LEAF-go-VSO   

Life in Scotland

For our Chinese viewers, here is some information about where we came from...

   
China likes to think it's the 'Middle Kingdom', but if you look at the map above you'll notice that the UK (United Kingdom of Great Britain) is at the centre of the world...! Unlike Communist China, Scotland's dominant religion is Christianity (above right). Human settlement in Scotland has a long history - but perhaps not as long as in China- many ancient settlements can still be seen. This is due in part to Scotland's geology and cold climate (edifices were built in stone rather than wood) and lack of potential for natural disaster (no mighty flooding rivers or earthquakes to destroy buildings). And we didn't undergo a Cultural Revolution either...

Lesley's parents' home, Craiglea, is situated on the small peninsula (The Black Isle) just north of Inverness; Ali's parents' home  is in Aberdeen, on the North-East coast of Scotland. We also love spending time on the Island of Skye, in the top left quarter of the map. Before we came to China we lived in West Linton, a village just south of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland.

Scotland is a land of mountains. Although they don't rise any higher than Ben Nevis at 1344m altitude (Simao is at 1300m!), they often do so from close to sea level. Even in summer the weather can be cold and windy, with snowfall a possibility throughout most of the year.

           
Ali enjoying a rock-climb on the Tynrich Slabs of Stac Gorm near Inverness (left); a Black-Faced ewe (female sheep) with this year's lamb (right) 

             
In Simao we often see bracken buds on the menu - here in Scotland this plant is regarded as more of a nuisance to pedestrian movement than a food source! (left); the Spear Thistle cirsium vulgare (right) is the national flower of Scoland.

       
Freda with her pony Lucy in 2005 (left); our old house in West Linton (centre); Edie (right) looking a bit younger in her VSO can-shaking-fund-raising days.

Our home before we came to China was the small Borders village of West Linton, where we lived from 1999 to 2005 (both Freda and Edie were born in Melrose, at Borders General Hospital). West Linton is situated at the foot of the Pentland Hills, and we got to know and love the wilder parts of the hills well. But one thing we don't miss here in Simao is the half hour commute into work each day, requiring a heavy reliance on the car for transport.

Tinto Hill Race 2004: Tinto is about 20 minutes drive from our old home in West Linton. The runners are about half way up the climb: Ali - second from right - is just about to step up a gear... (Photograph ©SHR)

Being active in the Scottish hills was a big part of our lives before we moved to China - in fact Lesley and I met each other at the Isle of Jura Fellrace in 1999. Apart from our friends and family, it's the Scottish mountains that we miss most of all now we're living here in Simao. Hill-running (both informally and in competitive races) is a sport that most people in Britain regard as slightly eccentric. In China it simply cannot be comprehended. 

In Britain many people are able to enjoy leisure time and most of our friends are very active; we find the time and mental/physical energy to partake in this activity. This is something we ponder when running in the hills around Simao - passing a weather-beaten peasant farmer endlessly working his field with a shoulder hoe. What is going through his head as he spies the strange white foreigners also toiling in the run, staggering breathlessly across his fields for fun?

Red deer are a common sight in the Scottish hills. During the later part of the summer the stags (males) are reduced in number by selective culling. The hinds (females) are culled throughout the early winter. If the deer population was left unchecked, overgrazing would severely affect the ecology of the mountain environment. As it is, grazing by sheep and deer has severely reduced regeneration of forest cover of a landscape already denuded of trees by heavy deforestation in the late 19th Century and earlier (climatic effects also limit tree growth at this altitude and latitude). These generally bare and open hillsides are hugely different from the rainforests and lush vegetation which cover the hills of sub-Tropical southern Yunnan.