The Others

One thing my mother occasionally remembers/bothers/gets round to doing when she comes up to visit us is to contact her cousins in Oxgangs to arrange a visit, occasionally just by her and occasionally in town somewhere but on a few occasions by all those present including wives and fathers. I can be smug in that despite them only being my mother's cousins I've visited them a few times alone and without prompting (though relatively infrequently seeing as I've only been six times or so in the past fifteen years) whereas mother has (SHAMEfully) deliberately omitted to pop out to meet them on more than one of her relatively rare visits. Father is up here every year but is only indirectly related and thus technically exempt from visiting besides being too occupied with wandering about doing festivallish things. They used to be referred to as Aunty Peg, Sheila & George but Aunty Peg (or maternal grandmother's elder sister Margaret (or analogue thereof) to give her her full title) died shortly before I arranged my first spontaneous visit after moving up here in 1994 and her funeral was then arranged on a day when I had an unmissable and non-reschedulable practical exam. Sheila and George (second-eldest (though eldest surviving to adulthood) and youngest siblings, offspring of maternal grandmother's elder sister Margaret (or analogue thereof)) remain and were duly visited this morning by Nicky, mother, father and I (despite the evident fuss so many visitors cause (a fully-laid table laden with cakes, scones, rolls, flapjacks and little dishes containing both butter and Flora)) bussed over for an hour or so before walking back. Sheila is nearing eighty (mother (SHAME ON HER) can't be any more accurate) but looks a little less doddering than she did a year ago at the wedding when we last saw her. I can no longer recall what maternal grandmother's elder sister Margaret (or analogue thereof) looked like but there are obvious resemblances between Sheila and her aunty (maternal grandmother Annie (who died in her early seventies in the early Nineties)) and therefore slight resemblances with my mother (and therefore my mother-resembling sister, though that didn't stop Sheila from almost mistaking my sister as Nicky when we first dragged her over there a couple of years ago). Upon leaving, Mother requested that Sheila scribble down such bits of the family tree as she knows about seeing as mother (to her FURTHER SHAME) can't even correctly name and sequence all eleven members of her own mother's sibling-set, despite the odd interesting complication such as the youngest alleged brother having actually been the nephewistic offpsring of the eldest child of the siblings (with the potential for there being further similar yet-unknown occurrences of this type) before such knowledge passes out of living and possibly recorded memory. We also found out that it's Sheila's birthday this Friday (though didn't ask which - some census-based research is perhaps in order) and shall thus be able to send cards from now onwards.

A couple of blank text messages and messageless voicemails received during the walk back towards the centre of town indicated that Nicky's parents were negotiating the buses to the same hotel as used by my parents. We were popping Habitatwards to pick up a couple of collapsible chairs in order to be able to accomodate six people around our table (stools having been deemed insufficiently formal or presentable) and encountered the wife-parents in the shop itself. Despite my deeming the chairs unsuitable for sitting at a table (the enforced lean-angle meant the body would not be supported in a suitably leaning-over-table position) we picked them up; as the walking speed of the group would significantly decrease with the two additions (as would the secondhand embarrassment caused by the inability of most of them to notice that there are other people attempting to use the pavements, often at greater speeds) I deemed the need to walk at my own pace whilst carrying the chairs an excellent excuse to steam off at normal walking-pace in a manner which would cause me less frustration on behalf of the other pavement users if not actually reducing their blockage and frustration in any way. Though I didn't time it precisely I was later able to estimate that I walk at three times the speed of Nicky + both mothers. The time it took the father-parents to get from the west end to the flat was discounted as anomalous on the grounds that they took an extremely inefficient route and probably managed to get lost at least once.

Though not excessively traditional my parents do have the odd habit of eating fish and chips with a pair of their pals every Friday evening, often shamefully driving the half-mile to the chippy in order to ensure the foods (and indeed (though indirectly) the entire globe) stay nice and warm. Nicky's parents don't chip themselves up particularly regularly as far as I can tell despite living near the seaside (though not near a sea which particularly supports vast quantities of fish-kind) but they all seemed amenable to popping out for a fancy sit-down fish meal at the Tail End on Leith Walk, apparently run by people who ran a famous award-winning chippery in Anstruther. As they arrived slightly too early to check in the wifeparents had to get back to the hotel to check in and smarten themselves then go back across town to the chippy (all by bus (as it would otherwise have taken them several hours to travel the four miles involved in total) which they can at least travel on for free) for which the necessary research meant that I now know the route of another bus, bringing my total to about six. Luckily we got to walk down as well as walking back afterwards to try and decrease the impact of the chips. Not being a particularly fish-loving person I just had an haggis, though a remarkably ungreased and relatively fat-free example thereof which went well with the unchippylike dryish and positively almost healthy chips. Sadly it seems to be the unfortunate habit of large collections of parents to drink excessively in the evenings when they meet but the requirement of one set to avoid walking and bus back hotel-wards meant that there was insufficient time for them all to get too hammered as they had to leave before the buses stopped running.