What's Up, Scots? Sweeties and Biscuits!

Tunnock's Biscuits: Scottish and delicious

After the surprising success of my Facebook post of a scone with butter and jam, I've decided to move straight into sweeties and biscuits for my next post.  For the American audience, a sweetie is any kind of candy (chocolate or hard candy) although when our kids say "Can I have a sweetie?" they usually mean the chocolate kind.  Biscuits are what Americans call cookies, so I guess the Tunnocks tea cakes above aren't strictly "biscuits."  I started my sweeties and biscuits "research project" almost on arrival in Scotland.  I was helped on the biscuit end by a link my mother sent me, something along the lines of "Best British Biscuits" which of course I now cannot locate on Facebook.  It was this document that led to me buying and trying some common British biscuits like Bourbon Cremes (not really bourbon at all, but a chocolate biscuit with a chocolate centre), Custard Cremes (again, not custard, just a vanilla - or maybe lemon, it's been a while since I tried them - version of a Bourbon Creme).  I also tried Jammy Dodgers, which also come under different names - a vanilla cookie with raspberry jelly in the middle.  Although friend Amanda on Facebook was enthusiastic about Wine Gums, I have not yet tried them, although they are available as a movie-theatre candy at our local art house theatre (Dundee Contemporary Arts).  All the above-mentioned biscuits are available at local markets like Tesco or even Nisa (which is halfway between a supermarket and a convenience store in terms of size and selection).  I have also become a fan of chocolate digestive biscuits, sometimes called Hobnobs, but more properly made by McVities.

McVities's dark chocolate digestives

The dark chocolate digestives are best - a bit like a graham cracker with a chocolate side. I tried serving them to my interviewees, but didn't get any takers; a few people later told me they are more like "granny biscuits" (ie, what your granny would serve to you, not what you would choose yourself).  But I still like them, and they serve them at church, much to Claire's delight - we walk into the church hall and she starts saying, "Can I have a chocolate biscuit?"  Plain shortbread is also tasty too, and Paul's favorite thus far of the biscuits I have brought home for the family to try. I'm also partial to the Cadbury Fingers, which are thin shortbread "fingers" coated in chocolate. Okay, running out of time...More Sweeties will have to be the next post!   

What's Up, Scots? Post 1: Castles

This is a castle. Yes, it looks like a large, somewhat Bavarian (says Paul, who's never been to Bavaria or even Germany for that matter) house. But it's really "Dudhope Castle" in Dudhope Park in Dundee. And it is the beginning of my series of posts I'm calling "What's Up, Scots?"  (Sort of a play on "What's Up, Doc?" but if I have to explain it, oh well.)

This What's Up is actually not too typical - more often, I find myself asking "what's up" in the context of food - things that aren't available widely, if at all, in Scotland, that I totally took for granted in the U.S. (like black beans, or chicken noodle soup!) But this What's Up stems from conversations with Paul about the American mental picture associated with the word "castle."  Maybe Scots and Europeans in general have a different mental picture, but a castle, to us, is made of stone. It has turrets, perhaps, or even a moat. Okay, it doesn't have to be Neuschwanstein, although that is an awesome-looking castle (and is probably awesome inside as well, I have visited years ago but can honestly say I don't remember anything about it except that it's on a hill. A BIG hill). 



Like this, maybe: Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, UK. I just mapped it and it's way down south, but if we ever find ourselves in the vicinity of Hastings, maybe we can stop by!



More likely we can pursue the authentic-looking castle in Aberdeen...Balmoral Castle, although it still presents a quandry - although it's called a castle and looks the part, at least turret-wise, the promotional material describes it as "a large estate house."



Which takes us right back to the house-like Dudhope Castle, or even the collection of buildings on a hill that goes by the famous name of Edinburgh Castle!

Coming up next (and my New Year's Resolution is to blog more often, so it may actually be soon) - What's Up considers other pressing matters, probably involving biscuits/cookies.

The ten minute blog

Today we are having a lot of "Scottish weather," as my husband says.  It's nice enough in the morning, a bit chilly but not too bad. We go out, to the St. Peter's church Christmas Fun Day (which was quite a low-key, fun even for us and the kids).  By the time we emerge, it is spitting rain and the winds are gusting probably up to 15-20 mph.  Heading home is a chilly proposition.  After lunch, we have no motivation to go out, although that means many consecutive hours in the house with two small children. But, we can observe the Scottish weather from inside instead of walking around in it.

The other thing I did today (in response to the Scottish weather) was bake bread - Speedy White Bread, to be exact.  This went okay, only involving two conversions (3 Tablespoons of butter is how many grams? They don't print the tablespoons on the packaging in Scotland!) This problem was averted by my husband again, who pulled out his scale and found the internet conversion 1 Tablespoon = approximately 15 grams. So I put the measuring cup on the scale, added 45 grams of butter, and there we were. The other conversion is one that I'm almost used to now - the Celsius to Fahrenheit oven conversion...just turn it to 190 C and figure it's "about" 400 F. Actually, the bread was ready 10 minutes early so maybe there is something to this convection oven!

  

UK work visa: a couple of answers

St. Andrews Cathedral, Scotland

As we settle in her and begin to explore, there are many things I'd like to blog about. However, I think I'm going to start with a brief post about the thing I searched for when I first found out we would be moving to the UK, which was...VISAS. Getting a visa from the UK government was not exactly a transparent process. It worked out fine at the end, but the things I wish I'd known are the following:

1. Yes, your visa might take up to 12 weeks to be issued and the "average" visa processing time might be 4 weeks. BUT it could happen much faster. Like approved for all four of us, 2 adults and 2 children, in 5 business days. 
2. Related to that, if you are going on a limited-time work visa, you are allowed to be the UK for 4 weeks around your start/end dates. On your visa application, you have to specify the date you will travel.  Of course, they tell you NOT to book your plane tickets until you have the visa, so it's really just a guess of how long it'll take to process the visa application. Given our experience of getting visas almost immediately, and then being unable to travel for 3 weeks until the visa was valid, I recommend assuming the best and asking for a travel date (aka visa start date) that you would like - like 2 weeks in advance of your work start date - even if it doesn't seem feasible that the visa will come through that fast. You may be surprised.
3. Also, after you put in your visa application, you have to make an appointment to have biometric data taken  - despite having to make appointments on two different days, the biometric folks were able to accommodate us and take our information all on the same day so we could submit our visa applications together. It never hurts to ask. 

Good luck!  

Changing Direction

The title of this post, changing direction, has multiple meanings.  For those of you who read this blog before, it used to be about my experiences of being a new mother with Audrey, who is now 5.  We've added Claire to the family too since then, and most pertinent for this blog, we've moved to Scotland for me to take a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Dundee in Dundee, Scotland.

In the few years since I've been blogging, this site (Blogger) has changed too.  I guess it was always part of the Google universe, but now it's more explicitly so, trying to get me to "sign in to all of Google" with my gmail account, and encouraging me to tag people (well, they don't call it tag, it's something else more google-ish like "call out") on my blog posts so they'll be flagged on Google+, which still seems a little Facebook-wanna-be to me. But part of my job now at Dundee is to consider current use of online/social media, and start thinking about the future of it as well, so I'll give Google+ the benefit of the doubt.

So as I change direction, I return to this blog.  I write for myself, but also to explain to family and friends (and other readers, although I doubt even if I link this blog to Google+, I'll be overrun with readers :-) exactly how Scotland is different, even though the US and Scotland are both 1st world, English speaking countries.  So it's really one part venting, one part information and one part anthropology. Hope you enjoy this trifecta.

    Sunset over Magdalen Green, near our house in Dundee: October 2013

The Post-PhD Life

Okay so catching up since April. Revise dissertation X 43 days. Start packing house X 7 days. Travel to San Antonio for SLEEP meetings X 5 days. Finish packing X 7 days. Drive cross-country X 10 days (including stops with good friends and family). See parents and celebrate Audrey's 2nd birthday X 2 days. Unpack X 1 day. Start postodc.

But really since then, things have been pretty calm. There have been the usual hassles associated with relocating to a new city (I don't know where I am going AND there are no street signs! Car insurance costs WHAT? Ah, the DMV...) but it has also been fun exploring - there are plenty of parks, lakes, beaches, carousels etc. within an hour's drive from Providence. The newest attraction is "pick your own apples" which we may try in the next few weeks...

Providence residents (Providenizens?) are very nice, we've met quite a few folks, especially since our local "pocket park" is a magnet for everyone within a 10-block radius who has a 2-year-old. Work is good (actually accomplishing small, discrete goals! What a concept!) and Paul is making inroads in the art community - look for benches designed and partially built by him to be installed on Hope Street, maybe next month.

The post-dissertation-defense entry

So I have not written since December, but here's my excuse - I was writing my dissertation draft. Now that I have defended, and passed, and been told by my committe that "draft" was probably a generous description of my dissertation, and started my revisions, I'm taking a moment out to update whoever is reading about Audrey.

She is now about 21 1/2 months old (her second birthday is coming up in June) and while she is still sometimes hard to understand, she does use a lot more words. She still can't pronounce some letters, though, which leads to very cute mis-pronounciations. She calls Paul's flip-flops "bap-baps." Nana Mary gave her a stuffed elephant that we often use as a pillow when she's getting her diaper changed, and "elephant" comes out sounding more like "elli-floo." Her favorite stuffed animals are "Ow" and "Bear" (Owl and Bear). A blanket is "ban-keh," and horse (either the animal or the bouncing on the leg game) is "or-see." One of my favorites is "Got-chew" - When Paul would chase her or pick her up I used to say "Daddy got you!" and now she'll run away and say "Got-chew! More Daddy got-chew!"

On the other hand, some words are very clear. Mom, Mommy, Mama. Daddy, Dad. Audrey. Her favorite thing - dance! Even complex words like "pretzel" she can practically do, especially if the pretzel in question is chocolate-covered. (Pretzel! More!).


Other than talking, she's busy playing at day care, and hanging out once a week with Grammie and Grampie and one of her new favorite people, Paul's brother Patrick (Pat-tri). She's also a daredevil, insisting on climbing ladders at the park that look way too big for her, but somehow she manages to get her little feet from rung to rung (see picture), whith a certain amount of parental hovering, of course.

She's definitely in the "Audrey can do it" stage with everything from putting on her pants to brushing her teeth (although we have taught her that while Audrey gets a turn to brush her teeth, so does Mom, so she'll come up to me after she finishes brushing and say "Mommy turn." And she definitely knows what she wants, whether it's for us to dance with her (Mommy, dance! Daddy, dance! Nana, Poppa, dance!) or to buy some ice-cream from the ice-cream truck at the park (Mommy, ice?), or to not take a nap (No, no, no, down!). More fun to come, I am sure, and hopefully it'll be a bit better documented on this site in the future!