Niall’s virtual diary archives – March 2004

Tuesday 23rd March 2004: 1.19pm. Just back from Scotland where I was visiting St. Andrews with a view to deciding whether I'll be going there or not for the next four years. It's a nice place - in fact, I liked Edinburgh too - the people were surprisingly cheerful and the weather better than I had expected. St. Andrews is also terribly old, everything is at least five hundred years old and a good bit is more than 900 - and it has played a pivotal role not only in the formation of the western world (through it being the birthplace of presbyterianism). My ancestors also came from the East of Fife, and to know there was a Douglas walking the steps of the ruined castles and churches - indeed, the very same cobbled streets - well, it's quite a thought.

Speaking of which, I took the opportunity to review the Douglas papers which are now held in St. Andrews' library - these being almost entirely legal documents from various successive generations. The oldest in there I could find was 1534 which is not bad, and there are loads dating from 1600 onwards. Unfortunately their content is extremely boring, being in legalised Latin for the first 200 years or so and in legalised English thereafter. The content is mundane, detailing things like how many bushels of wheat were in some building or other - everything interesting I think was burned in case it could be used for blackmail. Shame.

The last part of the trip included a contemplatively useful visit to Hull which was good. I think I'm convinced that I shall be going there - I could find no one there to say anything bad about student life there - so that's my life until thirty mapped out for me. Between now and then I must finish my project as I shall have much less free time as of September - right now I am installing FreeBSD which I managed to download in the UK which should be most useful.

Ok, time for lunch - be happy!