Happy Mail - Again , Not Wool

 I've been thinking a lot recently about doing some 'real' journaling. 

I have  a very basic craft journal for this year; each month has two pages, the left hand side records yarn in and out and the right hand one lists completed projects for the month. And once those are complete I decorate the pages with a few relevant stickers. Simple, not too taxing, does what it was meant to do. 

I also have a similarly simple Reading Journal where I record monthly what I have read. This takes  a bit more keeping up as I give the book a mark out of five and then write  a few lines to justify my score. And again I decorate each entry with a few more or less relevant stickers. The problem that I have with this one is that I don't always remember to record a book when I've finished it, particularly if it's a re-read or if it's on Audible. So I suspect a few things get missed, but I suppose if they are so forgettable I don't remember to write about them as soon as I have read them, then maybe they don't deserve to be recorded? 

Anyway I feel I want to do something a bit more ambitious and at the same time not so restricted i.e. not tied to a particular facet of my life. Just to create a page or pages about something that happens or that inspires me, whether that's a colour, a memory of a place I once visited, a birthday, whatever takes my fancy. I can't draw, but I can cut out and stick stuff together, and I have lots of supplies because of the cardmaking. 

I've watched a few videos about it on You Tube; there are 1000s and the people who make them simultaneously declare that its all easy and doesn't have to be perfect and your journal pages are unique to you and you can do what you want - all the while producing the most stunning and artistic pages on camera, and that's very off putting. I'm a long way from the person who thought that everything I did had to be perfect from my first try onwards but even so I'm dithering because I think I'm not artistic enough. Then again, who is going to see this stuff? and if I enjoy doing it and feel that I'm creating something that speaks to me or about me then that should be enough, shouldn't it? 

So earlier this month, in an effort to get myself started, I ordered a 'Journal Starter Box' from a stationery company and it came yesterday. 

There it is and here are the contents 

A journal, washi tape, a gel pen, a highlighter, some sticky notes, a little booklet of yellow/gold themed photos and the thing that looks like a cat's leg is a combined corrector and sticky tape dispenser - one at each end. I haven't quite worked out how to use that yet.

Nor has the box helped get me over the fear of failure. because who wants  to mess up that beautiful book? 

I may return with photos of some finished pages in due course. Or not. Depending.  

Happy Anniversary to us.

 

As long time readers will know we generally forget our wedding anniversary but this year we didn't and we even remembered in time to arrange to go out for lunch. 

I suggested we try Sheila Fleet's place. Again, long term readers will know our opinion of  that particular establishment hasn't been high, but last time we went it was OK, and people rave about it. I mean, they rave . They recommend it. They put it on FB pages when people are wondering where to eat in Orkney  when they come here on holiday. And there have been lots of positive  comments recently and I thought, well, it sounds great, and it will make a change  and if we have a proper meal it should be fine.... 

We had the pie of the day with vegetables and potatoes. When the waiter came to pick up the plates after we had finished ( I use the term loosely, please don't think it indicates an empty plate) he asked if everything had been OK for us. I said 'I enjoyed the cabbage'; a phrase I had never expected to utter in my life, seeing as cabbage must be my third least favourite vegetable, after spinach and parsnip. I think you will gather from that that everything had not been OK. 

We did have coffee and cake to follow though. There wasn't a lot of choice so we both went for the St Lucia cake and it was really nice. Not the best idea I've had in the last twelve months but I'm not beating myself up because some of the others were brilliant! And we really will never ever ever darken the door of Sheila Fleet's cafe again. 

Home Bakes and Masterchef

 

Two boxes of home bakes brought home by the OH from the RNLI funday yesterday. Some got a bit scrumpled, apparently because a car sent him into a ditch. It didn't make for him!, he stepped aside on a narrow piece of road to give it space to pass and fell foul of one of the many invisible drainage ditches that criss cross every part of Orkney. That chocolate  bun wasn't very nice but the rest are lovely, and rather to my surprise, not yet all gone. 

I made  a passing reference yesterday to Celebrity Masterchef which we are watching. We  joke every year about how we haven't heard of any of the contestants but I think this year is the first time we really, actually, don't know who any of them are. Judging by the way some of them go on, we have not been missing out. I had serious concerns about the mental well being of one contestant in the first week, but maybe they are just odd and loud and bumptious. 

I said years ago that I was going to stop watching Celebrity Masterchef and yet somehow I still find it on. I think this says more about the dearth of anything else worth watching recently. There are so many enticing sounding drama series that arrive, bigged up by the reviewers,  and I try them and go meh! Recent examples, and this is by no means an exhaustive list; Red Eye - made it to the end of the first episode but even the fact that Richard Armitage took a main role couldn't persuade me to go back for episode 2. The Red King - not quite to the end of episode 1. The Jetty - 40 minutes and I switched off. Then there are the series I find on streaming services and I quite enjoy episode one; there was one set in Ireland and another in Australia, but somehow they're not compelling enough for me to call up episode two. I think it's me. I think I'm getting more critical and harder to please as I get older. 

Anyway back to Celebrity Masterchef. In addition to not knowing any of the contestants I have two further gripes. One is the continuing presence of Greg Wallace, the man for whom the word chortle must originally have been coined; plus, surely only blackmail can explain why he is still fronting this program. He must literally know where some bodies are buried. My loathing of Wallace has been well documented here on the blog and he isn't improving any. The other is an increasing cynicism about the truth of what we're presented with. For example, last week a contestant was confronted by a surprise ingredient. 'Is it fish?' she tremulously asked, as she poked doubtfully at a duck breast. Ho, ho ho, we are presumably meant to chortle along with Mr W. Look at this celebrity person, can't tell a duck breast from a fish fillet. Only then said celebrity proceeded to serve up what the judges pronounced to be 'perfectly cooked duck breast'. Ok good for her, but nobody who starts off not recognising a duck breast  cooks it perfectly less than an hour later. There's an art and a technique to cooking duck breast and if you don't know it, you ain't going to guess it just like that.  So what are the options? The celebrity was told to look dumb and pretend not to recognise what was in front of her? even though she knew what it was and also knows perfectly well how to cook it, despite proclaiming several times she's a bad or a non cook. Or, she really was  that ignorant and someone either told her off camera how to cook it or heaven forfend, actually cooked it for her to keep her in the competition a little longer. We've often thought there comes a point where  the celebrities are given coaching between rounds but I've never felt so cynical about a first round before. 

What I need is an excellent drama on another channel at the same time,. And them I can give up on the blasted thing. It's not as though I am a keen cook myself - although one thing I do know; I wouldn't mistake duck for fish!

Bits 'n' Bobs

 I have to say life is not particularly interesting at the moment - which is not to say that I am bored or not keeping busy, but I am not doing anything particularly blogworthy. Basically I am limping around the house, occasionally giving vent to an 'ouch' or a strangled yelp, while leaning heavily on a stick and moving between chairs, as sitting in any particular one for too long gives me a nasty ache in what I believe those of a sporting persuasion refer to as their 'glutes'. 

I did manage to finish a jigsaw puzzle yesterday - here it is 

I bought it from a charity shop after seeing it in there on three consecutive visits; I resisted the first two times but couldn't on the third occasion. It only cost me £2.50 which was an absolute bargain as the toyshop at the other end of the high street has it in stock new for £14.99. However I assume the brand new one will not have two missing pieces, which eagle eyed readers will already have seen is the case with the one from  the charity shop. I was a bit cross. My sister has a sideline in doing jigsaws for a charity shop local to her, to check that all the pieces are there; shame they didn't do the same here.  Never mind , it is done. It took me ages because when I bought it I didn't figure in the fact that butterflies (and moths) really creep me out. But they do, and even touching some of the pieces of this that featured their creepy little hairy bodies, or there even more creepy antennae/spindly legs/buggy eyes made me feel quite uncomfortable. Basically I should have left it on the shelf. 

I had another physio appointment yesterday and am happy to report that, due to a combination of natural healing and my devotion to my exercises I am a lot better than I was. Also the physio had decided that my glute pain was unrelated to the knee injury but to do with my back so he is treating that as well. This means I am a bit sore today but it's all in a good cause. I have an extra set of exercises now to do for my back . I continue with the one for the knees and I am also carrying on with the icing which apparently is great for inflamed joints. I see him again at the end of September and fingers crossed the improvement will have continued apace. 

After the physio we finally made it to Geri's Ice Cream parlour; we have tried to do this previously since our return but not made it because it was just too uncomfortable for me to sit in the car for that long. We managed yesterday and as she is staying open until the end of September this year we may even fit in one last visit before she closes for the winter. 

While on medical matters I should note that we received a bill from the hospital in Savonlinna which was rather  higher that I had anticipated so we put in an insurance claim for that and the overnight hotel that we had to book in Glasgow on the way home; we'd planned to stay with son no 2 but the flat is on the third floor of a building with no lift and I couldn't have made it. Although  I did have to provide one piece of information three times, he claim was settled without quibble and in full . Having moaned about the company previously, not without cause, I feel I should give credit where it is due in this instance. 

Today is the annual village RNLI regatta and funday, postponed from July because of the bad weather we had then. We like to go when we're here but obviously I can't manage it this time so I have despatched the OH to purchase a selection of home bakes and I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings back. Maybe a photograph in a later post. perhaps while I rant about Celebrity Masterchef which is back on our screens, a phrase to which I  somehow feel obliged to add the word 'already.' 

Two Disappointing Recent Reads

 

I have previously reported here on how, much to my surprise, I became a fan of Val MacDermid's Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books, so I was pleased to find this, How the Dead Speak  in a bookshop recently  although I forget where and when I bought it. It's the last Jordan and Hill story and I was looking forward to reading it and seeing how things got tied up. The answer was, in an unlikely, sentimental, but sketchy  bouquet roughly held together with second hand string. Rather than celebrating her great achievement with this series, and giving it a fitting end, it seemed, to me at least, that MacDermid had just got bored with the characters, the back stories, and the whole set up, and just wanted to draw a line underneath the   project as quickly as she could. There were too many plotlines, rather as though  she couldn't be bothered to flesh one central one out properly so decided instead to jumble three together to make the length of the book: and unresolved, and sometimes seemingly unresolvable relationships, were suddenly given easy, and happy endings. To be honest, I think I would rather have had the characters left in the limbo from the end of the previous book than read this one. 

The other one was an Audible one. It was called A Killing in November by someone called Simon Mason. I had never heard of this, it's no 1 in an on-going series of police procedurals set in Oxford, and I wouldn't have known anything about it had it not been recommended by an author I much admire in the columns of The Guardian. It had much to admire; an original-ish story, expertly plotted, some interesting characters, a very well scripted sense of place .... the problem was with one of the two main police protagonists, since the person concerned would never have got near to being recruited by any police force in the country. Uncontrolled, foul mouthed, tactless  and with a violent temper and perfectly balanced in that he has  a huge chip on each shoulder. I see from reviews on Audible that I am not alone in finding this preposterous excuse for a police character a huge stumbling block to the enjoyment of the book. It's a shame because I'd really like to find a good new police procedural series to read, but if there is such a thing out there, this is not it. 

And the last opera was .....

 Lohengrin, which after my experience in Stockholm with Parsifal I was not looking forward to at all. 

The place where we stayed was very on the ball about the opera festival and arranged a shared taxi every evening to take those who wanted it to the opera. We had to go early to Lohengrin as they had also arranged for me to be met with a wheelchair that evening so there was a bit of hanging around while we waited for that to turn up. It gave me the opportunity to take some photographs of the castle and surroundings. 

 

I did feel sorry for the two young boys who had to push me in the wheelchair to the seating; it's quite a long way, some of it is uphill  and I'm no lightweight. But they got me there (and back to the taxi at the end of the evening too). I wondered if I was supposed to tip them; it's not much of a thing in the Nordic countries and I didn't. However I discovered at breakfast the next morning that they come from a local ice hockey team and the son of our accommodation provider plays on it. Not only that but the Dad is in charge of fundraising for the team so I was able to give him a nice donation for that, so I felt better. 

Lohengrin is all about the swan and the big question every time it is done is 'how will they 'do the swan?' The answer in Savonlinna was build a huge one out of paper - comme ci

which isn't the world's most convincing but they have to do something. Personally I thought they overdid the swan motif, as this wasn't its only iteration, and there were quite a lot of things I would have done differently, but then I'm not an opera director, I was just sat in the audience watching. Given my time over again, I wouldn't mind having a go at being an opera director but I probably couldn't take the criticism so better off how I am. 

Lohengrin is long, not gonna lie, but it's not as long as Parsifal thank goodness,  and it was infinitely more comprehensible. The music was lovely and it would have been a perfect evening had it not been for the knee. Once again chorus cast and orchestra were amazing: 

here's the tenor and some of the rest of the cast at the curtain call. In a truly great cast, he was outstanding.

Next day we drove back to Helsinki and the OH sorted out airport assistance from BA and Finnair. Plaudits to BA, which I don't often say, who were very helpful, and thumbs down to Finnair who said such things weren't their responsibility because we had booked the flight through a travel agent. After reiterating several times that we had done no such thing and getting nowhere, the OH said well if they couldn't provide assistance their desk staff would just have to watch me die and rot at their desk as I couldn't walk, which I thought a trifle OTT but it did the trick because whoever was on the phone went away and came back and then said it was all sorted. Which it was. Personally I think she had taken the opportunity to re-check the booking and discover that actually no it hadn't been booked through a travel agent after all, but whether she discovered her mistake or the OH's threats spurred her into action it got done, which was the main thing. I don't think I would recommend it, if you can avoid it, but I had been dreading the flights back and in the end with all the help  it was less of a nightmare than anticipated. 

I am rather off foreign travel just now and the most exciting thing on the calendar currently is a trip to Stirling next month for Bloody Scotland, the crime fiction festival. But I have been asked to submit an abstract for consideration for a conference in Chambery in November and I'm planning to do that. If it gets accepted then perhaps I should cast my eye about for a virgin to sacrifice to the god of travel before I go!

So - the Infamous Accdent

 Without going into too much detail, on the Tuesday morning I found myself with one leg in a moving rowing boat and one leg on a lake shore and in those circumstances something had to give and what gave was my right knee. I felt it twist, then a very very sharp pain, then I ended up on my knees in the water, desperately trying to crawl out. 

We went off to the local A and E  straight away and basically that was the day gone, as things moved very slowly; triage, doctor, X-ray, doctor again, nurse and can I just point out all this time I was in the very wet clothes that had resulted from my fall into the water? It's a wonder I didn't catch my death, as the phrase goes.   

They gave me a painkiller that was literally bigger than a bullet, a knee brace and a pair of crutches; the latter two I was told to return when we left the area which was due to be Friday morning so I didn't have them for long. I cannot fault the care, it was just very slow, and the department was really not busy. 

I made the, possibly foolish, decision that I could cope with going to the opera that evening; maybe I had forgotten some of the details of moving around inside a medieval castle. It was OK-ish until about half way out, when presumably the painkiller had finally worn off; but I was rescued  by being offered a wheelchair. There are only two available so I had to wait for a while, but really I was lucky to get one. 

The opera was Nabucco, which we had never seen and which we discovered has a totally bonkers and quite unfathomable plot. Had we had time beforehand we might well have looked at a synopsis, but we didn't and found ourselves quite baffled at times. Possibly the bafflement was increased by the production/translation which made the captive Israelites eco-warriors concerned with keeping trees alive and the invading Assyrians 'technocrats'. I understand why people want to make opera relatable and relevant, but in some cases that works and in others it doesn't. That aside, the orchestra and singers were fabulous and we really enjoyed it. 

It's not the easiest of places to take  good photos but here are a couple to give a flavour;

this was the basic set which did duty as the Temple in Jerusalem in Act 1 and the ziggaurats of  Babylon the rest of the time. 

And here's a curtain call 

That's the woman who sang the 'second' female role; she was brilliant. 

I will say here that I didn't make the opera the next day; the OH went without me at my insistence. It was Don Giovanni, and the only feedback I got was that it was 'a very dark production'. Make of that what you will. Happily I did get to see the final one on our last evening, of which more later....