We finally made it to our new B& B, the Roods at Inverkeithing, after an interesting course of events, one of which involved the minor emergency room at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
Rest assured that all is well, but Marty had some issues with a back problem and after two days of suffering I finally convinced him to get someone to look at him. After 2 hours of waiting, he was examined by a highly competent doctor who gave him some meds for the pain and sent us on our way.
She did mention that Physical Therapy would be of great help, but was not an option, since the waiting lists are quite long and it would take more than two weeks for anyone to actually schedule an appointment with a PT here in Scotland. Free healthcare might be great, but it seems to me that waiting more than 2 weeks for relief would be quite a drag.
Our original intention was to get a prescription for muscle relaxants since they had proven affective in the past. We were surprised when the doctor told us that they do not prescribe muscle relaxants in Scotland because there is no way to monitor who is receiving the medication in order to prevent abuse of the drug. So the thinking is that strong enough pain relief will essentially stop the back from spasming.
We were certainly relieved that Marty's problem stems from simple back strain and not something more serious. And, thanks to my jaunt to ASDA yesterday morning, we now own a hot water bottle with a nice fuzzy white cover. Can you beat that for a souvenir? I figured that white was the best choice since the other options were a super hot-pink fur and cookie monster blue fur. Actually, put a couple of eyeballs on it, and it would look like you were squishing cookie monster. Yep, white was the best option and it has already gotten great use.
But I digress. As I was saying we finally made it here, and I stress the word finally because, as it turns out, we were ringing the bell of the next door neighbor quite by mistake. Marty called the B& B number, and the man who answered was explaining that the doorbell no longer worked, but I heard it ring no less than 4 times. (Ok, so I rang it twice....I knew someone had to be inside!) Quite luckily, the neighbor was not at home, but when I told the story to Isobel, she laughed and said that I should have simply yelled "Trick or Treat" had they answered the door.
I have the feeling that the poor neighbor must put up with this quite a lot as The Roods is definitely not standing out in view. I'm just relieved that they weren't home, or if they were, that they chose to ignore us. Really, quite embarrassing, but after the morning that we had, I was just anxious to check in to the place.
Now that we are here, I can tell you that we are once again in for a real treat. Pat, Isobel's husband, was home to greet us, and he immediately told us that he owned a Steeler's shirt with Santonio Holmes name on it. I can't recall how the subject came up, except he seemed to think that everyone from the United States was a Steeler's fan. He went onto brag about how Holmes scored the winning touchdown in the last Steeler's superbowl. Now, would you have guessed that there would be Steeler's fans in Scotland?
He also went on to tell us of a previous guest, who when Pat mentioned his ties to the Steeler's, began to frown and say that he did not like the Steelers. Pat was shocked by this comment. He said that he told this guest that he thought everyone liked the Steelers in America. The guest commented that there were plenty of people who hated the Steelers because they played "dirty".
Before Pat could go any further, I stopped him and said, "Let me guess, they were Baltimore Raven fans.!"
Guess what? They were from Baltimore!
Can I call it or what? Pat was really surprised that I was right on the money in identifying where this man came from. I personally think that any Steeler's fan would have been able to come to the same conclusion as I with no further prompting.
But now, Pat is eager to wear his Steeler's shirt tomorrow so that he can share his enthusiasm with us. Opportunities like this don't come along too often.
The ties to Pittsburgh here never cease to amaze me!
What's even more entertaining is hearing that it scared the bejeepers out of Pat last night who was obviously attempting to sneak a piece of chocolate only to be caught by surprise.
In any event, Marty had a very long meeting via teleconference today, and when he was finally finished, Pat drove us to the next town to a lovely restaurant called the Clubhouse. We were going to take the train, whose station lies just across the street, hidden behind a stone wall, but he insisted on giving us a lift, and we took him up on the offer.
Dinner was fabulous,
and when we were finished, we easily walked across the street from the restaurant, hopped the train, and were back in Inverkeithing within 3 minutes. You just can't beat that for convenience!
Let me leave you with a photo of my scrumptious dessert: Chocolate iced terrine with raspberries and Vanilla Ice cream. Served on a slate. I have no idea why. But, I can tell you that it was quite decadent.
Yep! I have the feeling that it's going to be a great couple of days.
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