What Have You Being Doing With Your Non-triumph Today?

Can’t beat just following the front wheel to no where

 

Wee run up to Crathie Kirk this afternoon (where the royals go to worship when they stay at Balmoral Castle)


stopped of at the Bothy in Braemar for a hot chocolate



View from the back of the Bothy

 

I must have passed both the Bothy and the Kirk so many times on my way down to Carnoustie. I never knew either of them were there! Not the kirk, actually, as I used to hang a right coming off the B976).

 

the Bothy has only been open 4/5 years, Crathie Kirk on the other hand has been their a bit longer! It sits opposite the car park to Balmoral Castle

 

I just edited my post - I used to hang a right after coming off the B976, so I never actually went past the kirk... It's been more than 4/5 years ago I was in that neuk of Scotland, so can't have seen the bothy then.

 

By the way @Dougie D , neuk in Dutch is quite different from what it is in Scottish...

 

Been googling have you, @andyc1 ?

 

i did

 

Without phlegm, the "eu" is pronounced like the French word 'two': deux Does that help? ??

 

Just spat my beer all over the keyboard - commiserations to the cat!

 

I don't see he challenge really - Dutch is easy, toddlers can speak it!

 

Well, I like to think I've got a decent command of yours...

 

Anyway...

 

I suspect that, like most all of the Dutch people I've ever met, you probably have fluency in at least 4 languages and could get by in a couple more!

It reminds me of the day I arrived in Zouterwoude for my first day of work at the network centre where I'd just secured a 3 months contract. I'd travelled by train from Amsterdam where the client had organised a week's hotel accommodation to give us (there were 2 of us) time to sort out a more suitable and local place to stay for the duration of the contract.

Anyway, came out of the rail station and - lo and behold - the bus station is right there. Marvellous! Here in Britain you might get a stop or two but there it was a row of stops and a tunround - a proper terminus. I looked at all the signs by the individual stands but couldn't work out which would get me to the industrial estate where the site was located so I asked the driver sat in the cab of the first bus ...

"Excuse me, could you tell me which bus I need to get me to 'the Heineken'?" "Yes, of course. It's at stand number 4. Ask the driver to tell you when the bus is approaching the Heineken."

"Ah, OK - thank you!"

"No problem. Have a good day."

So, off I trotted down to stand number 4 (or whatever stand it actually was ... this was in 1989 and my memory wasn't good even then!) hopped onto the waiting bus and said to the driver ...

"Can I have a single to Heineken, please? And would you let me know when we're there, please."

"Yes, of course. Your ticket - thank you."

I sat down feeling quite smug and pleased with myself. But, my musing on the excitement of starting a 3 months contract in Holland was, quite suddenly, interrupted by the dawning of realisation that I'd carried out a conversation, albeit very brief, with two bus drivers ENTIRELY in English! If I'd been Dutch and working a 3 month contract in Exeter and had arrived at the bus station there to ask a driver in Dutch where I could get a bus to Marsh Barton he/she would have looked at me as if I'd just landed from outer space and had inhabited the body of an earthling without learning English ... let alone Debonian!

Of course, I soon got to know that pretty much everybody in Holland speaks and, more importantly, understands English to a very high standard - often from a very early age. But it was a revelation that has stayed with me. No offence intended to UK bus drivers but I seriously doubt that more than a handful of them would class themselves as multi-lingual, whereas I suspect that the vast majority of Dutch bus drivers would speak at least two languages and often 3 or 4.

As a wholly irrelevant aside, Wim, your gloves have arrived. I'll repackage them and try to get them to Jan tomorrow.

Apologies if I've derailed this thread ...... t spijt me. )

 

No worries about derailing Adie- we all do it! as for languages - being such a tiny country we need to be able to express ourselves in other tongues, we can't expect to be understood elsewhere!

Cheers for the gloves, I'm very grateful!

 

I actually do speak a bit of Mandarin, too...

This might be helpful:

Wo xiang yao yi ping pijiu, ma shang!

我想要一瓶啤酒, 马上!