General Chat

I was surprised how fast we were adopted when we bought our cabin up north.

It was in total disrepair so we had to find a good contractor fast .............. chatted to someone in the coffee shop the day we picked up the keys, that led to someone else saying that we must talk to so-and-so "over there, he knows everyone". So-and-so did indeed "know everyone" ......... he put us on to a super contractor who did a great job helping us making the cabin habitable over the next 3 or 4 years. That was even though he had do an 80 km round trip every day that he worked for us.

But it was the real locals in the immediate 20 km radius who really surprised us.

Go in the small General store ............

"Just visiting are you?"
"No, we've bought a cabin"
"Where?"
"Out along Forest Road xx, half way to so-and-so Bay on the lake"
"Oh, I know that ........ that's where "Frenchie" lived. He built it you know, back in the 60s ..............................................

and on-and-on it went.

Next time we went in .....
"hello again. How are you getting on in that cabin?"

We wouldn't go up there between early October and May (too much snow!!), but we would be recognised and called by name, and told more and more stories about the original owners, who turned out to be complete characters!

There was also a notable relaxation in the 2 small stores between when we first went in and after 3 or 4 visits .......... lots of people went up there for 2 week camping or lodge stays and never went again. Newcomers were always watched carefully as they went round the store. Locals were not watched!

I've lived here for about 30 years now, and am finally a 'local'! :-D

People chat at the bus stop - 'My husband was born in the house next to you, when we got married we lived at number 75, then, when they did the houses up in the '60's (put inside toilets and plumbing in) we were moved here'.
That conversation has been repeated time after time!

Now. as the 'old timers', or original inhabitants die, they are saying 'Have you noticed the number of new faces? I can't keep up'.
So, although it is a (mixed) social housing and private housing estate, it's rather like a village.

And weren't the tins handy for your crayons?

When I came here I was called an incomer(well still am ) so someone thought they would have a laugh on me. They told me Haggis was an animal related to the hedgehog. I believed this strangley! Come January when they have burns night, I was horrified to learn they eat the Haggis with neaps and tatties. I told them eating a hedgehog was unthinkable. Eventually I was put right and I felt very stupid.

But for the older inhabitants of the village, this trick they played on me kept them laughing for weeks.
So Sharron, Im sure you could think of some tales to tell to the newbies?

Btw I remember Zubes, they were very tasty actually

Florence in the hebrides :-D

:-D :-D :-D Bob!

Oh Sharron, what fun you could have with them. I told a newcomer who mentioned a bit of subsidence that it was all down to the mining in pre-historic times. I strung him along for a bit, and when he asked what they mined, I said "jam butties"

Just make it up Sharron, spicing it up as needed.
If someone says are there ghost in my house tell them yes and why.
Cures for ills....any weeds in your garden tell them to dig them up and use them for the cure etc etc :-)

I was born in this village, as were several generations before me, at least back to 1750 and his father married a girl from the next village. If you go back through those families there might be twenty odd generations here at least.

When I was born I was related to over fifty people in the village, now I have three distant relations here. With the loss of social housing and the LSA holdings, there are not many common folk left here now.

I'm not proud, I will mix (eat!) with the incomers and I do write a little article in the village magazine every month about the village.

However, I do find I am regarded as some sort of endangered local fauna, the last of the village idiots maybe, and they make assumptions. They very evidently discuss me because I don't make a big deal of my ancestry although it is, of course, MY village and not theirs!

It seems there is some sort of assumption that I know about folk remedies. I can remember what my nan used to use but that is along the lines of Zubes and Iodex, not forgetting the ubiquitous TCP and if that is folk remedies then I must be the one to consult.

I can certainly sympathize with that last Galapagos tortoise. I bet he knew as many folk remedies as I do!