Fronting It Up

I feel I have done quite well so far in avoiding much mention of the new daily routine we find ourselves living with. But as we're now into the third week of it, it might be time to put down how it's going and how it feels. This is partly because I have spent sometime over the last few days re-reading years of my life as related by the blog and it's been an interesting exercise. It will be good perhaps in a year, or two years, to revisit this particular time and remind myself about how we got through it. 

It was easy at first. I got quite used to telling friends from south that actually it hadn't made much difference to the way we live because the OH works from home and we don't have the most scintillating of social lives as it is. We live very quietly when we are here. I am ware that we go away quite a lot, but in Orkney our lives are bounded by work, a Sunday trip to the Cathedral and the  supermarket, walks on the beach and the occasional excitement of an exhibition opening or a trip to the cinema. 

So to begin with it was fine. Things started to go a bit pear shaped when I heard that the local police were stopping people who were gong out in their cars to scenic places to have their daily walk. I was astounded by this. In Orkney? Where there were no recorded cases of C19 and most places are empty most of the time. To be honest I was particularly narked as the police put this particular procedure into place the day before we had thought we would drive down to Burwick and do one of our favourite walks. We never see anyone else there except the very occasional visitor at the heigt of summer, so it seemed hard that we were now forbidden from going there, especially as the road that goes past this house, which I was very bored with walking along before this all started, is now the busiest I have ever seen it, as every man woman and dog who lives on it now has to use it for their daily exercise. 

Then I realised that we weren't gong to be able to get the presents we wanted to buy for our younger grandson's birthday at the end of April, or indeed any present at all.. We knew what we were going to get, and if only instead of staying 'we'll get it next time we're in town' we had turned into the appropriate shop, things would have been different. Now we shouldn't even go into town because it's not a necessity, and even if we did the shop, along with most others in Kirkwall is closed. And I also realised yesterday that we couldn't just decide to go out for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. Now you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we actually do that in a year. But the difference is that when you can it's easy to choose not to, but when you can't it's hard to accept that it's impossible. 

Now I know we are fortunate. Roof, food supplies, finances, all in place. We don't need to worry about those, and thousands of others do. We are not, as I am reminded about ten tmes a day on Facebook, at war. I swear if I see one more of those coloured posts in block capitals that say 'your fathers were called to go and fight; you are just called to sit on a sofa and watch Netflix' I shall scream. Because a) I know. b) I appreciate the fact. c) I don't have Netflix. 

On the upside we've sponsored a reindeer. Photo tomorrow. 

Spring is springing

And we are out there once a day looking at it. I have instituted a joint daily walk, although for the last couple of days it has not been quite so 'joint' as the OH was too busy with work yesterday to come with me and he's already been out today to post An Important Letter, while I was still abed! Yes the letter was That Important. 

So we are looking about us and taking photos of the evidence of spring and yesterday I captured these. 

the now traditional spring photo of the miniature daffodils in our rockery

Lordly cat,  king of all he surveys. Obviously this one has nothing to do with spring, but I took it anyway

A neighbours willow tree. Three days ago this looked dead - and yesterday it was covered in catkins - some of them really plump , as below

Be assured that taking the photo did not involve going anywhere near the neighbour's house. We are not unmindful of the regulations governing our new way of life. The tree is by the road

I'm fascinated by the regularity of the bits of fleece. I know it's because the barbs in the wire are set regularly and the sheep just brush up against it, but it looks so deliberate, and like a little row of woolly flags drawing you along the road

Daffodils at the bottom of the drive 

and a sheep patiently waiting to give birth, but meanwhile posing for a photo. 

As regards the regulations I had been under the erroneous impression until yesterday that it was allowable to travel in a car to a place to go for a walk, but it seems that this is not so, and that the police on Orkney are as keen as the police anywhere else ( possibly even keener) to enforce the restriciton. This is annoying as I shall get monkey sick of the road outside my house (well let's be honest I was monkey sick of it before CV was even a thing) and all the places we would drive to to walk are even more deserted than the road by the house. However we have no wish to be pulled over by a cop car and asked to account for our movements or justify being out of the house so I suppose we will have to make the best of it and next week turn left at the bottom of the drive instead of right. Since this is the way to the bus stop/local shop I cannot say it is any more a stranger  to me than the piece of road to the right, but it is, infinitesimally, the road less travelled and there are one or two more options along it. So we'll see how it goes. 

Struggling On - to some effect

I was  disappointed recently - well it was several months ago - to realise that I struggle to do all the fine cross stitch that I thought I would romp through, post op, and post thesis. Either I need a little laser work on my left eye or my sight is just getting worse with age, but whatever the cause, it's very difficult to do these days. And that is sad, because I have a lot of things either started or queuing up to be done.

I have experimented with a hands free magnifier which helps a little but which rather gets in the way of me pulling my threads through the fabric and so work is painfully slow.

It is easier on aida than on linen as the holes are much more obvious. This is of course exactly the reason why I have always preferred to work on linen, or another evenweave fabric, rather than aida but in a spirit of 'needs must' I resurrected an almost finished piece of blackwork done on Aida a couple of evenings ago and voilà!  here it is finished. 

The thing that looks like a black mark coming out of her head is in fact a crease which is proving very non-susceptible to being pressed out, much to my chagrin. Other than that I am quite pleased with this, especially as the designer had left some would be fiddly bits empty - a huge area around the rose for example and I have filled them in. I can't say it's the most wonderful thing I have ever done, and I cannot imagine why I ever bought the kit, unless it was to 'have a go at blackwork', in which case I will forgive msyelf.

I will get it framed with a nice black mount and a gold frame, but not just yet since I suspect the framing/card shop has closed for the duration and even if it's not, going to it could hardly be classed as necessary travel. One day though, when this is all over ...

Meanwhile if anyone has tips for getting that crease out of the fabric, please don't hesitate to write it in the comments!  

Baking Subscription March

Chocolate Caramel Drip Cake

My ganache was a bit too thick to 'drip' properly, it was supposed to run down the sides  over beautifully smooth caramel buttercream, but I left  it longer than it said because I was afraid it would all drop off and make a nasty mess. 

Since, when I made it we were reducing our social contacts, and are now in lockdown it was up to the OH and I to eat it all, which we have done, but we eked it out for some time longer than a cake would normally last us. This is down to the fact that I did most of the cutting and I do much smaller slices than the OH does! 

It was very nice! 

Just a little thing

Ages ago a friend gave me this photo frame for Christmas and it has just sat in a box with other photo frames,some actually with photos in, in our spare rom more or less ever since. This wasn't because I didn't like it, but because we didn't have any photos small enough to go into it. 

I'm currently undertaking a rolling program of decluttering the house; it's a very relaxed thing which involves me in deciding during the week what I'm going to sort at the weekend and then doing it. Usually it's small task so that I don't get bored and give up on the whole idea.  Have to say as a result my airing cupboard has never looked so empty or so tidy .... and there are other places in the house which have benefitted too. 

Sorting the 'box with the photos' was on the list a few weeks ago and several ugly and/or superfluous frames have gone off to a charity shop. This one I decided I had to do something with,so on Sunday I spent some time just putting little bits of fabric into the frames. Considering I am not  sewer I have quite the collection of small pieces of fabric. 

And I really like it. It's just a little piece of not very much but it looks lovely and it means I have done something with a nice frame and some pretty material rather than leave them both languishing in boxes unseen and unused. 

That has to be a result, doesn't it? 

Saturday Slaughters: Lillia's Diary

...and it's by someone called Ian McFadyen, although that information will possibly be superfluous by the time you get to the bottom of the post.

I managed to pick up my reserved copy of this the day the library closed. Given that the book groups have of necessity been closed with it, in a way there wasn't much point, but there again presumably we'll discuss it when normal life restarts so I was glad I had managed to source it. And it's kept me occupied for a wee while. 

I have to say that the plot was generally good; there was an unusual storyline connected to an Eastern European, not just the usual lazy stuff you get when Eastern Europeans are included in crime novels these days. 

There was however a hole in the plot that you could drive a tank through. I'm sorry but with all the crime dramas, crime novels and true crime programs available these days, no publisher should allow an author to get away with this sort of thing: to wit, one police officer keeps someone talking downstairs in his own home, while another officer goes upstairs, conducts an illegal search and takes away without telling the owner a piece of property (the titular diary as it happens) which becomes central to the case. No police officer worth his salt would do that, because that's a dropped prosecution right there. 

I say no publisher, in places this is so clunkily written that I thought it must have been self published by someone whose grasp of the English tense system was tenuous to say the least. I was surprised to see that it did have a publisher but not surprised to see, when I looked it up, that it's one of these 'partnership publishing' outfits, so self publishing by any other name. It had certainly never been anywhere near an editor - but that is sadly common these days even with reputable publishing houses and well established authors.

It was apparently the second book in a series, but I shan't be rushing out to find number one, nor shall I, unless obliged, keep an eye out for number three.

I Wanna Do All The Things ....

and I wanna do them  now.

So, in these times of Coronavirus crisis,  we are cutting social contact as much as we can. I have to say this does not take a great deal of effort for us because the OH works at home anyway and we're not particularly social types. Any outsider looking at our lives three weeks ago and then again now would find it difficult to tell the difference, but there is a bit of cutting back; -  and a dearth of future planning, which is where we are feeling the difference. 

This was supposed to be the year when, after not travelling for ages because I couldn't see and then when I could see having a thesis to finish, we were gong to start playing catch up. Well the world had other ideas. Two trips south for the opera cancelled already. Trying currently to make contact with the booking company to transfer out Cornish holiday booking , which was for next month, to next year. Living in daily expectation of having our trip to Verona cancelled and the big Ruby Wedding Anniversary trip to Oz in September is also looking doubtful.

Don't get me wrong, I am not breaking my heart over this. These things happen and I am actually taking it more or less in my stride. I am very aware that we are fortunate in Orkney, because we have, so far, no confirmed cases of CV here, and I hope it will stay tat way. And equally, the surroundings are beautiful so that although life is closing down around us in many ways at least we have lovely places to walk. 

The problem I am having is that my little mind has gone into overdrive with all the things I can do now I 'have the time'. This is madness, because since I finished my Ph D I have had all the time I wanted to do anything. I think now though, I feel I have been given permission to do all the nice things without guilt, because we're all keeping ourselves to ourselves and we're all looking for things to do. 

So I scurry from one library book to the next; which shall I read? That's daft because all loans are currently unlimited because the library is shut and we can't take them back. I probably have 12 weeks to read these four books. I don't need to rush through them, or the electronc one I borrowed, or my Audble books that aren't finished. I do not need to rush to finish the big Lego project, or cast on half a dozen new knitting projects or try out all the crafts I have lned up and waiting. I do not have to answer all my outstanding letters, or ring up everyone I know who might be feeling a bit down, or blog about everything and then some. 

No, what I need to do is calm down and learn to pace myself. To read one book at a time, knit one thing at a time, take everything more slowly and enjoy the doing of it as much as I possibly  can. I need to keep busy, but I don't need to be manic. 

The New Kid on the Block

After the coffee tree and the lemon tree the OH has splashed out again and bought a lime tree. 

Voila

It's covered in blossom and has the most beautiful scent. As the days are quite warm at the moment and it's living in the sunroom, it fills the place with a lovely perfume. I'm spending a fair bit of time in there just now and really appreciating the new arrival! 

Emma

Well we went to see Emma on Saturday evening and I confess to being pleasantly surprised.

I could nit pick. They made cuts, but I do appreciate they have to cut some things out to get a film of reasonable length. The house that was supposed to be Donwell Abbey was totally unsuitable. Some of the casting was a bit lacklustre. Some of the comedy was just too broad. 

I am not nit picking, but criticising,  when I say the duet of Drink to me Only should have been dubbed. Someone has told me that Johnny Flynn is a good singer. They seem to know whereof they speak(?) in which case I can only say that he left his good voice at home the day they recorded this duet. It was pitched all wrong for him so he had to strain to reach many of the notes, a lot of the time he was flat and about two thirds of the way through there was a really painful change of register. I winced. 

But, but, but - I really enjoyed it. Flynn was too young and too short and too ugly (imo for the last one) to play Knightley, but he did play him well. I've seen a fair few Emma adaptations in my time but he was the first actor I've seen to  make Knightley's speeches when he proposes sound remotely natural, which was a huge plus. I loved that they made Jane Fairfax quite a sly and obnoxious person. Bill Nighy was a bit too sprightly for Emma's father, which is obviously down to the director rather than the actor, but he was excellent as always and there was some beautifully subtle acting from almost everyone. 

So there you go; expectations confounded. I would even watch it again. 

AWOL

I know, it's been ages. What can I say?

Well all I can say is that I have been seeing rather more than I might have wanted of doctors surgeries and the inside of the new Kirkwall Hospital over the last two weeks, and have been a bit too overwhelmed with all that to visit the blog.

The tests are over, at least for now, and I get the results sometime next month. I am not majorly concerned and hope to post about something much ore interesting here over the next few days. We're off to see the new film version of Emma on Saturday - that will be good for a post, whether rant or rave. (I suspect the former, but who knows? I may be pleasantly surprised)

Baking Subscription February

I did this the day it arrived, or possibly the day after. so that we could take it to Glasgow with us. Remarkably prompt. 

It was an apple crumble and custard loaf cake, and apart from them wanting you to pipe the custard flavour butter cream in rosettes through the middle and on the top, which naturally I didn't do, it was fairly straightforward.  There was also some crumble type topping which was supposed to be scattered on top of the butter cream in the middle, which I did do, and on the top, which I didn't because that's just asking for mess on a plate. Unsurprisingly the crumble topping did nothing for the cake, in our opinion. I daresay other opinions are available. 

And - I forgot to take a photograph when it was done. The best I can offer is a picture of one of the last reining slices just before it was eaten. 

It was delicious though!