From the Far Side

So that was Christmas survived once more. I have to say I think I prefer it to fall at the end of a week or at a weekend: having Christmas Day on a Tuesday has thrown us all out of kilter. And it will all be to do again next week for New Year.

I stopped putting up daily  pictures of my advent calendar, because all of a sudden it seemed like jumping up and down shouting Look what I've got. However I did take a picture of the whole lot once they were all open

and there they are. I shall start using them come 1st January. It was lovely of the OH to buy me this and I really enjoyed opening it up every day to find the little surprise. Still not sure what I will do with four small bottles of body lotion, but I daresay I will think of something and everything else is extremely welcome. 

I was a bit poorly on Christmas Day in the afternoon and very poorly on Boxing Day, but luckily the Christmas TV schedules have been so rubbish I didn't miss anything I was desperate to see. Or even vaguely interested in, come to that. 

Yesterday I was mostly recovered which was a good thing as it was the OH's birthday. For Christmas son no 2 had bought me a cinnamon bun kit from the people who bring me my baking subscription and I made them yesterday, as a sort of slightly out there alternative to birthday cake. (We do have a Christmas cake but thus far it has been marzipanned but not yet iced. I excuse this on the grounds that no-one actually does/should cut into their Christmas cake before New Year.) Anyway people rave about these cinnamon buns and having made and tasted them I can quite see why. Picture? 

 There you go. That's about the best shaped one. They were all a bit pale ,so  maybe more glaze or an extra five minutes in the oven next time. And yes, there will be definitely be a next time.

Tomorrow is son no 1's birthday but as that is taking place in Toronto we bear no responsibility for anything to do with it other than sending a present which I did ages ago. If it wasn't for the pesky presence of New Year next week (when it should be celebrated at the Solstice)  we could all be returning to normal.

That said I have today resumed the Great Work, so normality is almost restored here anyway. Greatly assisted by a trip to the dump yesterday with an unfeasibly large number of empty cardboard boxes! 

So here's the plan ...

.... no computer time on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I was going to add Boxing Day as well, but I don't reckon I can stay away from my e-mails for three whole days, even though most of them are from companies I should really unsubscribe from. Because there is always the hope, sometimes even fulfilled, of a 'real' mail. 

Yesterday I watched my favourite Christmas film. It doesn't have much competition because I find I can rarely thole schmaltzy Christmas movies, but While You Were Sleeping I just love. Could be Sandra Bullock acting up a storm, could be Bill Pullman just, you know, being in it, could be the funny script. Whatever - I enjoyed it, watching on my laptop, while Son No 2 put himself through watching Watership Down Part 1 on the big TV. 

Today I marzipanned the cake ( I know, too late) bought some last minute presents, despite saying several days ago that we had bought enough, but what can I tell you, I got sucked into an offer at Tescos, and phoned relatives to wish them a Happy Christmas.

Tomorrow we clean the house. Or those bits of it we can still get to under the Christmas decorations. I make a trifle for Christmas Day. And then we relax. If I can remember how. 

So a day earlier than in previous years  - Happy Christmas to You All from Orkney. 

Baking Subscritpion December

Gingerbread Latte Cake. My decorating skills do not improve, or if they do it is in only tiny steps, invisible to the naked eye of the observer. This was an easy bake but the decorating was exceedingly faffy. However I can now say that I can make swiss meringue buttercream. Whether I would ever want to make it again, given that under the colour provided by my hairdresser, doing it once  probably sent large swaths of my hair white with stress, is a moot point. 

I was not convinced I would like this at all, but in the event it was luverlee, and I would make the cake again, albeit  with a simpler decoration. 

For those wondering where I've been, I've been here, but just after the last post I reached Maximum Pre-Christmas Stress Point and have taken a while to recover. Getting most of the cards into the post box helped, as did, a few days later, seeing off the last cards and parcels. So 'm back on a moe or less even keel. 

I also decided, although this is not Christmas stress related, to apply for an extension to my Ph D period. I was all set to knock myself out and get it done by the end of January; not totally impossible if I didn't mind the thought of spending most of February flat on my back with exhaustion and unable to string together a coherent sentence. But that thought didn't really appeal and the last straw was being threatened with a full supervisory meeting in January. Which would all be fine if all they were going to do was pat me on the  head and tell me how well  was doing but I suspect that it may be more of a critical review than that. At which pint I will need to start making changes and what with that and the thought of  the bibliography and the acknowledgements and all the twiddly bits .... I applied for an extra three months which will take me to the end of April. I don't anticipate needing the full three months which is as well as we have booked a holiday for the end of April ... but that's a story for another day. 

Day 10

05 Seaweed and Sage Shower Gel

I do rather wonder if this is a small sop to the 'man in your life' since I don't know any women who particularly want to smell of seaweed, or indeed sage. There again, is there a man who does? That said, I was unable to detect any whiff of seaweed, although there was a faint hint of sage. Sage is supposed to clear the brain I think, and given the time of year, that has to be a good thing. Or would be if I had any intention of using any of this stuff before the 1st January 2019. 

In other news,  yesterday evening we went to a concert in the Cathedral. I had seen it advertised and suggested we go; Corelli, Rutter, MacMillan and more. I was pleasantly surprised at how warm the Cathedral was when we arrived; much warmer somehow than they manage for Sunday service ....

I enjoyed it all very much. Even the rather dreary Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen was enlivened for me by being sung a Capella by a group of five men, three of whom shared a surname (and are presumably related) and one of whom was the man we buy our carpets from. Sadly for the OH it all went downhill in the second half, which was totally given over to Rutter's Magnificat. He disliked it immensely. Not for the reason that many people dislike Rutter which so far as I can see is that  they're musical snobs who hate a man who turns a tune, but because it was 'far too cheerful and bouncy'. I pointed out that the Magnificat is Mary's Song of Joy, to which his reply was that it wasn't supposed to be joyful at all, at which point I called him a miserable lapsed Catholic, he agreed  and we left it at that. 

Today has been very busy with far too much Christmas related stuff and not sufficient thesis related stuff, but I hope to reverse the ratio tomorrow and all days following. Well until 25th, obvs. 

Catch Up! Days 6 - 9

So we just had a very quick trip to Glasgow. Day 6, which I opened before we went was this

Having looked at the shape of the 'window' I said 'it'll be soap again' which just goes to show that sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong. 

Days 7 & 8 I caught up with last night when we got back 

After the Rain shampoo and conditioner. 

And today we had 

Glenashdale soap. 

As for the Glasgow trip it was so we could attend the first of the Scottish Opera Emerging Artist Recitals for this year; there's another one in January when we'll be doing another of these mad dash trips. The recital was fun, although confined to only two singers, since one was away singing elsewhere, and another one had to give it a miss because she slipped and fell a couple of days before, suffering a concussion in the process. As a result the recital was a little over weighted towards the Russian repertoire, and if songs and lieder of Western Europe tend to make a drama out of a crisis that is as noting to what the Russian temperament does when let loose on emotion and art song. . But there was some fine singing. And (since we are supporting the repetiteur this year through the scheme) I should mention the very fine accompaniment as well.  A small and select group met at the Theatre Royal for the after recital lunch, and a good time was had by all the people I was sitting near, and presumably also by those at the other end of the table. 

On our way out we booked our tickets for a Scottish Ballet performance of Cinderella and a new opera in January. We hadn't really planned on two trips to Glasgow in January, and there will be another one in February too, but then as someone perspicaciously pointed out at lunch, I am making up for all the lost time of the past 20 months or so. 

Since we were traveling for two days and went to a concert on the middle one, and since we are going to another concert this evening I haven't rushed to listen to any music at home. I'll pick that up tomorrow when the Christmas panic starts to really kick in. (I can feel it gathering around me already, despite the fact hat actually we're really a long long way ahead with our preparations. I am afraid despite all efforts to resist, I am starting to suffer from The Churn again. 

On the upside if I apply myself this coming week the Christmas stuff  should all be done and another huge chunk of the thesis re-written too. Fingers crossed. 

Day 5

Well it was a Good News, Bad News sort of a thing with the advent calendar this morning. Good news - Gleanashdale again. Bad news, body lotion had to make an appearance sooner or later and we were probably lucky to get away with it this long. Like talcum powder of old, I'm never quite sure what to do with body lotion. 

I'm opening the calendar in the sun room each day; you can see how impressed the boys were with all the excitement! 

Music was Au Fond du Temple Saint aka The Pearl Fishers Duet. So good, as they say, that I listened twice.  I have a recording of Jussi Bjorling and Robert Merrill singing it, so that was first up. (Strangely enough, another link to my late aunt as she and my uncle were huge fans of Jussi Bjorling and it was probably them who introduced me to this piece in the first place.) Then on You Tube I hunted down the version with Gosta Winbergh and Hakan Hagegard, because, well, Hagegard, obviously, but I do think that in this their two voiced blend better than Bjorling's  and Merrill's do. 

In other news some knitting to show off, hot from the needles. 

I made this cowl for a swap and I found it very hard to give away. It's so pretty, and the yarn was the softest mix of alpaca, silk, camel and cashmere. On the upside, I may have finally found the pattern for the precious skein of camel blend yarn I bought way back at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. 

And the much delayed gansey for my elder grandson. I started this last year, but abandoned it when it became clear it was going to be far too big. He's another year older now so I picked it up and dragged myself through  finished it this year. Slightly worried that if I post it now it might get lost in the back log from the Canadian Postal workers strike so I may have to bite the bullet and send it and the one for his brother International tracked and signed for to be on the safe side. As my sister would say Ker-CHING. I'll see what the news is on the strike on Monday. 

Day 4

Glenashdale shower gel. Very glad to see this as I bought some for a friend for Christmas and for a while now have been lamenting the fact that I didn't get any for myself at the same time. 

Music -  Advent being a time of reflection I thought that some days I would listen to music that reminded me of those close to me who I have lost and give myself  chance to think about them and what they meant to me. I started that today by listening to Aly Bain and Willie Johnston playing 'Margaret's Waltz'. 

This was the closing music played at my aunt's funeral in October. She and her husband shared a love of music of all sorts; listening to it and even making it. It was a bond we had, because music was in short supply in my own home when I was young, and loving it and just sitting and listening to it was something my mother  couldn't understand. Margaret and John, my aunt and uncle, really did. 

I remember John telling stories sometimes when they came back from the Alnwick folk festival. They really enjoyed folk music without taking it too seriously. 'Then this lad comes on' my uncle would say ' and he says he's going to sing this song and he starts off and twenty minutes later he's still going, it feels like its 36 verses and every one of them followed by a four line chorus. Every time he sings the chorus, you think, that must have been the last verse, but no, he'd take a breath and start on another one. You wouldn't believe it'. 

I miss her. And when the day comes, I'll miss him even more. 

Something cheerful tomorrow perhaps .... 

Day Three

After the Rain soap. Which was a lovely start to the day as I love After the Rain, and already have some shower gel and perfume in it. 

Alas, after that the day deteriorated rather, thanks to a discombobulating e-mail from UHI Grad School telling me my submission date was not 31st January 2019 as we had all been assuming, but 30 November 2018. Which as the alert amongst you will have realised, has now passed. In the circumstances it was a thoughtful touch to attach an application form for an extension period. 

However I knew it was rubbish so I sent back a polite e-mail asking how on earth they had worked this out, only to get another one a couple of hours later to say that I was right and the January date was correct. Which was reassuring in one way, but not in another. Shouldn't they be the people keeping tags on this stuff, and getting it right? 

I was working hard on revising my first chapter when the first e-mail arrived and I carried on revising it afterwards, with just a brief five minute interval when I madly thought 'Sod this for a game of football, I'm taking my ball home'. That said, it reminded me of some the many reasons why I wish I had never set out on this journey in the first place. 

Being so unsettled didn't help me choose, or listen,  to my music today. I eventually settled on Thomas Allen and Valerie Masterson singing I've Never Been in Love Before, from Guys and Dolls, because I fancied being carried away by some loud sweeping strings. Sadly all I could hear were two beautiful voices far too powerful and nuanced for the music they were singing. 

So it was a very odd sort of day, although on the upside I did get a lot of work done. I have however written myself to exhaustion, which is why I'm about to turn in at the unheard of hour of not quite ten o' clock. 

I'm thinking I may wake up tomorrow early and refreshed and ready to tackle the next section with a bit more enthusiasm than I can muster at present. Hope. It springs eternal, eh? 

Day Two

Lavender and Lemongrass conditioner. Which I suppose is a predictable follow up to yesterday's lavender and lemongrass shampoo.

Today's music was Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D major, which I chose because it makes me smile and want to dance. Lots of versions on YouTube if you want to try it - there are a few out there with a classical guitar rather than a lute though, and the lute sounds much better, so be alert. 

This being the first Sunday in Advent it was the tree lighting service at the Cathedral this morning. Here is the tree, gifted as always by the people of Grimstad in Norway

Then we went to the Christmas soup lunch in the St Magnus Centre, which was looking quite festive. We both chose the chicken and leek soup which was absolutely the right decision, it was gorgeous. 

After that we paid our annual visit to Shearer's Upstairs. Shearer's is one of those shops you can't really classify, except to say that if it's kitchen relayed, and that includes food, you'll probably find it there, but there are other bits tagged on the back as well. Anyway Upstairs is only open in the run up to Christmas and they have a real fire burning (no I have absolutely no idea how on earth they get health and safety clearance for that, ) and this year a Santa sat in front of it. 

And gorgeous merchandise, not all of the food and drink variety. 

I bought a present for a friend in the States, which was so nice we got one for ourselves too, and some pearlised chocolate pebbles that are locally produced. 

When we got downstairs again the OH went off to get some coffee beans and I stopped to talk to the shop cat. Which promptly walked up my arm and snuggled onto my shoulder, without any encouragement - although I was naturally delighted. 

 Next on the agenda, when I'd got rid of Shearer's Cat, which I have to say was impossible until he spied another gullible fool he could settle on, after which he graciously allowed himself to be put back down,  was Kirkness and Gorie where I had been lured by the prospect of tasting a different company's gin. All I'll say about that is that the elderflower tonic was very nice indeed. K and G have put lights on their courtyard tree, which were very pretty but doubtless look better when it gets dark. 

Finally dragged ourselves home to find Lorenzo out, and Markko distinctly uninterested in hearing about my cavortings with Another Cat. They don't half have flexible necks, cats, don't they? 

Day One

Lavender and Lemongrass shampoo.

But as Advent and Christmas aren't really all about getting stuff ....

I took some time, as I hope to do every day in Advent this year, to listen to some music. I so seldom take the time these days to just sit and listen, and now is the chance. I was going to say 'chance to discipline myself to do it' , but really it shouldn't be a matter of discipline. It's not as though  listening to music is a penance for me.

Today was Hakan Hagegard singing Bred Dina Vida Vingar. Recorded when he was probably at his  vocal best this is simple, unaccompanied, beautiful singing. If you want to try it, you can find it here