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I actually arrived at
Charleston airport in West Virginia toward the end of November 2003. I
went through Washington Dullas airport and have to say proceeding through
Dullas was very quick and easy and the airport officials were very helpful
in directing you to the right places to go. My connecting connection
to Charleston was a wee turbo prop aircraft and again everyone was very
helpful although the flight was certainly very turbulent.
Steve was waiting for me at
the airport and we went for my first cigarette since leaving the UK which
was most welcome after which I picked up my bags and we were heading for
his home in Kentucky. As it was night by this time I didn't see much of
the country but Steve made sure we stopped at the cigarette store for me
to pick up a couple of cartons of Doral cigarettes at prices way below the
prices in the UK :-)
When we arrived at the
house Deb was there to welcome me and I got shown to my room where I would
be staying for the duration of my stay.
The first few days were
taken up by getting me settled down and we went out to purchase a wee desk
and seat so I could get organised for publishing my stuff onto the web
site. So I ended up getting a corner of the room right next to the
kitchen... a very good position from my point of view :-)
Deb was getting organised
for Thanksgiving and when it arrived we had Turkey with all the trimmings
including pumkin pie. It was truly excellent and I ate far too much.
Steve and I were having
many discussions on what we might do to take the Electric Scotland site
forward and we made a number of decisions and ordered up some software as
we planned to do some major site work during December to take our plans
forward.
During this initial time
Deb was telling me about some of the history of the area and I was struck
by the similarities between this area and the Highlands of Scotland.
Deb's Great Grandfather had purchased the Mayfork Hollow (pronounced
Hollar) and over the generations part of the land has been given to
succeeding generations to build homes on. This of course is what
happened in the Highlands of Scotland. I can well see in another two
generations the land is going to get increasingly scarce so it may well be
that history repeats itself in Kentucky. Of course many Scots and
Scots-Irish have settled in the area so in many ways the culture is
similar although different.
My initial impression was
that almost all homes are built of wood with almost no stone built homes
which is a lot different from Scotland. I also noted that where in
Scotland we tend to plant hedges and build fences around our properties
that is very rare in Kentucky where the homes tend to have no boundary
between homes.
I'll be exploring a lot
more about the local culture in the weeks ahead and look forward to
reporting on that.
At this time of year
everyone is very busy getting organised for Christmas and here they really
go to town on Christmas decorations. Almost all homes have lights strung
around them and as I write Steve is in the process of getting his lights
up on the outside of the house. Deb goes way overboard on Christmas
decorations for the house and loves every moment of it. I've taken a
couple of pictures of the Christmas Tree and the Christmas village for you
to see...
The first picture shows the Christmas Village
while in the second you can see the Christmas Tree with my wee desk and
chair between it and the village.
So.. that's a wee initial
introduction to my settling down in Kentucky :-) |
