Visit to Perth

Perth Bridge

We are making the most of this patch of lovely sunny spring weather to visit some of the local towns. In the case of Perth, it is in fact no longer a town, but was conferred with 'city status' for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee on March 14, 2012.

It is a very pretty place (about an hour's drive from St Andrews) accessed by the Perth Bridge over the River Tay.

Perth City Hall

We parked the car as soon as possible after arrival in a typical UK multistorey carpark. The entry and exit ramps for the carpark are only just wide enough for a car and go around hairin bends. The parking lots are also about wide and long enough to house a 'Smart Car'. I needed to let Lloyd out before parking, and once into the spot, I had to take a deep breath to be able to squeeze my way out of the car!

As soon as we had abandoned the car we walked aoround the town and back to the river. Perth has a very attractive City Hall, but we learnt from a program about Perth shown in Melbourne recently, that there are plans to demolish this building to create a 'city square', since there is currently no such designated area.

Judi & Perth Bridge

We are particularly enjoying the fact that these towns and cities in Scotland have many independant shops and not just the chain stores that are so prevalent in the south of England. We found a lovely old-fashioned department store called McEwans that seemed to also have maintained old-fashioned service to match the goods sold. That said though, we have been delighted with the general friendliness and good service we have experienced here since arriving.

St Andrews by the Sea

Looking up North Street

The weather has been so glorious over the past few days that we decided to investigate the local area on foot. The first photo shows a view of the street we live in (North Street) if you look left when leaving the house. In the bottom left hand corner of the picture is our car (a Ford Focus).

Cathedral Ruins at end of North Street

Cathedral Ruins

Turning the other way, you can see the ruins of the old cathedral, which is right on the clifftop by the sea.

St Andrews Pier

St Andrews is perched up on a rocky promontory between two sandy beaches. An easy walk from the house leads down to the pier.

Castle Ruins

Castle Ruins

Sea View from Castle Ruins

 

On the other side of the promontory from the pier are the castle ruins. The views out to sea from both the castle and the pier are magnificent.

Settling into St Andrews University

Lloyd gave his first seminar on Monday morning at 11.00am. He had been a little concerned that jet-lag might impact on his ability to deliver the material, after hearing similar accounts of problems of this sort from colleagues back in Melbourne. However, in the event, everything went fine.

Between this class and a seminar Lloyd was attending at 4.30pm, we were introduced to the administrative assistant for Arché, who showed him to his room in the Arché building. Accessing this building necessitates a series of button-pushes, and is a little difficult to execute accurately on the first attempt. Lloyd was provided with a temporary network password on Monday, but yesterday, he received his University of St Andrews staff card, email address, library access and permanent network access. The network access allows Lloyd to print from his room to an extremely fast laser printer.

We both have spent quite a bit of time at HR as well. Before leaving Melbourne we received documents about salary payments that seemed to not match the contract. Eventually yesterday the cause of the discrepancy was resolved and (with a bit of luck) Lloyd should get paid next week before I leave to head south.

One of the hardest things seems to have been to get a milkman to deliver milk as I had arranged before leaving Australia. The problem is definitely exacerbated by the house being accessed via a narrow alley. There is a gate at the end of the alley with the name of the house 'Cobwebs' written on it.

Milk was due to come for the first time on Monday morning. I looked in the alley and outside on the pavement at the other end of the alley, but there was no sign of it. I rang the dairy and the person with whom I had been in email contact answered. She was very apologetic and offered to deliver it on Tuesday - even though the delivery days are Monday and Thursday. I explained about the alley to her. Tuesday morning, I started the milk search again. I eventually tracked our two pints up on the top of a set of steps next door. I rang the dairy to let them know that the milk had gone to the wrong place and that the milkman needed to put it inside our gate. We even went out and bought a small metal milk carrier and put it, with the empty milk bottle from Tuesday's delivery, on the bottom one of the steps leading up to our front door. Today is Thursday and there was no milk again!! My telephone conversation this morning made it quite clear that if the milk is not here and in the correct place on Monday morning, I will be cancelling the order. We'll see what happens.

Arrived in St Andrews

Gate into Garden & Cobwebs

Back of Cobwebs from Garden

The house we have rented here in St Andrews is very typical. It is part of a terrace of 3 storey stone houses in one of the main streets (although not a shopping street).

We have the top two floors with a separate entrance and private walled garden. The living areas - lounge, dining area and kitchen - are upstairs on the top floor. Two bedrooms, a study (with shower and toilet) and the main bathroom are on the lower of the floors.

View of Garden from Patio

Lloyd on Patio

We woke today to a cool clear morning with the sun breaking through. By mid-morning it was a glorious spring day and Lloyd and I went for a walk around St Andrews. The sun was quite hot on our backs despite it only being late March. In fact it was so warm and sunny that we had lunch outside on the patio by our front door.

Judi on Patio

This afternoon Lloyd and I drove to Dundee over the Tay Bridge. This bridge is much longer than we imagined, and the centre of Dundee is more or less immediately at the end of the bridge. On the way we passed the nearest train station to St Andrews, called Leuchars. The mainline trains pass though this rather small village in the middle of nowhere and I will be catching the train to Manchester from Leuchars next week.

Dundee itself is quite large with two shopping precincts. We parked in one and after looking around it, we walked to the other, rather larger centre in the main street.

Tomorrow Lloyd gives his first seminar at 11.00am. He is hoping that he will not be too jet-lagged.