The Shortest Day

Sunrise 9.04

 

Sunset  15.16

 

That's according to the paper. It didn't get light here until 9.30.

 

And the weather has been foul for days. High winds and the high seas that go with them.

 

OH went into Kirkwall (local town and Orkney's 'capital') on Tuesday, This involves a drive of abour 15 miles and crossing the  the Churchill Barriers. He went early because the forecast was fairly dire and he wanted to get home before the worst of the weather set in. Unfortunately when he tried to get home he coincided with high tide , the barriers were closed to traffic and he was stuck on the 'wrong' side of them for three hours.

 

 

Sensibly he turned round and went back into Kirkwall for lunch. It's not the sort of thing that happens often, but it's a reminder that island life really is a little bit different to that on  Mainland UK.

 

As is the fact that I know it's the Solstice. I find I'm a lot more aware of the turning of the seasons and the changes in the length of days than I ever was in Yorkshire. And, OH's experience this week  to the contrary, we normally make sure we know every day  in winter when it's high tide, because there are days when you want to make sure you time your trips to avoid it.

 

 

A Very Odd Thing Indeed



It occurred to me yesterday that we are ready for Christmas. And have been since Monday.  I find this very strange.

 

You see, normally I hate the run up to Christmas. Forget all that stuff about Season of Joy and Goodwill to All Men. The run up to Christmas for me has for many years been a Burden and a Chore. This is mainly because for many years all the organising has fallen to me.I bought wrote and posted all the cards, had the ideas for presents, not only for my own family but for OH's as well, not to mention being obliged to come up with ideas for presents for both families to buy our children and one another, and quite often being the one that had to buy them too. I did all the wrapping, posting and arranging for visits, deliveries etc. On top of that there are two birthdays; one husband and one son in the four days after Christmas so I was dealing with those as well. I wonder how many years I was given cards and presents to put aside for the birthdays and in the general whirl  forgot where I had put them. Plus the annual saga of where do we go and who do we spend The Day with. Bending over backwards to please everybody, which was always going to be impossible because they all wanted such different things. No wonder I didn't enjoy it!

 

I know I'm not alone. And to be fair, things have eased up a lot over the past few years and  I have managed to negotiate the Festive Season without getting quite so stressed. The advent of the Amazon Wishlist, though scorned and derided by my OH has been a godsend for me, as Uncles and Aunts no longer have to rely on me for ideas for presents. When I am lacking in inspiration for presents for OH's family I tell him to sort it out. This means they generally get food, and quite often direct from the producers so that OH doesn't have to bother with stuff like wrapping and posting, but they seem to appreciate it, so that's fine. There's no longer any question about where we spend Christmas since we are at the opposite end of the country from our one remaining parent, OH's Mum so we have no-one to please but ourselves. Christmas has become more relaxed and so have I.

 

There is still a lot of preparation to do though. So I find it slightly odd that with over a week to go on Monday, we sent off our last lone card and the final presents. Especially since I've been stuck at home for eight weeks with a broken ankle and latterly the bug from hell.

 

I'll tell you what though. It's a great feeling. Ready. With over a week to go.

 

 

The Weekend is Cancelled

Saw my physio on Tuesday. It all seemed good. I told her I had started walking around the house without my crutches, although I still needed them outside, more for confidence, and negotiating steps, than anything else. And she told me I could stop doing exercise set 1 and move on to exercise set 2. I took very little notice of her persistent tickly cough except to assure her she didn't need to keep apologising for it, and we had a joint moan about how small children pick these things up from school, bring them home and spread them, then get better in 24 hours leaving the adults washed out for days.

 

Never gave the matter another thought, not even on Wednesday morning when I woke up with a bit of a sore throat. It wasn't until the early hours of Thursday morning, when a persistnet tickly cough had deprived me of most of my night's sleep that I remembered the physiotherapist and her cough cough cough.

 

Thursday I didn't feel at all well. Annoyingly I had to cancel my trip to the local UHI library where I was booked in for some Ph D related e-resources training. Friday I was much better, and finally manged to wrestle the last of the Christmas cards into submission. The last of the gifts that need wrapping and then forwarding arrived which was a relief. I was in two minds though about cancelling my SWRI Christmas lunch for today, not because I didn't feel up to it, because I did, but because this was obviously a fairly virulent little bugette that I was nursing and I didn't want to be spreading it about so close to Christmas.

 

Woke up this morning barely able to speak, with a throat the pixies had obviously been sandpapering all night. Freezing cold, despite duvet, cat, OH and radiator all in close proximity and a forehead that apparently you could fry an egg on. Limbs like lead and a racking cough. The lunch was off.

 

I was a bit miffed because this year it was my only out-of-house festive meal; also I had chosen pannacotta for dessert. I always choose this when it's on a menu because let's be honest, it's not the sort of thing we knock up in the family kitchen on a regular basis,  so it's a case of have it when you can. And a lot of people I would have seen to catch up with, after my n-week long incarceration in the house I now won't see until after Christmas. I console myself with the thought that they are doubtless grateful to me for not infecting them.

 

After officially cancelling I went back to bed and slept until three, and I'm still trying to decide if I have the enrgy to drag myself out of bed to watch the final episodes of The Killing live at 9.00. The jury is still out on that one.

 

Tomorrow's after service treat of mulled wine and mice pies is also off the agenda along with the associated carol service obviously.

 

I suppose the positive side is that this is happeing before, rather than over Christmas, and I daresay it will all be cleared up in a couple of days. Things could be worse.

 

Bit it's not how I wanted the weekend to go.

 

 

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

It was the day for lighting the Christmas Tree in the Cathedral today.

 

The  tree is gifted to the congregation of the Cathedral from the congregation of the Fjaere Kirk in Grimstad. Grimstad is in an area of Norway where Earl Rognvald of Orkney, founder of the Cathedral, was brought up, and the tree is cut down in a nearby foreat where it's quite conceivable the Earl ran around and played when a boy. They certainly have at least one tree there that is even older than the Cathedral, and we're ramping up for the 875th anniversary of its founding. So that's one very old tree.

 

Usually a few people from Orkney travel over to Norway to watch the tree being selected and cut down, and then a party from Grimstad comes over  to see it installed. This morning we had a consul from the Norwegian Embassy in London at the service and she read the lessons from our  Norwegian Bible. The lights on the tree were switched on by the deputy mayor of Grimstad, and an excellent soprano sang a Norwegian Christmas song and Mozart's Laudate Domine.

 

The tree is placed at the back, or West End, of the Cathedral and when the time comes to light it, the people sitting near to the front make their way to the back, and all the people sitting near the back turn round so that everyone gets to see what's going on. The picture shows the tree just after the lights were switched on. It's not the best photo, because the building is quite dark, especially at this time of year and more especially when the weather is not good ( and it so wasn't good this morning) but it gives an impression of what was happening. .

 

And when we came out of the service the Norwegian Flag was flying over the Town Hall. That happens fairly regularly and is a nice symbol of the genuinely close ties the islands have with Norway.

The Sunday List

Five Things That Get Me Down About Christmas

1 Having to do all the cards singlehanded

2 Having to wrap all the presents singlehanded

3 Being expected to come up with ideas for presents  for every single member of the family to give to  every other member of the family.

4 People saying 'I don't really want anything for Christmas' when you know they don't mean it.

5 People who say 'I love Christmas; I don't understand why you don't.'

A Disappointing Falcon

 

 

No, not the bird. Although if you were to be wanting  a picture of a falcon that would indeed be a disappointing picture, since the bird  therein is not a falcon at all, but a Harris Hawk. A falconer once told me that the Harris Hawk was the most boring bird of prey ever, since they all look, sound and behave exactly alike. Like some sort of clone.  

 

Anyway the Falon to which I am referring is the Sky TV adaptation of Robert Wilson's first two books about Chief Inspector Javier Falcon of the Seville Homicide Group. Regular readers may remember that I was lookng forward to this very much. Great cast, wonderful setting, based on a couple of excellent books; what could go wrong?

 

Well as it transpires, quite a lot. A book re-done for TV is never going to be like (for which read, probably never be as good as ) the original, but giving the scriptwriters a little more space than two hours for the first story, The Blind Man of Seville would have helped. There would have been space to establish the characters better, and to keep some of the subtleties of the relationships betwen them. And let's not kid ourselves, keep some of the subtleties, or even the major themes, of the plot.

 

Then there's the casting. On paper, it looks brilliant. (Well I had my doubts about Celeborn in the main role, but reserved judgement, since seeing someone as an Elf with very few lines and playing second fiddle to Cate Blanchett isn't the best way to assess a man's acting ability). In the event he's not up to the role; he doesn't look challenged, or sensitive, or thoughtful. He tends to look stupefied. And slow. As for the rest, I don't know if they were all affected by the Andalucian sun, but to a man (and woman) they mugged and overenunciated in a very painful way. Additionally, it's true that  the charcater of Juez Calderon is introduced in the book as being 'young'; but that's young, at 36, to be a judge. Not a good idea to have him played by a boy who doesn't look old enough even to have a law degree yet.

 

But the main problem with the cast is that they just don't look Spanish.  The way they  dress isn't Spanish, their body language isn't Spanish, just the way they walk around Seville isn't Spanish. Which is baffling considering that the series is a co-produciton with a Spanish TV channel.

 

They should have taken a leaf from the book of the people who made The Killing. Produce it in Spain with a Spanish script and Spanish actors and sell it with subtitles. Then they might have done Seville, and Robert Wilson's books, some sort of justice.

 



Putting Off Posting

We have a cat - well, no, that's not true, we have four cats, but the one on my mind at present is the oldest of the four. She is very poorly: despite the vet's best efforts this morning she doesn't seem terribly interested in eating, although she is drinking so I suppose that's something. Anyway, no intention of giving everyone a blow by blow, becasue I realise that although she's very precious to us, she's not a prioroty for anyone else. I am in a bit of a state though and not really up to thinking about much else, including both the blog and Christmas. I know there are worse things in the world than a failing cat, but this is my failing cat, and as such is filling my  mind to the exclusion of most other things.

I'll be back though.