Fingernails and Finished Things

 

Not sure if I have mentioned we are off shortly for a few days in Vienna. All my favourite things; opera, art, coffee and cake plus the seasonal joy of the Christmas Markets. Looking forward to it very much. Naturally I needed my nails redoing in preparation, and I opted for icy sparkles, with just two snowflakes to reflect winter. I had hoped that the city would be all sparkly and snowy, but the internet tells me that Vienna hardly ever has snow, it just gets very wet and very cold. I won't let that put me off the place, but we'll be packing thermals I expect. 

The new cast-on I allowed myself has now become a finished article after I worked on it monogamously for several days. I had my doubts as I was knitting it but I am very happy with the finished article and I shall be sporting it at the Vienna Staatsoper on at least one evening in the near future. Sadly the photograph doesn't do due justice to its sparkliness, you'll have to take my word on that. 

Finally a recently completed jigsaw puzzle. During lockdown I had a good sort out of my puzzles and managed to get them all stored away out of sight, but since then numbers have crept up again and I have a pile of puzzles on top of a bookcase in the hall once more. I need another cull, and this was the first one selected. I had a whole bunch of these map type puzzles showing different areas of the world and I have done them often and enjoyed them but it's time for the remaining few to be done one last time and then go. I'll donate them to the library so that if I ever have a real yearning to do one of them again I can borrow it for the purpose! 

I won't be blogging while I'm away but the upside is I should have some lovely photos and experiences to relate when I get back! 

But Why Were You There in the First Place?

 is a question you might be asking, after learning of the problems we had with getting back to Orkney in my previous post. 

Well the main reason was this 

Son No 2's M.A. Graduation which took place at Paisley Abbey, and unlike his B.A. one which was held in late spring, this one was a 'proper' graduation with people getting bumped on the head by the Chancellor, and being presented with a certificate in front of their proud Mums, Dads and other family members. It was fab. I was sorry there wasn't a piper - UHI have a piper - but there you go. The organist managed to murder Highland Cathedral while we were taking our seats, and we were played out to Walton's Crown Imperial which I thought tasteless. But that's nitpicking. Afterwards there was a reception with fizz, tea, coffee and little cakes. Since I can now partake of little cakes, I did. Several of them in fact. The mini lemon cheesecakes were particularly nice. 

Obviously we stayed on a couple of days more; in Glasgow we had a celebratory dinner out with son no 2, some quite restrained shopping (licorice fudge at Tyger, plus a pair of new black boots for me, to replace the two pairs of black shoes that have gone to shoe heaven recently), and coffee and cake with K from Scottish Opera. On Thursday we visited a small town called Lanark which is south east of Glasgow, then continued on to East Lothian where we had arranged to meet my friend V for lunch. V has made sundry appearances in these blog entries as I meet up with her and another friend D quite often when I visit the Central Belt, and she has recently undergone a quite serious operation. Much more serious than just having your gall bladder out anyway. She seemed to be recovering very well, but I wanted to see for myself. We had a very nice cafe lunch and then visited a lovely shop next door, which was basically Scandi decor. Again I was very restrained, it was the sort of place you could spend a mint in if you were that way inclined, but all I bought was a small Scandinavian gnome to give to the lovely L who does my nails, and who has a bit of a thing for gnomes. I handed it over on Friday when I had my nails done for our forthcoming trip abroad. Of which more later.  

What Do These Two Phrases Have In Common?

 

Go Ruth and Hurrah for Northlink.

The answer is that they are both things that I have said in the last two weeks, while both being things that I never thought I would say, ever.

Just to get The Archers one out of the way, Go Ruth was my gleeful exhortation as the character let her sanctimonious and poisonous mother-in-law Jill have it from both barrels in a recent confrontation over something Jill had said to her grandson Ben. Three decades or so of justifiable resentment came tumbling out as Ruth told Jill how she had been made to feel ever since she married, and her cypher of a husband looked on in hapless bemusement. I normally have no time for the character of Ruth at all, but on this occasion I was happy to metaphorically hold her coat while she slugged it out. 

As for Northlink, we have long been disenchanted with them; hugely subsidised they nevertheless cancel many many ferries at short notice when their rival, private and therefore not able to rely on the money coming in whether they actually sail or not, continued to provide a service. The private one is much closer to where we live and also has a more convenient and more frequent timetable so it is a long time now since we stopped using Northlink and swapped to Pentland Ferries. 

However Pentland let us down in a big way last week when we were planning to return from Glasgow. To be fair it wasn't their fault. The weather was foul enough in Glasgow while we were there, but it was much worse here, because in addition to the driving rain which afflicted most of Scotland, Orkney had high winds. For days. Everything was tikety boo the day we left to go south; after that most of the ferries were cancelled and by Thursday night all the Pentland Ferries for Friday were 'under review' and we were booked on the last one of the day. We had seen this pattern all week, that sailings would be under review for the next day, and then get cancelled one by one as the day progressed and it looked as though we would be stuck down in the Central Belt for an unspecified time. Normally this prospect would fill me with nothing but joy but on this occasion I had to get back because I had two hospital appointments on Monday morning.  

On a whim, the OH checked the Northlink website without much expectation of there being any sailings, because if Pentland have cancelled you can normally bet the farm that Northlink beat them to it. But no, wonder of wonders! Northlink's morning service was leaving as usual on Friday. When we fond out it was late on Thursday evening, and we hummed and hahhed a bit but really we had no choice. The OH took to bed at 9, we woke him at half past midnight and then we drove through the night to the north cost to catch the morning ferry. Hearts in mouths for some of the time, as it was very very dark, but there was hardly any traffic which made things easier. When we got back I went straight to bed, but the OH stayed up, lit the fire, had some coffee and then played on his computer for several hours. No doubt his system was awash with adrenaline. 

So hurrah for Northlink for getting us home. They take a different route over the firth to Pentland and their side of the islands was sheltered from the worst of the winds last week which is how they were still going. The ferry was rammed with the normal Northlink people plus many of those who had had their Pentland bookings cancelled. We had been very lucky to get a booking, and we were duly grateful. 

As a postscript I should report that I got to both hospital appointments. An ultrasound scan that showed nothing untoward, and my flu and Covid 4 jabs. And apart from a slight energy dip in the afternoon I had no side effects from the covid jab, which was a (welcome) first. 

Three Little Things of Completed Loveliness

 although to be fair perhaps the loveliness is in the completeness, rather than the things themselves. 

First up, and rather to my surprise, the jigsaw is done. 

Very pleased to see the back of it, or I will be once it is on its way somewhere else. It's a very pretty picture but it got harder rather than easier on the way through, until about the last 50 pieces. 

The there's a book.

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. I'm generally a sucker for retold Greek myths cf the several occasions when I have gone into raptures here about the work of Natalie Haynes, and to a lesser extent - but possibly only because she has written less - Madeline Miller. I was looking forward to this and sadly I was disappointed. Honestly it's such a downer. It's just so relentlessly downbeat. I'm not going to argue that women in Ancient Greece, especially royal or noble ones , didn't have a rough time. But the strength of Miller and Haynes is that although they allow for the particular difficulties of women, they don't pretend that men have wonderful lives either. They also often allow their women agency, give them justice (albeit sometimes through the actions of men) and show that some of them manage to circumvent the limits of their time and build something of value for themselves. Saint is having none of that. Her men are all weak, flawed and nasty, and her women come to bad ends. Not a book to pick up when you're miserable, unless you want to finish it and say 'well however bad things are for me, they aren't that bad.'

And finally some knitting. I finished this a few days ago having picked it up at the beginning of the week when all it needed was a second sleeve. 

It's in a beautiful Irish aran tween that was gifted to me by a friend. I chose the size that would use up most of the skein so that's 1 - 2 years. Sadly I don't know anyone with a little boy that age but I'm sure one will turn up in due course. There should have been another piece of knitting to show off too, but sadly ... it's a tubular cowl and I have now twice, using two different methods, tried and failed to join the two ends together. It was languishing in my craft room because I had messed up the first try, and wasn't very confident about taking out the grafting that had somehow managed to join a wrong side and a right side together. But with my new found zeal for finishing stuff, I picked it up thinking, all I need to do is undo this very carefully and find another way to join it up. I unpicked the incorrect grafting, found a YouTube tutorial that showed me how to do a three needle cast off for a tubular cowl and tried that. I can't quite explain what the problem was with that but when I came to tun it right side out having done most of the cast off on the wrong side as instructed, only half the thing would turn through. There is obviously something about the geometry of a tube that I can't get my head, or my needles round. So  that has gone back to languishing until I feel brave enough to tackle it again. I've also worked very hard on a crochet project this week but without managing to quite finish it. 

I did allow myself a new cast on on Friday. I got a free pattern from a designer last weekend and although I wasn't convinced I would use it, it suddenly struck me that I had some wool that would do perfectly for it. In addition to this I needed something calming to knit after the jangling of the nerves that came with the failure to join up the cowl, and preferably  mindless to knit too, so that I could take it  away with me, as we are off to the Central Belt for 5 days tomorrow.  So  this is my take away knit and with a bit of luck and a following wind I will finish the thing in time to take to Vienna in December. 

So progress on the irritating unfinished stuff is being made. Even if only slowly. 

Black Adam

Son No 2 is here just now and it wouldn't be a visit from him without a trip to the cinema. Normally it's just him and his Dad seeking out the latest  Star Wars instalment - I gave up on those a long time ago - but as it's  not Christmas there wasn't one out.  There was however something called Black Adam which is a superhero movie, not from the Marvel but from the DC, stable. 

As regular readers will know, I'm not averse to the occasional superhero movie, with the exception of Antman which I have been heroically resisting watching for what feels like forever but is probably only a couple of years. I'd never heard of Black Adam but that didn't really matter. 

Of course these things are generally crash-bang-wallop movies with a side serving of unquestioning American might-is-right, but I can take that in small doses. Well the crash bang wallop side of things anyway. In fact Black Adam is somewhat more nuanced in the political arena then most others ( I know, a very low bar, but they tried) and I applaud that. I also applaud the fact that one of the Good Guys Gang apparently came to an unequivocal end - that's something you don't often see in this type of film. 

We went to what is known here as a 'relaxed viewing' which basically means no adverts, no trailers, sound turned down a bit, lights left on a bit . I'd never been to one of these before but the boys had and recommended it, so that's the one we chose. We booked, just in case, but we needn't have bothered, as along with the three of us there was one other party of four teenagers and that was it. 

I did enjoy it, as much for the fact that we can go to the cinema without a second thought these days, which a couple of years ago I wouldn't have put money on., and acknowledging the fact that there are still people for whom that isn't yet true. 

Last day in Wales - Angelsey

 We went to Anglesey chiefly to visit Plas Newydd, because I wanted to see the Whistler murals. Now in the care of the National Trust it belonged to the Paget family, later ennobled as the Marquesses of Anglesey. I don't often take a great interest in the families who owned National Trust properties, but  was rather taken at the time by the stories followed in the house of the Paget family. 

The house has a gothic frontage

beautiful views ....

....over the Menai Strait

and in common with so many places we visited in Wales beautiful gardens where  I took a shed load of flower pictures

Sadly taking photographs of the Whistler murals is not permitted, which is understandable  but if you feel so inclined there are photos available on line. Nothing like seeing the real thing. They are amazing and looking at them I almost cried with frustration at my inability to draw. So much talent, lost so young.  

Anglesey also has many beautiful beaches, almost as good as the ones on Orkney! and after visiting 

Plas Newydd we visited one where  took even more photographs. 

Beach detritus

a shell banded in denim blue

and a piece of meaningful wood carving whose meaning I have of course forgotten, but it's still a good bit of carving. 

Looking back (and actually at the time) Wales was one of the highlights of the year. Beautiful weather, good company and lots of really interesting places to visit and things to do. Even without being a narrow gauge railway fan. 

Why I'm feeling a wee bit fed up with myself -

 and what I've done about it. 

I had a look around recently at various places in my house and all I saw was stuff I'd started and never finished. Jigsaws. Books. Knitting (and crochet) projects. And I felt overwhelmed. 

It was one of those moments when you just feel you need to give yourself a stern talking to, so naturally I did not try to redress the balance by thinking about all the jigsaw puzzles I've completed, the books I have read to the end, and the finished knitting and crochet projects I have done. Because that would have been  sensible  but not the way my mind was working. 

I resolved to do something about it, and with that n mind since we got back from Glasgow I have finished two knitting projects, one fairly recent and the other one - well not. 

Here's the older one. 

I finished it yesterday, it will make a lovely Christmas present for my friend R., who likes purple, it used up two skeins of my wool stash, previously it was just hanging about untidily on top of a pile of boxes in my study and now it isn't. Win/win/win. 

The more recent one is this. Pair no. two of three pairs of Christmas socks for this year. 

I have been beavering away at a jigsaw puzzle for a limited time every day and it is growing - picture to come when it is finally done and before it gets sent off to the library as I will never do it again. I wouldn't have bought it in the first place had I known it was one of those works of the devil where many of the pieces just abut one another, rather than clicking together. I hate those! not so much because it makes things harder, but because little cat paws can wreak much more havoc as they walk over them than they can the normal type.  

And I have also finished two books this week. One was a 'detective' novel called Murder at the Gorge by Frances Evesham. I think I can rise to the heights of 'workmanlike' to describe this. It's the 7th in a series with the overall title of the Exham on Sea Murders. I won't be wasting my time on the other six. The other one was a novel being given away by the library (part of their regular de-stocking where they put boxes of books in the foyer and invite you to take away any that appeal). It was House of Moons by Susan Moody. I read a lot of Susan Moody in the 1980s, she had a series about a private detective who was I think tall, black and gay. They all had Penny in the title and were very good. House of Moons is a standalone and I picked it up partly for old times sake and partly because a lot of it is set in Spain. I enjoyed it very much, lots of twists and red herrings in the plot, good characterisation, and some nice descriptions of Spain. It was a bit 'old fashioned' in tone, difficult to pin down exactly what I mean by that, there's just something very 1980s about it,  But streets head of say Victoria Hislop, who people rave about and who I just cannot get on with at all. 

And yes, I have my next two unfinished books to read and my next two unfinished knitting projects picked out. Watch this space. 

Ainadamar!

 

Of all the opera that Scottish Opera is putting on in this, their 60th Anniversary Season, this is the one I was looking forward to most. I think I should be most excited about Puccini's  Il Trittico, which is what a lot of other people are obsessing about, but for me the exciting prospect was Ainadamar, nippily summed up by the marketing department as opera meets flamenco. 

Ainamadar translates as The Fountain of Tears and it is a relatively recent opera (2003) composed by the Argentinian born Osvaldo Golijov and takes as its subject the life and execution of Spain's great poet Federico Garcia Lorca. 

It's so hard to describe that I'm not even going to try. I'll just say that it was  about the most operatic thing I have ever seen in my life, and people can argue until the cows come home about whether it is actually an opera or not, I don't care. It was a seamless joining of incredible music and tense drama, with an amazing set, and production vibe, and just to add a cherry to the cake they had the fabulous Antonio Najarro, Spain's leading flamenco choreographer come and arrange the flamenco movement and dancing. I was totally entranced, in the true meaning of the word i.e. the theatre could have been falling down around me but as long as the stuff on the stage was continuing I wouldn't have noticed. If only we lived in Glasgow I would have gone to see it more than once, although I have to say that it would have been on my own as the OH was not a fan. He's in a minority, although not of one. I wouldn't say it was a marmite piece, since I haven't yet encountered anyone who actually hated it, but it isn't to everyone's taste. It was to mine though!! 

Glasgow School of Yarn 2022

 

That there is a picture of the exclusive  tote bag for the 2022 GSoY. And yes it would make more sense to show a picture of the yarn that I bought, because obviously I bought yarn, but most of it was to make presents for other people who actually read the blog so that would be a bit counter productive. I'll post pictures of what I made with the stuff after Christmas. Meanwhile the tote has a nice Rennie Mackintosh inspired design. 

I'd booked a class in the morning with an Irish knitwear designer called Carole Feller of Stolen Stitches. This was on adapting garment patterns to fit properly and goodness knows I need to know. As did the others in the class. We all had the same problem - given that we have boobs, by the time we have knitted something big enough to cover them everything other part of the garment is  w-a-a-a-a-y too big. I have to say she was very good. Very approachable, very understanding and very knowledgeable. In theory I now know how to make things fit, whether or not I'll manage it in practice remains to be seen. I certainly hope so because it would be really nice to make sweaters again. I have bought one of her patterns and I shall buy the wool to make it with and see how we go. 

After the class I went off to the vending hall where  I had a chat with the usual suspects and a mooch around various other stands. I have to be honest and say that I didn't find it all as exciting and wonderful as I found it last year. That was a combination of it not being a new experience, not having the yay-covid-is-on-the-run-we-can-do-things-again boost, being a bit pushed for time between the class, meeting up with someone for coffee, and having to make sure I left in good time for logistical reasons to do with delivering our son somewhere and going out ourselves, and discovering that one of the vendors with whom I had planned to spend quite a lot of money had not in fact brought any of the goodies that had appealed to me on her website to Glasgow. This was not her fault, she can't bring everything, and actually it wasn't anybody's fault, it was just a bit frustrating. 

So like the curate's egg, excellent in parts. I'm glad I went and especially glad I took the class, but whether I will go again next year is moot; it will depend largely I think on how much yarn I manage to knit up  in the next twelve months.