I thought we were good, but I was wrong

So here's a picture of Inverness, taken yesterday. Thought you might like to see the castle. Not that it's a real castle, you understand, but still, it makes a brave stab.

A long time ago, I confided to this blog that Inverness and I had an unhappy history, mainly because Inverness had it In For Me in a Big Way, and whenever I crossed into its sphere of influence something horrible happened.

 

Later on, I went to a Conference in Inverness where I won an award and I was confident that the curse was broken and that Inverness and I were now pals. It seems I may have been a bit previous with this judgement.

 

There was nothing wrong with the course I went on, although somebody there who I have known almost as long as I have been a UHI post graduate student was a bit off with me I thought, but that may have been just my imagination, or  her having a bad day. I always try to remember that just because someone doesn't seem delighted to see me it doesn't necessarily mean that they find me tedious or annoying, it might just be that they have other things on their minds. It's a laudable aim, but I rarely manage to achieve it. I always think it Must Be Me.

 

Also the reception staff at UHI Executive Office didn't seem terribly on the ball. They never do to be honest.  It seems like they put all their effort into making sure you sign in and out in their little book, and that they give you a shiny little badge (which has to be clipped to your clothing, something which isn't always the easiest of things to do if you're not wearing a 3 piece suit with an appropriate lapel buttonhole) and then they have no energy left over for knowing what is going on and helping you be in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. Although they do have the energy to chat to all the other admin people who happen to stroll down the stairs or across the lobby and to investigate why one of them might be leaving and where they might be going and why they weren't the first to know, but had to hear it from Kelly in Accounts etc. It has to be said that I take a dim view of this. On occasions when I am in the  position of needing to keep people informed about what's going on where and when and with whom I hold myself to very high standards, and I do think that if your job is as a receptionist in somewhere like that then it is your business to know all this every day and be able to help those who turn up for any of it.

 

So anyway, the course went well, although as I may just have mentioned it was a long way to go for four hours which actually turned into three and a half. But the tutor was really good and said lots of helpful and useful things; -  although can I just mention here that I hate doing things in groups? Let me stand or fall by my own efforts,  I'd rather get 3/3 wrong working stuff out for myself,  than 2/3 right when the wrong one is the result of my giving in to someone else's persuasion that my answer is wrong and theirs is right.

 

No it was all fine and I had a morning shopping in Inverness. I have as a result primed the OH to correct me the next time I say 'I'm just going to Inverness overnight, I will only need the backpack'. This turned out to be so untrue it wasn't even funny.

 

Anyway at the appropriate time I presented myself at Inverness bus station complete with backpack now stuffed to overflowing, and a large and well filled carrier bag from Waterstones and wearing the anorak, despite it having turned into a blazingly hot day, because I could not carry it and my handbag and the backpack and the carrier bag from Waterstones all at once. (See how I took on board the tutor's assertion that you can use 'and' over and over again in  a sentence and it can be OK? )

 

There was a little bit of people panic when we got on board the bus because the X99, which is timetabled to go from Stand 1 actually pulled up at Stand 4, a nasty habit which I know of old, although to most of the waiting punters it came as a complete and unwelcome surprise. If the bus could be relied upon to park itself at Stand 4 all the time that would be one thing, but 8 times out of 10 it does actually come to Stand 1. It is the uncertainty of where it will turn up that makes for a nervous wait, especially since we are talking about a service which is designed to connect to ferries and which therefore you cannot afford to miss.

 

We all settled down for the journey though and all went well until we got to Dunbeath (Birthplace, as it announces itself on every sign leading into the place, of Neil Gunn. Which is fine if you know who he was, although I suspect a lot of people pass through Dunbeath without the faintest idea.) 

 

Now passengers who are aiming for Thurso and then Scrabster on the North Coast to connect with the North Link ferry get nothing out of Dunbeath but a short detour and a quick look at the War Memorial. For those wanting to get to Wick, and then perhaps carry on past John O'Groats to the ferry terminal at Gills Bay (like me),  Dunbeath is where you get off the X99 and get onto the X97. Which is always waiting at the bus stop, by the war memorial, quite often with its driver standing outside it, making a great show of consulting his watch as the X99 draws up. Unless he's busy having a quick fag of course. Only yesterday the X97 wasn't there.

 

Our driver was understandably worried as he had half a bus full of passengers who were expecting to get off his bus and onto another one, and unless the other one was currently at Dunbeath and muffled in a cloak of invisibility, (which it wasn't) this wasn't happening. Cue a worrying 30 minutes or so, not helped by the loud complaint of a female passenger in fur lined boots who was only too happy to tell anyone who would listen that this particular bus company was shocking/ the worst in Scotland/ the worst bus company there  had ever been north of the border,  and that their buses were always late/breaking down/ going on fire.

 

Well in the end I did get  my ferry connection, courtesy of some very fast driving in another bus which rattled and made very peculiar noises and which I am not 100% convinced was not the one which had broken down and thereby failed to rendezvous with its twin from Inverness and which was originally not going to be able to pick us up, since it was languishing in pieces somewhere between Dunbeath and Lybster. I made no enquiry and was careful not to check the speedometer either. I was just too pleased to catch the ferry, just, despite the delay, and get back to Orkney.

 

That may of course not be the Curse of Inverness re-establishing itself at all. It may have had nothing to do with Inverness. In which case the question has to be - what did I ever do to Dunbeath?

 

And Now A Quick Trip to Inverness -

is in the offing.

In fact it is yet another crack of dawn start, as I am off on the early plane, which I suppose makes a change from the early boat, but it rather annoys me that for a four hour academic writing session I need to be away from home for two days. Sometimes this island living is a huge inconvenience.

Life is happening just now much faster than I can blog it, which is a terrifying thought. I very much hope that the writing thing turns out to be worthwhile.

A Quick Trip to Glasgow.

And it was a quick trip too although we managed to shoehorn a lot in.

Courtesy of the OH once again forgetting that when we go to Glasgow we do not need to be up at the crack of dawn to catch the early boat, on Friday we were up at the crack of dawn to catch the early boat. This did mean that when we got to Glasgow we had time to do our planned trip to IKEA that evening, and as we knew what we wanted we went straight into the warehouse bit without having to drag ourselves around the rest of the shop. This was a good thing, not least because I am suffering a bit with my back at the moment and trailing round IKEA wasn't going to do it much good.  

 

(The back is bad because a couple of weeks ago I decided to wash the window frames at the back of the house as they tend, being north facing,  to get that funny green stuff growing on them during the winter. I cannot quite reach the tops of the frames unaided so I need  to use the stepladder. I do not like going up and down the stepladder so I plonked it mid-window each time and stretched to wash the left hand bits and squirmed round to wash the right hand bits. The stretching was fine. The squirming round was a painful mistake.)

 

Saturday, since we had crossed off the IKEA thing already, was a free day and so we went  to Helensburgh to visit the Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed Hill House. I've been wanting to do that for a while. It was gorgeous. Here's the outside

 

 

Sadly you're not allowed to take pictures inside - although that's perfectly understandable - but you can see a photo of some of the interior here 

 

It being a nice afternoon weatherwise we drove on to Luss, which used to be a pretty little village on the side of Loch Lomond, famous as the setting for the Scottish soap (Take the) High Road. We'd been before, many years ago and I was looking forward to seeing it again. Sadly it a) had turned into a mega tourist centre in the intervening years and b) was packed with people, so after a slow drive round the car park to establish that there really were no spaces, despite its huge size, we gave up.

 

The evening was taken up with the Scottish Opera Rusalka, which was the purpose of  our trip - more of that in a separate post another day.

 

And Sunday we came back, stopping on the way to meet up with a friend in Wick where we had a rather delicious afternoon tea.

 

 

 

And no, we didn't get through it all, not even with three of us!

The GAA - The Rocks

The Rocks has become one of our favourite areas of Sydney. It's near the harbour, and it's where Sydney, the real Sydney, began. You can do several guided walks to get yourself orientated and we did one a  few years ago but now we just wander about, although it's not suitable for days when my back is less than happy as there are a lot of steps and steep lanes. It has lots of historical little nooks and crannies to explore, some lovely C19 cottages, murals, pubs, and since we were last there, a new museum and a Guylain Café^.

^ There was a Guylain Café over the other side of Circular Quay on the way to the Opera House where we ate a few years ago and that's still there. But the one on The Rocks is new.

 

The Discover the  Rocks museum is small but lovely; it goes through the history of the area with due amounts of time and space dedicated to the original aboriginal inhabitants and there are lots of really fascinating archaeological finds (no honestly, I can get as bored with that stuff as anyone, but here they were interesting). We were really pleased we went.

 

And here's a few pictures

 

 

some of the cottages

 

one of the many murals illustrating the  history of the area

 

inside the Guylain Cafe

 

that was his

 

and this was mine.....

 

and in deference to those of my readers who have a sweet tooth, I'll leave it there for you to drool, apart from saying they tasted every bit as good as they looked.

 



From the man who brought you The Bridge (Series 1, 2 and 3)...

comes a new UK set detective drama called Marcella. And as it's a while since I had a good rant about a TV program, its arrival is timely.

That's Anna Friel there in the title role. I am generally a fan of Anna Friel, who is an excellent actress and can normally be relied upon to choose good stuff to appear in. I'm not sure Marcella is destined to be her finest hour.

There are many many things which I find irritating about Marcella and the first one even predates the transmission of Part 1 last evening. In the article giving it a bit of a puff before it started the Radio Times (self-defined as The UK's premier TV listings magazine) was at pains to point out that you pronounce the name Mar-chella with a ch. I know this. I am not aware that there is a common alternate pronunciation. Maybe there  is, - Marsella? Markella? But guys - if I am not going to watch the program it doesn't matter, If I am going to watch the program I am going to hear people say it. Also, in a drama series about detectives chasing  floundering about after a serial killer, there are other items to address. Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel I need patronising pronunciation advice from a magazine one of whose writers once enthused over someone's 'fictional novels'.

 

Leaving that aside, I had several other problems with Marcella. One was the casting. Apart from the excellent Ms Friel there were far too many indistinguishable middle aged men who were slightly overweight with pasty skin and occasionally a bit of stubble. Some of them were police officers. Some of them were suspects from years ago. Some were suspects now. Some of them just hung around in a menacing manner and one of them was currently held at her majesty's pleasure in an open prison, and working towards his anticipated release in a bakery. I could not for the life of me tell most of them apart. Another annoyance was the appearance of Nina Sosanya. I've got nothing against her, leaving aside that her permanent expression seems to be one of sulky chip on the shoulder-ness, but I'm  just sick of seeing her. Ditto Suranne Jones (who isn't in this)  who again is probably a good actress but who at times seems to monopolise my TV set. If 90% of actors are out of  work at any given time is it beyond the wit of casting directors to spread the net just a bit wider?

 

Another gripe was the stereotypical characterisation. Sinead Cusack as a successful, and therefore, necessarily nasty and unfeeling, indeed almost pathological,  businesswoman (because nice, sensible, rounded women can't be successful obviously ) with an emasculated husband, a high flying coke snorting daughter and a useless step-son. Three guesses as to what her business might be.If your first guess is banker, then  nice try but no coconut.  If she's not a banker though then she has to be  a property developer* , right?  Right, Third guess not needed.

 

* Sarah Beeny is a property developer, and successful, and a woman, but somehow I don't see her arranging an early morning meeting with a subcontractor on the roof of a high rise building and then implying she will get her  accompanying 'muscle' to throw him off if he doesn't sign a contract reducing his prices by a third. 

 

Stereotypical characters for a (thus far) stereotypical plot. A serial killer is on the loose, or possibly the rampage, in London. His method of killing is the same as that employed seven  years before by a murderer who the Met never caught.

 

And this is where Marcella, not to mention my major gripe, comes in. Marcella worked the case before. Marcella left the force to bring up her children, something which she seems to have been doing by packing them off to boarding school and mooching round the house. Given the amount of spare time she must have had, you would have thought that she could have nipped 'up west' and bought herself a new coat. That thing she is wearing on the photo above seems to be the only coat she has and is never off her back. I had one something like it, right down to the fake fur trim, when I was in my teens. I was not aware that they were still sold. Anyway, a detective comes round to ask her about the old case. After ten minutes she tells him she wants to come back to work and hey presto! there  she is in the CID room, on the payroll, everyone calling her sergeant, a fully fledged officer of the Met once again after a seven year absence, no questions asked. That would be bad enough. I mean, in a competition to find the least credible detective series scenario, is this not the one that would take both the top spot and the biscuits? Well, apparently not, because there is more, much more,  to this. Marcella has a problem, and it's not just the nasty violent temper that, as displayed in the program would in itself make her a less than ideal candidate for police service. No, more than that, Marcella loses chunks of time. She blacks out, comes to and has no recollection of what she has done, where she has been or indeed how long it is since her last consciously remembered thoughts and actions. I'm sorry, but no police force in Europe would have someone like this on their books. It is  totally, utterly,  bonkers.

 

Now I know about dramatic licence and how real police work is often very boring and how you have to shake things up to make them interesting to a viewing audience. And generally I can go along with that, otherwise I wouldn't have spent hours of my life knitting to Lewis and wondering how anyone could have such thin legs as Laurence Fox. But there's a difference between wanting me to suspend my disbelief and expecting me to hang it by the neck until it is dead. Which is what Marcella seems to think  its audience will willingly do.  

 

Project 60 Number 21. This is not just Fair Isle...

This is Alice Starmore Fair Isle.

For those who don't know, Alice Starmore is a renowned knitwear designer, specialising in extremely lovely and extremely complex Fair Isle designs, although she designs in other knitting traditions as well. People write books about knitting Alice Starmore jumpers - well, I know at least one person did, see here. It's quite a funny and interesting read, but that's by the by.

I love AS's work but I'm unlikely ever to knit one of her sweaters unless I go down about 4 dress sizes so that I have the time and the money, no to mention the motivation of knowing that I will look good, but as one of my Project 60 challenges I wanted to tackle some proper Fair Isle. So when, last autumn, an offer on an Alice Starmore kit dropped into my in-box I lost no time in forwarding the e-mail to the OH, appending the message 'If you were wondering what to buy me for Christmas...'. And lo! on Christmas morning, there was the box and I have been itching to get started but there was no point in trying to knit this in winter when the light isn't good because so many of the colours are so very very similar. Even with the lighter nights I have been obsessive about always tying the label back into each ball of wool when they got changed over because I was paranoid about mixing them up and using the wrong one.

 

I was terrified about the whole thing tbh, but I think I needn't have been. It was actually an enjoyable knit and I only went wrong about three times, which I thought was impressive. And now that it's done, it's a lovely lovely thing.

 

Re-reading that last sentence it occurs to me that I have been watching too much Masterchef. ...

 

We're not done yet though. Oh no! There's a matching beret and  pair of fingerless gloves to do yet, but not just now. For now I'm giving my eyes a rest and knitting something simpler. But as Project 60 things go, this was a good one.

Manly

As in the place in Sydney, rather than an attribute of character....

We've ben to Sydney before and although we could quite happily re-do lots of the things we've done before, we had decided to do some new stuff this time - it's not as though we've done everything worth doing , we haven't been that often. For some reason the OH had got it into his head that he'd like to go to Manly, so off we went.

Like so many places in Sydney, you can get to it on the ferry so that's what we did. To be honest it was nice to be on the boat and get a bit of a breeze, because the weather was hot, hot, hot all the time we were in Australia and although it wasn't nearly as hot in Sydney as it would get when we flew up to the NT, it was certainly hot enough!

 

So Manly is famous for its coffee culture

 

 

would you believe when we went into this place  there were two policemen sitting at the front having coffee and doughnuts?

 

and the surfing

 

 

This is where I paddled

 

 

Have to say it's difficult to take a picture of your own feet when it's very sunny and you're burdened with a large chest. Lack of clear visibility all round!

 

The OH also dipped a toe in the water

 

 

 

He has to be careful with unfamiliar stretches of water. He went into the Mediterranean once and came out with a shocking allergic reaction, quite scary. Fortunately it seems the Pacific is safer, we'll remember that next time.

 

We did a short walk round Cabbage Tree Bay which was fun. Stopped to rest on a bench and when we got up to go on the people on the next bench motioned to us to turn around. Guess what had been just behind us while we sat calmly unaware of its presence...?

 

 

 

Yup the blue is the back of our bench - and that's an Eastern Water Dragon. Quite fun, harmless and a protected species. We saw quite a lot of them while we were on the walk. The OH was well taken with them, he loves lizard-y things.

 

There's some fun wall art along the Cabbage Tree Bay walk, not graffiti, but little metal sculptures and line 'drawings' let into the wall of local features. Here's one of them, with swimmers. I should have taken more of these really.

 

 

Obviously Manly is quite up-market and there were some beautiful houses. I was quite taken by the blue one here, although now that we've lived in Orkney for so long where our nearest neighbours in all directions are at least a field away, these are all a bit close together for our taste. That said, if someone left it to me in their will I wouldn't say No.

 

 

We had quite a fun day although after we got back to the hotel the OH did confide that he thought it wasn't  quite as nice  as he'd expected it to be. I suspect that was partly because we were hot and bothered: on a cooler day when we had more energy and if we took our swimming things I think we could have a great day there. So maybe another time we'll go back.