The Forth Road Bridge

We are getting a new bridge. Hurrah! The old one is reaching the end of its life, and so a shiny new one is opening next year. I believe there are a lot of people who don't know much about the bridges across the Forth, so I thought I'd give you a little teach-in.

This one is the famous one. It's the Forth RAIL Bridge. It's the one that people refer to when they say that a project is "like painting the Forth Bridge", meaning that as soon as you've finished, you have to start again. Except in recent years, they've painted the whole thing using a very durable paint, and now they won't have to start again for forty years. I wonder if the expression will be as durable as the new paint, even though it's now not technically correct. I imagine so, as it's such a useful expression, and I can't think of one with a similar meaning that would do instead.

The Forth Rail Bridge was opened in 1890, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It wasn't designed by Brunel, though I expect a lot of people think it was (including me, probably, before I started writing this blog post). It has that 19th century big metal engineering structure look about it. Looking at it makes me want to use the word "cantilever", though I have no idea at all what one is.

This is the existing Forth ROAD Bridge, which doesn't have the majestic stature of the rail bridge (I'm trying to avoid the use of the word "iconic" here), but I do think it has a certain chunky dignity. When the new one is open, the old one will stay, for use by buses, taxis, cyclists and pedestrians.




Here is what the new Forth Road Bridge is going to look like. I like its svelte elegance.

There was a competition in 2012/13 to name the new bridge. Anyone could send in a suggestion, and then there was a vote on the top five. I was going to send in the suggestion "The Third Forth Bridge" (geddit?), and didn't, because I assumed a load of other people would, and then I would just be able to vote for it. But I was wrong in my assumption. I happened to cross the new Severn bridge in the summer of 2013, and I was delighted to see that it's called "The Second Severn Crossing". Well done, the Welsh. That's my kind of humour.

So not enough people suggested "The Third Forth Bridge" to get it into the top five, but apparently there was a popular suggestion to call the bridge "Kevin". There's a Scottish comedian called Kevin Bridges, which may help you to understand this seemingly odd idea. Though there is a blogger who calls her book club Kevin, so I guess you can call anything Kevin if you want to.

In fact, the five names that were shortlisted were rather unimaginative. They were:

• Caledonia Crossing
• Firth of Forth Crossing
• Queensferry Crossing
• Saltire Crossing
• St Margaret's Crossing. 

Over 35,000 people voted (not including me - I thought the suggestions were too boring), and the name "Queensferry Crossing" was the winner.

A lot of English people think that the bridges are a crossing between England and Scotland. They're not. The Firth of Forth is to the north side of Edinburgh, so if that were the case, Edinburgh would be in England. Which it isn't. The border between England and Scotland is a landmark that is much less conspicuous. In fact, it isn't a landmark at all. It's a sign on the A1, with a small layby. It would be nice to have a fancy bridge as the border, wouldn't it? It would make arriving in one country from the other feel a bit more special. I suppose we'll either have to move the border up to the Firth of Forth and then either relocate Edinburgh in its entirety, or let Edinburgh be in England. Alternatively, we could dig a huge channel across the Scottish Borders, and then build a bridge over it. The easiest solution, actually, would be to move the border a bit. It follows the River Tweed for miles and miles, and then just as it gets towards Britain's eastern edge, it jinks north and hits the coast about eight miles north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. This is somewhat perverse and rather a shame, because otherwise, these splendid bridges (road and rail) could be a rather satisfying border crossing.

And that little detour to Berwick-upon-Tweed,  my friends, concludes my lesson on the Forth Bridges.

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So Husband was right

Husband was right. The No vote prevailed. He had guessed it would be 47% vs 55%. I, on the other hand, was wrong, and quite wrong. For all the closeness of the polls predictions, I had guessed the Yes vote would have a decisive yes, and put a figure of 65% vs 35% on it.

I'm relieved, but, because I am a contrary soul with something of a natural inclination to rebel (it's genetic), I feel a kind of weird disappointment too. I voted No, staunchly and whole-heartedly. But I'd got to the point where I really believed Yes was going to win, and so I'd prepared myself. So now, though I'm pleased to stay Better Together, and though I rejoice at the political change that this referendum has sparked, I also can't help feeling like I might feel if I was dressed up in warm clothes and wellies, and trudging out in the rain to a firework display, that's cancelled at the last minute because of the bad weather. I know. I'm a contrary soul.

I was trying to explain to Husband, and I likened it to this. For the last two and a half years or more of living in America, we were trying to get back. Trying hard. Husband would occasionally get a job interview, and we'd think "surely this is it!" I mean, who pays an air fare for a candidate unless they're pretty serious? (We're talking church or academia, not banking or big corporations, by the way, just so you see the context.) And then he wouldn't get the job (loyally, I feel at this point that I need to point out that he's not just rubbish at interviews, which is what you, dear reader, might conclude). Anyway, on one occasion in particular, after a whole string of disappointments, he was interviewed, and, though I deeply wanted to return to the UK, I was not that keen on the opportunity. It was in a city I felt no connection to at all, in a part of the UK that I felt no connection to. I'd googled local house prices and schools, and it just looked... meh. And at that point, I was really enjoying life where we were. I knew we would say yes, and, though the job seemed a bit meh too, I was gearing up to be thrilled for Husband, and I couldn't forget that deep down, I should be glad to be returning home. It had felt like a very long, long two plus years at that point. I really, really didn't like the look of the other side of the divide, but it was, at least, on the other side, and I knew that I would have to find the energy to jump over, and carry the family with me. So when he didn't get that job, I was both mighty relieved (secretly, not able to tell even him), but also disappointed. And I learnt that it's possible, ok, and frankly quite normal, to feel conflicting emotions at the same time. There isn't a "right" emotion to feel. It's not as if you have to choose which one is the proper one, or that one is deeper than the other. You acknowledge them both, as your friends, and let time filter them out.

So, this morning, though happy and relieved, I am all a-jangle. Churned up. I want to acknowledge the pain of the Yes campaign, individuals who have passionately and self-sacrificially worked towards the other outcome, though I'm glad they didn't prevail. But heck, I admire them, and I would have given an independent Scotland a good go. Passion is infectious.

I am also very irritated by the BBC coverage, and the way the story has been hijacked. It's like Scotland has been allowed its moment, and now, guess what? It's all about England again. It's happened with indecent haste. Have you learned nothing, you down South? David Cameron has talked of the "so-called West Lothian question". Well, David, actually, it was and is the West Lothian question, not "so-called" at all. You've just hijacked it, and called it the English question, and now, the BBC seems very determined to talk about England again.

I guess both sides need to shift their attitudes, and that is hard to do. For every one Scot who bears a grudge and spits the word "Westminster" as if it were some axis of English evil, there is a clutch of people in the south of England who think of Scotland as a bolt-on extra, somewhere beyond even Northumbria, nice for walking holidays and romantic scenes in films. There's definitely bridge-building to be done on both sides.

Hurrah for democracy, though. That these questions can be raised, and everyone have a voice. Hurrah that the turn-out was so high. Hurrah that the result was relatively even throughout Scotland, so that the result looks like a wiggling worm round the dividing line. Hurrah that the result was decisive enough, and not 49% vs 51%. But let's take heed. 45% vs 55% is hardly a landslide. The Union is secured, but needs to work harder.

This is what I really feel. I LOVE living in Scotland. I was thrilled to return here from America (we didn't think we probably would). I love having the best of all worlds. I love living near enough the hills that, in a day, we can go and bag a Munro. I love knowing what that even means. I love living in a capital city that thinks parking is a problem, because it doesn't know what living in London is like. I love the sea, and that I can be walking the dog on the dunes, 40 minutes after leaving the city centre. I love the Edinburgh Festival. I loved going to the Commonwealth Games. I love the long light days of summer. I bloody love The Proclaimers. I even love bagpipes (kind of). I love being the only English person at my work, and that being ok (though it's felt a little uncomfortable of late). And now, I love that my children will have the choice, to pursue an English life, or a Scottish one. I love that.

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A bet

Husband and I have made a bet. Well, not so much a bet, as a guess. He thinks it will be a No vote. I think it will be a Yes. We put percentages on it, but I don't want to say them out loud. Not that it could possibly influence the result, but somehow, it doesn't feel quite right. I'll tell you after the event.

I'm getting up early to vote before taking 10-yo to school, and going to work. No reason to do so, because I could easily vote in the evening. It's just that I know I won't be able to settle to anything all day, until I've voted, so I might as well sacrifice a half-hour in the morning, rather than the whole day.

I hope we stay together, "Better Together",  but I think I've also made my peace with the idea that this northern ship will be sailing away on its own, if the Yes vote prevails. I'm not starry-eyed about what that will look like: economic recession, parties fighting, politicians not delivering what they've promised. Why would the politics of Edinburgh be any different to the politics of Westminster, when all is said and done? But I have, in odd minutes, felt myself sprinkled by the occasional splash from the wave of optimism - ill-founded though I believe it to be. Whatever the Yes/No outcome, isn't it time for change of some kind? You'd be a hard person, indeed, if you remained unaffected by the mood of the moment.

If Scotland becomes independent, I will seek to make it a success - for my children and grandchildren. Two of my children have never lived in England, and maybe they never will. Their children may never hold a British passport. I'm grateful for the time I lived in America, because it did prise me away from some deep sense that I never even knew I had, that being English is somehow best. I know I can be at home north or south of whatever kind of border tomorrow's vote forges between the two nations.

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Please, No

I am English. I live in Scotland. I have one child who was born in England, and two who were born in Scotland. There are getting on for half a million English people living in Scotland - a little under 10% of the population, if my maths is right. There are about 800,000 Scots living in England (figures from the BBC). The history of our countries has been united for over 300 years. It took a long time to get there, and we all know that it wasn't a happy journey. So let's not go back. We could unpick in a few years what it took centuries of bloodshed to forge. We have so much to offer each other. There is so very much to lose, and I can't see much to gain.

It's not hard to imagine a situation in years to come, when my children leave education, in which the oldest can get a job in England if he wants to, but the other two have to apply for a visa to work south of the border. Unless Scotland joins the EU, that is a very real proposition. I see independence as a narrowing of opportunities. I don't want to be alarmist, but if the 20th century taught us anything, it surely taught us that political stability is fragile. More fragile than it seems. Surely stable union as neighbours is better than unstable separation? A narrowing of opportunities might be the least of our worries.

I've listened to Radio Scotland phone-ins on the way to work over the past few months. Several times I've had to turn them off, irritated by yet another person talking of how they want "freedom for ma grandchildren, freedom that I've never had in ma lifetime". What is this "freedom" that the Scots feel they don't have? Up here, it seems to me we have double democracy. We're represented in Westminster, and at Holyrood. What other part of Britain has that?  

I am feeling agitated. I think we all are, up here. This has moved from being a subject of interesting intellectual debate to being a walk along a painful knife edge. I just want it to be over. I want to know which way it's going. I'm nervous because whichever way it does go, it's going to be a close result, and that means that there will be a large number of people who don't get what they want, and who will be disappointed, frustrated, angry. 

Please vote No. We really are Better Together. Or if you do vote Yes, do it because you are excited by the prospect of building a new independent country. Do it because you have a positive vision for what Scotland could be. Don't do it because you're carrying on your shoulders a 300 year old grievance. How many generations have to pass before a nation can move on from a past?

I do have a suggestion. Too late now - we should have done it years ago. Did you know that there's a verse in the National Anthem that goes like this:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade, May by thy mighty aid, Victory bring.

May he sedition hush, And like a torrent rush, Rebellious Scots to crush.

God save The King.

I know. Who's ever sung that? Who even knew that there exist several verses of the National Anthem? Well, some of the Scots do, and they think it reveals what the English feel about the Scots. So please, could we not get this verse formally struck out of the National Anthem, in a symbolic gesture like the raising of the Saltire above Downing Street? And then, in return, could Scottish rugby supporters please not sing about sending proud Edward's army home "tae think again". That stray verse of the National Anthem dates back to the 1700s (thank you Wikipedia), and English Edward's army was defeated in 1314. 1314! It's time we all moved on, people. 

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New to living in Scotland

Here are three things about living in Scotland that I've discovered in the past 24 hours, that I didn't previously know.

• It's a bank holiday this coming Monday. The last Monday in August wasn't a bank holiday.
• No prescription charges (wa-hey!).
• If your son puts on his "formal wear" (it being Harvest Festival), and he hasn't had a bath the night before, you will have to spend some precious morning minutes getting him to sit on the bathroom floor with his legs outstretched, scrubbing at the mud with a flannel. Yes, "formal wear" is a kilt, and paraphernalia. I'm not a great fan of strict uniform for children, but I have to confess I do love 11-yo in his kilt regalia (and he likes wearing it, so that helps). 

Here is one thing I don't know about living in Scotland, and don't really ever want to know.

• While I was scrubbing 11-yo's knees, he was pondering how you're meant to have a pee in a kilt. He had solved the problem at school by going into a cubicle, and wrapping the event in privacy. But hold your horses before you start typing in the comments box. As I say, if you do know the correct Gents etiquette for kilt-wearers, I don't need to share that knowledge.

I love you all, but...

... no post tonight.

You know you're not in America, when you move house and have to wait over a month for a landline and internet connection. Yes, you read that correctly. Over... a... month... A very long month. Because a BT engineer has to come and activate our internet hub thingy (already installed in the house), before anyone from any other company can do whatever they do to get us connected. Apparetly BT are very busy. 15-yo asked if that didn't count as a monopoly, and if so, why was it allowed. I didn't know the answer.

All I do know is that not having a landline or the internet is a pain in the proverbial, though also strangely useful. It does mean that life is remarkably uninterrupted, and that unpacking can happen at our own pace. On the other hand, it also means that you can end up driving for over an hour round the city, because you're using the GPS to tell you where things are, instead of looking them up on the internet. The GPS tells you that a vet surgery (more on that in a minute) is 3.5 miles away. What it doesn't tell you is that the vet surgery it has in mind is the other side of the city centre, where there are serious semi-permanent roadworks, a zillion tourist buses, roads closed because of some international arts festival or other called "The Edinburgh Festival", and that it's lunchtime. I resorted to stopping at a petrol station and asking the way to the ring road after the vet surgery, which actually was a very clever move. I've only lived here six days and I'm already more savvy than the GPS. That's a relief. I hate being out-smarted by a GPS. That smug tone of voice... That know-it-all superior attitude... Though it has given me a good idea for an epitaph. I think I might have "Recalculating your route" written on my tombstone.

All of which is to apologise for the fact that I'm not posting much at the moment. BT are too busy to connect us up to the internet at home. When I do sneakily find internet access, hidden away in Husband's office (it takes three keys to get in here, but I get a splendid view of the city from the window), I have a whole list of boring admin things to do. Plus I did absolutely promise the kids that I would look at the Scottish Kennel Club website. A promise is a promise, so I must do so (though they are incorrect if they think it will make me more likely to get a puppy in the next three weeks before their term starts, rather than waiting sensibly until we are a little more settled in - as I have explained to them more than a few times). Faced with the choice of engaging with my beloved, but patient and far-flung, bloggy friends, or satisfying the impatient and close at hand demands of my children, I'm afraid I'm opting for the Scottish Kennel Club website.

This dog lark... it's a part-time job, I tell you, and I haven't even got the blessed thing yet.
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Moving on

We are moving back to Britain.

I don't know what else to say on my blog. I have learnt that anything you say, any information you share, you can't take back. I can't ever be properly anonymous again, but I can continue to be semi-anonymous, and I want to guard that. So I don't want to give out details of names and places. But I want to tell my news, dear Bloggy Friends. What to do?

I think what I'll do is tell you a little, and then if you want to know details, you can email me. The address is IotaManhattan, then the rest hosted by gmail. I'm happy to share information, dear Bloggy Friends. I just don't want to do it here. Please do feel free to contact me.

Suffice to say, there's a clue in the labels for this post. Husband has got a job as a school chaplain. It's a great option for the whole family. The kids will have places at the school, which is mostly boarding, but they will be day kids. We will live on site. So as far as the move goes, the two big challenges (finding a house, finding schools) are already in the bag. In the sporran.

It's one of those beautiful moments in life when everything seems to be falling into place around our ears. I haven't shared much about the search for a route back to the UK, but it has been lengthy and demoralising. Sometimes agonising. When we came to the US for a stint, we didn't plan for the credit crunch and what that would do to the job market. There have been times here when we have felt stuck, and panicky. The clock has been ticking in the background. We absolutely HAD to be back before our oldest was 12. He needed to start secondary school in the UK along with peers. That sacred cow fell by the wayside a couple of years ago. Then we had to be back before he was 14 and would start the GCSE curriculum. Bam! Another sacred cow keels over. I can picture it toppling sideways in slow motion, legs giving way and extending to a skywards-pointing position, as the bovine body hits the ground and rotates, sacred udder bouncing and wobbling. The field of our recent life is strewn with several of these supine creatures.

I have had to learn to go with the flow, to trust that life will work out, when we can't work it out ourselves. And now we have an option that is better than all the others. It was waiting for us, but of course we couldn't see it, hiding away round a corner in the future. Meanwhile, we've been determined not to live in limbo, and so we've never allowed ourselves to say "it's not worth it, we might be moving". It's a series of acts of will, but important for expats, I think. So I painted our bedroom even as Husband was in the UK having a job interview about this time last year, and I chose a colour that I liked, not a colour that would be sensible for preparing the house for market. We bought a table tennis table for Christmas, in the knowledge that we would never have a house big enough in the UK for it, and therefore probably wouldn't get our proper money's worth out of it. I started an MA, which I will now leave unfinished. When you're an expat, you have to live in the present, not for a hypothetical future. You really do.

I'm needing a clinching razor-sharp one-liner at this point, to close the post, but waah, I also have to make three packed lunches, get showered, put on some clothes, kill the haggis for dinner, and be out of the house in the next, oh, 4.2 minutes. Talking of living in the present.

I'm so happy.

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