Oh Look, It's Christmas!

 

I can't believe how this has suddenly arrived. When last I looked it was 28th November and now it's Christmas Eve. Have spent the last few days in Useless Headless Chicken Mode but somehow have arrived at 24th with everything done bar a bit of last minute wrapping which I shall do later today. This afternoon I'm going to bake. Not quite sure what, possibly lemon drizzle cake, possibly another go at stollen, maybe some gingerbread - who knows? I'll see how I feel when I get into the kitchen.

 

In other news, just for a change for Orkney at Christmas, it's blowing a gale. And has been for days. On the upside son number two got home no bother on Sunday, which made a pleasant change from last years travel related panics and we're all here, snug and warm and relaxed and cheerful.

 

Happy Christmas everyone!

That's not in the book

But then this wasn't in the film




Yesterday I might have found the time and energy to do a blog post had I not been out of the house for 13 hours straight. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was have a quick look at the bathroom progress and fall into bed, which was more or less what I did.

I spent the day at Uni keeping away from the noise and the dirt and the general inconvenience of having no running water for most of the day. At 5 o'clock  the OH picked me up an we had a meal out (not a very nice one as it happens, so I'll refrain from identifying the place concerned. We were rather startled when we arrived to find it very very quiet indeed, because at this time of year and that time of day it used to be a joint that jumped, but two mistakes with our orders, some unpleasant tasting fries and some not very nice desserts later we realised why it was no longer packed out.) And after that we went to see The Hobbit Part 2, aka The Desolation of Smaug.

Now as I've previously mentioned I try to take a relaxed view of novel adaptations for film and TV. Sometimes I can't bear them but when that happens I usually blame myself for being far too fastidious and precious. This was not the case with the BBC version of Gaskell's North and South. That wasn't me being fastidious, that was the BBC determined to produce a travesty. But mostly I'm quite laid back.By the time I had sat through almost 3 hours of Jackson's latest ludicrously self indulgent film making fest however my relaxed attitude had been quite challenged. In fact I seriously doubt whether I'll make a trip to the cinema to see the third instalment; I'll just wait for one of the  boys to buy the DVD and watch it on that.

 

Perhaps you're  wondering if you should go and see the film. If so, just check out the next paragraph and see how many categories you belong to.

This is not a film for a) people who aren't fans of fantasy b) people who have any sort of attachment to the source material c) people who like scripts without glaring non-sequiturs or sudden and inexplicable emotional responses from characters that have no lead or follow up d) people who don't like spiders e) people who get bored with large dark set pieces on camera where you can't make out what's happening beyond a lot of noise f) people who are fans of Hugo Weaving and expecting to see him; because he's not in it, whatever the IMDB says.

 

I fall into four of the six and if you do too, save yourself some time and money and stay home to wrap Christmas presents.

 

It's the cynicism that annoys me more than anything; The Hobbit is a short sharp tale and could have been done nicely in one 2 hour film, preferably before Jackson embarked on LOTR. That would not of course have made anything like as much money as nine overblown hours in three instalments. But it would have been a much much better film.

And so it goes on....

I don't know how people project manage big builds. I really don't. All that we're having is a replacement bathroom but there seems to be an awful lot of coming and going and people not quite dovetailing with others. Par exemple, the painter came this morning to paint the walls. He sat in his van for 90 minutes while the plumber crashed about and drilled stuff, because the plumber got here 5 minutes before the decorator and was therefore able to lay claim to the territory,  and then the painter came and said he was going because there was no point in him hanging about - which is true - and he will come back tomorrow. Not on double time I fervently hope. We are not managing this ourselves, but leaving it to the joiner and given that probably everyone who is working on the project is also working on about five others simultaneously I suppose it's not surprising that things get a bit held up now and again. Me, I just wish it was over and done with.

The Boy Done Good

My elder son is a Dr Who fan(atic). When he was 8 or 9 in order to raise money for Children in Need he and a friend were sponsored by their teachers (and others) to not mention Dr Who for a day. I'm sure it was a struggle. And this is all the more odd because the program's hiatus covered his life from age 7 to 15. So I'm not really sure where this love of Dr Who came from.

 

Be that as it may, he was determined to be at the huge 50th Anniversary Celebrations in London a few weekends ago. He booked, at great expense, a photo opportunity with Matt Smith and generally had a great time, which he recounted to me afterwards in Great and Loving Detail.

 

Except there were a few pertinent details he deliberately left out. Because yesterday when his Christmas card came a little hand written note fell out. It said

 

To Anne

Happy Christmas

David Collings

 

Now David Collings is one of my all time favourite actors. He's never been a big star but he's worked consistently for many years on stage as well on TV and Radio and he has a voice like a cracked peppercorn in honey. I could listen to him all day. I have been lucky enough to see him live on three or four occasions but at no time would the OH thole the idea of hanging round the stage door so that I could get my program autographed. Rather to my chagrin.

 

I knew, because I had watched them, that he had been in three Dr Who stories in three separate series and I assumed from the fact that Son No 1 hadn't mentioned seeing him that he had not in fact been at the Convention. But he was and the little note was the result.

 

It was one of the most wonderful things anyone has ever given me. I was so thrilled I cried. And that's not something I do often. Thank you, A. As my FB friend the Stainless Steel Cat said 'That's a good lad  you've got there.'

 

 

 

This is a very old picture, from a small part he had in A Man for all Seasons. In 1966.  But unmistakeably the man himself.

 

Silence Fell. But honest - it wasn't my fault.

The batteries in my camera recently gave out - after having been in there for what seemed like only five minutes - and in the time between my discovery of that and having an opportunity to buy more we were quite busy. I had perforce to ask the OH to take photos for me to put up on the blog and thus far he has failed to upload them to my laptop from his phone. So I will leave a brief description of our recent highlife until he has done so. It will mean more with pics.

 

One prospective trip out had to be cancelled last week due to the weather. A friend and I had tickets for the livecast of the ROH ballet The Nutcracker last Thursday evening but we decided at the last minute not to risk going. The seas were very high and the barriers officially only 'passable with care'. This is the last step before they are closed and as we would have been coming home at high tide in the black dark we reluctantly decided it wasn't worth risking.

 

In other news I have already had my pre-Christmas meltdown, but I am leaving open an option on fitting in another before the 24th of the month. The fact that we have workmen in starting the bathroom refurbishment is probably contributing quite a lot to the stress levels - and they've only been here 50  minutes!

Glasgow was Great!

And no-one could have been more surprised than I was. It didn't even rain. In fact the weather was gorgeous; blue sky, bright sun, touch of frost underfoot and that crisp autumnal air that almost but not quite makes your lungs ache when you breathe in.

It was lovely to see Son No 2  and this time he had switched on the heating before we arrived which was a relief. The Vettriano exhibition was wonderful, well worth the trip down. It was interesting because it underlined the fact that Vettriano as an artist hasn't developed. Not only does he have a unique style which is instantly identifiable, he hasn't substantially  changed he way he paints in 25 years of work. I sort of think this isn't a good thing. I don't have the training of an art critic so I don't have the vocabulary for such a discussion, but can't help feeling it's a bit lazy and unimaginative. He has let himself get stuck.

 

That said, I still like the work. Just because seeing 100+ of the paintings all at once gives you a touch of visual indigestion it doesn't mean you go off them. I like his titles and I like his colours and I like that he captures a moment in time that can send your mind skittering off in all directions making up stories for the people pictured. Story is so important to the human psyche.

 

After that it was the much dreaded meeting with the academic supervisor but actually I think we had a bit of a break through moment. It went well.

 

We didn't get time to do any shopping since that would have involved moving the car and trying to find somewhere else to park in the city centre so we opted for a late lunch back at Kelvingrove and a very quick trip around the Glasgow Boys Gallery where I got to see at long last the Henry/Hornel painting of The Druids bringing in the Mistletoe. I've loved this picture for ages, although have only ever seen it in reproductions in books so it was fantastic to see the original. Really surprised to find it square rather than rectangular. The version below really doesn't do it justice but gives some sort of idea.

 

Off On My Travels Again

So tomorrow is the day we go south, weather and ferries permitting. Many of the ferries were cancelled today which was worrying, but the weather seems to have settled and the winds are easing off so, assuming not too much swell in the Firth we should be good to go tomorrow.

Overnigth with son no 2 in Kirkcaldy and an action packed day in Glasgow on Friday, returning on Saturday. Let's hope the cats cope without us, but it is only three days.

We should be back in time to settle nicely in front of the Dr Who 50th Anniversary Special but we've set it to record just in case. And son no 1 will be in London for the official Anniversary Weekend. Complete with very expensive photo opportunity with Matt Smith.

 

I'm a bit nervous about the meeting with the Ph D supervisor on Friday. And will only get more and more nervous as it gets closer. But whatever happens, it won't be the end of the world.

The End of Breathless

Much to my relief this bonkers excuse for a TV drama came to an end last week. I understand there is to be a second series but I am relieved of the necessity for watching it by the fact that the character played by Iain Glen (who assiduous readers will recall was my only reason for watching it in the first place ) was murdered by a mad anaesthetist who shoved a syringeful of some noxious medical substance in his shoulder. This was done by the anaesthetist concerned at a full run and the needle must perforce have gone through an overcoat, a sports jacket or pullover, a shirt and a vest and then into somewhere where the noxious substance concerned could do almost immediately fatal damage  all without the needle breaking. Had he borrowed it from a horse vet? And was he possessed of superhuman strength?

 

The almost immediately fatal effect was so that the really rather nasty wife of the hero, could refuse to make any effort to call an ambulance while her husband struggled bravely on to save the life of a man who had been doing his best to ruin both the hero's life and marriage. Because that's what heroes do. 

 

The only question remaining really  is 'Iain, Jack (Davenport), did you really need the money that badly?'

 

Yorkshire Catch Up

I was never going to do a blow by blow of our week in Yorkshire but here are a few more pictures from the week

 

this was the terrace in front of the cottage, and one day I even sat out there having coffee with a friend. Very civilised. I did have visions of us sitting out there in the evenings with glasses of wine but that never happened sadly.

 

We went to Helmsley, one of our favourite stamping grounds  back in the day when we lived in Leeds. Not quite so wonderful this time round; lots of the nice little shops were shut, because it was Sunday, some of the open ones weren't suitable for taking in a tired and grumpy toddler and the toy shop sadly isn't what it was. There was this pretty café though....

After lunch we went to Helmsley Castle. These statues were new since our last visit. I rather liked them, and not just because they were reminiscent of some of the shots in 300.  Although that helped, obviously!

After Helmsley it was Pickering, tea and a trip to see the steam trains. Obviously all a bit much too excitement for father and son....

 

 

all little boys love Thomas the Tank Engine - as I know to my cost.

 

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

 

Whitby Abbey, from the beach. Hard to believe from this picture how far it is up all those steps

 

Return to Harlow Carr - and Son No 1 is even smiling!

 

A caged monster!!

 

It was a good week with some happy memories.

 

What I Finished in October

Well there was more than in September, although as we all know that's not saying much

 

Wristwarmers (knitted from a front of magazine kit and sent off to my friend for her asylum seekers party.

 

small blankets and tiny hats and bootees, sent to SANDS via Bonnie Babies for their Memory Boxes

 

Burial Gowns for premature babies

 

 

scarf for the Asylum Seekers Party

 

a scarf/shawl type thing for me knitted in Wollmeise. For those in the loop Strickmich's Trillian. People rave about this and the colours are wonderful, but it feels a bit like knitting with string.

 

 

Bright socks for the OH. This was Danish wool bought at Yarndale. It was sold as sock wool and certainly knitted to the correct tension etc but it feels too soft to me to make particularly hard wearing socks. On the upside there's enough left of the ball to make a third sock  so if one goes spectacularly through there'll still be a pair. When I get round to knitting the spare that is!

 

Only my disinclination for sewing up means that there is not also a grandson's Christmas cardigan to display this month too!

(Almost) Touching History

It's said that people in the UK generally only go to Church twice a year; at Christmas and Easter. I don't know that's right really. Plenty of people turn out at Christmas, but Easter? not so much. In my experience after Christmas, the churches are at their fullest for Remembrance Day.

 

The service in the Cathedral here on Remembrance Sunday always finishes with local piper, vet and all round good guy Andy Cant playing his own composition, called Remembrance. It has to be one of the most beautiful tunes ever composed for the pipes. I'd like it played at my funeral after the internment but suspect that would verge on the blasphemous in a way; it wasn't written for individuals.

 

Anyway today Andy was playing on a set of pipes that had belonged to his uncle. They were played in France during World War I. They were played in North Africa during World War II. And today they were played in the Cathedral.

 

Thus are we bound to the stories and lives of those who came before. And with attention and focus so can we bind those who come afterwards into our stories too.

 

I'd have loved to touch those pipes. And I'd have asked Andy if I could, even though I'd have felt totally daft, but by the time we'd shuffled to the Cathedral door in the press of folk, they were already put away. That was a shame. But honestly it was a privilege just to hear them.

 

 

 

Progress on the Home Front

Well it looks like we might have the new bathroom installed for Christmas! Plan agreed, all the bits chosen, without too much discussion/disagreement, the joiner is available in three weeks time which is when the stuff will arrive and he will organise plumber, sparky and painter. Which leaves us just to choose the paint for the walls that will need it, and the tiles for the floor and book the tiler. And today we went and signed the contract and paid the deposit. All good stuff.

Quite what we will do while the bathroom is being ripped to pieces and we have workmen in the house for  10 days to two weeks I don't know. Something will doubtless suggest itself.

So now that things are gong smoothly on the bathroom, it may be time to ring up the man and ask about progress on The Big Shed.

As Promised - My 'Nessie'

not tasteful - but quite precious all the same.

Ze Curse of Inverness - She is Broke

Yup, difficult to believe I know but the nicest thing happened to me when I was Inverness for the UHI Post Grad Conference and I feel that perhaps the place has had its fun with me and is now willing to leave me alone.

 

So, are you all dying to know what the nice thing was? Well, I'll tell you. My presentation won an award. In fact it won Best Short Presentation. When they announced it at the final dinner you could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather.

 

The most astonishing, and indeed pleasing, aspect of winning this is that it is voted for by the delegates at the conference themselves. Since I was talking about a poet, and 80% of the audience were marine biologists and most of the rest were studying either health or environmental science I feel that I must have done something right.

 

It was a great way to start my 'paper giving' career and I got a little wooden shield and an Amazon Gift Card. Photo to follow, and then you will see why the awards are called The Nessies.

 

I should also place on record that, despite knowing naff all about marine biology and very little more about health and environmental sciences I enjoyed almost all of the presentations done by other people. I was particularly impressed by my fellow Centre for Nordic Studies student who did her presentation in rhyme. And I'm pleased to report that she too won an award, for the best innovative presentation. CNS Rocks - as the young people probably don't say.

Well, here's a first....

I had the detailed post graduate conference schedule this morning.

According to that I was sharing a room, not having specified that I required a 'private' one.  And my name was nowhere to be seen on the presentation timetable.

Now my days of sharing sleeping quarters with anyone other than my husband, except under the most extreme of circumstances (say, evacuation because the island on which I live is about to explode) are well behind me. Nowhere on the forms that I completed or in any of the associated bumf did it say that sharing a room was the default and that if you wanted a single room you should say so 'here'.

 

And although I wasn't falling over myself to do a presentation (see previous post), now that I've thought about it and put it together I don't see why I shouldn't give it. Especially when I'm going to have to listen to myriads of other people talking about copepods (what?), diel vertical migration (what?? again) and regional wave climates (insert your own what? here). Not that the marine biologists pre-dominate in UHI postgrad terms or anything.... Actually for all I know diels and copepods  have nothing to do with marine biology. But if I have to listen to 3, 5 or 10 minutes of those I don't see why they shouldn't have to listen to 3 minutes on a Gaelic poet.

 

Ten years ago I would have sent  a huffy e-mail declaring that I wouldn't bother going then but we have matured since then and I sent a restrained though slightly humorous e-mail instead. As a result of which I now have a single room and I will be added to the presentation list.

 

But this is the first time the curse of Inverness has struck before I even set foot in the place!

Disaster is Looming

In a few days time I have to go to Inverness. Long time readers of this blog will know that this is not a prospect that fills me with joy. Inverness is, and has been for many years, some sort of strange nemesis of mine and I can never go there without something awful happening.

Why then am I going? Because it's the UHI Post Grad conference. It moves around the constituent colleges of the University every year and it's just my (bad) luck that the first one I'm eligible to attend is in Inverness. On the upside, it's unlikely to be in Inverness again before I have finished so this may be my one and only Inverness one. Fingers crossed, eh?

 

I am even, despite the fact that I've only been playing this game for about five minutes, giving a presentation. I wasn't planning to but when the notification of the conference came round I had a conversation with my Director of Studies that went like this.

 

Me: This conference, should I be registering to go?

Her: Yes of course. It'll be a great chance for you to meet some other Ph D students. X will be there. And maybe Y. And that'll be just the three minute presentation.

Me:  You think I should do a presentation? Even though it's my first time there?

Her: Yes, of course.  Just the three minute one.

 

Fairy Nuff. I duly filled in the relevant bits of the form. And this week we had another conversation about it that went like this.

 

Me: I've just booked my travel for the conference.

Her: Oh good. It's quite close now isn't it. I'd best get on and prepare my talk. (She's the keynote speaker)And I'm so pleased you decided you would do a presentation.

Me: I decided? You mean it wasn't a 3 line whip?

Her: Oh no of course not.  Is that how it came over?

 

Well yes it is actually. Although  I'm not complaining. She's very good, very encouraging and I've learned a lot from her, particularly about having a positive attitude. And actually I rather wish I was doing five minutes. Because three minutes, as I have discovered, is no time at all.

Nurdling....

I know, I know, no blog posts for a week. I'm quite surprised it's actually that long, it seems like only yesterday that I was posting.

Anyway not much to see here, so move along if you like. It was a fairly standard week. Off to a friend's for coffee last Saturday morning, followed by afternoon in bed because I wasn't well. (That's not actually all that standard thinking about it) Church on Sunday, Monday I pottered about, what I mainly remember is laundry, Tuesday all day  and Wednesday morning I was at Uni, Wednesday afternoon was an eye test. Yesterday and today - admin and reading.

 

I suspect quite a lot of the pottering was reading too, as I finished  Midnight Tides (Volume 5 The Malazan Tales of The Fallen  ) this week. I was planning to give myself a rest from this for a while and to this end put Vols 6 - 10 on my Amazon wish list, ready for any of the family who needed ideas  Christmas. However in a weak moment - well I was tired and it was very late - I seem to have ordered volume 6 for myself  and it should be here early next week. Not that I'll be stalking the postman or anything.

 

Now here was a weird thing that happened this week though. I went to pick up a prescription from my doctor's surgery and noticed a sign on the wall saying that it would be closed today for a Bank Holiday. Which I thought was odd, because I couldn't think of any bank holidays that we get in October. So I asked what it was for. They didn't have a clue. 'It was  on a list that came' they said. 'We didn't know what it was for either, but as it was on the list we decided we'd take it'. Some friends of mine have christened it the 'typo holiday', reckoning it could have been a typing error. They may have something, perhaps it should have said 25th December. Because no-one else seems to know anything about it. And the postman came today so it's not even one of these weird specific to Orkney holidays that we occasionally fall foul of.

 

So, where were we? Oh yes, standard week, pottering, nurdling, generally just enjoying life and trying to block out the noise of the howling gale that has blown most of the time. Oh and reading a worthy tome about Gaelic Poetry and Post-Colonial Theory. Which was one of those books full of sentences where you know the meaning of each and every word, but the sentence they make up makes no sense whatsoever. Although I did learn a great phrase. Trans-peripheral solidarity. It's a good 'un.

Breathless

If you're a producer of TV Drama and you want me to watch your offering there are several ways open to you to encourage me to do so.

1 Adapt a good C19 novel. I will watch at least the first episode and if it's any good I'll stay with it to the end. Be aware that if you choose as your source material anything by Elizabeth Gaskell I will hold you to a higher standard than I do for anyone else (I am still not quite over the travesty of the BBC version of North and South)

 

2 Set it in a police station, somewhere in Europe and centre it on a murder, or linked series of murders. Knitwear is optional, but be aware that if what you serve up is not so much drama as a sit com set in an Italian police station (yes, that would be you, the ones who made Montalbano ) I won't stay with it.

 

3 Cast wisely. There are some actors I will watch in anything, however otherwise unappealing I find it.

 

4 Do not try and draw me in with any of the following: medical drama, a setting in that most over-rated decade the 1960s, cardboard cut out characters who might just as well be played by a puppet on a stick with a label for their one and only characteristic eg misogyny, greed, stupidity, ambition, shallowness etc.

 

Given 4 above, I find it astonishing that I am watching Breathless. This weak and formulaic pudding of a program, with weak and formulaic characters,  is a 1960s set medical drama, centred on a gynaecological ward. I saw this described somewhere (surely not in the Radio Times?) as a female gynaecological ward and several precious moments of my life were wasted while I wondered who on earth thought there was any other kind? So it really is amazing that I started watching, yes?

 

Well, no. The thing is that 3 trumps 4. Almost always. And as well as the astonishingly good Pippa Haywood, the makers of Breathless have drawn me in by casting Iain Glen. Albeit they have given him a shady demeanour, a shabby raincoat, a nasty 1950s hat, and an  even nastier 1950s moustache  It's a particularly bad look. He still acts everyone else off the screen and such is the beauty of his voice that my knees go weak every time he opens his mouth. Doesn't make me think any better of the program as a whole though.

Sister to the White Rabbit?

Oh my ears and whiskers! We're all rushing round like mad things this morning, spring cleaning the kitchen, the bathroom and all points in between. The reason for this is that we have a bathroom designer* coming round this afternoon and as he also designed the kitchen but never saw the finished article we're sort of assuming he might like to see that too. Hence the need to get them both sparkly clean.

 

It being a seemingly immutable law of the universe that bathroom cleaning is Wimmin's Work, that's what I've ben doing and I'm heartily sick of it I must say. This is a hangover from my teenage years, when I was made Bathroom Cleaner by my mother at the age of 14. I sort of feel I've done all the bathroom cleaning one woman can be expected to do in her lifetime, but this doesn't mean the universe sends someone else to do it sadly.

 

The worst job is cleaning the bath because  we never use it; not because we are unspeakably filthy but because we have showers rather than bathe and have a separate shower cubicle. Our bath has therefore become little more than a large and odd shaped dust collector.

 

This has led to a certain split of opinion in the household over the bathroom to be. My preference is for a large and luxurious shower and dispensing with a bath altogether. OH maintains that houses without baths are difficult to sell. My counter to that is - is that ever going to be our problem? We're not planning to leave. I think we may get the designer to come up with designs for both and then have the argument. If we end up with a bath though, it's going to be one of the whirlpool variety, that's a given!

 

* I say designer, but what I mean of course is a man from the local kitchen and bathroom place with a pile of brochures and a computer program.

We're Going to Glasgow!

 

I don't know why I'm quite so excited because we're not even going until almost the end of next month and Glasgow is a long way from being my favourite city in the world. Like Manchester, I always approach it with an open mind, reminding myself that it's a vibrant C19  sort of place and that I should love it. But somehow that never seems to help. I can't  quite work out where things are in relation to one another so that I spend my time feeling very lost and therefore slightly stressed. And while we are dwelling on down sides  both cities have more than their fair share of rain and pigeons.  The upside is that I have always found the people very friendly and helpful.

 

You may well wonder why, if I don't like the place, we are planning to go in the first place and the answer is that we're going for the Jack Vettriano exhibition . It's very nice of the OH to agree to go, since he is not a fan of Mr Vettriano's work, and I should think the prospect of looking at 100 of JV's paintings fills him with gloom.

 

I've also arranged to see my Ph D supervisor, and we had hoped to go to Scottish Opera's Don Giovanni at the same time. Sadly that proved a step too far, as in, it's not on in Glasgow in November, but the meeting will be useful and if it's also traumatic I expect a few hours looking at pictures will be soothing.

Biting off more than I can chew?

 

 

One of the reasons we stayed in Yorkshire for a week after the Dorothy Dunnett Gathering was so that the following weekend we - well I -  could attend a new wool show in Skipton called Yarndale. In the event it was a bit of a disappointment because it was very very crowded. In fact if we'd arrived about 20 minutes later I gather we would have been turned away. It was obviously a victim of its own success, which is sort of a good thing for the organisers, but no fun if you want to get near the stands and see stuff you might want to buy. I went prepared to spend loads and loads of money but in the event didn't.

 

I had however pre-ordered a jumper kit, and yes, that is it pictured above. I hasten to point out that is not my version being modelled by me (if only....!) It's the picture from the pattern. It has stranded colourwork and steeks and picot-ed facings and basting and all sorts and if I had seen the pattern before I had ordered it I would have turned tail and run for the hills. As so often I was seduced by the pattern picture and got a bit carried away....

 

On the upside, since we got home I have averaged a good half hour a day on it, which is what I'm aiming for so that I don't get bored or discouraged.  I've started with the centre panel and am about 2/3 of the way up the first red and white section. So I'm sort of OK with how it's progressing and I'm trying to concentrate on the knitting and not to freak out  too far in advance over the putting together.

 

In addition to this kit I got two lots of sock wool for myself, although they are far too nice to be used for socks, and two lots for OH which he chose and which will be used for socks, in fact one pair is quite far along already. And a pattern book for Drops yarn. And that was all!

 

It's not that I need any more yarn. But this would have been a great opportunity to buy yarn that I wanted. If I could have got close enough to see it.

 



Not Engaging

Given that we haven't seen our grandson for a while, about a year, not counting the brief lunch on the way to Devon, it's a great shame that he appeared to be going through a tantrum-cum-not happy - cum not feeling all that well phase when we were in Yorkshire together. I took loads of photos but apart from the excitement of York's Bendy busses

and the absorption required to build a sand castle

and the general air of being pleased by farmor buying him a teddy bear biscuit

the most characteristic photo of the week was this

Good Customer Service - It's Not Dead

So nice to be able to be positive about something (for myriads of reasons I've had a couple of very negative days, culminating in  a dream last night about selling up the Orkney home and moving back to Yorkshire which in the dream pleased me very much. I don't want to think about the ramification of that too much to be honest...)

Meanwhile I have been putting together a gift parcel for someone and I needed a small tube of seed beads and a tiny crochet hook. I'd had an on-line seller of beads recommended to me so I had a look at their website. I wasn't sure if their tiniest crochet hook was quite tiny enough so I e-mailed to ask. I know nothing about adding beads to knitting, which is what this was for, except that I have never done it. I got a very nice and helpful e-mail back so the next day I went to place an order.

 

Only I couldn't. You know those forms you fill in when you're ordering over the net and there are mandatory fields? Because our address is fairly non-standard compared to a lot of addresses in other parts of the UK we often have trouble filling them in because we don't have enough lines to ours. The problem I had with the bead people was slightly worse than that because county was a mandatory field and it was also mandatory to select from a drop down list. Which was fine except that Orkney wasn't on it. [Neither was Shetland which was just as well. otherwise I could have got quite cross] The nearest was Highland and Grampian but that was a) incorrect and b) certainly not what appears on my card records so there was no way the order would be accepted by the card company.

 

I felt really bad because I had had this nice e-mail replying to my query and I had fully intended placing the order and I know they must have dozens of people every month who send them queries and then don't follow up with an order but I don't like to think of myself as that sort of a person  So I sent another e-mail explaining what had happened [and not complaining that their county list didn't include large swathes of the population of Scotland because they'll have bought an 'on-line' ordering package and  really how many people in Orkney and Shetland are going to be wanting to order beads in any volume for goodness sake? I know I like to keep firms on their toes as to the existence of a large customer base in the Northern  and Western Isles but you have to be sensible about these things. M & S not delivering to those areas is an insult, these people not having us on an e-mail order form - not so much.

 

Anyway to cut a long story short, the extremely nice girl at the frim who had answered my e-mail sent  me another one with a phone number and she took my, very small, order over the phone. She couldn't have been nicer or more helpful and really I'm just sorry that I didn't want more beads because she deserved that I should spend lots and lots of money with her rather than the paltry amount that my order came to.

 

So  a huge shout out to Sophy at G J Beads and if any of you out there are in need of beads I can highly recommend them.

Yorkshire - The Next Instalment

So having recovered from my brief peri-prandial sulkette it was up early the next morning for the main event of the Dunnett Gathering. This was held at Betty's in Harrogate in one of their meeting rooms and I have to say as a venue for a couple of illustrated lectures and a lunch it left a bit to be desired. It was very elegant and there was nothing wrong with the catering, quite the reverse, in fact. It was a bit small to be comfortable for a group of our size, especially as the lunch and later afternoon tea and cakes were served at the back of the room. It was a bit of a crush. It is also in the middle of Harrogate, and the room was full of people so the question was do you open the windows and let in a load of traffic noise, or leave them closed and allow the atmosphere in the room to get 'a  bit thick'. We opted for open windows, which gave several people the opportunity to moan about the 'ungodly noise' from the bagpipe player who was busking nearby.

 

Now I quite like the pipes myself, and would have felt obliged to leap to the defence of the piper, but he only seemed to know two tunes - O Flower of Scotland and Highland Cathedral, and much as I love Highland Cathedral by the time I'd heard it ten times I was, temporarily, heartily sick of it. Although I was more bothered by the noise of the motorbikes myself.

 

Anyway if you want to see a photo of what a standard Dorothy Dunnett Gathering looks like, it looks a lot like this

 

and if you're thinking that that looks like a room full of opinionated middle aged women, you'd be right. We had two talks and I enjoyed them both; one was about mid C15 trade in Yorkshire, specifically the stuff that was imported/exported through Hull. The other one was about jewellery in the Renaissance. It was given by Susan Rumfitt who I gather is an expert who turns up on The Antiques Road Show now and again. She certainly knew her stuff and was quite entertaining; and she had some lovely slides of C15 & C16 portraits.

 

After this our involvement with the weekend was over. Most of the rest had another dinner that evening and a trip to Newby Hall the following day, but we had to get away from Harrogate sharpish. We had keys to pick up for this place

 

 

For some reason, despite staying there for a week, I never got around to taking any pictures of the inside, but it was as lovely inside as it was outside. Anyway we only had time for a quick look around and first pick of the bedrooms (for the record we took the one upstairs with the separate bathroom, leaving the ground floor one with the en-suite shower room for the others), and then it was off to the station to pick up Son No 1 and family who were joining us for the week. Excitement reigned.

 

Life Is Not

Actually I shouldn't say that, because by and large I have a lovely life and I am appreciative of that fact. But there are still times, and today is one of them, when life seems determined to act like the handle of a rake I just stepped on and hit me right between the eyes.

I won't spread the misery, but I will ask why I pay for house insurance? And why, having seen exactly the wardrobe I want in Stromness, no-one in Kirkwall seems to stock it or be able to source it. And why Son no 2 is still struggling without a fridge freezer for his flat when the previous one died  nearly four weeks ago and the landlords had someone in who told them it couldn't be repaired. And why the library closes at 5.00 pm?

 

I am not in want (except for a 2 door, 3 drawer wardrobe in a finish other than pine) and I know that being born in the UK in the mid-20th century makes me  a lottery winner in the Game of Life. But some days all that small stuff that you're supposed not to sweat just gets me down.

Yorkshire Part 1

The initial impetus for our trip to Yorkshire was a get together for readers of Dorothy Dunnett. I've been a fan of Dorothy's books for many years; I first read one way back in 1984 and read them to the exclusion of almost all else until I had  'caught up' with her work. I then joined everyone else devouring each new book as it came out and  waiting impatiently for the next one.

 

The waiting was somewhat eased by occasional, officially organised large gatherings of fans in Edinburgh and Boston, Mass., (although I use the word organised very loosely in relation to the one in Boston) and smaller unofficial get togethers organised by readers. Dorothy died several years ago so there are no new books to read and discuss, but the fan gatherings continue. Now that we live in Orkney I very rarely attend but this one was organised by a good friend, it was in Harrogate and the program appealed to both OH (sadly a non-Dunnett reader) and me, so we decided to go.

 

Things got underway with a Friday afternoon tour of Harlow Carr RHS gardens. I'd been here several times, but the OH never had, which I find rather odd...the gardens have nothing whatsoever to do with Dorothy Dunnett, but on the other hand a lot of her fans are very interested in gardening. It was possibly not the best time of year to go, especially if you like gardens that are full of flowers and colour, but I still found a few things to take pictures of

 

Woven Willow Boxing Hares

the Gertrude Jekyll inspired garden

a welcome splash of colour.

After the tour was over we dashed back into Harrogate for a cup of tea and a slice of cake at a pretty little tea room we had seen earlier in the day

It may have been called Linda's. Then again, maybe not.

There was a dinner in the evening at a local Bistro. The food and ambience were both good although I struggled with the company. On my right were two elderly brothers, neither of whom I had met before and one of whom was profoundly deaf. Conversation was difficult and limited. The last person to arrive at our table for six was late and immediately requested that we put out the candle as its flickering was annoying her. As a compromise we moved it out of her line of sight. Five minutes later she insisted on blowing it out because otherwise it was 'going to give her a migraine'. She then proceeded to monopolise the attention of the lady on my left who was the only other person at table who I knew - apart from the OH of course. I was not happy, and I may even have sulked a bit.  I liked the candle. And I would always rather suffer myself than inconvenience other people, so I am rather taken aback and annoyed when I meet people who think nothing of inconveniencing me. The way I see it, OH and I could have gone somewhere ourselves, probably somewhere quieter,  talked to one another more easily , not felt obliged to make stilted conversation with deaf people we did not know, and we could have enjoyed the candlelight as well.

 

Do you know, I sometimes suspect that I'm just a tad unsociable?

 

 

What did I finish in September?

Well since you ask, nothing. That's right. Nada. Zilch. Nichts. De rien. Ikke noe.

I worked on lots of things and even started a few, but nothing got finished.

(Well I was on holiday for 12 days of the month, and it was a bizzy bizzy type holiday rather than a relaxing type one)

And if you come back in a month there should be  pictures of loads of things that got completed in October.

I hope.

I'm Not Missing It

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I stopped listening to The Archers For those who don't know and can't be bothered to follow the link The Archers is a long running radio soap opera, or Contemporary Drama in a Rural Setting as the BBC would have it. I've been listening since the early 1970s when I was introduced to it by a fellow undergrad. So, part of my life for forty plus years.

 

I've threatened to stop listening  before. I've even managed it for a few days before going back, desperate to catch up, like an addict craving a fix. Even when the infamous and much reviled editor Vanessa Whitburn murdered one of the most popular characters by having him fall from the slippery roof of his stately pile on a windy New Year's Eve (and yes, it does sound like a very bad Poirot  and that was the least of it, believe me) I kept the faith.

 

The appalling VW has now gone but her influence still lingers like a bad smell; rubbish continuity, plot lines that are duplicated between different groups of characters, sloppy writing,  inconsistency of characters to suit demands of shoehorned in topical plots etc etc. Recently three very very silly simultaneous plotlines finally pushed me over the edge and I decided that I wasn't going to listen again until all three were resolved.

 

I thought that I would miss it, but really I don't. With son no 2 now back at college and having upped my studying commitment I find not having to respond to the tyranny of another Archers episode at 19.02 a relief. As for the forthcoming nuptials of Kenton and Jolene, the new arrival in the Grundy family, the results of the rose class at the annual Flower and Produce Show - I don't care anymore. So

even when the three annoying plots are well and truly over, I don't think I'll be back.

.

Liquorice Fudge

I know it's not everybody's cup of tea so to speak, but one of the small joys of our recent trip to Yorkshire was being able to purchase a wee stock of John Bull's liquorice fudge to bring home. Alas it is now all gone and I think I may need to investigate the possibilities of buying it on line, or set up a regular delivery from friends in Yorkshire. There again perhaps half its charm lies in it  being a very occasional treat.

The Cat Lorenzo

This is The Cat Lorenzo. His former owners knew him as Bobby, which I feel may have contributed to his apparent desire to categorise them as 'former', because a cat this magnificent should have a much more imposing moniker than Bobby. Obviously. We tried out various names when he came to us and eventually settled on Lorenzo. After Lorenzo (de Medici) the Magnificent, Duke of Florence. He seems to like it.

He came to us on a dark and stormy night, wailing piteously just by the back door, presumably failing to see the cat flap....magnificent yes, clever - well, not so much. We are far too soft hearted to have left him out there so we took him in and fed him. Judging by the amount he put away he'd been wandering about without food for some time. Our other cats were less than chuffed to see this intruder in their midst, but over the next few days they came to some sort of rough arrangement, on the 'you don't bother us, we won't bother you' principle.

We told ourselves not to get too fond of him because, apart from being starving when he first came in, he was in good nick and must therefore belong to someone who took care of him and who must be missing him. After a couple of days we put up a poster in the local shop and mentally gave ourselves a fortnight. If no-one claimed him after a fortnight we would keep him with a clear conscience. The days ticked by and lovely affectionate big beautiful Lorenzo became more and more a part of the family. It was only a matter of time we told ourselves and then we could relax and think of him as ours.

And then the bombshell. OH went along to the local shop after about ten days and the lovely shopkeeper Victoria (and I say that despite the fact that she was less than complimentary about my carrot cake topping a few months ago) said someone had recognised the cat from our poster. Sure enough we got a phone call, followed up by a visit and Bobby/Lorenzo was bundled into a car and taken home. Two days later he was back. Now knowing from whence he came we picked up the phone. He was collected again and we were assured that great efforts would be made to keep him indoors so that he got used to being at 'home' again. There would be barred doors. There  would be rooms with food and cat litter trays. There would be a general dearth of opportunity, and indeed need, for him to leave. Forty minutes after the car carrying him 'home' disappeared down the drive, Lorenzo appeared casually  strolling back up it. This time we didn't bother with the phone. They knew where he would be if they wanted to try and take him back...that was nearly two years ago now. I guess he's here to stay.

I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes he has a penchant for wrapping dead voles up in grass and depositing them at our feet. Yes he has been known to bring in the odd live baby bunny. And more annoyingly yes he does bring in live mice and then drop them, allowing them to escape and necessitating regular Mice Hunts round the house and the deployment of various Heath Robinson type mouse catchers made of bin bags, the tubes from inside rolls of kitchen paper and Lego Star Wars  boxes. And he turns up his nose at milk, preferring cream, and eats mainly Tesco Chunky Chicken which so far as I am aware is packaged with the human consumer in mind. And he goes out when it rains so that when he comes back in he needs to be dried and 15 minutes after you've dried him he goes back out so you have to do it all over again. But he's a soft warm snuggly affectionate and purry thing, and really, what more do you want in a cat?

Bin Away

and now I'm poorly sick. Service will be resumed asap.

Return to Wick

We took a trip across The (Pentland) Firth last Wednesday. I took my camera but it never made it out of my handbag sadly. We went mainly to meet up with someone we had previously only known virtually; mainly because he designed and set up our respective web sites. If you want to look at his work then click the Poppy's Place and Orkney Archaeology Society links at top right. He's very good and his rates are very competitive. Should you be in the market for a website.

Anyway we met up and had lunch and although the plan had been to scour Wick afterwards for light fittings /wardrobes/ bookshelves and bathroom suppliers in the event we only had time to get to Homebase. Which was rubbish for most of those things but came up trumps in the light fittings department. As a result both OH's office and my study now have new multi light fittings with very bright bulbs which means we can actually see what we're doing. A great improvement.

 

We also have enough light bulbs to last out the millennium I should think. We bought LED's for OH's but I couldn't face getting another 4 for my new light at a tenner a pop so I got a pack of ordinary ones with 10 bulbs in it. Then when we got home and broke the fittings out of the packet it was to discover that they both came with bulbs in anyway. Of course, if we'd known we wouldn't have bought the other bulbs,  which presumably is why it doesn't say they have bulbs already on the box.

 

The lunch though was fine although be aware that if you ever find yourself in the rather twee- ly named Wickers World and order the ploughman's, which is fast becoming my default lunch order when I'm out, you need to ask separately for bread. Otherwise it's just a plate of cheeses and pickles. Nice ones, but they do  need a bit of something. Like bread.  

 

Nothing wrong with the company, but.

Vera

I think the new series of Vera finished last evening which is a good as reason as any to say that I've enjoyed it. I wasn't sure when it was first aired, and I know a lot of people moa about the accents, but really if that's the best you can find to moan about in a detective drama then they're doing something right. (Although I do think someone should have told Brenda Blethyn that no-one in the North East would pronounce her name Stan-Hope. It's  Stannup. And I say that advisedly with a Geordie mother and the first twelve years of my life spent in County Durham)

One of the things that I like about Vera is that in it people kill for sad yet understandable reasons which makes it a lot more poignant than some other detective dramas which are really just about inflicting gory and gratuitous violence mainly on women. In Vera, it's not always a woman who is murdered, and even when it is, it isn't by some random and terrifyingly sadistic serial killer who appears from nowhere with a mission to carve up every female who crosses his path. It's all a lot more sensible and intelligent than that.

What I Did (Finished) in August

I actually managed to do the Literary KAL in August  which was amazing because I haven't made that for a couple of months. This month's author(s) were The Brontes and I made this

 

The pattern is one I've had in my queue for a while and it suited this KAL because it's based on a shawl worn by the eponymous character (I'm sorry, I can't say heroine in this instance) in the latest film version of Jane Eyre. I loathe Charlotte Bronte's work*, and what I know of her as a person I dislike heartily; on the upside, I had the yarn and it's lovely and warm and squooshie and a good colour on me, and someone had just sent me that beautiful shawl pin so obviously (ha!) I needed to knit a shawl to use it in.

Next up the grandson's Faroe Isles jumper

I hope you can see why I had to knit it, despite the stripe issue.

Sadly neither of these patterns was without errors/ambiguities, and an inexperienced knitter would do well to avoid them. I know my shawl isn't quite right, but then I'm only going to be using it at home for an extra cuddly layer on winter evenings so I can live with that. There's something well off about the sizing of that jumper though, unless children in The Faroes are a very odd shape.

And then a couple of small items for my friend's Asylum Seekers Christmas gifts

a cowl and a scarf.

I may have shot my bolt as far as the asylum seekers Christmas goes as I'm currently working through some baby wool for another charitable organisation, but we'll see.

* I've said this before but it bears repeating, the best and most powerful Bronte book is Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. For the alert reader far more shocking, wide ranging and real than anything Charlotte ever produced. Sadly though I couldn't find a pattern called Wildfell!