Ryan met the train in Kirkcaldy. I first met him three trips ago, He was in the cab line at the train station and I said something like this is your shortest fare ever. He said it was but that I could call him for a longer ride, so we laughed and I did and do. He drives me around and I pay him of course. When I have a trip to Kirkcaldy planned I email as he responds: “Your carriage awaits” and it does. He works hard. His day off is Sunday but he took me to two churches one Sunday. He is invaluable because he knows the town and he makes me laugh. Some of this stuff ii am digging up is rather sad and morbid, to say nothing about complicated.
I have an enormous talent for picking stupid places stay, says Ryan, and I fear he is right. I am staying in a B&B this time that is in the middle of nowhere and I have no cell phone reception. Brian says addicts come and stay here on weekends to get dried out and it looks like he might be right. But it is clean, I have a bath tub (I love baths) and Brian knows how to find the place t and comes to rescues me.
I made a major accomplishment yesterday. I want my ashes to go in a urn and be placed by my great grandfather Robert Baxter. Cousin Pat called it a condo because there is a grave stone and the stone says: “Peter and Agnes Baxter in loving memory of….and then lists six people, one of which is Robert Banter who died on May 26, 1890. Usually everybody gets their own grave marker. Not here. So I decided that this is were I want my ashes to be. Everyone things that I am a bit daft but nobody can stop me, particularly now.
At the graveyard there is a sign with a telephone number on it but no one ever answered the phone. So I got Ryan to give me ride to the place listed on the sign and no one was there because they were talking on the phone. Huh? So I told them the problem and they said the records in the West Wemyss Parish Churchyard were a mess and they needed the names and dates of death of everyone on the stone to be able to figure out the ‘coordinates’. So I hopped into the handy Ryan’s Taxi and went to West Wemyss and took a pen and paper and wrote them all down except the pen ran out of ink. It was back to the crematorium place with the list, they will look it up and tell me and then I can put it on the application form. I don’t fill out the application form, it does not get handed in until I am ashes. This is more that a little complicated and it takes a lot of work and I said to Ryan with all my luck I will die in a plane crash, get incinerated by a terrorist bomb or meet Mr. Right and get buried in the family mausoleum (over my dead body), But that mission was accomplished and Ryan drove me to the Library and Art Gallery and was able to get rid of me for hours.
I went to staff in the Local and Family History Room and informed them that if there was adequate signage I would not have to be asking this question. The question is: “Where is the loo, please.” They directed, I went but afterwards the man said that he was adding this question to comments of the day so that perhaps something could be done about it. I will really made a mark in Kirkcaldy – the ashes and the loo sign in the Library. I should have said I would autograph it for them, oh well, there might be another chance.
I spent a great deal of time in the Local and Family History Room but most of it was spent laughing and handing out business cards with my blog address. Lynn works there and she has been there every time I have been doing research beginning with cousin Gail and I making our preliminary visit in June of 2015. Everyone in the Archive Room were either having lunch, talking on the phone or out so I was not able to retrieve my uncle’s school records but I left an email with requests. Every since I began writing and researching the biography of Uncle Dave I have been trying to figure out how he learned to write. I hope this will help.
The officials took a picture of Lynn and me to post on FaceBook, I took one too and posted it with my blog address alexismcbride.com (surprise). Then I had a very late lunch at Pano and Vino, Brian picked me up and I came back to the B&B.
TODAY IT IS OFF FOR MORE ADVENTURE IN THE HEDONISTIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD KIRKCALDY!
