Well, We Won't Make That Mistake Again

So a week ago when we did our shopping we picked up a packet of Hot Cross Buns.

Yes, I know it's not that long after Christmas and Yes, I know we've just had St Valentine's Day and Yes I do know they should traditionally only be eaten on Good Friday and Yes I can moan with the best of you about how we expect to have seasonal fruit and veg in our supermarkets all the time regardless and the country is gong to the dogs because you can get Cadbury's Cream Eggs all year round nowadays, and people sell Christmas things as soon as they have cleared the shelves of the Back to Skool stuff in September.....So yes I can be a cantankerous old biddy (well not old obviously, ahem!),  but on the other hand we like Hot Cross Buns and there weren't any lemon and raisin pancakes visible, which was what we'd been looking for because I'd got just a bit bored with toast and marmalade for breakfast and fancied a change for a few days....so we got some hot cross buns instead. Come shoot us.

 

Actually don't shoot us because we got our come-uppance anyway. There we were looking forward to our breakfast treat; hot tea with our lovely  hot cross buns slathered in butter and we bit into them and - euch! I mean, really, euch! I even spat bits of mine out. They were disgusting.  To us, I hasten to add. People with other taste buds might find them delicious.

 

It was a while before I discovered why we found them so obnoxious and discovering why involved reading the label on the packet, a small thing which we had signally failed to do in the supermarket. 'Oh look, Hot Cross Buns, Tesco's finest, sling 'em in the trolley' was as much consideration as we gave to the purchase.

 

Which is how we were unaware that what we were about to put into our mouths were Toffee Fudge and Belgian Chocolate Hot Cross Buns.

 

Words do literally fail me at this point, overwhelmed as I am by the concept of chocolate chunks and fudgy bits polluting  my breakfast bakery. But be that as it may, we won't make that mistake again.

She Shoots, She Scores!

Very very nice envelope in the post yesterday - season tickets for this years Cardiff Singer of the World. We're so excited.

We'd talked about going to this before, when Son No 1 was living in Cardiff, but he moved there, lived there and left it again in the space between competitions so we never got to it. However I never took myself off the official mailing list, and when I got the e-mail about booking being open for this year's competition we decided to try for tickets as  part of the ongoing Project 60.  It's a wee while since the closing date for applications and we hadn't heard anything so I was beginning to think we had been unsuccessful in the ballot for tickets. But we weren't.

 

Of course what we need to do now is hope that it's a good year for the singing. Because it has to be said that some years are better then others. We think the best ever was 1993 when the lady pictured, Denmark's Inger Dam Jensen, narrowly beat New Zealand's Paul Whelan to the trophy. We have the final of this on video, as we thoughtlessly had dinner guests on the night itself, and even now, when we rewatch we are divided; sometimes we think Paul woz robbed, other times we think the judges were right.

 

The OH is convinced that she won because of her dazzling frock, and I suppose that might have just edged it in her favour. They were certainly both excellent, and it was difficult to call it between them.

 

We've never seen I D-J live but amazingly enough did get to see PW perform a few years ago, right here in Orkney, when he was part of a concert staging in the Cathedral of Peter Maxwell Davies' opera Magnus, as part of the St Magnus Festival. Who would have thought?

 

So my fervent hope for this year is for some great baritones, a scattering of good tenors, some nicely toned sopranos and very few muddy mezzos. And of course some great repertoire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please No! But alas - too late.

I have made passing reference recently to my less than positive attitude to a certain Thomas Brodie Sangster, actor of this parish.

I cannot quite put my finger on why this, possibly perfectly nice young person, irritates me so much, although I suspect one of the reasons is that he is always there. I seem to have been seeing his little freckly snub-nosed face for ever and a day. Love Actually, Nanny McPhee, Lewis, Game of Thrones and many many more. I wasn't pleased to see him with a major-ish role in Game of Thrones and was horrified when I saw his name flash up in the opening credits for Wolf Hall. For a brief and very enjoyable moment I allowed myself to believe that he was going to be Mark Smeaton, as this would at least mean that I could look forward to him coming to a sticky end, but no, it turned out that he was Rafe Sadler and destined to be with us, and whole, right up to the closing credits of the final episode.

 

I also think that as he gets older his acting becomes less good. Possibly a little too much self consciousness is creeping in. He was in fact not at all bad in Love Actually in a cute-sie, sickening kid sort of a way, but his performance in Wolf Hall hardly merits the name. Standing about stiffly in historical costume is not the same thing as acting, something which I'd have thought he would know.

 

Now I have been vaguely aware for some time that someone is doing a remake of Thunderbirds, an exciting  TV puppet show from my childhood which I remember with huge affection and I suppose I was vaguely thinking I would tune in and give it a go when it hit the small screen some time this year, more for the sake of nostalgia than anything else.

 

And then, a couple of days ago, I heard to my consternation that Thomas B-S was going to be doing one of the voices in this remake.  And not just any voice: no, the fates had decided that Thomas B-S, my current least favourite under 25 actor was going to voice none other than John Tracy, my absolute fave of the central family of five Tracy brothers - when I was 8. This is not of course a sign that the universe hates me, nor a disaster on a par with say, a hurricane, but having said that to put it into a context on my list of Bad Things that can Happen in the World, my response is still - Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! Bad Idea. No No No.

 

The OH of course is unbothered by this piece of opprobrious casting. 'I always considered that John was a sociopath, why else did they banish him to Thunderbird 5 for 3 weeks out of every 4?' he said as I was moaning about it. This is a total lie, because when he was 8 and watching Thunderbirds the OH would not have known the word 'sociopath' let alone  known what it meant. Not to mention that as far as I recall, John Tracy showed no signs of sociopathic tendencies, although granted this would have been difficult since he was basically a lump of wood with a motor in his head.

 

I refuse to blot the blog with a picture of the ubiquitous Mr Sangster, but here's a picture of the lovely non-sociopathic John Tracy. (Hard to see the attraction nowadays tbh)

 

and here, because I couldn't resist sharing it, is one of his brother Virgil, looking distinctly shifty.  

 

 

 

Project 60 - Number 6

Yup, more culinary endeavour. This time it's marmalade. I probably wouldn't ever have got around to making this, although it was sort of on my list, in as far as anything is, the list being an amorphous entity most of which is fairly cloudy due to my unwillingness to concretise^  it by putting it down on paper.

^ I know. Horrible word. Make a comment and say you thought better of me than that.

 

But I did get round to it courtesy of my friend M who was drowning, figuratively speaking, in Seville oranges and offered me some. So I picked some up, bought some preserving sugar, and hey presto! marmalade.

 

It proved much less problematic to make than the lemon curd and I was even more pleased with the results, mainly because I eat marmalade regularly.

 

If I were being picky I would have to say that it could do with being a tad more set, as in if you hold your toast vertically it has a tendency to slide off slowly - but there are no problems if you hold your toast sensibly in a horizontal position as it makes its way to your mouth. Also I should have put more peel into it.

 

Having said that though - it's delicious! I will possibly make this again, and in fact I'm quite keen to have a go at orange curd if I can find a sensible looking recipe.

Back from The Brink

It cannot have escaped the notice of regular readers that we have been having 'some work done on the house' where 'some work done on the house' actually equates to having had workmen inside it or building an extra room onto it for about 18months out of the last 24.

 

This has meant stress, hassle and a constant shuffling round of 'stuff' so that access could be gained to the bits that were being worked on. However light is now visible (just) at the end of the tunnel and I'm thinking by the end of March we'll have the place more or less how we want it, bar our two studies which are scheduled for some work next year and the new roof which we'll have put on in the summer.

 

Something I have wanted for a long time was a glazed or part glazed door from the hall into the living room, to satisfy my quest for ever more light in there. It was always problematic because the door size was not a standard one, but while the joiners have been working in the hall they have altered the placement of the door and enlarged the gap into which it goes thereby making it a standard size.

 

Now I am not a lover of draughts and therefore living without a door into the living room had been uncomfortable for me, even though I have only had to suffer it for about four days so far. Nevertheless that was more than enough and so, rather than go through all the palaver of ordering a door from a firm in Orkney, then waiting for it to be delivered at great expense,  what we thought we would do would be to take the ferry to Wick, go to Homebase, pick up a door, and some paint and wallpaper for the hall and bring it back, ready for joiner and decorator on Monday morning.

 

I was looking forward to the day. As our friend Alex who lives in Wick was too busy to have lunch with us, we decided to get the early ferry out and the early afternoon one back which would give us plenty of time to pick what we needed, possibly have a quick look in Lidl's for some chocolate brazils for my sister's birthday and give us the afternoon at home.

 

Well we soon discovered that as far as Homebase was concerned we were on a hiding to nothing. Our new size of door may be now a standard one, but it's not one which the Wick Homebase keeps in stock. Nor did they have the wallpaper which I had so carefully chosen over the summer after bringing back some samples and blu-tacking them around in various places in the hall and looking at them at various times of day to get the effect. And once we had found some alternatives,  after much scrutiny and on my part, it must be said much  pouting, it transpired that they do not keep more than 5 rolls of any wallpaper in stock at any one time.

 

Now granted that we were looking for a large number of rolls, for a long hall which goes round several corners, and possibly it was naïve of us to think that they might have enough in stock, but really, 5 rolls! That's not going to do many rooms, is it? Small third bedroom in 1960s semi perhaps, or a feature wall somewhere. But it's not really a very useful stock level, I wouldn't think.

 

Of course they offered to order us a door, and two of the wallpapers we liked were still 'current' so they could order those for us too. But what is the use of that? Either it would cost us another £130 plus to go back and pick the stuff up, or we would have to arrange to have a courier pick it up in Wick and bring it over to Orkney. As I said to an assistant who didn't quite seem to get the point; If we're going to have to  order stuff we might as well order it in Orkney in the first place.

 

I am not good with frustration. It's a failing I know but after 50 plus years I'm not going to change now, however much I wish I could. I know people who can take this sort of disappointment in their stride. They would have laughed off all this stuff yesterday, and found something else useful or enjoyable to do with the unexpected  hours they had in Wick. I cannot do that. When unexpected obstacles are put in my way, I exhibit all the maturity and challenge meeting powers of a toddler. I walk around feeling, and looking, as though I am under a large black cloud. Muttering. Sulking. Indignant. (I know: its not attractive).

 

And that's roughly where we were when we left Homebase in Wick..We decided to kill some time in the town and as we were driving round looking for a car park, out of the corner of my eye I saw a shop with paint cans in the window. No wallpaper, but definitely cans of paint. And a big cuddly Dulux dog. We went for a look, just in case.

 

And guess what? They had wallpaper, adn they had it in abundance. They had much nicer wallpaper than Homebase did.We found a wallpaper that we both fell in love with instantly. I think we're both still surprised that the other one likes it. And all our friends will be astonished that we chose it. It's so Not Us. And, although they didn't have the 13 rolls we needed, they did have 11, and there are places on the internet where we can buy the remaining rolls. The assistant was really helpful, even phoning a shop in Thurso see if they had the paper in stock, and even though they didn't she gets full marks for customer service.

 

So we don't have a door yet which is a shame. But we do have wallpaper and paint for the decorator to get to work with tomorrow, and my mood turned from stormy to sunny in - well not an instant - but quite quickly.

 

So, should you ever wish to buy any sort of decorating supplies in the north of Scotland, I give MacAllans in Wick a huge recommendation. They are brilliant. Sadly the same cannot be said of Homebase (in Wick) although to be fair I have had good experiences with them in other places.

Can Spring Be Far Behind?

We were driving home from the Post Office the other day, because whatever the Post Office says, thee is not a Post Office branch within walking distance of every home in the British Isles and that applies particularly in rural areas, and we saw some of these on the shore.

 

Oystercatchers. They were the first ones of the year. They're always the earliest retuning migrants that I'm aware of and they generally fetch up in February. I'm always pleased to see them because it means that winter is coming to an end (well in theory anyway). They're so cheerful looking and they have a very distinctive call. I smile to see them. And things that make you smile are things to be cherished.

The Glums Revisited

 

 

Yesterday we went to see Les Miserables. No, not the film, once in a lifetime was enough for that! This was the version done by the  local amateur operatic society (acronym, occasionally I'm told very apt, KAOS).

 

When Son No 2 was still living at home we went to see KAOS regularly because he was a member and took part in the annual production, but since he left we've rather fallen out of the habit. But I've felt for a while that really we ought to make the effort to support them again, and although we almost missed it this year I remembered just in time and bought tickets last Friday.

 

It was the first night last evening and at times it showed but really it would be unfair to be critical. It's quite amazing to me that a community as small as Orkney can take on a huge thing like Les Miserables and really make a very god job of it. Some of the singing was a bit lacking, and there were a couple of times when the prompter was needed, but apart from that it was really good. The Eponine was excellent, but the star of the show was undoubtedly my dentist who played Madame Thenardier. The OH has another dentist at the same practice and said that after last night he'd be scared to have Lorraine, but that just goes to show what a good actress she is, since she is the loveliest dentist you can imagine.

 

Anyway we really enjoyed it, and I must make a note to ensure we go again next year.

 

 



2015 - Mostly about the socks

I have a large number of sock wool skeins living in my house. I also have large amounts of other wool, but lets not go there. I have therefore decreed that 2015 is The Year of the Sock, in an attempt to get some of it used up. So far, so good....

 

These two pairs were made of a couple of balls of random sock yarn I bought last year sometime at a café cum craft centre near Perth. I bought them because I liked the colours of the top one, and knew the OH would be delighted with socks made from the bottom one. This was before I forced myself to realise that just because you are walking past a shelf of attractive sock yarn you do not actually have to buy from it.

 

Funnily enough I had never made myself a pair of stripy socks from a self striping sock yarn before but I have now. Plain vanilla sock pattern with self striping yarn from The Yarn Café, especially dyed for them by The Knitting Goddess. The yarn is called Mint Cream, for obvious reasons.

 

And the piece de resistance for January - Firenze socks designed by Rachel Coopey, yarn by The Knitting Goddess. This is the June yarn and pattern from the KG 2013 Sock Club; my cunning plan is to complete this by the end of the year. I've done Jan-March and now June  so a third down. Then of course I can get started on the 2014 Club. Having learned my lesson I have not signed up for 2015.

 

I do love these Firenze socks although they were a bit of a piglet to knit tbh. However the pattern is lovely and the best thing about them is that, like all Rachel's patterns, these are a really good fit on me.

 

Four skeins down - can't be bad . OK the bright yellow ones I did in fact finish before Christmas, so that the OH could have them as a present and wear them in Canada, but it was the beginning of my drive to use up a lot of the sock wool so I think it's allowable to include them here. And they do cheer the page up!

Rant.

This is a rant, so don't say you haven't been warned.

It's about my Gaelic course. This is advertised as a course for complete beginners. For people who know no Gaelic at all. Well maybe they can murmur My name is, but basically you're in the starting blocks of ignorance, working towards a finishing tape where in six months time you can chat about the weather without making a total twit of yourself.  All in it together, all exploring and hopefully overcoming, the difficulties together, taking heart from the fact that you're not the only one who wonders why a language would change the first letter of a woman's name from M to V, if you should happen to be looking her in the eye and saying something directly to her, rather than standing at the other side of the room, digging your mate in the ribs with your elbow and pointing her out.

 

This is important because language learning is about trial and error, it's about confidence and its about not feeling an idiot when you make a mistake or don't understand; and you don't feel an idiot if it turns out that the person next to you doesn't understand either. Sigh of relief: no you are not as thick as a brick, the topic is challenging.

 

This course being distance learning we have a 'virtual' place of communication and I wandered onto it last Tuesday to see if anyone had put up a chat thread for our tutorial group. They had, and I opened it up. I don't know what I was expecting; a welcome from the eager beaver student who had done it I suppose, maybe an invitation for us all to say why we wanted to learn Gaelic, how we'd found the experience of a telephone tutorial, that sort of thing.

 

What I was not expecting to see was a long message from said eager beaver  fellow student written in Gaelic (but then thoughtfully translated into English) saying, 'This is the place to leave your contact details if your're interested in communicating and working together by e-mail, phone, facebook, snapchat, meeting up for a cup of coffee or anything else'

 

(Snapchat? What the heck is Snapchat?)

 

Anyway Henry in Texas replied in English but was soon coaxed into a weather report in Gaelic; it was hot apparently and he'd like to be colder. Originator of thread, living in Edinburgh countered with how it was cold and wet in Edinburgh, she preferred the warmth. I know this because they continued to translate this fascinating exchange for the benefit of the rest of us. Or maybe just for me. Maybe I am really the only person in the class who doesn't speak a word of Gaelic beyond My name is....

 

So Henry is far from a complete beginner and the Edinburgh lady is obviously fairly competent already. So my question is, what are they doing on a beginners course, a course for people who know no Gaelic.

 

Apart that is from intimidating the rest of us into inadequacy?

Run That Past Me Again?

So, while I was waiting for my op last week I fell into desultory conversation with a woman who was there supporting a family member who was about to have the op too. She was bemoaning the general lack of good stuff to watch on TV at present and how, to find anything worth watching, she had to fall back on repeats of Midsomer Murders and Wycliffe. I wasn't up for an argument, partly because I am too polite and too sensible to argue with strangers over something as ephemeral and generally trivial as TV schedules, and partly because my mind was focussed on what was to come and how I'd cope.

 

But really, nothing worth watching? Between New Year and Easter is generally when you get the best of evening television and this year is no exception. I find some good drama to watch nearly every day of the week.

 

Sunday - Last Tango in Halifax

Monday - Broadchurch

Tuesday - 

Wednesday - Wolf Hall

Thursday - Death in Paradise and Fortitude

Friday - NCIS

 

OK there's a drama gap on Tuesdays, which fills quite nicely with new series of a couple of property programs I watch and Thursday also has new Location Location Location. episodes. And this week sees the return of The Great British Sewing Bee.

 

I've got quibbles. Last Tango fell back on a bit of melodrama mid-series, which I forgave, mostly, because the rest of it is so good. I'm not feeling the love for Broadchurch 2 that I felt for the original but that doesn't  mean it's not good, and in fact it's getting better week on week. Death in Paradise is formulaic and feel good TV and has never been the same since the great Ben Miller left, but it's still an enjoyable, well acted, well scripted ensemble piece of escapism in a beautiful setting. (Every week I say to the OH 'This is filmed in Guadeloupe you know' and every week he manages to ignore the hint and not say back  'I think  we should go there for some winter sunshine this year'.) Fortitude I'm not sure about, as we've only had episode one, but I'll be sticking with it for now; great cast, great location and interesting premise.

 

Wolf Hall is, with one teensy weensy exception, quite brilliant. The exception? I'll save that for another day.

 

As for Wycliffe I've never managed to stay with a complete episode. I think they only make it for insomniacs, to help them sleep. Do you know when someone mentions it I sort of think of it in black and white! And yet, as you see, they do make it in colour.