January Reading Round Up

So, what did I read in January? I ' finished ' seven books - the reason for the  ' ' will become apparent.

I continue to read any J D Kirk that comes my way via my two libraries and I think a 99p Kindle Daily deal this month too. This means I am not reading them in order which is not ideal but I'm not that bothered. I should however try not to read too many of them all at once or I shall O/D and get sick of them. That's easier said than done though when you're prowling the library shelves and find one you haven't already read. So this month I read A Litter of Bones, which is actually Book 1, and shows it, the first in a series can sometimes be a bit below par as the author finds their feet,   and Come Hell or High Water which is somewhat further through. 

I have already mentioned/put out a warning on the book club choice of The Malt Whiskey Murders. Nuff said, as per N Molesworth. 

My two 'fall asleep to' books this month were Elly Griffiths' The Last Remains and Mick Herron's Slough House. Slough House is a bad choice for night time drowsing as there are some very tense moments in it which, even though I have read the book several times, I still find very difficult to listen to. But not, you know, so difficult that I don't! Fall asleep books have to be ones I've listened to before so that I have some way of finding the point at which I fell asleep the previous night and picking up from there. I usually put the timer on to 15 or 30 minutes, but that's less help than you might think! 

After that we have The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet. I'd seen this favourably reviewed by crime and fantasy reviewers since it is a crime novel set in an imagined world. I didn't enjoy it held as much as I thought I would. The murder mystery was fine as far as it went although  I thought the author cheated a bit by making the central murders and their solution reliant on the particular oddities of his world. It's  tricky to explain, but it seemed to me, and I may be wrong, that he made some things up as he went along, rather than having thought out the basic parameters of the way his world differed from the one we live in, just to make his life easier. A sort of 'oh if I say this is a thing, even if it's on page 201 and not previously mentioned then x can do y and therefore discover z'. I didn't take to either of the two main protagonists, and it seemed a novel driven almost entirely by the mechanics of (admittedly slick) plot,  and not development, or even display of character. That said, it's not a bad book, goodness knows I have encountered much worse, and if you like crime fiction or imagined worlds, it's probably worth a look. 

Finally we have I Who Have Never Known Men by Josephine Harpman and which was recommended to me by a friend as 'thought provoking'. This one was the cause of the ' ' above, because I have to confess I didn't listen to it all. I got about 2/3rds of the way through, some of that at 1.5 speed to make it go quicker. I then skipped to the last 20 minutes. And that was  a mistake because in a novel that was outstandingly bleak the final few pages were the bleakest of all. I know that the author probably wanted to say interesting things about what makes life meaningful and how communities work and the value of knowing things, but when you boil it down, she didn't. If you are any more curious about it, I refer you to the Amazon plot precis and then in particular to  the 1-3 star reviews. The reviews will a least raise a smile, which is more than the book did. 

Wool Stats for January

So, wool in 200g, wool out 316g net decrease for the month is 116g 

This is not the flying start I have had in the last two Januarys but I'm not too downhearted about that. The main reason for my equanimity is that I am still ploughing through this large project that I have mentioned before and, just as in December I failed to finish it in January. But, it is very close to being done now; I am confident it will be complete by the end of the coming week. And then it will go on the bathroom scales and I will be a very happy bunny. Not just for the weight reduction but also being able  to use the finished product which is lovely. 

The other reason is that I have bought very little and resisted the temptation to sign up for various yarn clubs, new yarns, treat boxes etc; e-mail notifications for which have been filling my in-box all month. This augurs well for very little wool coming into stash over the year. I bought the yarn for the Sophie Scarf which I have already shown here and the other 100g was this 

obviously destined to be a pair of socks for the OH. I won't go into all the details of how and why but it was a once only chance so I snagged it. 

Only two finished projects this month, which is hardly surprising given the amount of time I have spent on the Big One. They were the Sophie Scarf, and the baby blanket for my friend's daughter and I've already show them off in blog posts so won't  repost those. 

I am currently going through my knitting stash identifying, kits, wips, things I have wool and pattern for so that I know where they all are as I try to make my way through as many of them as possible over the coming eleven months.  I feel spreadsheets coming on whihc is good; I do love a good spreadsheet! 

 

Celtic Connections

 

Given that we lived in Orkney for 20 years without, despite our best intentions, ever once getting around to going to the Orkney Folk Festival I suppose it's not surprising that we had never thought about going to Celtic Connections. the huge celebration of folk music held in Glasgow every January.  

We went this year though, courtesy of the OH's brother who bought us tickets for one of the concerts as his present for the OH's Big Birthday. It was on Wednesday evening so that was  a busy day; picking up brother from the  station, showing him the new house, giving him lunch and then taking him over to Glasgow where he was spending the next few nights at the flat so that he could explore Glasgow a bit. 

The concert (gig?) was in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow where we have never been before. We were impressed, it's a bit Tardis like given that it's much bigger on the inside than you would expect from the outside. My only grumble would be the number of stairs - of which more anon. 

We saw three bands

Staran

Imar

and Rura 

I say this as though I knew all about them; the truth is I hadn't heard of any of them before we got the tickets. After my experiences last autumn I am now very wary of reviewing any live performances except in the most glowing of terms, lest I be to taken to task by a marketing or press officer. In those circumstances it is a good thing that I enjoyed the whole evening immensely.

I understand that Rura are 'one of the most sought after bands on the current Scottish folk scene' which I can totally believe as they were fabulous. Of the other two I preferred Staran, mainly because they had a vocalist (who was very good). The OH's brother vastly preferred Imar but he is biased as two of the players come from the Isle of Man, a place he loves and where he used to work many years ago.

I think it's probably safe to say that that won't be our last visit to Celtic Connections. 

We should have been going to a totally different concert at Glasgow Uni yesterday lunchtime but we had to call it off as I could hardly walk. The many many many stairs at the Concert Hall somehow aggravated that knee problem from the accident in Finland back in 2024 and not only that but my left hip came out in sympathy overnight so it became obvious quite quickly that I wasn't going anywhere. I was really disappointed. 

All things considered January wasn't as empty a month as I had feared it would be. February is looking busy but not too busy, and, as long as plans don't get upset by the weather, it should be good.

A biscuit baking disaster

 

This week I tried my hand at Anzac biscuits and do not be fooled by the photograph, they were a disaster. These are the only reasonable looking ones I could salvage to take a picture of. 

Don't get me wrong they taste fine. But apart from these few, they look a mess. They spread too far and too thinly and mostly all ran together into an amorphous blob. Very discouraging. 

I will however not allow myself to be discouraged. Check in next week to see what biscuit recipe I can massacre as January draws to a close. We might even have managed to finish eating the Would-Be Anzacs by then; they will go nicely with ice cream. If I'd only put in some ginger I could have pretended they were brandy snaps....

I think the problem was that the oven was too hot. It's difficult to set with any accuracy; I may have to look out the oven  thermometer. And new ovens are definitely on the agenda although not for a while as they will be expensive. 

A Dayin Edinburgh

 Last Thursday we went up to Edinburgh for the day. 

I love how I can just say that, almost as much as I love that we can do it. There were a couple of exhibitions we wanted to see ( a recurring refrain over the next twelve months I suspect and not just applying to Edinburgh) so we just hopped on the train and there we were. 

Edinburgh was blessedly empty. Empty is a relative term of course when you're talking about a much visited tourist capital but there weren't all that many visitors about (well, it is January!) which made walking not only easy but actually a bit of a pleasure. Walking down the lower half of the Royal Mile it was possible to  look up and appreciate all the beautiful architecture from  many different periods without worrying that you were gong to bump into anyone while you gawped upwards. 

Here's a photo which is a great example of how the old and the new live alongside one another.  On the left, The Palace of Holyrood. On the right part of the Parliament Building. Bottom left a car which I would have liked to edit out,  but the editing software thing-y has changed and I'm bowed if I can work out how to use it. 

First stop was the cafe at Holyrood where we swelled the Windsor coffers by having a snack.

That was,by the way,the second most disgusting scone I have had while out in my life. Scones are not meant to have a crust on either the bottom or the top, let alone both. The walls were adorned with lots of large photos of the Royal family. It occurred to me that even if I ran a cafe with my family I would not decorate the walls with pictures of the OH, the sons, the siblings, etc etc but I suppose it's different when you're royal. 

Annoyingly we had passed several very nice looking cafes on the way which would probably have served us much nicer food, but we had no idea what the queues would be like for the exhibition so wanted to get to Holyrood to suss that out before we thought about eating. In the event there were no queues and I think next time we go to an exhibition at the King's Gallery we will pass on the Windsor caff and eat elsewhere. 

The exhibition was something the OH was keen to see - Drawing in the Italian Renaissance. When I say the OH wanted to see it, I don't mean to imply that he dragged me there kicking and screaming, because he didn't; have to do that. I just prefer paintings to drawings, probably because, as noted here many times before, I cannot draw to save my life, and therefore the techniques of people who are talented in that direction are a Closed Book to me. That said  there were a few drawings that caught my eye 

A pleasingly muscular Enthroned Christ  and 

a little botanical drawing of a blackberry branch. 

There was of course a shop and it did not, of course have postcards of the exhibition but it did have a box of notelets relating to it that was half price so I got that. 

Once out of Holyrood we made our way back towards the station, opposite which is the City Art Centre.  I've been there before and it has some excellent exhibitions.  The one we were there to see was Scottish Portraiture and this was much more my cup of tea than the drawings. I loved it. What I didn't love so much was the lighting which,  as always seems to be the case at the CAC was very badly placed so that too much light reflects off the pictures. I also didn't love the fact that you're not allowed to take pictures, but that seems to be a bit of a lottery with galleries these days so I didn't stress. I wouldn't minds seeing that one again before it's over but we'll have to see if we can fit it in again on another trip. 

When we'd finished there we crossed the road to the station and by the time we'd found when the next train to Stirling was and located the platform it was only five minutes before the train arrived. So much easier than seeing things in Edinburgh used to be for us. 

Happy Mail and 2026 Finished Project No 2

I was never going to knit a Sophie Scarf. For those who may not know the Sophie Scarf is a pattern which has gone viral in the places where people knit, and everyone and their grandmother has made one. I wasn't going to bother; partly because I thought it was just a little bit of nothing and partly because I tend to be a bit iffy about making things that everyone else is knitting. This may be why my wardrobe includes neither a Love Note nor a Ranunculus; both patterns for knitted tops which  have also gone viral. I went to Glasgow School of Yarn one year and of the first ten people I saw six were wearing Love Notes. It's probably a great pattern but you know - I was on the road less travelled. 

Then - a friend made me a Sophie Scarf for Christmas and I completely changed my mind. It's a fun little thing that's easy to wear and I really liked it. Might bear it in mind to make myself one I thought. And then ...

I got an e-mail offering 10% off the price of a redye job of Yarn Unique's Artist Club for December. Some of you may remember I gave up on this club round about last August? because of mix ups, never knowing which artist was going to feature, missing one that I would have liked etc etc. But the December colour was gorgeous and I thought immediately of my plans for  Sophie scarf. As I just needed one skein I splashed out and got it on  a base that included yak as I've neve knitted with yak before. It arrived last Wednesday 

and I cast it on that same evening. 

It got cast off on Saturday 

and here it is modelled

To maximise use of the skein I made it a little longer than the pattern calls for. Then I used some of what was left to put a square into my cosy memories blanket and I've still got 10 g to play with. You can't do a lot of playing with 10 g of yarn,  although a Ravelry search threw up an alarmingly high number of possible projects (over 1100) that you can make with approx 20 metres of DK! Who knew?  

  

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.