On To the Weekend!

It’s 11:30, local time and I’ve just returned from Goldie’s Pub on Rankin Street after having consumed multiple whiskies with my tiling mates. Almost all of the world’s problems were solved.

The evening started out with a wee bit of Cornish Cruncher cheese consumed at my bed sit, with a roll and bread. It seems my days here at the Rosevale Guest House are numbered however. As I prepared to leave my room for the evening my landlady informed me that I’ll have to clear out of here two days sooner, on account of the Wales vs. Scotland rugby match. It seems that she has hordes of other paying guests and my custom is no longer required.

Informed that “there’s no way I’ll find accommodation anywhere else in Edinburgh for that weekend”, it seems that I’ll have to evacuate the city entirely. Future blogs will reveal where precisely I’ll end up.

But that is weeks away, so for the time being, I am secure in my own wee bed.

In the meantime, I really must try to find a green vegetable…

Frankly, I don’t understand why there is not an epidemic of scurvy in this town. There doesn’t seem to be a green salad on offer within miles of here. The best I could manage so far this week was a single piece of cauliflower and a few peas next to mounds of potatoes and a few slices of pot roast. The rest of the week was creamed this and creamed that. The menu at the Peffermill Snack Wagon remains stubbornly rooted in fried tatties and mystery meat.

Today I learned how to bend copper pipes and how to install electric shower units. Never mind that we do not have electric showers in Canada, the experience was memorable nonetheless. In among a lengthy discussion of mixed showers, silicone profilers and combi boilers was the understanding of new words:

Pikies = gypsies

Scrappies = recycling yards

Tomorrow I complete my plumbing course and head off to Glasgow, where I’ll meet up with a very sweet lady called Grace, my mother’s cousin. From there we’ll journey on to Ardrishaig, the seaside ancestral maternal home of my Scottish forebears.

It should be a treat.

For now, I will share with you a few snaps of bonnie Edinburgh…

$12,000 Bottle of Hooch

Edinburgh Castle

Wee Fish Easting the Skin Off the Soles of Dutch Tourists' Feet

A Hidden Corner

The Fabulous and Very Chic Peffermill Public Housing Estate...

... and Where I'd Much Rather Be

Edinburgh Royal Mile

The Plumbing Begins

Today marked the first day of my week-long exposure to the mysteries of British plumbing.

Trudged off to the tiling school in semi-darkness, in a kind of cold, damp weather that went straight to the marrow of my bones.  The smell of the oatcake factory on Peffermill Road was particularly delightful. Once inside the building I could see my breath, as usual. A hot tea got the juices flowing again.

Barry, our instructor, started me off on an introductory lecture of pipes and joins while the remaining three students, John, Phil and Paul continued on with tasks related to the second half of their 2-week course.  To give you an idea of the backgrounds of the type of students we have here, John is an ex RAF communications expert, Phil was a financial advisor who got tired of working in Kuwait, and Paul was a stonemason residing in Drumnadrochit (on the bonnie shores of Loch Ness).

Plumbing. What can I say? It’s not the most interesting of subjects under the best of circumstances. The only unusual thing I can report is that, erm… waste from British toilets can flow straight into the back of the wall and not directly downwards, as they do in Canada. There is also an ingenious invention on sale here called a Sani-Flow that takes the waste, puts it through a blender-like contraption and… well, never mind.   You don’t really need to know the rest.

I also discovered that Scots have their own words for tradesmen. Carpenters are “chippies”, bricklayers are “brickkies” and electricians are “sparkies”.

Not much else to report except that Stuart made fun of my woolen hat, which I was compelled to wear at all times today. He thought I looked like Noddy. (Don’t know who Noddy is? Do a Google search.)

Dinner was the remains of a piece of Stilton cheese that I’d been carrying around in my backpack for the last three days, plus a little bean salad and a chocolate roll, all washed down with a glass of milk.

Check out the pix below.

My Guest House

View Looking Left from My Window

View Looking Right Showing Bag of Cheese and Butter

Arthur's Seat

Tiling School

First Plumbing Job

An Expert Soldering Job Even If I Do Say So Myself

Second blog post

Rosevale Guest House Kilmaur Rd

 

It is Saturday night here at the Rosevale Guest House and I am seated behind my laptop perched upon a wee, very shaky little stool. As I blog, I am also engaged in a scotch tasting session. To my left, in a thistle mug I bought at the thrift shop, is a 1993 Pittyvaich single malt. To my right, in a toothbrush glass, is a 1988 Tullibardine.

 

I can’t tell the difference.

 

Now, lest you all think I’m spending my money foolishly, I must hasten to add that the scotch bottles I am drawing from are wee little miniatures. So my tasting session will ultimately be a very brief one.

 

Dinner was the last bit of cheese from the Mull of Kintyre. I managed to get a good five days out of it. I also had a slice of Scottish pressed game terrine. It looked rather tasty in the shop, but when I brought it home only then did I realize quite what it was I’d bought. It is 33% wild deer, poor things, and 33% UK pheasant. It really must have been wild, because next to the bar code is the warning “May contain lead shot”.

 

Anyway, this marks the end of my first week in the tiling course. So far it has been very instructive and surprisingly enjoyable. Before you know it, under Stuart’s expert guidance, I’ll be able to retile all the loos in Holyrood Palace.

 

Today was my day off, so I thought I’d take care of business and send off my things to the laundry. That done, I sauntered farther north on Clerk Street and took a look at all the splendid architecture in Edinburgh’s old town. Judging from the number of tourists milling about in the dead of winter, I imagine the city in the summer must be standing room only. 

 

At this point I’d like to describe at length a part of the city that is very strange. It is called Mary King’s Close. A Close, as far as I can tell, is a narrow alley. The city once had many of such alleys, which sloped down from the high point of land around Edinburgh Castle, and ended up at the royal moat. Bordered by up to ten storeys of stone tenements, they were almost continually in the shade. At one point in the 18th century, the city built over top of some of the alleys to make way for some municipal buildings. So what little light there was disappeared and the inhabitants were left in complete darkness underground. Mary King’s Close was one such alley and today you can only see its remnants if you plop down 11 pounds and join a private tour. In the summer this sight is so popular you have to book way in advance, so out of curiosity I put down my money and bought a ticket.

 

A very overweight, sneezing, coughing tour guide in a period costume, who I think should not have reported to work that day, started off by asking if anyone was claustrophobic. He then led us down several flights of stone steps, into an empty chamber. The room dated back to about 1620. At 12 ft by 18 ft, its original roof was only 6ft high. Called a “low house”, this was where Edinburgh’s poorest once lived, at the ground level of the alley.  Here they slept, 12 to a room, with no windows, running water or ventilation, with only the cheapest of fish oil to illuminate the room.

 

At 15 pound per year, the rent was cheap. Having no windows was particularly economical in those days, because daylight was taxed. The more and the larger windows you had, the more tax you paid.

 

There was a bucket in the corner of that sad little room for a toilet, and by city law, you could empty that bucket only two times a day. One can only imagine the stench. By tradition, the youngest in the room, usually toddlers, had the job to empty the bucket. They’d cart it off to the door and throw the contents onto the alley. All the upper floor neighbors emptied their buckets at the same at time, making the alley a place best to avoid when the church bells at St. Giles church rang at 7am and 10pm.

 

The effluent would flow down the alley and end up in the royal moat. Since the alley had no hand railings or steps, it remained a slick, very treacherous surface to navigate in the best of times.

 

The richest man in the tenements, our guide informed us between snufflings, was the medical doctor. In the 1600s the best way for the doctor to treat disease was to obtain a bottle of the patient’s urine and examine it through the glass. If this did not reveal the cause of the complaint, he would open the bottle and take a good sniff. If even this did not clear up the mystery, he would drink the urine until he felt able to form an opinion. Sometimes he would need two bottles of urine to get to the bottom of it.

Doctors, needless to say, did not live very long in the 1600s.

 

The last man to live in Mary King’s Close was an elderly fellow who, in 1897, was evicted to make way for yet another of those enormous Victorian public buildings that line the Edinburgh escarpment. After being paid 400 pounds, the old geezer finally agreed to leave his beloved home, which happened to be the only one in the area that actually had a flush toilet. He was so proud of his toilet, which he called his “thunder box”, that he left his door open so that all those in the alley could see it as they passed by. His home still exists, deep under the streets of Edinburgh, buried under the City Chambers building. We saw his thunder box and the Victorian wallpaper that lined his vestibule. Apparently the Victorians mixed arsenic into their wallpaper paste, thinking it would prevent mold from forming. I suppose arsenic only works for so long, because the green, 140-year-old wallpaper had gone completely black.

 

The rest of the day was spent wandering aimlessly around. So that’s about it for my blog today.

 

Tomorrow I will attempt to post this blog at the Twitch internet and gaming emporium. With any luck, I will also finally have some photos for you to see.

 

Next post: sometime around mid-week, unless I have something earth-shaking to report.

 

First Post fromScotland

Peffermill Industrial Park
It is now day three of my tiling studies, and I'm finally getting my technological act together. (Problems with finding the right adaptor to my laptop for UK power.)
The trio started off with an hour delay on the tarmac at Dorval airport. De-icing issues. We eventually got into the air, and settled in, with me next to an excitable group of seniors who would NOT shut up. Honestly, I think it was their first trip out of Arnprior, or wherever they came from. While the de-icing was going on, there was great speculated on the liquid being tossed onto the aircraft wings.
"I'll bet it's just hot water," says one.
Right. Water to de-ice a plane.
Anyway, it seems they were all off to Nairobi. With plenty of bathroom breaks ahead of them, to judge from the amount of times I had to get up from my aisle seat and let them pass.
Missed the connection in Amsterdam by 15 minutes. Was rewarded for my inconvenience  with a five-euro voucher from KLM for a "snack". I bought a fruit juice, but what I really wanted from the Duty Free shop was the Porsche sedan on display next to the cigarette aisle. If you could produce to the lady at the cash your international boarding pass and 111,000 euros, you could drive to your next destination in this car and probably beat the plane you were otherwise about to board.
Instead of the Porsche I could have settled for a 30 euro pedicure at the store next door, but I still had another plane to catch so I moved on to Gate 47.
Arrived in Edinburgh under sunny skies. Just a few snowdrifts left over from last weeks' storm. A short bus ride deposited me at the door of the Rosevale Guest House, a charming 19th century pile of grey Scottish stone.
A chatty proprietress showed me to a small room in the back, which had a fine view of a small mountain called Arthur's Seat. The room's radiator had two settings: raging inferno and stone cold. Over time I have managed to maintain a livable temperature by turning on and off the heating every 4 hours or so. No mini bar here – not even a little fridge. So I keep my milk, cheese and cold meat nice and chilly by opening the window, reaching down and balancing the food on a board that (I think) serves as an ice barrier.
I spent the rest of Sunday stumbling around Edinburgh, determined to stay awake. Found a tea room and demolished a tasty pot roast, then went to bed.
Monday, I awoke in the dark, dressed into my tiling togs, and sauntered down Priestfield Road, took a left, passed an Oatcakes factory (which smelled heavenly, let me tell you) and ten minutes later arrived at Unit 2 of the Peffermill Industrial Estate. The tiling school was housed in a low, steel roofed warehouse with a few grimy windows covered in steel mesh. No Baliol College, this one.
I showed up just as the instructors did. Barry, a 30 year old ex-Volkswagen salesman was to teach the plumbing side of the business, and Stuart, a cheerful 26-year old from the ceramics trade was our tiling instructor. I say "our", but I actually mean "my" instructor, since I was the only one starting the tiling course that day. There were three others, including an ex-RAF chap from St Andrews, who were starting the plumbing course.
So Stuart guides me over to the tiling section, which consists of a half-dozen plywood bays fitted out with bathroom fixtures. These bays were designed to contain every irregular edge and slope imaginable. My ultimate task would be to cover this mess in tile. Stuart said with a chuckle, "If you can tile this bastard, you can tile anything."
I can't say enough good things about Stuart. This is because I know he's reading this blog  - yes Stuart, I'm talking about YOU – and I want to stay in his good graces. He started off showing me the basics of how to use file cutters, nippers, the wet saw, and so on. Around this time he introduced me to a former welder from Loch Ness who was into his second week of training, a nice fellow called Chick. The problem was, I could barely understand a word this Chick character said, so broad was his accent. I was having enough trouble understanding Stuart.
Anyway, it turns out that Stuart has a keen sense of humor and took great pleasure in interrogating his new student. We talked politics for awhile as I clumsily worked my tile nippers, then broke off for tea.
The tiling school could just as easily served as a meat locker. The temperature was just warm enough to prevent the water buckets from turning to ice. But our little 6 by 8 foot student lounge had a space heater and into this all the students piled to warm up and have a cup of tea.
More tile nipping ensued and before I knew it, it was time for lunch. Getting a square meal in the Peffermill Industrial Estate was to prove something of a challenge. No restaurants, no food shops, ne vending machines. But, as it turned out, there was an old lady who operated the "Peffermill Snack Wagon" from a rusty Mercedes that once served as an ambulance. So I put down my one pound, seventy pence and took a chance on one of her cheeseburgers.
Not a repast to be repeated.
The afternoon resumed with Stuart leading me to a 3-foot square board screwed to a wall. The board had a wood frame and four plywood cutouts on it. My task was to work around the cutouts and cover the entire surface of the board with four-inch tiles. Mauve tiles, moreover.
 It was a sadistic mind who thought this one out, but it turned out to be an excellent teaching aide. Stuart showed me how to get precise cuts by flipping the tile this way and that. He proved to be an excellent teacher and hugely entertaining in the bargain. We covered everything from Noam Chomsky to zombie movies.
The low point in the day was mid-afternoon when Stuart summoned me, shivering, into an unheated classroom for a PowerPoint lecture on tile adhesives. I was cold, jet-lagged, and burping up a bad lot of onions from my cheeseburger.
At any rate, I finished up the day feeling like I had already learned a good deal about tiling that I didn't know before. Thumbs up.
The next day was spent much like the first, but this time I arrived with about five layers of clothing on, including a set of thermal underwear. That seemed to do the trick because even though we could see our breath as we worked, I felt quite comfortable.
Stuart, God bless him, gave me one of his few remaining Cuban cigars. This came about as a result of one of our many lively discussions about this and that, which included stories about the best and worst cigars we'd ever smoked.
The ex-RAF guy and I went further afield to a bakery at noon and actually had an edible lunch. He had served in Basra and told me some hair-raising stories about what he'd seen there. Stories not suitable for this blog.
The rest of the afternoon was spent tiling a wall in a herringbone pattern, listening to BBC Radio Two. Note to self: If I ever get satellite radio back home, this is all I'm listening to. There are no commercials, the music is good, and the radio host is very funny.
More discussions ensued, with Stuart making ongoing commentary about my Canadian accent, particularly on how I cannot properly pronounce his name.
My version: Stoowert
His version: Styuuurt
On how to properly pronounce the word "worm".
My version: wurm
His version: worrum
Scottish elocution lessons aside, it was another good day…

Wednesday,January 19th
Wanted to post this blog in today, but the computer at the tiling school was not able to read my text file. So I will save this to a different format and, hopefully, I'll be able to send this off tomorrow.
Today's achievement was learning how to tile a herringbone cartouche on a wall. A nifty job, if I do say so myself. Also revealed: the secrets to effective grouting, and how to lay out tile on the floor, so you don't end up with embarrassing little "sliverish" cuts around the bath tub and other strategic places.
My tiling mates are dedicated smokers, so between tile cutting and nipping, I take the opportunity to hang out with them outside.
Topics raised during these sessions are invariably ribald, and often quite funny. One tiler student repeated a news report he'd heard about a young man who'd entered the Toryglen post office in Glasgow and pulled out a gun. The cashier looked at him and said, "Are you stupid? You are on camera." The robber had forgotten to pull down his ski mask. He fled the office without taking any money and was arrested shortly afterwards. His conviction was assured because he'd left plenty of fingerprints – he'd filled in a lottery ticket at the post office just before trying to rob it.
Stuart replied with a true story of his own, recalling the Scot sailor in China who walked into a tattoo parlor. He wanted the words "Scotland the Brave" inked across his shoulder blades, with a big thistle below it. The Chinese fellow looked at him quizzically and made motions of playing something with his hands.
"No, ya daft bastard," said the sailor. "Not a whistle. A THISTLE!" He then drew a sketch of what he wanted.
The tattoo artist's face lit up in comprehension and immediately got to working. Once he'd finished, the sailor paid him and left the shop. When the Scotsman got back to his ship, he found a mirror and turned to take a look at himself.  There, below the words "Scotland the Brave", was the picture of a pineapple.
Ended the day with a copy of the Sunday Telegraph (yes, Stuart, I know it's a bourgeois rag, but I like the world news in it). Supper was from a can of Marks and Spencer chili, warmed over my blisteringly hot radiator. As I retrieved my half litre of milk from its precarious perch on the roof gutter, I tried not to dwell on past memories of other meals I'd had in Europe, such as the splendid breakfast buffet at the Adlon in Berlin, or high tea in London's Lanesborough Hotel. I think this meal serves as an effective bracket to either.
Well, it's off to bed. More tiling adventures await tomorrow.

First Blog

They say everyone should re-invent themselves from time to time. Well for me, that time has come.  After 25 years of technical writing, I’ve decided to trade my computer mouse for a tile cutter and seek a new career in the stone work/ceramics trade. Quite a change, but one that has aroused a disturbingly great amount of wistful support from my tech writing colleagues.  

An inveterate house-flipper, I’ve renovated kitchens and bathrooms before. But to do this thing professionally I figured I needed “the Knowledge”.  But where to get it? Apparently there is a huge waiting list to take a tiling tradesperson’s course here in Quebec. Plus, the course itself is seven months long. Really? I mean, laying tile can be an art, but seven whole months?

So, thanks to a brilliant suggestion by my friend Julia, I looked farther afield and hit upon the perfect place to learn the trade – Edinburgh, Scotland. A focused search on the Internet led me to a Scottish Qualifications Authority training institute that promised “a rewarding and varied career with the potential to have a lucrative business.” That’s all I needed to hear. Moreover, I’d get all the secrets of the Scottish stonework and ceramics trade in just five weeks. Sign me up!

So tomorrow I board a KLM flight to Edinburgh, via Amsterdam, and make my way to the 2-star Rosevale Guest House, which will be my home for the next month or so.  I arranged an extraordinarily low-priced accommodation, thanks to the fact it is low season in Edinburgh and a mini ice-age has driven out all the tourists. Another check on the Internet informs me that they are currently experiencing 3 degrees Celsius under heavy rain. So, apparently it’s getting warmer.

Over the next five weeks I will be blogging from the Peffermill Industrial Estate, wherever that is. And, if possible, I will supplement my blogs with photos.

I hope you will be entertained by my travels and bear witness to my new beginning as a Scots-trained stone and tile chap.

Mark McGee

This is the last member of my family to study in Edinburgh, my grandfather, Lachlan Campbell.