Christmas St Andrews

It was dreich when I forced my unwilling bulk out off bed this morning.  Too tired to think I yet cogitated over the bag lying on the floor with items that had to be posted this morning.  So, after much strife, I forced myself down the road to the Post Office with the young woman who smiles at me.

For most the the past few years I have endured the walk down there rather than face the hard bitten and unhelpful staff recruited from the Lubyanka when it closed in 1989 in the town centre Post Office.  

I learned recently the present town centre has closed and people are advised the nearest is down Panfield Lane.  This is untrue but in case they file into the one I use I will keep quiet about this.

When I first arrived the PO was in what was called the 'Quadrant,' a fancy name for the Co-op.  This was then staffed by Soviet types, personality and heart removed, and led to long queues and occasional opportunities to find bile on my tongue.  Later it moved to another part of the building and only the lass with the 1960's hairstyle remained, new unhelpful staff being recruited.  However, by now I was going down the road to the smile, or just had no money to send anything anywhere and kept clear of the place.

Now 'Quadrant' was not a shop I used much, female dominated department store type of place, and it held a wonderful array of staff who could never be found.  For instance, I looked upstairs in the furniture department for a new stereo some time ago, the chap was loitering at the front as I wandered about looking at things.  One caught my eye, I turned to speak and golly, he had gone!  This was typical of 'Quadrant!'

Then in one of the few occasions I ventured in, Christmas possibly, I noticed the PO had gone, I knew not where.  Later I found it in the town centre, in a small newsagent type shop with a large array of counters and unhelpful staff in the rear.  The queue wended it's miserable way past the cheap toys and papers while the unsmiling brutes demanded to know what was in each package in a manner befitting an Israeli Border Guard.  I had a run in with them also.  Now this too has closed, no reason given.  No profit, no staff through Covid, someone fiddling the books?  I do not know.  So, it is off to the smiling lass who speaks only enough English to get through the day, as do the family who run the rest of the corner shop, never closing being Hindu, and able to compete with the Tesco Express almost next door.  An excellent shop.  I passed over my three items, gasped when she told me the price and she laughed, however I cleverly bought Christmas stamps which it turns out I do not require.

So, almost all the posting is done, one box, still to be found, a card or two and then online ordering for other items and I am done.

Tee Hee, how far on are you?

 

Considering this is St Andrews Day I felt the weather was very Scotch.  Though warmer than yesterday, I doubted Andrew, while fishing with his brother Simon on the Lake of Galilee would endure such a west wind as was reminding me of my days heading up Ferry Road from Leith.  He may have endured squalls, rain, and snow every thirty years or so but in between he had high temperatures and plenty of time to lie in the sun and forget work.  That did not occur in Leith!

It is difficult to believe those men of Fife accepted the words of single monk in a coracle who landed with nothing but a bag containing Andrews bones (he said) and they named a town after him.  One up on others I suppose but did they not do an internet check?  I suspect now Nigel Farage would appear and send him back from whence he came, wherever that was.  Where Saint Andrew actually died is of course unknown, though legends abound.  For myself I doubt whether it was on or near the Fife coast.