Pregnancy and the Baha'i Month of Fasting

As many of you know, Rory and I are Baha'is, and in the Baha'i Faith there is a prescribed period of fasting where we abstain from food and drink. Fasting is common in many religions; some Christians fast or give up other material things during Lent, Muslims fast for 30 days during Ramadan, Jews fast on Yom Kippur. There are many other examples of fasting for religious reasons, but often a common desired outcome of all these periods of fasting is nearness to God and the nourishment of one's spiritual self. By practicing self-control and sublimating our physical desires, we find ourselves in stronger contact with our own noble souls and with the world beyond our little bubble of daily life.

"Happy is your condition for you have executed the divine command, and have arisen to fast in these blessed days. For this physical fasting is a symbol of the spiritual fasting, that is, abstaining from all carnal desires, becoming characterized with the attributes of the spiritual ones, attracted to the heavenly fragrances and enkindled with the fire of the love of God." - ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

The Baha'i month of fasting is a period of 19 days—the Baha'i calendar is composed of 19 months with 19 days in each month—and this special period happens during the final month of the Baha'i year. It takes place around March 2-March 20 every year, and Baha'is celebrate the end of the fast and the beginning of the new year on March 20 or 21 with Naw Ruz, the new year's celebration.

A sunny early spring day at the Parc Montsouris. 

Baha'is between the ages of 15 and 70 are exhorted to fast from all food and drink between sunrise and sunset for these 19 days. We wake up early in the morning, have breakfast before the sun comes up, and eat dinner after the sun sets. There are a few exemptions from fasting, however. Those who are traveling long distances, who are ill, or who are engaged in heavy labor do not need to fast, as well as women who are pregnant, nursing, or menstruating.

I have been fasting for the last 14 years of my life. The Fast is something I always greatly look forward to as winter draws to a close and spring begins to peek through the gloom. This year, however, I get to trade the privilege of fasting for the privilege of growing a human inside my body. Although I usually enjoy the Fast and find it challenging and spiritually uplifting, I am loving the experience of pregnancy and the increasing connection and love I feel for the banana-sized baby curled up in my tummy.

Even though I'm eating (like a horse!) during the Fast this year, I still wanted to use this special time for my own spiritual growth. For me, fasting at its most basic level restores self-discipline and routine to my life. Rising early despite tiredness, staying focused despite hunger; these are some of the more mundane aspects of fasting, but ones that promote balance and productivity.

The first daffodils I saw in Paris--in January.

So in lieu of forgoing food, I have been getting up before sunrise with Rory every morning for breakfast, partly for my own edification and partly to support him in his fasting. After we pray together, I make time to meditate, read the Baha'i Writings, and write some reflections in my journal. These are activities that I try to do all year long, but the self-discipline I manage during the Fast is what makes it work every day. I don't look at my phone or computer until after I have completed this morning routine. And I removed Facebook and games from my phone so I wouldn't be tempted to waste time on them. Two other elements of my fast this year have been regularly practicing the cello (which is harder to do when you have no impending orchestra concerts and no students to teach), and exercising and getting out of the apartment every day. These sound like simple tasks, but to an introverted pregnant lady with no regular job living in a foreign country, it's harder than you might think to motivate yourself out the door and up and down those five flights of stairs.

Happily, taking these simple steps during the Fast has increased my productivity, gratitude, and joy, brought me out of my technology-induced fog, and made me feel more connected not only to God but also to my husband, family, and friends. It's like I had been treading water for many months, barely able to keep my head above the surface, and suddenly I realized I could just get out of the pool.

Today is my 29^th birthday, and normally, having a birthday during the Fast means having lots of positive energy to carry you through the day, but also often means having to turn down offers of birthday lunches or having to save a birthday cupcake for eight hours before I could eat it. The positives outweigh the negatives, so I never minded too much, but it was admittedly a very pleasant change this time around to have a birthday lunch for the first time in 14 years. One of the best birthday presents of all, though, is that tomorrow I fly to Oregon to visit my family and friends for the first time in ten months. I can't wait!

Despite the challenges of moving to a new country and navigating a foreign language, pregnancy, the health care system, French bureaucracy, and all the other things I have complained about, the Fast has helped me to realize just how blessed I really am. I have grown more this year than any other (and not just my belly!) and I'm so grateful for the opportunities I have been given.

My first birthday lunch in 14 years!
And the first gluten-free pizza I've found in Paris. http://biospherecafe.fr/en

Coming soon: Moving to a new apartment...on the ground floor!

Happy fasting to our dear Baha'i friends and happy spring to all!

On the road to Rouen

(Title of this post shamelessly stolen from the Supergrass album of the same name. And yeah, we took the train, so it's not even that accurate.)

Last weekend, we took a short trip to Rouen - we left Paris on Friday afternoon and came back on Sunday afternoon. Rouen is a small city northwest of Paris, about 75 minutes by train. It's the capital of Normandy and is principally famous as having several medieval cathedrals and also as being the place where Joan of Arc was tried and executed. For us, it was a chance to get out of the hustle and bustle of Paris and have a relaxing weekend. For Talia in particular, it was her first time exploring France outside of the Île-de-France region.

The journey begins.

I didn't know that much about Joan of Arc before going to Rouen, so here's a rough approximation of my knowledge. The background to the story is the Hundred Year's War between France and England, which despite the name, did not last for a hundred years (it was 116 years), and was not a war (it was a series of disconnected skirmishes and battles). During this period, the English crown was trying to assert authority over (parts of) France, while (parts of) the French royal family were fighting to oppose it. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who had a number of religious visions showing a united France, and rose to prominence in leading successful attacks in several decisive battles. (To do this, she wore men's clothes, which was regarded with a mixture of shock and bemusement.) After a while, she was captured by the English (well, allies of the English in any case), and eventually put to death (by burning) for heresy. Given that Joan quickly became an icon of French culture, a symbol of fighting for freedom against an oppressive force*, the town that was responsible for putting her to death has been, at time, a little embarrassed of its status.

[* This is part of the myth-making that I don't really understand. It wasn't as if France was under the cruel yoke of a dictator and they were fighting for freedom and democracy. This was a war to determine which unelected hereditary leader was "rightfully" the leader of France. Not particularly noble in either case.]

Nevertheless, there are a number of Joan-related activities that you can do. Principally, you can visit the 13th-century fort where she was imprisoned.

The fort where Joan of Arc was held prior to her execution.

Rouen recently made most (all?) of their public museums free of charge. Consequently, we had the following exchange at the entrance to the fort:

Man: Entry is free. Well, except for the English. You're not English are you?
Talia: No, I'm American, and he is Scottish.
Man: Ah! American! Well, you liberated us, so you can go in. And Scottish? My grandmother was Scottish, so you're good too.

(Of course, he was ignoring the fact that the Scots fought on the side of the French in the Hundred Years War, including the fact that several Scottish soldiers fought alongside Joan of Arc during the siege of Orléans.)

Once inside, there was a good selection of historical information and Jean-related paraphernalia. One exhibit featured an amusing Franglish translation:

Her "eldbows"; she is "hearing the voices"; "made in biscuit".

The statuette in question. Looks delicious!

This post would be remiss if I neglected to include pictures of the grand churches and cathedrals. It felt like you couldn't go a few paces without bumping into another huge church or medieval tower.

The trip achieved its goal of being a relaxing (yet cultured) weekend away. There are many more regions of France to explore, so hopefully this will be the first of many such excursions!

What is a postdoc?

Today's post is for everyone wondering "what is Rory actually doing in Paris? What is a 'postdoctoral researcher' really?" Since you asked the question, you get to learn about the wonderful world of academia and higher education.

The answer is, on one level, quite simple, but also quite complex as there are many caveats and exceptions. The simple answer is that a postdoc is a form of temporary employment for people with PhDs, which allows them to gain extra training and experience before (presumably) moving on to a permanent position as a professor.

For the longer answer, we have to consider the traditional career trajectory of someone with a PhD. This trajectory is roughly (a) get a PhD, (b) be hired into a professorship. (By "professorship" I mean being hired as an "assistant professor" in North America, or as a "lecturer" in the UK. The positions are broadly equivalent. (Confusingly, "lecturer" in the North American context has a different meaning.)) However, there are two problems with this traditional trajectory:
1) There are very few professorships, and quite a lot of people with PhDs
2) Some fields of knowledge are so very specialized that even after getting a PhD, your knowledge is not complete or effective enough to do groundbreaking original research.

So, as a partial solution, a "postdoctoral" period of additional training is common. Postdoc positions are very diverse, but traditionally they involve working with a mentor (usually an established, famous researcher) on some new project that is related to but not the same as your previous research. Along the way, you will learn new skills, theories, and frameworks, and acquire valuable experience in writing up research articles and supervising students. Some postdoc positions involve working on a specific, pre-determined project, some are open-ended. Some positions involve a little (or a lot) of teaching, to postgraduates or undergraduates, while some have no teaching. Some involve a lot of committee work, organizing, and managing, while others do not. Some postdocs don't even have an explicit mentor.

In some fields, such as the natural sciences, doing a postdoc is all but mandatory if you want to stay in the academic game. (In natural sciences, there are also a lot of job opportunities for PhDs in private industry, so that's where many people go instead of professorships.) In the humanities, postdocs are somewhat rarer. In the social sciences (like linguistics and cognitive science), they're fairly common. Postdocs also appear to be more common in Europe than in North America, although I think that's more to do with the volatile nature of higher education funding in Europe than an actual cultural preference. Indeed, it's not uncommon for academics in Europe to be sustained purely through research funds acquired from grants, rather than through a direct contract from a university. They're still affiliated with a university, but their salary comes from a research foundation (usually funnelled through the university, who skim money off the top so they can pay their electricity bills). This kind of precarious academic situation is becoming more common, and all it takes for them to face unemployment is a few failed grant applications or research budget cuts. It's scary.

So, postdocs are really diverse. What's mine like? Well, I have a supervisor (or a mentor), and together we are working on a project that is largely of my own devising. I do not have any teaching responsibilities, although I've been informally mentoring some master's and PhD students, and I'm otherwise free to pursue my research in whatever way I like. All in all, it's a great position, and very conducive to learning new skills, getting papers published, and making me more attractive for landing that coveted professorship job.

What do postdoctoral researchers actually do, though? For me, there is a lot of variability in my day-to-day activities. Here's a rough outline of the sorts of things that I do:

• Attending discussion groups. Someone may seek expert feedback on a research proposal or a draft presentation for a conference.
• Meetings. Yes, you can't escape meetings, even in higher education. Meetings with collaborators to discuss our projects (and assign tasks and keep people on schedule); meetings with students to review their progress; meetings with the whole lab to discuss administration; meetings with visiting scholars to talk about their latest project; and more.
• Reading articles. Staying up-to-date on the current state of the field is very important - new findings are always being published, and new methodologies and techniques developed. I spend a lot of time simply prioritizing what I need to read closely, what I can simply skim, and what I can ignore. There's a lot of good science out there!
• Designing and planning experiments. This can be a long process and is often one of the most varied aspects of my job. It can involve making recordings, combing through dictionaries for words with just the right combinations of sounds, creating huge spreadsheets to make sure your designs are "balanced", tweaking hardware to ensure that stimulus presentation is correct and that responses are accurately recorded, learning new programming techniques for presenting stimuli, and more.
• Analyzing data from experiments. This part can also take a while, depending on how much (or little!) work I did in the planning stage. This usually involves a lot of statistics and a little programming. For many experiments, acoustic analysis is also necessary (and invariably tedious).
• Preparing presentations to give at professional conferences. Sending work-in-progress for consideration for presentation at conferences is all part of the job. The feedback you get at conferences can really improve the work that you do, and the personal connections you make with people can be really important too. Before the conference, of course, many hours are spent perfecting the presentation - you only have your audience for a brief time, so you have to be sure that you convey your message well.
• Writing (and re-writing) articles for publication in scientific journals. This is a big part of the job. Academics are judged to a large extent on the quality (and quantity) of their publications. Finished articles are sent to a journal, who sends them out to reviewers (other academics) who write critical reviews of the article, saying whether it's good enough to be published. Usually, it isn't, and they demand particular changes - incorporate a particular theory into the discussion, run another experiment, change the statistical analysis. Sometimes they simply reject the article as inferior. It can be a slow, gruelling, and soul-crushing process. Still, getting published and contributing to humanity's understanding of the world is pretty great.

I won't do all of those things in a single day, but they're all things I do. There's usually a fair degree of overlap - while I am planning my next experiment, I'll also be analyzing the data from the previous experiment, and writing up the results from the experiment before that. My job is self-directed and generally very flexible, which is great in some regards. It also means it's easy to procrastinate or skive, so I usually try to impose a fairly rigid structure to my days with clear goals so that I actually get things done.

I definitely enjoy my job, but there are times when I wish the system were simpler, or that the process of proving your worth as a researcher didn't involve so many hoops to jump through. Still, that discussion is probably better saved for another post. Sorry for the lack of pictures today. Next week, we'll be talking about Rouen (in Normandy), so you have that to look forward to!

Nous attendons un bébé!

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, most everyone knows by now that we're expecting a baby this August. It was so heartwarming to hear the kind words from our friends around the world, and we are tremendously excited to become parents. Being pregnant is definitely a strange new experience for me, but it feels doubly strange because we are trying to navigate it in a foreign country. Today I thought I would share a little about our experience so far of being pregnant in France.

I'm pretty sure all French babies look like this

First of all, I've had to learn a lot of words in French that would not have otherwise been on my vocab lists. The French word for pregnancy, for example, is rather repugnant.

Grossesse 

Ew. Grossesse? It's like "grossness". And even better, it comes from the word gros, which means fat or large. Grossir is a related verb--it means to fatten up. 

Sure, it's a pretty accurate description of what happens during pregnancy, but for women who are sensitive to the dramatic changes happening in their bodies (let's be honest, we're sensitive to just about anything these days), calling it a "period of fattening up" was probably not the best choice of term. I bet anything some insensitive man came up with it.

In contrast, the etymology of the English word pregnancy is much more polite. The latin simply meant "with child" and "before birth". I'll take pregnancy over grossesse any day.

If you can read French (or want to use Google Translate), here's an amusing post about how terrible French words are regarding pregnancy and childbirth.

Learning the French health care system

As Rory and I are generally quite healthy, when we moved here, I was hoping to avoid French doctors as much as possible. There's the language barrier to start, and then the fact that I was completely unfamiliar with the system of socialized health care they employ here. It's quite different from the British National Health Service (NHS) too, so Rory didn't really know how it worked either. Needless to say, when we learned of the pregnancy, my doctor-avoidance plan went out the window and I started researching like there was no tomorrow.

Here's what we've learned. In very basic terms, one goes to the doctor in France, pays for the visit out of pocket, and is reimbursed for usually a significant percentage of the cost by the sécurité sociale. People also take out mutuelle policies, which are like top-up health insurance plans that will cover what the government doesn't. (We don't have one yet...and you thought figuring out insurance was hard in English!) Nonetheless, it's a pretty reasonable way to do things, and it ensures that people can get excellent health care without an enormous pricetag (I'm looking at you, America). In fact, in a "2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the 'close to best overall health care' in the world."

I can testify thus far that my care has been perfectly adequate. I found an OB/GYN within walking distance of our place who is friendly and competent. He even speaks English and does the ultrasounds himself (both unusual for doctors here). I pay him in cash at each monthly visit, and I receive a receipt which I send to the securité sociale offices for reimbursement. At least, that's the plan--I'm still wading through bureaucracy to get myself registered with social security, so eventually I should be reimbursed.

That's a very quick explanation of the French health care system as we currently understand it. I'll share more pregnancy- and French health care-related stories with you in future posts, but I'll leave you with these three wonderful features of grossesse in France that almost make up for the terrible word:

1) All maternity expenses are 100% covered by the government from the 6th month onward.
2) Women and families receive financial support from the government once the baby is born (up to a certain income level).
3) Paid maternity and paternity leave actually exist in this country.

As an American, these things are music to my ears.

Cycling in Paris

A laid-back cyclist symbol on a side street.

Paris has an excellent metro system, which moves 4 million people a day. There's also an extensive bus and larger commuter train service. More recently, however, the city officials have been trying to encourage more cycling, partly to reduce traffic congestion (of which there is a lot), and to improve health and well-being. This means that recently there have been a number of bike-friendly changes to the road infrastructure. There are several bike lanes, of various degrees of separation from the traffic, and also bikes are able to share the bus-and-taxi lanes. Several one-way streets are actually two-way for bikes, which makes navigation easier, and at some traffic lights there are signs indicating that bikes can proceed (either forward or to the right) at a red light, if the coast is clear. On Sundays and public holidays, some roads near the centre of town are closed to all non-bike non-pedestrian traffic. And there was the journée sans voiture, when cars were banned from the city centre. Still, even with those bike-friendly policies, surely it's a terrifying notion to go out onto the road with wild Frenchmen? After all, tourists (Brits and Americans alike) return with crazy stories about the frenetic, chaotic traffic in Paris. And there is video proof!

Well, I've been cycling to work more or less since I began in September, and I can tell you: Paris is a joy to cycle in. Outside of Amsterdam, I can't think of a large city that I would rather cycle in. Let me explain why.

Other cyclists

First of all, strength in numbers. It's much easier to brave the streets when there's a whole gang of cyclists you're moving with than when you're on your own. On my way to work, I routinely cycle with at least one or two other cyclists who happen to be going the same way at about the same speed. Total strangers, but we stick together on the road and feel safer. On the way back it's not uncommon to see about half a dozen others, especially on the busier roads. This feature isn't unique to Paris, of course, but it makes cycling easier, especially for a relative novice like myself.

Other road users

The first thing to understand about the traffic in Paris (and many other large European cities like Rome) is the preponderance of motorized scooters and small motorbikes. They are everywhere, and they zip around everyone. They go in bike lanes, bus lanes, they jump red lights, they'll even go on the pavement (sidewalk, for the American readers) to get around an obstacle. This is not to say that it's totally anarchic - I'm definitely over-emphasizing their wildness - but simply that these motorbikes are an established part of the Parisian traffic.

From the perspective of a car driver, then, a bicycle is just a smaller, slower, more timid moped. The car drivers are used to looking out for mopeds, checking their blind spots, being conscious of allowing them to filter through traffic. As a consequence, they're very conscientious of bikes. There have been several times, when I move past a line of stopped cars to get to the front at a red light, that a car has actually moved slightly to give me more space to get past. I've almost never seen that happen in the US or the UK.

Another thing to understand about Paris traffic is something that sounds quite obvious - the laws are different here. The rules of the road, and of who has right of way, are quite different to those of the US and UK (and quite unintuitive if you were raised in either of those systems). While Brits may think the French traffic to be chaotic, the French think British traffic is inflexible. There have been maybe three times when I have misunderstood the rules of the road and turned when I didn't have right of way, and so on. Each time, rather than tooting their horn and yelling at me, car drivers have slowed and allowed me to pass, even though they had every right to continue. It seems that bike-riders are extended some courtesy - even excessive courtesy - which is perhaps not extended to other car drivers.

The Velib' system

Paris has a bike-share system called Velib' (a blend of vélo "bike" and liberté "freedom"). There are similar systems in many other cities you may be familiar with (like Toronto, Columbus, London, and others). In case you're not familiar, here's a brief explanation of how it works:

A bike station with some attached bikes.

There are bike stations all over the city, each with several bikes attached. You scan your card on the bike stand of the bike you want, and the bike is released and you can take it. When you're finished, just park it back at any other bike station, and you're good.

The bike is free for the first thirty minutes, and after that you pay a small amount per half hour. There is also a subscription cost - 1.70€ for a day, 8€ for a week, or 29€ for a year. Yes, a year's subscription at only 29€, which gives you free half-hour bike rentals. Much cheaper than buying and maintaining your own bike.

The cupboard was bare!

It's possible that when you go to return the bike, the station is full. Or that when you want a bike, the station is empty. Luckily, there are stations everywhere. There are over 1,000 stations, and over 30,000 bikes, in the entire system. It's the largest bike-share system outside of China.

The bikes are of varying quality. Sometimes the brakes are iffy, or there's a punctured tyre or broken chain. Thankfully, an informal system has sprung up where if someone notices if a bike is bad, they turn the seat to face backwards. That way it's easy to see at a glance if a bike is suitable. I've had a few duds but mostly the bikes are good, and the stations are so common it's easy to drop off a bad bike and exchange it for another.

My route to work

Finally the last reason that cycling in Paris is so enjoyable is the reason that many things in Paris are enjoyable - it's Paris! Every day on my way to work I get to see the Notre Dame, (a glimpse of) the Eiffel Tower, the Place de la Bastille, the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, the Jardin des Plantes, the Grand Mosque of Paris, and many other sights. It's very exciting!

Cycling is Paris is not as scary as it may seem at first, and there's lots of ways that it's been made more pleasurable than it could be. I definitely enjoy having the freedom to cycle around, rather than having to be squeezed into a metro train or a bus. If you come to Paris, let me take you out cycling :-)

Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Paris is very big, and there's lots to explore. According to Julián Carax, a character in Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel The Shadow of the Wind, "one can't see Paris in two days, or in two months, or even in two years". There's too much!

Even so, it can be nice to get out of the city once in a while and explore the rest of France. After considering several options, last weekend we decided to take a day trip to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This is a small town in the Île-de-France region and accessible by commuter train from Paris. Saint-Germain-en-Laye's main claims to fame are its fabulous chateau and grounds, and the fact that many royals made it their residence. Louis XIV, France's favourite king, was born there, and the chateau was also home to James the VII of Scotland and II of England (the same king) after he was exiled from Britain for being too Catholic.

"Louis XIV was born here". Apparently this is a big deal.

Most of the town is seated on a hill, so you can get a good view of the Paris region, including the skyscrapers that constitute the business district (la défense) and the Eiffel tower.

The Eiffel tower is that little blip in the distance beside the hill on the right.

The gates to the chateau.

Inside the chateau, naturally, is a large archaeology museum, with displays from the palaeolithic to the Roman era. It particularly focused on French archaeology, with displays of neanderthal burials, cave paintings from the south of France, and Gaulish settlements.

A neolithic carving - this one was barely bigger than a fingertip.

A bronze-age Zodiac calendar.

The museum was fascinating, really a lot of information in there. About a third of the exhibits were translated into English, and the rest we slowly puzzled over. When we were ready to leave, we just hopped on the commuter train and were home in 45 minutes! It was very pleasant to find this town. It was far enough from Paris that it didn't feel like Paris (being on the hill and being able to see far helped with that, I think), but also close enough that a spontaneous day trip was not full of travelling. Perhaps we'll take more day trips in the future.

Bonne année!

Happy New Year! Hard to believe we're only four years away from 2020 now. It's like we're living in ...THE FUTURE!

We hope you all had joyeuses fêtes and are settling into a happy and productive 2016. Rory and I enjoyed spending Christmas and the new year (or Hogmanay as the Scots call it) in Scotland. We had a relaxing time seeing friends and family, driving to Glasgow, Coatbridge, and Glenfarg to visit people, and generally eating too much good food. It was the perfect cure to my feeling cooped up and lonely in Paris.

The obligatory silly Christmas photo with the family

As a side note, when I first started traveling to the UK five years ago, I was hyperaware of all the differences between Britain and the US. Everything seemed foreign and (forgive me British friends and family) charming and quaint. As I became more familiar with the country and customs, those feelings ebbed, but I still felt very conspicuous and out of place. I would try to mimic the speech patterns of the natives, make sure not to say "pants" when I meant "trousers", all in an effort to not be the obvious and clueless American.

After five months in France however, I have come to regard Britain as my second home. I feel comfortable there, I can almost always understand what people are saying (except in Glasgow--man, those accents are thick!), and I feel that I can be myself 96% of the time. Compared to the challenges of living in a country where you're bad at the language and where the culture is significantly different from your own, being in the UK is a walk in the park. I could even see us living there some day.

Now, back to the task at hand. Our trip to Scotland was lovely and pretty standard, except for one particularly stunning day. You may have heard of (or experienced) the flooding that was happening in parts of Scotland and northern England this past month. If not, it was serious stuff. Towns were submerged when rivers flooded their banks and a considerable amount of damage was done in many places.

Dumfries, where the Turnbulls live, is in the south of Scotland, and although it sees a bit of flooding every year or so, it isn't usually too bad. This year, however, was a doozy. The Turnbulls' house was never in danger, thankfully. But when the local river burst its banks we headed downtown to see the flooding in progress. We went during the afternoon and again in the evening when the water was even deeper. Here are some photos.

The churning River Nith, breaking its banks

Not the best place to sit...

A friendly policeman helping neighbors pile sandbags at their door

Notice the change in water level between afternoon and evening...

It's just water under the bridge

No shopping tonight

Perhaps not the best place to leave the car

Fortunately, this is about as bad as it got. By the next day, the water levels had receded considerably and although things were still very soggy and many shop owners had goods damaged by the floods, no houses or cars were swept away and most people avoided any problems at all. Dumfries was lucky!

And that's all for Scotland. Next week, Rory will share more of our thrilling adventures in Paris. Have a great week!