Community

What a lovely sociable day. After five days stuck up a scaffold with only Mr B* for company, it was wonderful to get out and about and see lots of folk.

*Mr B is, even without needing to resort to any marital vows of being excellent to and about each other, quite the best company anyone could want. But anyone can have too much of a good thing, and after five days of squabbling about which way up the plasterboard goes, why that measurement was wrong, and what you call that little metal bit that goes in a drill to make it a screwdriver, it was time for a break...

Anyway, over to Gullane today for the blipbeachmeet organised by StewartBremner - and he certainly did a fine job with the weather, which was dull and cold until pretty much the exact moment the blipmeet was scheduled to start. Friends in high places indeed.

First, me and the kids headed off to visit old friends: K was dropped off with one friend, while I took Conor to meet another in the park, happily meeting another there too. Then off to see a friend who was such a big help when we were moving - popping round with food and offers of help and generally giving me a place to go to escape the madness. In return for the gift of a plant, I was treated to tea and cake on the terrace and a lovely, and much missed, gossip about the local characters.

Next, pick up Katherine, and friend, from friend's house and head for the beach. Lovely time chatting with Stewart, family justsitting, family tfp and, a little later, the ecofamily too. And yet again I managed to forget to take lots of photos - of the one group of folk who would never think it was weird that I was taking photos of them/their kids. I did use my telephoto a fair bit to check that the orange dot at the rockpools in the distance was my son, rather than some random child in an orange top: but not many photos taken. If only blippers were more dull company I'm sure I'd get more done.

Anyway, on to see friends arriving for a bbq at the end of the beach, who I only recognised because of their lovely dog, Woody, charging up and down in the surf. Some time in the middle of taking photos of him, my camera slipped from aperture priority to shutter priority. So all the rest of my photos are on the right settings for a misty blurred waterfall shot, not ideal for a bright sunny day with fast moving objects... The lovely shots I took of the kids eating their ice creams are cool in a sort of nuclear armageddon sort of way, but that's not really what I'm looking for with snaps of my kids. Still, it did remind me to think about shutter priority - and why it is that I only ever use it for shots I want to slow down and blur, rather than action shots - which is totally daft and a reminder that, no matter how much you think you might be beginning to get to grips with this photography lark, it comes back and reminds you what an idiot you really are.

Later (yes, I'm still going, feel free to just comment "That dog looks like he's having fun" and leave. This was an important day for me and I want to get it down.) popped to the wonderful handbag shop in Gullane for a present for a friend. An unprecedented traffic jam (funeral procession, it turned out. I was going to take a picture of the fancy black horse, but it didn't seem fitting somehow) meant I arrived just on the dot of 5, when she closes. Already closed - tragedy! Some tapping on the window and vigorous waving (I felt like an idiot, but she was on the sewing machine and couldn't hear) got her attention and thankfully she was happy to let me in and I bought what I needed. As is the way in Gullane she said "I remember you - you bought a handbag from me a while ago - and it had to fit your camera". Seems even when I've left it's my camera they remember, not me!

Next we all, slightly sandy and jaded, headed off to another friend's house for "a quick cup of tea". Four hours of restorative chat (and dinner) later we were off home, in the dark, with two very sleepy children. My friend is pregnant, and although we parted with much talk of when we would see each other, realism tells me that I probably won't see her before the baby is born. Made me feel a bit sad.

I managed all day not to drive past our old house, accidentally, and then by design, using back streets so as not to pass it. Now, back home in Fife with everyone in bed, I can wallow in the admission that I miss my old village. I miss that every trip to the shop down the road used to take an hour because of all the folk you'd bump into. I miss being known as "the photographer lady". When I was young, moving from the country where everyone in a five mile radius knew who you were, to the town where you didn't even know your neighbour's name, was a liberation. Now I long for that sense of community that I couldn't appreciate as a child. I worry that it will take an even longer time to build it in France. Time to get those language CDs out again I think...

But now it's late, and I'm relishing my day of gossip and company, and the rather nice Rioja by my side. The thing with moving on is that some days you feel the excitement of the move, and the newness of the change, and some days you just miss the comfort of what you know.