I Puritani

 

Apologies first of all for the quality of the picture; it's one I took at the cinema and subsequently cropped and it's not great but it's the only reasonable one I have. This is Lisette Oropesa taking her curtain call after performing the role of Elvira in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of I Puritani; we went to see the filmcast version at the University  Arts Centre on Monday.

We weren't sure what to expect really. We saw it lasted nearly four hours with the  interval. (We took snacks!) Our previous experience with serious rather than comic bel canto was confined to a very poor production of Lucia di Lammermoor by Opera North decades ago. It had all the cliches (bar servants folding up laundered sheets which directors seem to confine to comic opera, but which I have still been forced to watch more times than I would like) and was very very dark. (Literally. I mean it's a dark story but that doesn't mean you have to force your singers to perform in dangerously low light levels) I don't know if we would even have bothered to go to be honest but a friend from University days who I am in contact with on Facebook had actually been to see the Met performance live and was very enthusiastic so we thought we would give it a go. 

I'm so glad we did.  In a way it was like seeing opera for the first time because it was just so different to anything I had ever seen before. Which is quite something considering I've been going to the opera for  - oh dear - I just worked it out and at Easter it will be fifty years! The not quite four hours flew. I loved the music from bar one, and  the playing and the singing were all exceptional. I know people say harsh things about the Met sometimes, and point out that great opera is not guaranteed just because you chuck bucketfuls of money at a production, but this really showed that if you throw bucketfuls of money at the right people then what emerges is truly outstanding. I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed an opera this much. 

And it was great to be doing something again, I feel life put itself on hold after New Year; well let's be honest the weather hasn't been conducive to going out and I've felt a bit hemmed in and restless. However we are supposed to be going up to Edinburgh tomorrow for an exhibition so what with that and the opera things are starting to perk up a bit.Which is a Good Thing. 

Are Biscuits Boring?

 I realised recently that I've never been big on baking biscuits. A couple of times when I had the baking subscription I made cookies or biscotti but left to my own devices I wouldn't really think about baking  a biscuit. And in my younger days I made a lot of millionaires shortbread. But otherwise - nada! Not sure why, but it wasn't something my mother or my aunts ever made; it was cake or scones all the way, so presumably I just internalised the attitude that biscuits weren't something you made, you just bought them. 

I had thought about renewing my baking subscription when we moved as my baking had fallen into a rut and was sporadic at best, but I couldn't because the company has gone bust. But as is so often the case with me at New Year, I had a 'bright idea', which was to try and make biscuits instead. I could look at all the biscuit recipes in my baking books and make a different sort each week of 2026. 

This plan immediately ran into difficulties. The first was that as far as I can see I do not have 52 biscuit recipes and the second was that of the biscuit recipes I do have lots look very very similar indeed. And the third was that I came to realise that actually I'm not really a biscuit person. 

There again I won't be here for a whole 52 weeks, because we plan holidays, and if I work my way through the recipes I do  have I might find a biscuit about which I can wax lyrical and want to make again and again. Also when I run out of biscuit recipes I can switch to muffins. 

To be honest I don't think I will ever wax lyrical over a biscuit, but anyway, I made my first batch yesterday. These are Cornish Fairings, which are  basically ginger nuts with added cinnamon and mixed spice. They came out rather smaller than anticipated, probably because they didn't spread very much. That said they have the all important 'snap' whihc the judges on Bake Off are always on about in 'biscuit week' and, for a biscuit, they're very nice. 

And here it is!

 The first finished WIP of 2026.

The first picture shows the colour much more accurately than the second one,but the second one shows the whole thing  off  while it was still on the blocking board. 

This is not, self evidently, the humongous project mentioned previously which I  picked up at the the end of November and hoped to get finished by the end of the year, thereby finishing the 2025 stash reduction on a massive high. I am still working on that and it is inching towards completion. 

This one had to be finished as a mater of urgency. I started it in the autumn as a baby gift for the daughter of a friend. For some reason I thought the baby was due at the beginning of March and that there was no hurry to get this done.  Imagine my panic therefore when said friend posted on FB at the weekend  that the daughter had gone into the maternity ward! I rootled this out and set to immediately and finished it yesterday. Today it has been packed up, along with a book and it will go out  in the  post tomorrow. Phew!

Still, a project finished in the first week of the year - not bad going. 

2025 Reading Round Up

 Alert readers will have realised that I stopped recording all my reading back in May and I think realistically the days when I reviewed everything I read are now well behind us. There's just too much else going on. Look out though for the occasional post if something totally delights or annoys me. 

On the subject of totally annoying books can I just warn you off The Malt Whisky Murders by Natalie Jayne Clarke? This is the current reading for my U3A Crime Fiction group and it is dire. No plot to speak of, clunkily written and actually not really a crime novel at all. 

I see from my reading journal (exercise book with a list of what I read, decorated with the occasional sticker) that I set my self a challenge for 2025 which was one book every week, and that I was also intending to incorporate  the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge into that. The Christie thing fell by the wayside very early on; not sure why. Boredom? difficulty accessing the books without spending money? Not liking being told what to read and when? Whatever the reason it wasn't fun so I knocked it on the head. 

Despite this I read or listened to at least 72 books in 2025. I say at least because that's the number I have written down, but I am fairly sure I forgot to add some of them. I tend to re listen to things on Audible when I need to have something to help me sleep and although I get through these from beginning to end I tend to forget about them as books I've read and hence don;t record them. 

So. some highlights and lowlights. 

1) Biggest Disappointment of the Year Faithbreaker by Hannah Kramer. I've really enjoyed the first two books in Kramer's Godkiller trilogy so I was delighted to find Volume 3 in the library. I was not so delighted to discover half way through that I was totally bored with it and couldn't be othered to finish it. A real let down. Possibly this is a case of 'It's not you, it's me.' I don't know but it was a shame. 

2) Really irritating totally overblown book of the year The Hallmarked Man by J K Rowling There was a good plot somewhere in the hundreds of pages of this novel, but it was almost buried by a lot of tedious and repetitive relationship angst. I recognise a lot o readers come back to these books in the hope of a resolution to this 'will they-won't they' tension, but please - enough already. In any case I won't be back, I have totally lost patience with JKR and her unpleasant ongoing twitter spats with all and sundry. Her review of Nicola Sturgeon's memoir this year was the last straw for me; it wasn't a review, it was bile wrapped in slime. I get they disagree politically and on gender issues  but there's no need to descent to the insultingly personal.  

3) Discovery of the Year - J D Kirk and his D I Logan books.How have I not come across these before? I really enjoy them; they're dark but there's lots of humour in them and a good cast of recurring police characters whose relationships develop nicely over time. I've read 4 and there are another 17 to go which is good news. 

4) A total and unexpected delight was Bryony and Roses by T Kingfisher, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a very down to earth not very beautiful Beauty, a sympathetic beast and a vengeful rose tree. Funny, beautiful and sad by turns. 

Authors jogging on with whom I will keep faith; Natalie Haynes and Mick Herron ( although Herron's Clown Town was slightly disappointing). Jodi Taylor is hanging on by her fingernails, if her next one isn't better than the last two I shall give up. Banished to the No More list is Ann Cleeves after her pedestrian revisit to Jimmy Perez in The Story Stones. And I reconfirmed my inability to 'get' Rebus, by reading A Heart Full of Headstones, so I will waste no more time trying. Ditto incidentally Joe Abercrombie who is well thought of and writes grimdark fantasy. I have given him several chances, trying out both his series and his standalones, most recently in October this year and have come to the conclusion that, whatever he has, I don't get it any more than I get Rebus. 

I'm not giving myself an official  challenge this year, I don't need the hassle. My aspirations are to read a lot of the books on my bookshelves that I haven't yet read, and to try and read a lot more non-fiction. We'll see how it goes. 

Wool Stats for 2025, and Knitting Plans for the Coming Year

 

Well the best thing I can say for the bad news in December is that there's an explanation .... but first the numbers. In 1450g, out 100g , net increase 1350g. 

 The large amount of incoming yarn is accounted for mainly by advents, plus the last instalment of the Hercule Poirot club and  200g of undyed yarn to use with it. There were no completed projects which is why this post is headed up with a photo of a pair of socks which have featured here before, although this time they are being modelled by the recipient. Towards the end of November I rather foolishly picked up a huge partly completed project which I knew would make a very large inroad into my stash when it was done. Sadly, despite all my endeavours I didn't manage to finish it by the  end of December which was a shame. It was a big ask. If it hadn't been the run up to Christmas I might have managed it, but there you go - I didn't. That said, it has come on in leaps and bounds and I'm very hopeful of seeing it finished well before the end of this month. 

The overall reduction in stash for the year was 3864 g which, while not as good as 2024, was still quite impressive. 

So the plan for the coming year is to concentrate mainly on things I already have. This means finishing off works in progress ( some of which are very old), knitting up kits that I have purchased and either never started or abandoned part way through, and knitting things where I have bought the pattern and the yarn but just haven't cast on yet. I know I will not clear all of these things in twelve months but I plan to have a good try and see how far I get. I'm not going to tell myself not to buy any new yarn; I'd like to do that and believe I could stick to it, but I think previous experience has shown that that's quite hard and very unlikely to happen.  I do want to knit a couple of jumpers from my Kalevala pattern books and I will need to buy the wool for those but I don't plan to start on those  for several months - it will be a sort of reward for sticking to clearing other things from the decks I think. 

Progress as always will be noted here monthly. And tomorrow, a reading round up. 

The Daft Days Part the Second

 It was cold but dry, and actually quite sunny most of the time so we managed a couple of walks. 

First up was the Dunmore Pineapple. I hadn't really taken in that this was a National Trust for Scotland property although it is, and as far as that goes it's more than time they did something about the approach road which was abysmal. Honestly I must have got about 750 steps recorded on my watch without getting out of the car. It was muddy underfoot so we had to abandon our idea of walking through the woodlands, but as they're full of rhododendrons it's probably best left until spring anyway. We did however see the building, walk through the walled garden, do the top of the woodland walk and also visited the curling pond which our walks book blithely assured us was 'worth the detour.' Possibly in the summer ....But you know, fresh air, a  bit of exercise, out of the house. All the stuff that's good for you. 

the folly

the way into the wood

the 'worth a detour' curling pond (!)

The day before that had been a daft day indeed. A craft shop in a local village was having a closing down sale of the Everything must go - 50p' variety so we decided to go, and then the plan was to carry on to the Hobbycraft store in Falkirk where I could pick up some blank cards ( yes I know, I thought I would never need more blank cards in my life, but it turns out I've made more than I thought. I'd even used up some of the aperture ones I originally bought for putting cross stitch in. I also thought they might have some Christmas themed paper packs and washi tape on sale. Well there was nothing that really caught my eye in the sale, it had started at 10 o' clock and we didn't get there until 11, and obviously it had been a popular event; many shelves were empty by that stage. We got back into the car and were half way to Falkirk when I discovered I had left my phone at home and I needed it at Hobbycraft because the loyalty app thig is on there. Since they don't give you a physical card there was nothing for it but to go back home and then set out for Falkirk again. I'm sorry to say it was an expedition of mixed success; there was no Christmas paper or washi tape and I had to settle for white cards instead of my preferred cream. I did get a pack of red card and I also picked up some Christmas ribbon, so not a total loss. I can certainly make a start on the cards for next Christmas. 

Also during the Daft days the OH had a Big Birthday and considering how Big it was I splashed out and bought him a birthday cake from Betty's. This was extremely considerate of me since a) Bettys is humongously expensive and b) I regard any fruit cake not topped with marzipan and icing as a missed opportunity. But he prefers crystallised fruit so crystallised fruit was what he got. 

Our second walk was round Loch Airthrey at Stirling University which we have done before but which is a) lovely, b) quite close and c) just about the right length for us. We saw a couple of squirrels ( nothing to write home about as we have three squirrels who spend half their time in the oak tree right  in front of our house, lots and lots of water birds - well mainly ducks and swans to be fair , with a scattering of seagulls,  and generally enjoyed ourselves. Son no 2 was with us and so we even got a photo of the two of us together ( a rare thing) out of it. 

very pleased we had taken all our woolly accessories, it may look sunny, and it was, but ti was blooming cold as well. 

Yesterday we went over to a friend's house for the afternoon; lively conversation, coffee and stollen. A perfect way to spend New Year's Eve. 

And here we are in 2026. Happy new Year to everyone who is reading this; may it be a kind one to us all. 

Tomorrow I must face up to the horror that is the wool stats for December! 

The Daft Days - Part the First

Someone posted recently on Facebook that the days between Christmas and the New Year are known in Scotland as The Daft Days, courtesy of the poet Robert Fergusson. Well I don't know about that, mainly because I know very little about Fergusson and most of what I do know is very sad. I do know I've lived in Scotland for over twenty years and had two Scottish grandparents but had never heard the expression before. That said I quite like it, so I've adopted it. 

Life is, if not exactly returning to normal, at least taking on a semblance of it. This basically means that when we go to the supermarket we are no longer picking up 'Christmassy bits' to add to the trolley,  we have ventured out for a walk and I have started to feel guilty about the ironing again. More than time to pick up the metaphorical pen and return to the blog. 

We never did manage to find a proper topper for the new Christmas tree and so had to make do with popping our little Druid guardian of the home on there. Next year, having exhausted local outlets this year without  success, it will have to be Mr Amazon I fear. Meanwhile here is a picture of the said new tree

We have two trees because we couldn't agree to get rid of the old one before we moved. Heaven knows I would have been more than happy to leave it behind in an Orkney 'civic amenity site', but the OH is excessively attached to it. I have no idea why, we had had it for quite  along time before we moved to Orkney and we were there for 20 years so it was old, discoloured and getting a bit thin in places. Not to mention all the grumbling when he attempted to put it up each year. Also it was getting a bit overloaded with the  decorations. He refused to get rid of it though so, as we have the space for it, we agreed to get an extra tree this year. So now we have His and Hers Christmas trees. Mine has all the fabric decorations and things people have gifted to us, and his has all the other things; little wooden trains,  glass and metal baubles and lots and lots of tinsel. I kept the tinsel on my tree down to a tasteful one strand. I may throw caution to the winds and add a second one next year. 

Christmas passed quietly as it always does these days although we had the added excitement of a teams call with the grandchildren this year which was nice. I'd just settled down under a lap blanket with a complicated piece of knitting that had three separate balls of yarn, one of them metallic,   attached to it and which requires me to balance a chart on my knee and keep an eye on a small bag of beads so that they are to hand but don't   tumble to the floor every time they're looked at, when they said it was an OK time to call, Not the best timing in the world, but obviously it was more important to extricate myself from the knitting clobber than not talk to them. They seemed  in fine fettle and the younger one was hoping for a bit more snow so that he could get out the sledge. Brrrrrr, is my response, to that but then I'm not 10 and I wasn't born and brought up in Ontario!

And before I go a quick advent update. This is the whole of the weekly advent from Beth at Beehive Yarns, plus the Christmas Day sock set. 

I was a teensy bit disappointed by the fifth Christmas Day skein as I had thought it would be part of the overall fade and I wanted to use the whole thing to make a  So Faded Sweater  Four skeins is not enough because I want to do the longer version (I don't have the sort of shape that cropped sweaters are good on) and the fifth skein just won't look right with all of that blue in it. So now I don't know what to do with the advent. I could make socks with the individual skeins, although they are rather too nice to be 'wasted' on socks, I could make the pattern that came with it which is a large wrap, but I suspect it would test my lace knitting skills beyond the edge of reason, I could try and lose some weight until I am a size that 4 skeins will be sufficient for ( as the Young Folk say these days 'That's not happening') or I could make a sleeveless/short sleeved top that I do have enough yarn for and try and cobble up the fading technique on my own. Or, what is most likely to happen, I can put it to one side to 'think about' and it will probably still be there in its box this time next year. A Lowering Thought. 

Tomorrow, some post Christmas walks. Unless I am so carried away by the ironing guilt that I spend the whole day chained to the board.