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.