OLGS has arrived in Scotland, and is exploring the castle. Joe High School (the swimmer) and I will join him in March--after the end of the Minnesota High School League's swimming season. Joe will attend Dalkeith High, which may be even less tony than Minneapolis South High. We shall see. There is apparently a pool....
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Tuesday, Jan. 31
Hello from Scotland. I arrived safely on Saturday the 28th and am now adjusted to Scots time, six hours ahead of Minneapolis. Sunday I went to town (Edinburgh) for a walk-around. Yesterday and today I've been in Faculty Orientation for the Wisconsin-in-Scotland program. It turns out my most useful training is not so much in history or education as in food hygiene courtesy of the Metrodome. The Dalkeith Manor House is home to 74 students this spring, a dozen faculty & family members, and a full-time live-in staff of four. Practising safe food preparation is essential to keep G.I. diseases from spreading.
I'll try to post more on this blog over the coming
--Jim (aka OLGS)
Hello to readers of “Domestic Tranquility”:
Ian Rankin books and references are ubiquitous in modern Edinburgh. Rankin is the novelist from County Fife, north of the Firth of Forth, who has created a police detective named John Rebus, a cop who solves crimes by breaking all the department rules, including drinking on the job. The Rankin paperbacks tend to have different titles in the U.K. than in the U.S. so the one I bought at the Oxfam used goods store turned out to be one I had read some years ago. Much of the action is set at St. Leonard’s Police Station and I realized that the Dalkeith bus into Old Town and New Town Edinburgh goes near St. Leonard’s Street.
So yesterday, Feb. 2nd, I took the 86 bus into Edinburgh about four miles with two goals: first, to see St. Leonard’s cophouse for myself, and second, to join the Royal Commonwealth Pool for fitness purposes. St. Leonard’s was a disappointment, I must say. Outside, there are signs warning “Dog Fouling is a Public Offense £35” yet there was a messy, squished dog-mess right at the front door of the station. Inside, the entrance way is similar to the U of M University Police station; just a glassed-in booth with no staffer, just a telephone. Other doors off to the left & right are locked with keypads. A few uniforms exited and nodded hello. There is one room labelled “waiting room” which had a hard bench and three hard-looking people sitting on it.
Not spotting Rebus, or D.I. Clarke or “The Farmer” DCS Watson from the novels, I left for the Royal Commonwealth Pool down the block. This is a cross between the Nat and the “Y” but with neither the facilities nor the charm of either. There is a fifty meter pool and there is a diving well with platforms. There is also a workout facility with cardio machines, weights, and stretching equipment. But the ‘Royal’ is twenty years old and shows it. The bottom of the pool has periodic sand piles covering the tiles. The showers in the Men’s Lockeroom are a bit ominous the way the water comes out of the ceiling, and very hot, too. The staff person says the Council plans to update it later this year. Whatever. I bought a month-long membership and am trying to go every day. The sauna & steam room (“Turkish” they call it) is only open after 2:30 p.m. Not sure why, but I expect to go back tonight and explore some more.
--OLGS aka Jim
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