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Published: April 5th 2006
Leaving Through the Windows
Our home for the next 6 months. Unlike our flat in Edinburgh, here we can look out of our windows without having someone looking back. Not only that but our windows are doors and our doors are windows! It’s a glorious day. The sun is bright in a perfect blue sky. The palm trees rustle softly in a warm northerly breeze. I’ve just moored the yacht and am making my way up the gently sloping cliff path in my white Man-from-Delmonte suit and Panama hat. As I reach the top of the path, the large Tuscan-style white mansion house appears in the perfectly landscaped gardens. To the side of the house, my driver, John Nettles, is standing next to a red sports car reading a copy of the financial times. Beyond him, a family of tan coloured cows open their picnic basket and tuck into a lunch of potatoes and cider. Some £20 notes fall from tree branches and tumble past me in the breeze.
If you ask anyone who hasn’t been to Jersey what they think it’s going to be like, this seems to fairly much capture the essence of their reply. And up until our flight bounced down on Jerseys runway, my over active imagination had fairly much taken this small picture and stretched it across a 45 square mile island where 90,000 people live a life of luxury and cows enjoy picnics. £Moo£.
So
Coconuts and Monkeys
Yes, there are palm trees in Plockton. There are also palm trees on Skye. But to me, palm trees equal tropical paradise and Bounty adverts. And I've always wanted a Bounty advert in my garden... imagine my surprise when on greeting my first Jersey resident, I am greeted by a distinctly Glaswegian sounding accent. Did the pilot at Gatwick take a wrong turn and head north instead of south, I briefly wondered? Now, in all the conversations I’d had with friends, colleagues and even strangers in a bar about Jersey, I don’t recall anyone ever telling me what the Jersey accent sounds like. I’d never really given it any thought. But in all my wildest imaginings (refer to picnicking cows above) I would not have pinned Jersey folk as sounding like Weegies. However, as I tried to imagine Bergerac patrolling Broomhouse or Taggart tackling hoodlums in St Helier, the taxi driver explained that he had moved from Glasgow 20 years ago. In fact it turns out Jersey is somewhat of a Scottish colony. And a Polish one. And a Portuguese one…
And so, armed with the knowledge that we’ll never have to miss a Rangers match as nearly every bar on the island shows Scottish football, and that we’ll never want for lack of Portuguese cuisine, our Jersey adventure began…
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Cabesy
non-member comment
Celestine-like coincidence?
Vik - how freaky is it that Depeche Mode have just come on as I read this, eh?! My favorite LP is still the 2nd one - the one after Vince Clarke left. By the way I added a comment to another of your blogs and forgot to leave my name. It was me. I admit.