After Irma and the kids left I was sad for a few days, but as the time for my own leaving was also drawing nearer, I perked up fast, as in my line of work there wasn't a lot of space for lamenting.
Irene and Jim with whom I was lodging, were the strangest couple ever. She just about showered me with affection, both at work and at home, but Jim never said one wee word to me, except good morning and good night.
When I told Irene one day at work that I don't think Jim liked me lodging there, she penned me down with one intense stare, and told me shortly that Jim had no f......g say in the matter, as it was her f....g house! Like a lot of the Scots in Strathyre, she had a nasty mouth, and a heart of gold, and the combination of the two had me in awe when I just came there
Of the two Jim was the strangest. As time went on, and I listened to their conversations down below, the run of things in that house became clearer by the day.
Jim is a builder, and he and Keith had a bussiness together, and they worked very, very hard. Building in Scotland in the small villages were not at all like in South Africa, where there was usually an army of workers on a building site, some working, some leaning against anything leanable, but never did I see all of them working at the same time. In Scotland there was the minimum people on a job, and in this partnership everything was done by only the two of them, and I could imagine why Jim was so tired at night, and after umpteen rum and cokes at the Ben Shaenn, and a bottle of white with his food, he fell asleep just after dinner.
There was a young guy David, who like a lot of Scots whose parents had left Scotland long ago, decided to come back and reclaim their land, and then had to build a new career. He then had started also to build. This young giant worked all on his own, building a whole house from scratch, just getting somebody to help with the roof, as he couldn't do it alone. Quite amazing.
Jim and Irene had been together for close to twenty years, but never married, and as Irene told me one day, she loved Jim, but was not going to marry the stingy f....r! I soon found out why she called him stingy, and it was actually quite hilarious, and I started to understand why she regularly told him that she wasn't going to feed him anymore.
Sundays was Jim's only full day off, and therefore his only day to lie in. By nine he was up though, and then it was time for the weekly bath, of which I will talk later. Then the car would be pulled out, and he would lovingly walk around it with a cloth to get rid of any spots, before, with a smile of utter bliss, he would drive out onto the road, and off to Callender for the big shopping! Irene paid everything else, but Jim had to buy the groceries and meat!
After a couple of hours the car could be seen coming into the village at a snails pace, and after some time spent on getting the vehicle parked properly, Jim would very carefully get out, smile vaguely at the world, and then retrieve his groceries.This was usually one supermarket bag, filled with a can of cheap coffee, sugar, one or two packets of meat, and a few odds and ends, and a bottle of rum to while away the time till lunch, when he would saunter up to the Ben Shaen for a bacon butty (sandwich) and some more drinks.
Every Sunday night was the same, the only time that I ever heard hard words fell in that house, and Irene would call me to see Jim's contribution to the household, and I wondered about some people that could live with all kinds of abuses, as this was to me nothing but abuse of Irene's kindheartedness. He knew very well that Irene would never let him go to bed with an empty stomach, as she would buy food from the village shop, costing her a pretty penny, as it was expensive. But apart from this hiccup, they were still the most contented couple I have ever met.
The house is that of the young man David, who came back to claim his land. He found only part of the front stone walls standing, and he did a wonderful job of building it up and keeping the character, by not trying to straighten every wall. The back of the house though is very modern, although it can't be seen from the road.