Baking Subscription January

So this month it was lemon and almond squares, shown here while it was a square rather than divided up. I know I can be  less than enthusiatic about these bakes sometimes but this time all I can say is that they were scrummy. Shortbread base, lemon-y topping, sprinkled with some flaked almonds and finished off with a dusting of icing sugar. Very tangy, as there is a lot of lemon in it. I'd definitely make this again, but not every week as I'm sure it must be very calorific!

A Trip to Ayr

The day out at Loch Lomond proved to be too much for a recovering system and I was wiped out for several days afterwards (thinks: maybe I should have tried a bit harder to get a flu jab last autumn) but I was better enough to contemplate going out again by Wednesday when our son took advantage of our presence to blag a lift into Uni and back. His campus is at Ayr, and he was only going to be about three hours, so we cast around for somewhere to visit, and from a very limited set of  choices - well it was January - decided to visit the Burns Birthplace Museum. There we discovered that the  cottage where Burns was actually born was 'undergoing restoration' but there is a very fancy-nancy Burns Centre to wit: 

Nice, innit? A team at Glasgow University has just done a study which shows that Robbie Burns is worth some £200 million a year to the Scottish economy, so I suppose that justifies having something like this. I am not all that bothered about Burns myself ( a matter of ignorance rather than antipathy) , but it can't be denied he is well-loved the world over. 

It being lunchtime when we arrived we had something to eat. The cafeteria hs a very nice mural

The OH had his usual burger - naturally here it was a Burns Burger (really? a Burns burger?) and I had a scone. I have said before, possibly here and certainly elsewhere, that I should cure myself of the habit of having scones out because they are almost always a disappointment. But I never learn. Here's my scone before I tried to eat it 

and here it is the moment I tried to put butter on it. 

I cannot stress enough that scones should not do this. 

Never mind, the Centre filled the time quite nicely and we then drove back to Ayr and parked for a look round the shops. I found another random statue to photograph

I had a huge success in the Ayr branch of Marks and Spencers (yes, really) where, unlike their counterpart in Braehead they actually had some long sleeved ladies pyjamas. Even more surprising thay had some in my size, which I liked, and which were in the final reduction sale section. They cost me £3.49. And yes that is a three!

Ayr is not a thriving town. It was once, but it isn't now and you only have to spend ten minutes there to realise it. But I'll tell you something. It's welcoming.  Every person there whose eye you catch smiles at you  and says hello. I found that quietly impressive.

Out and About

Come Sunday the lergy seemed in abeyance so we went out. It was a crisp and sunny day and we decided to have a trip out to Loch Lomond. Water, trees, mountains, fresh air - wonderful! 

We made for Balloch which is at the southern end of the Loch and where 'things are'. The things turned out to be mostly a huge car park, which was much fuller than it had any right to be on a chilly Sunday in January and a new low-rise-but-still-ugly shopping centre. Which is obviously where we found the bedlinen in my previous post. 

We had a brief look at the steam boat The Maid of the Loch - obviously not running in January!

There was a random statue of a seal which was small but quite nice  

 and we admired the view of Ben Lomond which was topped with snow.

We had a choice of visiting the Sea Life Centre or a Birds of Prey Centre and opted for the Birds of Prey Centre. Despite various qualms about whether birds should be kept in small enclosures or outside  tethered to posts I still enjoyed myself admiring the many species of owl, and a varied assortment of other falcons, hawks, eagles etc. It wasn't a huge place but it educates and breeds birds that are endangered in the wild and I'm sure it must be a Good Thing. I confess to a lingering uneasiness (about the concept, not the specifics of how the birds are kept here, since they all looked perfectly healthy) but this is probably due to ignorance. You tend to think birds just want to be flying free in the sky, but in the wild they tend to be stationary a lot of the time, and the hawks here are flown, just not on cold wet January Sundays. Anyway - pictures of a falcon, a hawk and an eagle

For some reason I took no pictures of the owls, despite many of them being heart meltingly cute looking. 

Llama Drama

So we went out on Sunday, of which more later. I cannot stress enough how we were not going out to shop. We went out for fresh air and scenery and definitely not to shop because life is about more than shopping and it should be possible to have an enjoyable family afternoon out without buying stuff. 

How then did  we end up purchasing a complete new set of bedlinen for the flat? Well possibly because it was in the sale, but more probably because it looked like this

Who could resist? Not us, for sure!

Knitting - First Completed project of 2020

and naturally, it's socks

These are for me. They're my normal Basic Ribbed Sock pattern knitted in the 2019 4 ply Christmas colourway from West Yorkshire Spinners which my sister bought me a skein of for Christmas. It arrived in a vacuum pack as so - 

which was rather startling as I'd never seen anything like it. Someone sensibly suggested it was probably to do with it fitting in an envelope to go through the post as a large letter, plus it will go through a letter box which a normally packed skein wouldn't. So it's probably a good idea on the whole.

I still have bits of knitting I haven't posted on here from last year. Maybe I'll get round to it soon. 

Well, it's half time and I'm two goals to nil down ....

We came to Glasgow for a Masterclass, and two Emerging Artist Recitals, at Scottish Opera, and The Snow Queen at Scottish Ballet.

The Masterclass, as already noted, was cancelled before we even got here. I arrived with a tickly cough which gradually developed into some full grown nasty bug thing which meant me missing the first recital yesterday. although the OH did go on his own, which is progress as often he won't do things if I can't go. I spent most of yesterday in bed as getting dressed seemed like the domestic equivalent of climbing Everest and I probably got ever so slightly on people's nerves by saying pathetically every half hour or so that I felt poorly and wanted to feel better. 

So today has been an improvement in that I managed to clamber out of my pit at about one o' clock and fall into the shower, after which I felt heaps better although still not 100%. I did have the energy to do a bit of knitting after that, and enough appetite to eat some cheese and biscuits so that's all good. I'm still coughing though. 

The OH was in fact supposed to be gong back to Orkney today and returning to Glasgow on Wednesday but looking at the weather forecasts and long range predictions re the ferries decided not to risk it and so has stayed in Glasgow, which is good for everyone but the cats who would otherwise have had a 3 day break from the cattery. However I'm not convinced that taking them out for three days and then taking them back would have been all that good for them so probably having the stay put was the wiser decision. 

All we need now is for the weather to perk up a bit, so that we can get out and do things. I'm not holding my breath; it's absolutely foul today. But you never know. 

Ups and Downs in More Ways than One.

So yesterday morning we got up. We had breakfast. We got the cats into their carriers. This latter was harder than it sounds, because as we were putting Lorenzo into his, the cat Markko decided to hide under one of the sofas. He goes there sometimes and normally of course we let him stay there until he wants to come out. We didn't have the time to do this on Monday morning so the OH had to try and coax him out. When coaxing didn't work he leaned underneath and tried to pull Markko out. Markko was not in favour of this. Markko was not entertained by this either. Markko decided to show us how fast he can sprint into the kitchen. And back out again, swerving past two pairs of eyes arms and alert humans. He streaked off to take refuge in a bedroom. Sadly (for him) he had been forestalled and all the bedroom doors were closed. I managed to pick him up, and to keep hold of him while he lunged, squirmed and flailed to get free, and we manhandled him into his carrier. I was only amazed I had got away without either a scratch or a bite. 

We delivered the cats to the cattery where they leapt with alacrity into their usual pen, which they share, took a sniff at their dishes, swallowed a morsel of food each and then curled up on their beds and gazed at us reproachfully. We still left though. 

And there we were sitting in the queue for the ferry, rejoicing in the fact that there were no disruptions to the schedule and agreeing how much we were looking forward to the Masterclass at Scottish Opera today. The A's phone rang. It was L from Scottish Opera. Happy New Year. Thank you for the chocolate hamper we had sent the fundraisers. And by the way, the masterclass had been cancelled because the guy giving it had gone down with a nasty chest infection. 

If only she had rung an hour earlier. Then we could have cancelled the cattery,, rebooked the ferry for Thursday and had three extra days at home. But there you go. I suspect that the Masterclass wasn't called off until first thing Monday and L would have had a list to work down once she knew. 

It was only to be expected after that that the crossing would be rough, and it was. Very up and down literally. I am normally a good ferry traveller, but I felt distinctly queasy on this occasion. 

We had planned to go out tis morning to Braehead which has a large shopping centre, also an IKEA, but I didn't feel well so in the event we didn't get out until the afternoon. I was reminded of one of the reasons that I have a love/hate relationship with shopping in Marks and Spencer. If they have got what you want it will not be in your size. Everything they have got in your size will be either very very expensive, or horrible, or both. This applied equally to the OH as it does to me. How can it be so difficult to buy a pair of black mens trousers? We did find some eventually, and also  a rather nice blue pair on the sale rack, but it was a long hard haul. We did not however find any women's long sleeved pyjamas in my size that didn't involve having a cartoon character across my chest so we gave up on that. 

I was feeing fairly fed up by the time we came out of M & S but we were in the market for some lamps and at a venture drove to another part of the shopping centre where we found three shops in a row which sold them. Sinc I had been gloomily prognosticating that it would all be a total waste of time as there would be no lighting shops I was pleasantly surprised. And we found the two lamps we wanted; a floor lamp for the living rom  and a bedside light, both for the flat. It would not surprise me if we didn't go back later on for another of the floor lamps as the one we have in the living room in Orkney needs replaced. Anyway they're both set up now and look very nice and do the jobs they were bought for, so that's a good thing. 

Tomorrow we are off to the city centre. The OH wants a look in the Lego shop (naturally), son no 2 needs some new jeans, and we'll take the opportunity to get some opera tickets for April. Miles in  advance I know, but if I get them from Orkney I either have to buy them from the theatre group website, thereby incurring 'box office fees', or ring them up on a premium rate phone line and queue on it for anything up to 20 mnutes. At the box office all I pay is the cover price, although given that they are opera tickets,  'all' is a relative term. 

Hoping for Calm Seas

We are off again tomorrow on what has become a traditional January trip to Glasgow. It's always been for the Scottish Opera Emerging Artist January recital before, last year we added the ballet  and this year there is a bonus in the shape of a Masterclass which Scottish Opera have thrown into the mix.  

The OH is doing the trip twice, coming back to Orkney in between things mainly to give the cats a few days respite from being in the cattery.  And also because he has on-call work commitments. Since I have no on-call commitments and it doesn't take two of us to look after the cats and really, just because I can, I am staying in Glasgow until after the ballet on 18th. 

In the past this would have meant a silent blog as I don't faff about taking my laptop to Glasgow, generally just relying on my tablet. However in a triumph of hope over experience I signed up for the new Duolingo Scottish Gaelic course when it came out in December. It tends to get angsty if you abandon it for several days. What it would do if I ignored it for almost a fortnight I cannot imagine. I assume the reminder e-mails would get very testy indeed. And in any case I don't want to stop for that length of time, as it seems to be going quite well, but the secret to all language learning is to keep at it every day and practice practice practice. So I am taking the laptop to enable me to do that. And that means I can blog while I'm down there too. 

There are high winds forecast for tomorrow so we are crossing our fingers that the ferry will still sail. 

Tìoraidh, an-dràsta! 

In which I almost make an expensive mistake.

Today we went to Birsay Books. I hadn't even been aware that Birsay Books was there, which is a bit sad considering that they told me they had been open since Easter! Anyway, it is as you will have gathered a second hand bookshop although I suspect they would prefer to be called Book Dealers, which is fair enough, and I was alerted to their existence by a friend on Facebook who liked their page.

They claimed to specialise in sci-fi and fantasy and so we thought it might be nice to take Son no 2 over there before we took him back to Glasgow, and to scout it out anyway for future trips ourselves. They have a fine building; the OH tells me it used to be Fluke Jewellery. Orkney being Orkney Fluke Jewellery now takes up half our local general shop in Burray, but no matter ....

They had some very nice stock. Son no 2 came away with several sets of books to do with D & D and some general sci-fi. The OH found  very nice book on the voyage of the Beagle. I drooled (not literally of course) over some books with illustrations by Edmund DuLac before regretfully putting them back on the shelves. Everything seemed quite reasonably priced (even the ones with the DuLac illustrations were reasonably priced for what they were, although this still didn't make them the sort of thing I would purchase without second third and even fourth thoughts) so when, as we were getting ready to pay I saw a copy of Alan Garner's The Moon of Gomrath n a shelf nearby  I jovially told the young man to add it to the pile. He said 'I don't know if you saw our other Garners on the shelves', disappeared around a corner and called out 'we have The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Red Shift if you're interested.' I said I would love Red Shift and he brought it out, and went over to the till. He then asked me for £95. I nearly fainted. I did manage a not quite screamed 'What?' He started to go through the prices and it turned out that The Moon of Gomrath was a first edition and priced at £60. I hadn't even looked, although perhaps I should have wondered why it was on a different set of shelves to all the other chldrens/fantasy books. I said he could put it back as, although I might like a copy of the book, I didn't want a first edition. He was perfectly nice about it, although I felt an utter idiot. Unease was compounded when his Paypal/WorldPay/whatever card machine failed three times to complete my transaction in a timely manner and therefore self cancelled it, but since they just have a copper wire connection  which lies atop the grass in a field of cows on its way to the relevant power thingy this was perhaps not surprising. It was however very irritting as it took all the cash I had plus some contributions from the OH and son no 2 to scrape up the amount required. I had also bought two rather expensive cards and I suppose if push had come to shove I could have put those back as well, but really I had had enough embarrassment for one day. Thank goodness I had talked myself out of one of the Dulacs, or I would have been forced to dig myself a hole and hide in it. 

I don't honestly know if it was that experience that put me off, but I can't say I would rush back there. There was just something a bit odd about the place...

More cheerfully, in an update to my last I have heard back from the charity I tried unsuccessfully to donate to earlier in the week, thanking me for alerting them to the problem with their Give Now button and giving me an address to which to send a cheque.  And - I found my pattern! It is now safely put away in the bag where the wool for it is being kept, and I am debating whether to start it now or wait until I am back from Glasgow. Given that I have other things on the needles, waiting is currently wining on that one. 

Frustration Setting in Already!

Knitting wise this was/is going to be the year of the jumper. I have one jumper part completed, and pattern and wool for two more, plus a barely started jumper kit. And there were anther couple of patterns lined up in my mental queue. OK so I would never manage six jumpers in a year but I was going to make a Good Start. 

Yesterday I looked out the wool for the first one on my list; an aran weight with a fair isle yolk. Then I went to get the pattern. It wasn't where it 'should' be. Nor was it in many places where it 'shouldn't' be either. Not in with the wool for knitting it, not with the magazines with patterns 'to be knitted' in them, not with my other live projects: in short it was nowhere to be found. 

Also yesterday, a friend posted a story on Facebook with a link to a small charity I had not previously heard of but which spoke to me, and in keeping with my new intention to spread a little more help and positivity around I decided I would give them a small donation today and then message the friend to thank her for putting up the link. Oh me, oh my. When I tried to donate, I got a message saying I couldn't as the recipient wasn't set up to receive payments electronically. Although according to the website it was. So, no donation, no message of thanks to friend. Because you can't send a message saying 'Thank you for alerting me to this but due to their technical issues I couldn't give them any money.'

 At certain times in previous years I would have been totally overset by either of these things, let alone both. But as I was determined to retain my positivity I Rose Above. I have sent the charity an e-mail asking how to donate by cheque and as for the pattern - I won't have thrown it away, it must be somewhere in the house and it will turn up in due course. In the meantime I concentrated yesterday on the projects I am currently working on, reminding myself that if I manage to get any of them finished before the jumper pattern turns up I will feel a lot less guilty about casting on something new. 

New Year, new me? It won't last. But I'll have it while it lasts. 

Happy New Year!

Let's gloss over all the usual stuff about how I dread New Year (although I still do!) In fact we had a jolly time last evening watching a very funny show called When TV News Goes Horribly Wrong. We all three of us laughed a lot, much to the disgruntlement of the cats who couldn't understand all the mirth and hilarity. But laughing with the family, that's a good way to start the year, yes? 

This morning we have been for a walk and there are a few pictures, including one of a totally random otter statue on a gatepost, wearing an even more random bow tie. Here you go

It was cold, but not windy, and the sun was shining We were out for about an hour which flew by  and I actually quite enjoyed it. Helped by reflecting that this time last year the walk would have been just about doable for me but would have taken a lot longer, I'd have puffed hard on the up slopes and would have moaned a lot!  

I don't do resolutions but last year I decided to try and be less judgemental, buy less wool and be less of a procrastinator. This year I just want to try  and be more positive. This is difficult for me as my default setting is a bit like that guy from Dad's Army, as in 'We're Doomed'. Current world events are not helping me to be cheery, but perhaps if I do a few positive things this year I will feel better. There seems to be some confusion about who first said It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, but whoever it was may have been on to something.