New Stuff - Reiki and Reflexology

Late on Monday evening I was called by a friend. Did I fancy coming along to her house the next day and having a session with a therapist; she did reflexology, massage, reiki etc. I could have 90 minutes and chose my own treatment. In the spirit of trying out new things I said yes. 

I duly turned up and answered a lot of questions about medication and general health, trying not to give away anything which the therapist could subsequently use to talk about blocked energies and so on. (Guess what, I'm a sceptic). 

I opted for reflexology and a reiki head massage. I enjoyed the reflexology. Who doesn't love to have their feet massaged? The reiki was a different story.  I found it deeply uncomfortable to have someone hold my head. I found it even more uncomfortable when their fingertips, instead of staying still,  crept inexorably forward. 

Afterwards she said a lot of stuff about blocked energies, constrictions on the chest that signified emotional trauma going back a long time that hadn't been dealt with, and a high degree of tension in my neck and shoulders. Well, I'll let her have the shoulder tension. Since about age 8. I'm not a relaxed person. 

I had a long and very enjoyable chat with my friend afterwards who I hadn't seen for far too long and then walked home. She would have given me a lift if her car hadn't been in the local garage, and I blithely assured her that, rather than summon the OH, I would walk. I had remembered that the street lights stop about half way between her house and mine. I hadn't remembered how dark that makes it. Or how difficult it is to walk in a straight line when you have no visual reference points. Fortunately I do still recognise the feel of damp grass, rather than tarmac, under my feet and was able to avoid ending up in a drainage ditch, but I suspect it was closer than I'd like to think. After that I scrabbled about and found my phone which provided me with a very small amount of light to hep me recognise where our drive turns off the road. So I made it home safely.

I had thought that if, as promised, the reiki gave me a good night's sleep it would all have been worth it, but in the event I had one of the most disturbed nights I've had in ages, so it's not an experience I'm likely to repeat. 

A Good Week Away

I need to blog about the fab time I had in Glasgow before I forget all about it. Sadly, although I dragged my camera all the way there I neglected to take any photos so this will be  picturless post.

Of course before I ever got to Glasgow the OH and I were in Inverness for the Scottish Opera Tosca which I have to report was every bit as good as all the 5* reviews said it was. It's an old production, but not one we've seen before so we were happy to catch it.I did remark, later in the week upon the number of welsh singers there were on stage but as someone said 'they do make good singers in Wales'. Which can't be denied. 

Sunday morning after Tosca we went our separate ways; the OH came back to his island paradise and I caught a train to Glasgow where I was met by son no 2 and we decamped to the Gourmet Burger Company where we ate and I had, for the second time this year, one of their glorious vodka elderflower cocktails. I was not quite in so much need of it as I was when I had one earlier in the summer, but it still went down a treat. 

I'd arranged to do one thing a day while I was in the city, which sounds perhaps a bit restrictive but  I know of old that that is really all I can manage. So Monday I went to a talk given by an American academic about the reasons why Outlander might be so popular in the US. Quite interesting, especially as diaspora culture is a bit of an interest of mine. 

Tuesday I met up with the man from Glasgow University who edited the complete poems of GCH, published back in 2000; without the work he did on that I could never have attempted my own thesis and he has taken a helpful interest in that since the very beginning. I had discovered, on the way to my talk on Monday night, a churros and ice cream café on the Great Western Road, so we met up there and had a lovely long chat. He also gave me a very precious gift of which more later, possibly sometime next year. 

Wednesday I went to the Yarn Cake to meet my Ravelry friend A; it's been a while since we managed to meet up as she hasn't been at all well. In fact she wasn't 100% that week either and I'm very grateful to her for making the effort to come out and see me. Amazingly enough I bought no yarn there at all, but possibly because it was busy and so difficult to get to the shelves.

Thursday I met up with my Stirling/Edinburgh based friends, but they came over to Glasgow and we started off proceedings by going to Oran Mor for one of their  famous A Play, A Pie and A Pint series, which is exactly what it says on the tin. You pay £15, and in exchange you get a pint of beer, cider or a soft drink, a pie or a slice of quiche, and a ticket for a play of about 45/50 minutes in length. None of us had ever been before, although I am forever telling son no. 2 that he should go there regularly and 'network'. The play we saw was by Alan Bissett, and was an interesting take on the nature of prejudice and expectation, although I thought it took too melodramatic a turn towards the end. Never mind, it was good and the acting was of a very high standard. I'd go again, and it would be easier having been once before. Oran Mor has some fantastic murals painted by the Scottish artist and writer Alasdair Gray but sadly access to them was not available the  day we were there. I should go back and look at them another time. In fact I should find out more about Alasdair Gray full stop. After the play we took ourselves off to a very nice café on Byres Road for tea and cake before rounding off the day with our customary trawl through  a few charity shops. 

And finishing the week on Friday I was entertained at Scottish Opera HQ as well as browsing round a few shops in the city centre without buying anything much. A Christmas shopping opportunity squandered, but I couldn't drum up the enthusiasm, especially as I was going to have to carry anything I bought back with me. On the upside I walked for miles that day, and in fact most others, and I also expanded my knowledge of the Glasgow bus service and both these were Good Things to do. 

On Saturday I returned to Orkney which was the usual long and tedious trip; got up at 8 am, left flat at 9 am, caught two trains and a ferry and got back to Orkney, exhausted,  at 11pm. I had planned to break up the ferry trip by buying a ticket for the on-board cinema but the choice of films was Downton or Toy Story 4. Since neither of these appealed I just had to read my Kindle, but there is no disguising that it is a very very tedious trip and possibly another time I should just bite the expensive bullet that is the price of a flight and get back here in 4 hours rather than 14. It's something to think about. 

Baking Subscription November

The November box was waiting for me when I got back from a busy and very enjoyable week in Glasgow and I made it yesterday. Not yet tasted, but it looks very scrummy.

Sticky toffee ginger loaf. I'm looking forward to trying it our later today. 

The muticoloured fragments beside it are part of a jigsaw puzzle, and not decorations that have fallen off the cake! I may even put up a photo of that when it's finished. 

Felt (3)

Just finishing off the felt posts; this was what the felt that I made was for.

little felt houses.

A friend of ours is doing an Art Ph D and the felt houses are prototypes for an installation she is planning as part of it. Her work is about the Cillini; Irish burial grounds  for unbaptised and still born children. There's a link to her work on this project  here

Glimpses to be had in the photo of the now not-so-new craft room which of course I had intended to do a full blog post on earlier ithe year. As a record of what I do with myself, i.e. a diary with pictures, which is what it was originally intended to be, this blog falls very short at times. 

I'm off south again tomorrow. The OH and I are going to see Tosca in Inverness and he's coming back on Sunday and I'm carrying on south to Glasgow where I'm staying for 6 days and catching up with friends and doing the sort of things  you can do in a Big City that you can't do here. 

I'm a bit worried about the Tosca to be honest. We've seen Scottish Opera stuff in Inverness twice before, the gloomy dated Carmen, and the Onegin-with-a-gimmick (the horse). Still, let's hope it's a case of third time lucky.