing, and especially when I look at how Audrey and Claire are growing up to be like you, too. Love you, Dad - Happy Father's Day!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Scottish Language Barrier

We have been in Dundee nine months, give or take.  Audrey has been in school for eight of these months. Although the language wars ("You have to say trousers, Mommy! Pants mean underpants!") started the minute we arrived, it is now clear that our family has lost one member to the other side.  By this I mean Audrey's Scottish accent has taken over.



Paul marveled at how fast it has happened. "I knew it might happen, but I didn't expect it to be this fast. Especially since her teacher is Irish!" A visiting Scottish friend commented on in when she visited on Sunday - "She's rolling her R's!" and when I said she's been dropping her T's (Mummy, can I have some wa'er?) the same friend nodded knowingly and said, "Yes, that's very Dundonian." 

So now it's three against one, and I'm not holding out much hope for Claire. After burping today, she said "Pardon me!" and in the science center she asked Paul if they could "take the lift." Even I am starting to slip into British English.  I have started to say "straightaway" to mean "right now/right away," and sometimes I'll even say "half-three" if I want to set a meeting with my boss for 3:30.   Paul has taken to the standard Dundonian greeting (Hiya!) , but both of us change slower than the kids.

Audrey already asks for "a wee bit of this" and "a wee bit of that" - before long, the wee bit of American vocabulary that she retained from the States ("America") will be buried under an avalanche of British and Scottish vocabulary and pronunciation. I close with a question (and some help from Scotranslate:)   Whit's this world comin' tae?