And the excitement just kept coming ....

... because after our extremely busy Saturday we were out again on Sunday.

This was for a valentine themed afternoon tea at the Japanese garden at Cowden. I've posted about our visits there with lots of photographs before; we love it. They have a very nice tearoom, often  very busy specially in the spring and summer, but you can usually find a table and it's well worth the wait. 

Of course it snowed on Sunday. We had a phone call from the garden warning us about that, and telling us which approach road was the best to use.  We set off 10 minutes earlier than we normally would to allow for that, but what we couldn't have factored in was getting stuck in a long queue of traffic which had built up so far ahead of us that we couldn't see the reason for it. Stressville. I hate being late and after edging forward not very far in 15 minutes the satnav was showing that we certainly  would be. In the event we turned around and found an alternative route and I was able to call and say we would be about ten minutes late. So much for leaving extra time!

They were very understanding and said it wasn't a problem and it truly wasn't. We had a beautiful afternoon tea;

three different sorts of sandwiches, none of them fish which was a win for me, although generally the OH can be counted on to eat my fishy sandwich and let me have his ham or egg or cheese one, sausage rolls, lemon and blueberry scones with cream and jam, little buns with raspberry icing and on the top layer - a chocolate fondue, with shortbread biscuits, strawberries and marshmallows for dipping. I thought that made  a lovely change to a standard afternoon tea. 

We'd planned a walk around the garden afterwards but the weather was shocking and in any case I have a painful leg just now and I'm limping so we just drove home and cosied up to watch some Olympic action - probably some ice skating since that's all that really interests me when it comes to winter sports. 

Great end to the weekend though. 

A Very Busy Day

Due solely to my own insouciance several months ago ( to wit: yes I'll book the matinee in Edinburgh without checking the calendar because we haven't got anything else in it for February yet) we found ourselves with a play to see in Edinburgh and an opera to see in Glasgow both on the same day. Saturday just gone in fact. Since the play was a matinee and the opera in the evening it was doable but it meant a very busy day with an early start, a lot of train travelling and a late finish. 

The moral of the story is,  however sure you are that there is 'nothing in the calendar' always always check! 

The play was A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, and as son no 2 is a huge fan of the Goes Wrong shows and as it was designed as a mid-February treat and  cheer up we had bought a ticket for him too, so we met him in Edinburgh and had lunch together before the play. 

The play was of course a riot; the company is so good at both funny dialogue and physical comedy. Here's the opening set: 

the beautiful intermission curtain 

and the curtain call

I have never found a box of Maltesers quite so hysterical. Also Tiny Tim was 'played' by a demonic ventriloquist's doll which was hilarious and sinister at the same time. Highly recommended.

Once the play was over we hurried to the station and caught a train for Glasgow, after which Son no 2 went home and we went to the opera. After the opera we came home on a noisy train with some very badly behaved youths on it and no members of staff to be seen. Possibly cowering in the end carriage. 

Once home we discovered that Scotland  had thrashed England at Murrayfield, which ended the day on a very high note indeed. 

Competitive Telly!

 Yes it's that time of year again; I am watching all the Ps; potters, painters  and professional chefs. 

I'd like to say that I'm glued to the programs they appear in;  The Pottery Throw Down, Landscape Artist of the Year and Masterchef the Professionals, but the best I can do is semi-attached. Maybe the formats are getting old, maybe my boredom threshold is lowered, but whatever it is  I'm only half watching the programs.

I think the pottery one is the worst offender; I find a lot of this year's tasks quite boring which  doesn't mean that the contestants aren't producing some amazing work; they are. That said I'm not convinced this years are as good as last years overall either. Maybe it's just that in the first few series I was learning lots, since when it started I knew nothing about pottery but now that I do know some,. it's not quite so interesting. I'll watch  until the end of this series but whether I'll tune in next time is another thing. 

Landscape Artist of the Year has had a change of judge. They have lost Kate Bryan who the OH used to describe as The Cute One (!) and who, despite that,  was my favourite. I have yet to warm to her replacement and I have seen references on social media claiming she is 'too good' for the show and wondering what she's doing on it! Again I am finding the process of watching the paintings develop less compelling than I have in previous years but I am still enjoying it. Since I cannot draw I am always amazed at the talent some people have for reproducing landscapes, sometimes quite busy and challenging cityscapes, and I generally love  seeing the way the same scene is interpreted differently by the different artists who are competing. 

What can I say about Masterchef The Professionals? Well first off it's a damn  sight better than it was, now the loathsome Greg Wallace has been ditched. Long term readers here will know that I have loathed Wallace since Day 1 and I have to say that all the revelations over the past months  about his behaviour towards women have not surprised me one bit. The new judge is obviously still finding his feet but seems pleasant enough and he is at least a professional cook which Wallace never was,  so that's  an improvement. The Professionals was always my favourite program in the Masterchef stable because it showed people who were mostly already very good and watched them improve and progress and develop and I always found that heart warming. We're not very far into the current series but already there has been some amazing talent on display and some mouth watering looking food. 

While I'm here I suppose I could take a moment to write about Game of Wool: Britain's  Best Knitter. I did not like this program for al the reasons that many knitters I know, both on and off social media didn't like it. Too wide a spread of contestants ability at the beginning, the constant presence of crochet even though that's a different skill ( I have nothing against crochet but if you call a program the search for Britain's Best Knitter then knitting is what they should be doing, some bizarre judging decisions, and actually now I've used the bizarre word, let's work it a bit harder and apply it also to Di Gilpin's headgear and Tom Daley's outfits and presenting style. It could also be applied to some of the challenges, like knitted swimwear and the decision to make members of Britain's swimming team model it, and deckchair covers. Finally it became very obvious that what the judges were looking for was not a knitter but a designer; that being the case the fact that there was a contestant who was a designer with a textile background tipped the contestant's plating field so far from being level that it was practically vertical. Will I watch Series 2? I'll maybe give it a go to see if it has had any improving tweaks, but I'm not holding my breath. 

It feels strange to be doing a blog post about tv programs again; there are so many things  I| used to write about that I don't any more. This is basically because life in general is just busier and I have more interesting things to write about than television. For example we have a super, actually stupid, busy weekend coming up, so that should  keep the fingers typing next week. 

A Sad Loss

 Some readers may remember our trip to North Yorkshire last December for a lunch in celebration of our friend Christine's's 90th birthday. While it was a lovely celebratory occasion everyone present knew that two days later  Christine was due to start radiotherapy treatment, although by her own expressed wish this was not discussed at the lunch. It was hoped that the radiotherapy might get her to  a place where she could start chemotherapy but it was not to be. The radiotherapy did not go well, Christine became very poorly and after a short spell in a nursing/convalescent home she was returned to hospital where she died peacefully in her sleep last Friday. Despite years living in Australia she was the epitomy of a Yorkshire woman; forthright, occasionally acerbic, and a great lover of cricket. She was also wise, had a great sense of humour and felt a deep loyalty and affection for her friends. I will miss her. 

I didn't put a photo of the celebration on the blog then,but now seems to be a good time to do so. Here are the Dorothy Dunnett readers, with Christine on the left in the beautiful scarf. 

2026 Finshed Projects No. 4

 And yes, this is it, this is the big one. 

It's the Debbie Abrahams Mystery Blanket from 2019.

I am indebted to a friend at Knit Group who pointed out to me that if I finished it it would make a massive contribution to my stash reduction statistics. I don't know why this had not occurred to me myself, but it hadn't. But as it was undeniably true, and as I felt I could  now face rectifying the  mistake that had had me dropping it in the first place, I picked it up towards the end of November and finally finished it yesterday. And yes, the stats for February,  unless I go unexpectedly mental will look very healthy. 

Have to be honest I'm not loving it.  Probably because I 'm not totally on board with the palette, and also of course because I can still see all the small imperfections in it which I will forget about as time goes on. And on the plus side it's very warm! 

2026 Finished Project No. 3

 No, it's not that one. Although that one is almost there. Meanwhile. I needed a small and mindless project  to take to knit group or for when I was watching TV or was feeling too tired for The Big One. So, voila!

New socks for the OH knitted with the wool he chose at East Neuk Knits. So that skein at least didn't hang around for too long. 

Nutcracker in Havana

 

We went to see this at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on Wednesday. We had a chance to see a filmcast of the ROH one before Christmas but we decided against it, I think on the grounds that we were a bit 'Nutcrackered Out'. Odd for me tbh  but that's how I felt and we went to see the Cinderella instead. 

However when I saw this advertised on a marketing e-mail from the Festival Theatre I thought it might be fun and a great antidote to February gloom, so after a bit of humming and haaaing I booked it. I should not have hummed and haaed for as long as I did (all of two days iirc)  because by the time I went to book it there were very few seats left. I suppose that's not really surprising as there were only four performances. Anyway I booked some upper circle seats which were about all that there was left and on Wednesday we got up quite early and got the train to Edinburgh. We wanted to visit a hobby/model shop which was recommended to us by the OH's brother when he was with us recently. A railway modeller's dream I should say and they had a few bits and pieces of doll's house furniture so I splashed out on a kitchen table and chairs for mine, and the OH looked longingly at a very small gauge train set which he didn't buy and which I have been trying to persuade him to purchase, or rather let me purchase  for him,  ever since. Then it was back to the centre of the city and the ballet. 

Can I just say that the seats we had were not what I would describe as Upper Circle? They were what, in any other theatre, would be described as Balcony seats, or even, for those theatres that have one, Upper Balcony,  with all that that entails, mainly climbing stairs for what seems like forever and emerging into a space that is not at all suitable for people with a tendency to vertigo i.e. me. Apparently developing vertigo  is quite common in post menopausal women. Who knew? Well not me until recently. Vertigo, constantly itchy skin and thinning hair, what joy.  But I digress. 

I was not a particularly happy bunny by the time we had mountaineered our way to our seats and so was inclined to not enjoy Act 1 of the ballet which was not nearly as colourful or energetic or generally 'Cuban' as I had anticipate to be honest. And I was inclined to think the Cuban bits gimmicky and cliche'd. However my equilibrium was somewhat restored by the interval and I enjoyed Act 2 very much. Perhaps it was the unavailing attempt of the man in the seat next to us to purchase an interval ice cream that perked me up: he found a seller, queued up and then discovered that they only took card payments and he only had cash on him. I shouldn't have let that cheer me up, goodness knows I had the same experience at the TheatrerRoyal once when I discovered you could no loner pay for programs by cash and therefore didn't bother to get one. A practice we have continued ever since when we are familiar with the opera we are about to see.  I did however buy a souvenir program for Nutcracker in Havana since it was the Carlos Acosta company  and so  a Special Occasion. I did have to think twice though as it was £10 which struck me as ludicrous. At least it did until I heard from a friend who had been to see the Anniversary Tour of Dead Ringers recently and who told me programs there were twice that much! 

The one good thing about our seats was that the balcony has such a steep rake that the sight lines are excellent. I couldn't take pictures during the performance naturally but I did get a few at the curtain call; this is the best one 

The light is always rubbish for these things. 

We are due back at the Festival Theatre shortly for A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong and I was filled with foreboding lest we had seats once more in the misnamed Upper Circle. Having checked I was relieved to find that we are actually in the stalls for that - this still means one flight of stairs for some reason but I can manage that!