Obviously, there has to be some drawbacks to living here. A couple of friends have asked me, "What's wrong with the place?" As if they expect me to admit that it's only 20% phenomenal and the other 80% is drunken Scotsmen, picking fights with my dogs, drinking Tenants lagger [sic] and speaking in a language I don't understand, while simultaneously surrounded by mountains of cow slurry, deep-fried Mars bars and nominally sectarianism centred around whether you support the green team or the blue one...
Well, if I'm going to be brutally honest there are the 10 things that are not as good as Northampton. These are as follows:
1. A sorry lack of Galaxy Cake Bars. The closest I can get them regularly is Stranraer and frankly driving 25 miles for heart attacks in wrappers is something I reluctantly can do without. The local Costcutter does stock them occasionally, but they seem to sell out quickly. The Co-op had them last week, but they also sold out. This should be sending a message to shopkeepers.
2. An equally sorry lack of restaurants that serve exciting or interesting vegetarian food, bearing in mind that the wife is as difficult to cook for as dead people are at dancing the Tango. If someone had the money and a bloody excellent vegetarian chef they might make some kind of harvesting (obviously, the word 'killing' should be used sparingly around vegetarians). Also, while there is a new 'Indian' opening soon in Newton Stewart (7 miles away) it will probably be run by Bangladeshis or Pakistanis and while I have no problem with that, per se, they anglicise food too much and should cook the ways their great grandparents cooked and not like fucking Jamie Oliver...
3. Slurry/Silage - honestly, have you ever drank 20 pints of beer, eaten half a crate of Galaxy Cake Bars, four heads of cabbage and washed it down with some meths? Slurry/silage is what your shit will smell like. Apparently, with the latter, it's all about anaerobics; I'd like to see Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta do something with anaerobics... [80s film joke may go over most people's heads]
4. The four days of really heavy rain, one for every week we have lived here; but that would be the same in Shoesville, surely?
5. Um... I can't find a regular pub quiz.
6. Mobile reception. I received a text message from my mate Roger three days after he sent it, I then received it three times and he received my response four times. When the wife broke down in the Lakes (I've told you this already), I got all six texts she sent me over a three hour period after about 6 hours and after I'd spoken to her and had most of the contents of the six texts relayed to me. If I'm ignoring your text or attempted phone call, it's probably because I'm an ignorant fucker, or it might simply be that it's not reaching me out here in the sticks.
7. Er... I don't know anyone who plies me with free (or otherwise) drugs...
8. No natural gas, so I have an electric cooker and, at the moment, it is much more difficult to cook brilliantly without that kind of control gas gives you.
9. Lack of Freeview TV channels... But is that really worse than 200 channels of shit?
10. The last thing isn't about good/bad or better/worse; it's about still feeling slightly ... off kilter. Don't get me wrong, I feel fantastic and am breathing much better (and I'm using less medication), but the difference as opposed to the last 30 odd years of my life is still a little crazy and difficult to actually be that serious about. We both need part time jobs (and from the looks of things that shouldn't be difficult - there's a few going at the moment in Newton), but at the moment it kind of feels like one long holiday, despite all the bloody hard work getting this house into a semblance of a home. We don't really know what it's like to be bored, and the truth is we're unlikely to really know what it's like until everything starts to shut down, apart from the Co-op. The town is still rocking and rolling - but it is a tourist destination - and will continue to do so until the last week of October, when the gearing down begins. One or both of us needs a real job to ground us back in reality...
Not a heartbreaking list by any stretch of the imagination and I'm betting some people are wondering about pubs I would use. Well, the Craft Bar sells real ale and craft ales, it is 150 metres from door to door. The Bladnoch sells real ale, it is 1.1 mile away. The Harbour in Garlieston is rated by English people up here (not been there yet); that's 8½ miles; the Steampacket Inn in the Isle of Whithorn is 18 miles (excellent choice of beer, piss poor choice of vegetarian options), as is the House O' Hill in Bargrennan, to the north (unliked by the locals for some reason). There are a couple of reasonable places in Newton, I'm told. The Grapes in Stranraer is a beer pub and hosts four ale festivals a year - looks as dodgy as the bar in town so I haven't ventured in on trips to Stranraer, but it's supposed to be a 'fair bonny wee place'.
Plus, every supermarket has Williams of Alloa beers on sale, as well as several local brews - one being from Castle Douglas (Sulwath), the other I haven't tried yet.
It's hell living here, it really is...
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