Jutland Commemoration

 

 

 

The Jutland Commemoration is all the news there is on Orkney today. We didn't go into Kirkwall to watch as it would only have meant walking miles then standing in the cold for ages but we did watch the Service on TV.

Obviously enjoyed is not the word, but I liked the content of the service, I liked how beautiful the Cathedral looked and I liked how much input our Cathedral Minister had obviously had into what went on. 

I particularly liked the fact that several of the participants were Orcadians and was especially pleased to see that the service closed with Andy Cant playing his pipe composition  Remembrance. I've blogged about Andy, Remembrance, and his historic pipes before - here . Such a shame he has never recorded this.

 

 

Project 60 Number 22 - Chairing at a Conference.

People sometimes say to me 'What else is on your list for Project 60?' and I have to say to them  I don't know. I mean I do know some of the things I want to do, because obviously some of it is bucket list stuff, and some of it is things that I've always said I'll try and do 'one day' but equally some of it is just being open to suggestions that come up. So recently, when someone at UHI asked if I would be willing to chair a session at the St Magnus Conference in April, I said yes. I was quite proud of myself. I didn't say No I couldn't possibly. I didn't say Well, I don't think I would be any good at that. I didn't even think Gosh they must be scraping the bottom of a barrel if they're asking me. I just agreed.  

 

Since I was chairing a bit of it I decided I might as well go along to the whole lot and I'm very glad I did as it was very enjoyable and I even met up with a couple of people who I have met at other conferences and there were a lot of people from the Centre for Nordic studies which, for mad inexplicable reasons is where I am technically based to do my Ph D on a Scottish Gaelic speaking poet....So I knew lots of people already and I met lots more.

 

My session included speakers from Orkney, the US (Indiana) and Brazil, and I managed to chair it OK. It wasn't perfect, and next time I will do it slightly differently, but it was fine.

 

Photo is of the Conference Dinner which was a lovely buffet (and that's not two words I put together very often!) I may even venture to the next one, although that will be on Shetland and not until 2018.

Yes I Have Been Away Again

I've been to Edinburgh for a research week. I was going to say that like the Curates egg, it was excellent in parts, although little of it was excellent in the event.

I spent three days in the National Library of Scotland and I have to say that when my Ph D is safely over a stonking letter of complaint will be headed their way addressed to the person in charge of the staff at the Special Collections Reading Room. I spent one day at the Special Collections Reading room at Edinburgh University Library, which could not have been more of a contrast and a very nice e-mail of commendation will be heading their way tomorrow.

I met a couple of people with connections to the subject of my Ph D, which was OK and then I caught up with two friends and that was the best bit of the whole week. V and I visited The Celts Exhibition at the National Museum which was interesting and had some lovely exhibits, although possibly too many of them were torcs. Also the current archaeological thinking about Celts appears to be that they didn't actually exist, a line which the Museum staff and the exhibition were apparently keen to foster. To do this and then call your exhibition The Celts smacks to me of a cynicism I am sorry to see in one of our national institutions.... G and I met one evening for a drink and then went on somewhere for a very nice Italian meal, swapping family and holiday news then settling down for a good old moan about our respective Ph D studies. She is slightly further along the conveyor belt than I am so should be concentrating on writing up just now, although a combination of domestic disasters and other commitments are putting several small spannerettes in the works.

 

I 'had issues' as they say in America with my hotel. It is one I have used for years for trips to Edinburgh and I have always loved staying there. Sadly it has now been acquired by a chain which is refurbishing it and generally trying to turn it into a boutique hotel, and the rather shabby comfort and relaxing atmosphere of the bar, where they used to serve a variety of good straightforward bar meals at a reasonable price have both disappeared. So next time I will have to find somewhere else to stay.

 

No next times for a while though. I am actually fixed here in Orkney right up until the end of June, when we head to England for a week in York. Time for some serious reading.

 

 

Not Quite What the Doctor Ordered Part the Second

If you've been keeping up at the back you will know that we had planned to visit Great Western Auctions once again while we were in Glasgow. However we looked at the catalogue and looked at the lovely weather and decided that we should go out  rather than moulder away indoors.

We decided to go to Falkirk because it looked as though there was a fair bit to do, but then we discovered that there was a really big football match on there that day so it seemed like a good idea to avoid the place. So after a bit of Googling we set off for Pollok Hall. This is in the city limits of Glasgow, has huge grounds, some with animals, some with gardens and some beside the river. It was too nice a day to go inside we thought, but we'd have a nice lunch in the Restaurant and then spend some time walking in the park.

Big Mistake. Ohhhhhhh Big Big Mistake. The Restaurant was very inefficiently run, we waited ages for what was essentially cold food that only needed putting together on the plate, the quiche which the OH had and which was advertised as cheese and leek was in fact cheese and green olives, and he loathes olives almost as much as I do. The service was so slow that we passed on the option of dessert in the interests of having time to go for a walk, and it was exceedingly expensive. Sad to say this is the second time in about a month that National Trust for Scotland catering has fallen very short of expectation - the cake at the Mackintosh House a few weeks ago was not very nice and also horrendously expensive. I have no problem with paying fair prices for good food. This was neither fairly priced nor good.

 

Once outside I suffered a rather unexpected hay fever attack and what with that, the heat, the  packed nature of the grounds (obviously we weren't the only people who had thought a trip to Pollok was a good isea on a sunny weekend), the unsatisfactory lunch,  a bit of left over upset from the referencing comments, and the discovery that the Riverside Walk was actually not that close to the river, we called it a day and went home. .

 

I do have a photo of the horrendously expensive lunch

 

 

you can even see some of the olives the OH picked out of his quiche.

 

The gardens were lovely though and on a less crowded and slightly less hot day I think it would be a great place to go for a walk, and take a picnic.

 

 

That's a magnolia that is - the top one. . I can't remember how long it is since I lived anywhere where I had a snowflakes' chance of growing magnolia successfully. Leeds wasn't a possibility although oddly enough my parents had two lovely magnolias in their garden in Wetherby which was only 15 miles away. When I commented on this my Dad used to mutter something about  micro-climates, which was probably true but not much of a consolation. As for Orkney, you have about as much chance of growing a magnolia here as you have of cultivating tomatoes outside at the North Pole.

 

In the evening the OH and I went off to see the Scottish Opera production of The Mikado, but that, dear reader, is for another post.

 

Not Quite What the Doctor Ordered - Part the First

So  I went to Glasgow. I quite enjoyed the trip down, the weather was good, the Firth was like the proverbial mill pond and all my various transport connections went really smoothly. Meeting with supervisor went about as well as expected. After various 'beverage related incidents', including the mammothly upsetting 'Great Sugar Packet Hunt' of December 2014 I have learned enough to take my own tea bag and sweeteners and although the man stumbled on the biscuit front - it was his turn to provide them and he didn't, with a pathetic excuse of how he hadn't had time to bother, I don't know where he thinks I have the time to source nice biscuits and pitch up with them and yet somehow I do!, - he did manage to find half a packet of someone else's shortbread in the departmental kitchen and offered those up as a sop. I promptly ate one, with the comment that it was a long time since breakfast. Which it was, and if he asks to meet at 12.30 then I think the least he can do is recognise the fact that that is actually most people's lunchtime and a girl needs to eat.

Anyway we batted our way back and forth through my latest offering and he said some nice things, none of which I can remember and then he said that I had all the editing and referencing skills of a lobotomised gnat, and that when the time came to prepare the final version of my thesis, if I had the money it might be as well to invest in the skills of a professional proof reader.  Now he didn't actually use the phrase 'lobotomised gnat', that is how I phrase it because I find it easier to cope with than what he actually said which was that I 'don't possess the referencing and editing skills that would normally be expected in a Ph D student'. This is not less hurtful for being totally true. It is unfortunate that referencing rules have changed massively since I did my MA in 2002, because I was right across them then and have the thesis to prove it, complete with all the things you don't use now like op.cit., ibid, and footnotes. I loved footnotes. The natural places for all those funny little things you found out that you couldn't put in the body of the text, but really were too good to leave out altogether. Anyway as I  hate getting things wrong, and as I feel that I should be able to get the hang of referencing because whatever some people may think I really am not stupid, but then always end up with cotton wool head every time I try I was quite upset and  the meeting was not the unparalleled success that some people might think it was. Like the other participant for example.

 

I brooded on my deficiencies all the way up Byres Road, I brooded over the lunch I had in a vey nice café there and then  I brooded my way into the Oxfam Bookshop which is right at the top. I stopped brooding there in favour of looking for useful or interesting books and bought four and then started brooding my way up Queen Margaret Drive and was so under par that I didn't even go into the Yarn Cake, which for those who don't know, is a small but perfectly formed combination of café and wool shop. By the time I reached Maryhill Road I was suffering rather from the weight of the books, the heat and excessive brooding so I rang Son No 2 who came down to meet me and carry my bag back to the flat.

 

And as it was overpoweringly hot the next day too,  instead of doing what we had planned which was going into Glasgow so that I could buy Son No 2 some new clothes  we stayed home with cool drinks and I read one of my new books and brooded some more. Until the OH arrived and we sent out for Dominos Pizza. I know Dominos Pizza is not everybody's idea of a Good Thing, but when you live in the back of beyond like we do you seize these exotic metropolitan treats at every opportunity.

Off Again!

Back to Glasgow via boat bus and train tomorrow. Back Sunday night. I'm mainly going to see my supervisor who has already managed to annoy me about this meeting by asking if there is any new work he should read before I see him on Thursday. Since he has yet to offer any comments on the last lot he was sent at the end of March the answer is No, there is no new work, because I'm still waiting for feedback on the last lot. Suspect he hasn't read it to be honest.

 

The OH, who isn't yet quite recovered from his1800 mile trip last weekend will join me on Friday. On Saturday we're going to an auction in the morning and to see The Mikado in the evening, then we'll come back to Orkney on Sunday.

 

I wasn't that bothered about The Mikado really since I am not a huge G & S fan, but it is Scottish Opera and when we had our production facilities tour we did see a girl manfully struggling to find a way to make her fabric fit  together so that it looked like the designer's sketch so the OH feels obliged to go and see it. Having been truly appalled by the cost of parking when we went to see Rusalka we may well be taking a taxi to the theatre and back. There used to be a reasonable rate if you parked after six, but alas no longer.

 

Quite what I'll be doing on Friday I don't know; I may be able to meet up with my Ravelry pal A, or I may be knocking up a voodoo doll....who can tell?

 

Anyway normal service, or what passes for it here, should resume on Monday, because, hang onto your hats, we are both going to be in Orkney together for a whole week. Imagine that! 

The GAA continues....

and yes, I am feeling much better today thank you which is a relief. Having given myself permission not to do anything I find I have achieved more in this one  morning than in the last 3 or 4 days put together - I expect a good nights sleep and a hair wash helped, but taking some of the pressure off myself has helped too.

 

And now for some more from Australia. We'd planned to do lots in Sydney, a mixture of the old and the new but a combination of the heat and jet lag meant we didn't get as much achieved as we'd have liked. (Ha! who's spotting a theme coming through there then?!) Among the places we didn't get back to were the Chinese Garden, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Botanical Gardens, Darling Harbour (except incidentally)and the Maritime Museum,  and amongst the ones we wanted to try for the first time but didn't were a ride up the river to Paramatta to do a historical tour, a tall ship harbour cruise and a trip to a celebrity chef restaurant. (You might guess whose particular pet project the latter was; Big Clue incoming, not mine)

 

What we did manage was a revisit to the Taronga Zoo and a first ever visit to the Sydney Aquarium. Long term readers who know how title I am moved to interest by the natural world may find it odd that it was me who suggested the aquarium but I  am a bit of a sucker for those ones that have the big plastic tunnel for you to walk through and the Sydney Aquarium has one of those. Taronga Zoo we have visited before and loved, mainly it must be said for its collection of species native to Australia (all together now - WOMBATS! YAY!  and we were keen to go again.

 

You get to the zoo on the ferry and when you get off there's a cable car to the top that gives you the most amazing views of Sydney Harbour and the CBD. When you try to take pictures of the said amazing views you tend to get bits of cable car machinery and wire in the way but for what it's worth her are some photos anyway

 

See what I mean? It was also a bit heat hazy so they aren't the world's best pictures but I like to look at them.

I have no picture of the wombats because the only one we saw was fast asleep and in the nocturnal house as were the duck billed platypii - well they weren't asleep, they were swimming about relatively energetically but you get no joy from trying to photograph them as we know from previous experience. You can't use a flash, which is totally nothing but fair, but without it all you get is murk and two small shiny dots which are their eyes. Even the koalas were a lot less visible and active than last time....

 

yes there is a koala in there. It's not doing much, just sitting there, quietly stoned out of its head on eucalyptus. I did however gets lots of lovely pictures of the amazingly cute Tasmanian devil, who we both just wanted to pick up, cuddle and bring home with us.

 

 

 

There was a seal who knew it was feeding time, even though the keepers had apparently forgotten

 

 

 and some very energetic penguins.

 

 

Should you ever be planning a visit to Taronga be aware that the eating facilities are limited, crowded and expensive. Eat before you go, after you come back, or take a picnic. Despite that, it is a lovely Zoo.

 

I was a bit worried from the entry to the Aquarium that it might be a bit tacky but in fact it wasn't. It was a long way round and that was made worse by the fact that it was a very hot day, but the overall experience was very good. There are sharks and rays and tropical fish and manatees and all sorts - I am not a great lover of fish, either to look at or to eat, but I really enjoyed myself here. Not very many photos but here are a couple

 

 

or three even. I'm also a sucker for figureheads. Of the wooden ship variety that is!

 

Stressed and Snarly

I am really not at my best today. I've had a blinding headache since about midnight, which I suspect is due to a southerly wind being on its way, and if that's right I wish it would get here and relieve the pressure.

The OH has gone south to see about his mother's latest crisis and since it is a long way from Orkney to Devon he left yesterday and won't get back until Monday night, leaving me to cope with the cats, who hate it when he's away as they get fed to a timetable and not on demand, and the fire, and cooking the mountains of food he always gets in for me when he goes away, even though every time he comes back he looks in the fridge and says 'You didn't eat much did you?'

 

The SNP did not win Orkney in the Holyrood elections yesterday which is a huge disappointment, not just generally but because I'm sad people will still vote LibDem here even after Frenchgate, and also because the candidate is a friend.

 

I seem to be overwhelmed with stuff that I can't cope with. The post brought a vet's bill that it took me a calculator and 10 minutes to understand....our tickets for the Scottish Opera The Mikado in Glasgow next Saturday still haven't come and when I rang up about an hour ago the agency said  'they have gone out today' which I always think is code for 'Oh hell, look what we forgot to do'...I am supposed to be turning the Gdansk paper into a chapter for a book and although I only have twelve alterations to make and I know what they are I simply can't work up the energy and enthusiasm to do them....I discovered yesterday that I had made a major error in the latest sock I was knitting and that it was about half an inch wider than the other one of the pair and was going to have a toe about as long as those clown comedy shoes; the whole foot needs pulling out and reknitting but I can't face that just now....I have a meeting with my supervisor in less than a week which is never a happy thought....all in all it's just too damn' much.

 

I suspect I will feel much more positive when I've washed my hair. That always helps.

 

And of course reminding myself of happy days helps a bit too.

 

 

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Niagara.

Not.

Niagara was a bit of a side trip. The OH had miscalculated the time it was going to take to drive to son no 1's place and had accordingly arranged to pick up the hire car far too early. So he suggested we revisit Niagara.

 

He did it with the best of intentions. The last time we were there wasn't a terribly happy time, for a reason with which I will not bore you but which has coloured my view of Ontario ever since; suffice it to say that the thought of visiting there doesn't have the greatest of pulls for me, despite having been there several times since and actually enjoying myself. Eastern Canada and my Ph D supervisor have this in common; they didn't  get a second chance to make a better first impression, and in my experience you get past that stuff but somewhere deep down you don't get over it.

 

But the OH thought we could go to Niagara and lay some happy relaxed memories over the tense unhappy ones and it was a good idea. On the way we stopped for coffee (and a doughnut) at Tim Hortons because that's what you do in Canada and then we pushed on to Niagara where we discovered that the town, which last time was  a bit on the tacky side but quite small, had become way bigger and tackier since we were there. We parked a little way out of town at great expense, paying  with cash out of my wallet and got out of the car and  prepared to walk to the Falls.

 

It was at this point that the OH discovered that his bag was missing. That would be the bag with his debit card, his credit cards, his wallet, our passports, our travel itinerary,  our hotel confirmations and the e-tickets for our flights in it. So much for new and happier memories....

 

I'm not quite sure how come I didn't have a total  melt down on the spot, and he  said later he was very surprised and impressed that I didn't. Maybe I'm getting less uptight as I get older?

 

It was obvious that  our best hope was that he had left it at Tim Horton's because, really, what else could he have done with it? So we made our way to the nearest branch where really, despite the fact that it wasn't their problem, they couldn't have been nicer. It took a long time to workout which branch we had been in because out along the Queen Elizabeth Highway the franchise places breed like rabbits, but once they had, they phoned and found that yes, the bag had been left there, and yes, it had been handed in, and yes it was all intact and waiting for us, all we had to do was get back there and pick it up.  

 

I want to say a big thank you to Tim Hortons, in addition to the many thanks we gave them at the time. Not only did they find our bag, the people at the Niagara Falls branch gave me a free coffee while we were waiting and when we picked the bag up from where we had left it,  we were given a gift card because of 'all the worry'. Additionally the manageress had looked in the bag to try and find contact details and had not only e-mailed both of us (if only we had thought to check our messages!) but had contacted the hotel we were on our way to to tell them she had it too. Sadly the manageress had no idea who had handed n the bag which was sad as we'd have liked to leave a card and a small token of our thanks.

 

I spent the rest of the time away being a total pain whenever we got out of the car.  'Have you got your wallet? your phone? your bag? the car keys? ' Because really, although I managed not to have the meltdown, and although it all ended well, I didn't want to live through the trauma all over again.

 

 

The Weeping Window

Orkney is going to be the main site for the national commemoration of the Battle of Jutland later this month, partly because it was home to the Grand Fleet during World War 1. This means a load of military and political bigwigs flying in for a service in the Cathedral and then flying out again leaving us to our own devices...I am not as chagrined about this as it might seem from that comment, as generally I feel the less Orkney has to do with Westminster politics, royalty and the military, the better. I note that places in the Cathedral for the National Service of Commemoration will not all go to strangers, as the Council was at pains to reserve seats for locals, who could apply for tickets. So that's something. We didn't apply, partly  because these days we never know where we're going to be when, although you can bet the farm on us being here for the Scottish Elections tomorrow.

That said,  as soon as we are back from the polling station  the OH is back off south - part maternal family crisis, part trip to Cardiff to get  Son No 2 to  an audition. He comes back from that trip on Monday, and on Wednesday I am off to Glasgow, mainly for the ''joys'' of a meeting with my Ph D supervisor on Thursday. OH joins me Friday night and we see Scottish Opera's Mikado on Saturday night and come back to Orkney on Sunday.

But I digress.

As part of the commemoration Orkney is hosting an art installation based on the one that was on the Tower of London back in 2014. It's the first place in Scotland to be allowed it and it's called The Weeping Window.  It's been quite exciting watching it progress from scaffolding and wire to the finished piece.

Here are a couple of pictures of it that I took

There are plenty of others, mostly better than these! on line;  just put Weeping Window Orkney in your search engine.

Some of the shop windows opposite the Cathedral are decorated in complementary fashion.

I noted with wry amusement that in the publicity leaflet surrounding all this stuff the Battle of Jutland is referred to as 'the most decisive naval engagement of World War One.' Military historians generally regard Jutland as totally indecisive since both sides claimed victory, with as much or as little justification for that on either side. Personally I think the only way in which Jutland can be described as 'decisive' is that it meant that the fleets of Britain and Germany remained totally against the idea of engaging one another again for the rest of the war. The only sure thing about Jutland, as far as I can see, is that lots of good men died. British and German both.

Back from Canada

I know, we're back and I never even told you I was going, right? Thing is, it was all very last minute and we only went for a week and somehow I never managed to find the time to say here 'Guess What? We are going to Canada for a week'.

 

But we did go and now we're back and in between we had a great time.

 

We went to Niagara

 

 

and we went to Point Pelee which is Canada's most southern point

 

 

and which is sort of eerie and wonderful at the same time.

 

We visited a very nice yarn shop which opened quite recently near my son and daughter-in-law's home (and I spent some money - no surprises there then)

 

We saw red cardinals

 

and red winged blackbirds

as well as lots of bald eagles (it's been a bit of a year for eagles so far, as we saw dozens of sea eagles and wedge tailed eagles in Australia, as well as the bald variety in Ontario) and quite a few blue jays. I didn't manage a pic of the bald eagles and although I did get one of a blue jay, honestly, you have to know it was there!

We shared a birthday

 

hung out with these guys



and generally just got to know this one

I know I'm partial, what with being related and having hauled myself over the Atlantic to meet him, but I really do honestly think he's quite cute.