Bloody Scotland Days 2 and 3 - and an unintended consequence.

I went to two events on Saturday  with my friend D, and they were both a huge improvement on the Friday one, which was a bit of a relief. 

One was this 

I didn't think, going in, that I had read any of these authors but once the event began I realised that I had read a Simon Marks and been distinctly unimpressed. And after listening to him I'm still not going to go and read any more. My friend bought a Sarah Hilary and I bought a Patricia Gibney and once we've each read our own we're going to swap.  Both she and Sarah Hilary were interesting and thoughtful and I think I will enjoy both their books. Report in due course, naturally. Meanwhile D and I were both very taken with Patricia Gibney's plaid jumper and took the time afterwards to tell her so. D later found it on line and it is eye wateringly expensive. As in mother of the bride outfit type expensive. So I won't be buying one, but I still like it. 

The afternoon one was this 

and I was scoring 2 out of 3 here as I used to read James Oswald, and indeed went to an author event with him at Orkney Library which I'm sure must feature on the blog somewhere,  until his police procedurals became more Woo Woo Weird than I am comfortable with my police procedurals being ; in fact make that much more since I'm fairly intolerant of that sort of thing. Apparently it's known as genre blending and is very much a current publishing trend - who knew? Caro Ramsay was excellent; very funny, very down to earth. I assumed I would enjoy listening to her as I enjoy her books and I bought a pre-signed copy of her latest paperback. Nothing sartorial of note here. I didn't take to Mr Andrew James Greig despite his efforts to be self deprecating and funny because neither of those things quite came off ; largely I suspect because at heart he is not a man who feels he should be self deprecating and is doing it under duress. 

I was rather startled to find myself buying three books over the weekend but one of them was part of a Christmas present for someone else, and the other two were both paperbacks so it didn't break the bank. And the last time I bought a new physical book was last September when I treated myself to Natalie Haynes' No Friend to This House, so I'm not exactly on a book buying spree. 

Sunday I was on my own and the first panel I did was Gory Glesga. I thought I hadn't read any of these writers either but in fact I had, since Eve Macrae is aka Lynne Macewen, one of whose books popped up in the August book round up. Frances Crawford was the hero of the hour having managed to carry off both the major prizes of the festival; best debut novel and best crime novel of the year. This was definitely the most enjoyable event I went to, but how could it not be, you put four Glaswegian wordsmiths  on a stage for an hour and you know it's going to be comedy gold. 

And finally I went to this one. I had swithered about this because amongst the murders covered in his book is that of Jamie Bulger which is almost too distressing to contemplate, even now so long after the event, but it also includes Sarah Everard, and her murder and the events after it and the facts that emerged about the Met's so called 'Vetting procedures' made me incandescent with wrath at the time so I decided to go.  I don't watch True Crime programs on TV, nor do I read any True Crime books, so I haven't previously come across Professor Wilson but he's a serious criminologist who has also spent time  in the Prison  Service so he knows what he's talking/writing about.  In fact had I not had a very tight window for catching my train home I would have stayed and bought his book, but as I didn't I can only hope that either Stirling or Alloa library will stock it, if not now then in the future. 

And Bloody Scotland is back next year, and the dates, unsurprisingly,  are already in my calendar. 

The unintended consequence was coming down with a vicious bug which I can only assume I picked up while I was rubbing shoulders with so many people all in one place. It made itself known on Monday, retreated a bit on Tuesday then came crashing back on Wednesday since when I have done very little ( except for a trip to Glasgow which was enabled by a dose of paracetamol,  more on that later.) Today is Sunday and I feel quite a lot better thank goodness but I'm still taking it easy in the hope that proper rest will see the back of it sooner than otherwise. I have at least found the energy to sew up and block the new holiday top though - hooray!  

Bloody Scotland - Intro and Friday

So, as previously mentioned the weekend just gone was Bloody Scotland 2026. I remember when the program first came out I wasn't hugely enthused on my first flick through. Second time I was feeling  a bit more constructive and I marked down a few things I'd like to go to. Later when I thought I really should think about actually getting some tickets I concentrated hard, struck off a few things that had previously been marked as 'of interest', some because they no longer looked quite as interesting and some because I'm not wandering around the streets of Stirling on my lonesome quite that late at night. Lest you think it was a less good festival than previously that wasn't the case. This sequence of events is par for the course!

I booked one event for Friday which was called Death on the Island. This was set to feature Alex Gray, Lin Anderson and Andrew Raymond. I like Alex Gray's books, I quite like Lin Anderson's although I feel they now tend to the 'a bit too long', and of Andrew Raymond I had never previously heard. But two out of three again is par for the course. 

I was slightly disappointed to receive an e-mail on Thursday informing me that due to unforeseen circumstances Lin Anderson was now unable to attend, and  although I couldn't have a refund I could swap my ticket for another event if I liked. But  I just shrugged my shoulders  and thought, well longer for the other two, no big deal. However when I got to the venue I discovered that they had found a substitute for Lin Anderson.

If you've been here for a while you can look at the poster and see immediately why, when I saw who the substitute was, my heart sank. Yes J M Dalglish, writer of the  dullest set of detective novels ever set in Norfolk and possibly the entirety of Great Britain. Reviewed on the blog in February, March April and May, a sequence whihc chronicled my increasing disappointment, and I started with a low level of enjoyment with the first one I read. Even worse, he has just started a new series set in Orkney and he talked about that for  some time. In the first five minutes he made three glaring errors despite, apparently,  having been to Orkney on a research trip, so you know .... Even even worse he told a mother - in law joke. I thought they had rightly gone out of fashion when the last 1970s 'comedian' died, but it seems  they are still alive and kicking in some minds. 

I was quite bored all the way through this event. This was partly due to the presence of Dalglish who is quite as dull in person as his books, with an added dollop of self importance. Raymond was quite interesting but not interesting enough that I rushed off to buy any of his books. Alex Gray seemed to be on autopilot but then I expect she has done a lot of events like this, since she's been writing her books for 20+ years. 

Again, as with the  Arts Society talk, my reaction could have been partly coloured by the fact that I was still feeling under par after the flu injection - who knows? I left wondering doubtfully if the whole weekend was going to be a washout. (Spoiler - it wasn't). 

Crazy Busy week

 As anticipated last week was very busy although not necessarily with blog worthy things. 

Monday was Book Group Day, and they had chosen a J D Kirk so there I was reading another one after two months 'off'. Report to come in the book round up post. 

Tuesday was medical stuff; I had an eye test in the morning and we both had appointments for our flu jabs in the afternoon. Obviously my eye test was with a new optician since I hadn't  had my eyes tested since we moved. I was a bit nervous, as I always am before an eye test, which given my lamentable vision  history isn't surprising. but in fact it was very reassuring. My sight is fine, and it appears that the partial thickness macular hole is probably stable, but the new optician has requested the scans from my previous ones so that she can compare. The flu jabs were fine, I didn't even feel mine going in, possibly because I wasn't looking? and when asked about previous side effects of flu jabs we both blithely said oh, only sore arms, never felt ill after one. Ha! Those were words that came back to haunt us both. 

Wednesday we met up with our friend K for coffee in Stirling; hadn't seen her for a while so lots of catching up. 

Thursday was the start of the new season of the Stirling and Forth Valley Arts Society branch. I'm sure I must have mentioned joining this last year and presumably reported on their, generally excellent, talks. I was very much looking forward to this one which was on William MacTaggart, a C19 Scottish painter, held to be one  of the best painters of the sea ever. To wit; 

Yeah, a photo of a slide on a screen which itself was taken from a picture in a book, I think; it's not giving anyone the best idea of MacTaggart's skill. Google images is your friend here should you be interested. Meanwhile I became aware about half way through the talk that I felt distinctly off; slightly nauseous, a bit of a headache and wait! could that actually be a flu like shiver? I skipped the normal post talk lunch with a group of friends and took myself straight to the train station. When he picked me up the OH exclaimed 'what on earth has happened, you look totally wiped out' which isn't necessarily how a woman wants to be greeted by her nearest and dearest, but I felt too ill to care really and it was probably true. I went straight to bed when I got home and slept for five hours and by the time I got up again the OH was also feeling quite ill. We will be cross if we get flu this winter ....

I was not particularity impressed by the talk which I thought badly structured and fairly uninformative given that the speaker talked for an hour, but it seems I was very much in the minority in that view.. It may be that my reaction was coloured by feeling ill, in a way reminiscent of last year's opera stramash. Who can say? 

Friday saw the beginning of Bloody Scotland, but as that is still taking up time I'll bundle all the reports from there into one dedicated post. 

Meanwhile the needles arrived and the 'holiday' top is almost complete. The sleeves are done,  so now it's just a case of making sure I have the body the right length before starting the finishing rib. I think another five rounds will see that done, but of course I can't be sure without trying it on, a delicate manoeuvre if you want to be sure of not losing stitches from the needle! 

Wales - Wrap Up

Since our next holiday is (too) rapidly approaching I thought I'd make the effort to finish recording our week in Wales back in June .  The rest of our adventures, such as they were, were nearer to the cottage where we were staying. We had a leisurely day in Port Madoc visiting the maritime museum and going to Cadwalladers for an ice cream. No pics of the ice cream but here's the harbour at Port Madoc, and some crafty circles inside the museum. We are suckers for maritime museums; no idea why since neither of us has any connection to navies or sailing, although as long term readers might appreciate, when we're not knackering our knees we're quite partial to a bit of rowing.  

Naturally we visited the OH's favourite heritage railway station of Tan-y-bwlch,  as pretty as ever

There's also a good tearoom should you ever be in the vicinity and wanting to watch steam trains and have a cup of tea. Don't make my mistake and drink your tea outside if there's a train due; half of mine got wasted after the train deposited a good sprinkling of ash* into it. 

* I know it's not actually ash, but I don't know the technical term for whatever it is steam trains spew into the cups and over the clothing of the unwary.

And on our last day we went for  a ride on a steam train; the one that runs along the side of Lake Bala. It was still very hot so chugging along beside the lake was a pleasant experience - much more pleasant than going for  walk anyway. We saw both red kites and buzzards, sadly too high to take meaningful photos. This was our engine, Alice 

and here's a view of the lake

and that was our Welsh break. 

Phew! I'm glad I've caught up with that. The next trip isn't for another four weeks yet but I've got a crazy busy time coming up next week - gold star to anyone who's thinking, oh yes, it must be almost Bloody Scotland time - and there are various other things in the calendar which might find their way onto here - not to mention that I have a top I want to complete before we go. That has stuttered to a temporary halt as I found myself without the needles I need to do the sleeves. It is a constant mystery that however many needles a knitter has there is always a huge chance that when they knit something new they won't have at least one of the needles necessary. I would say, maybe that's just me, but I know it isn't. 

The necessary needles have been ordered and happily the top has been coming along quite quickly so it should be done in time. I'm crossing my fingers it will make an appearance in the September finished projects post. 

So, remember we went to Wales...?

 And one of the nicest days we had was in Conwy. 

This was not just because of this wool shop 

lovely shop, rather pushy owner. It's where I bought the little weaving kit. 

There were also some interesting old buildings, like this one

and a beautiful patisserie where we had an early lunch(?)

There's a beautiful harbour with great views, 

a spectacular castle 

and last but not least the Smallest House in the British Isles. 

We both loved Conwy. Sadly it was far too hot to do much and certainly too hot to tackle the walk up to and around the castle. We'd love to go back another time though, spend longer and explore the town properly. 

Unexpected Nice Things and a couple of cat photos

 We had a telephone call on Friday morning to say that the OH's brother was on a train on his way to our home town for a brief visit  (He's been in Largs this weekend for the Viking Festival.) We took him out to local cafe M.O.C.S. for lunch. We've been there for coffee and cake before and we've often said we'd like to try their Turkish pide for lunch so on Friday we did. 

Three different flavours, all were delicious, and very hearty portions. I couldn't finish mine; maybe I shouldn't have had any of those chips which the OH ordered and which really weren't needed. Although they were Very Nice Chips Indeed. 

On Saturday we went to the Japanese garden again, for a special event. Little Peru , a farm in Ayrshire, had brought three of their alpacas up to the garden and you could pay a small fee and pat them and feed them and have your photo take with them. Ours was called Diego, he was a bit flighty but I hung on to his harness like grim death whenever he seemed likely to make a break for freedom. I didn't get to feed him but the OH did, and there was indeed lots of petting and stroking and photo taking. 

Here we are

I do wish I had made that jumper longer.....

And a couple of pics for fans of The Cat Cosimo

He says he doesn't know 'what it is about cats and boxes and he wishes people would stop asking him; all he knows is that this new box appeared and so he had to go and sit in it. Because.'

"I know you're in there. I'm going to scratch at this door until you come out an play and I don't care that it's 3 in the morning". Ah the joys of sharing a home with a cat. 

Wool Stats and Projects for August.

 OK, could have been better, could have been worse. 

Wool in, which is  from all over really, totalled 1009g. 

There were two instalments of the Madrigal Yarn self striping sock club; the late July one and the August one.

A gift from my daughter-in-law for hosting the grandchildren

A birthday gift

some aran weight received in a swap

the left overs from my scarf weaving

and finally I actually bought 400g of this 

to make myself a top which I hope will be finished in time for me to take on our upcoming holiday.

Wool out was 515g. I made two hats, one with the swap yarn and one with the wool from my daughter in law

That's the top, and I love the squared off effect, both because it looks really good and because it makes it a better fit than the normal rounding off decreases. This was made as a Christmas charity donation but I was reluctant to let it go as it fitted so well. So I was delighted to discover that the wool from the daughter in law was the right weight for me to make myself one! 

The only other thing I finished was the coaster from the little 'have a go at weaving' set that I bought on holiday in Wales. 

It's less than brilliant and honestly the instructions weren't very clear in several places, so I count myself lucky to have managed something vaguely useful. There was enough wool to make two, but the rest is  off to a charity shop together with the  weaving bits and someone else can have a go. They may make a better job of it than I did. The only really good thing about this was that it prompted me to find the weaving course that I treated myself to for my birthday and even though that convinced me that I probably never wanted to even see a loom again I'm still glad I did it. 

I put some yarn into a swap package and also used up 220g in my large continuing project. So the net increase was 494g .  Net decrease for the year to date is 1492g and I'm crossing my fingers for that to look healthier by the end of September.  

August Books

It's  a short list for finished books this month. Partly because we had the grandchildren staying for a week and  partly because I've been falling asleep to a variety of not-books e.g.R4 drama series, stuff on Sounds, the World Service. 

The one falling asleep book I did listen to was Dead Lions, Book 2 of Mick Herron's Slough House series. I then started  Real Tigers, but  realised that I knew it and the ones that follow too well to to want to listen to them all over again just now after all. 

Distressingly the other four are all crime fiction, not that that there's anything wrong with crime fiction but I'm in a 'I really should diversify my reading a bit' frame of mind which might be reflected in the September round up. Meanwhile the other four are ; - 

The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery. First in a projected series and I saw glowing references to it all over the shop so got it on Audible. It might be one of those books it's better to read on the page than listen to; there again it might not. It's a locked room mystery set  pre WW1, with an unlikely pair of crime solvers; an extremely foul mouthed aristocratic old lady and a second footman. I did not see the culprit until over half way which is always a plus, but it did become more and more obvious, especially as the format of the book was to place everyone else under suspicion and then exonerate them. Like I say, very well reviewed and much praised for its originality, but it wasn;t for me.   

Pick of the bunch was Karin Slaughter's The Secrets We Hide , a followup to We are All Guilty Here which I read and reviewed in June.Again I spotted the perpetrator very early on, there is a massive clue in the description of the crime right at the beginning, but that didn't really matter as it's not so much about who did it, but how they got there. I do find myself glazing over at some of Slaughters descriptions of crime scenes, especially the ones where they're analysing bullet trajectories, but I'm sure some people find that fascinating. What I find fascinating is Slaughter's description of what life in a small town in the deep south is like, where families, and family feuds go back generations and everyone thinks they know everyone else inside out , until it turns out they don't. The two central characters, Emmy and Jude and their relationship are all fascinating  and I was happy to hear today that there is a new novel in this series currently being written. 

A chance comment by a friend had me scurrying off to see if there was a new Marion Todd novel I hadn't yet read and there was so I rectified that. I think the best way to describe Todd's series is workmanlike but that's not as dismissive as it sounds. I don't think, despite her best efforts, that her characters have much emotional depth, it's all tell not show on that front, but her saving grace is that her plots are well worked out, and don't stretch the limits of credibility. There was a bit of a shock at the end of this latest one which was called Watch Them Fall, it will be interesting to see the ramifications of that work out in the next book. 

Finally, someone at the book group passed around a carrier bag full of paperbacks that were on their way to the charity shop at the last meeting to see if anyone was interested in any, and someone told me that Lynne McEwen's books were good so I took the one of hers, A Troubled Tide  that was in there. I realise once I got started that I had read the first one of the series a long time ago; this one is number 5 so obviously things have moved on a bit. But it worked perfectly well as a standalone. 

So there you go. Reads like an edition of Crimestoppers! More variety definitely coming next month. 

What a Lovely Weekend That Was!

 Busy, but very enjoyable.

On Saturday I went to Edinburgh and had lunch with my friends V and D. At my suggestion we went to Meze Meze and it was every bit as good as my previous visit. Sadly I forgot to take photos of the food when it arrived, but here is what remained after we all professed ourselves beaten. 

After lunch we walked off a lot of the calories we'd consumed (I hope) by walking to the Dovecote Gallery to see the Cosprop Exhibition. Cosprop is a company founded in 1965 by John Bright and specialises in the making of period costumes for film, theater and tv. Most people would know its work through TV productions like the BBC's Pride and Prejudice or the Merchant Ivory films.  For anyone interested in the history of fashion, or costume drama it's a Must See Exhibition. I took lots of photos; although not nearly as many as I should have probably; here is a very small selection 

Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, BBC Pride and Prejudice

Poirot's suit ITV Poirot

The dress in the background is Marianne's wedding dress from the Ang Lee/Emma Thomson film of Sense and  Sensibility 

Lucy Honeychurch and Charlotte Bartlett Merchant Ivory A Room with a View

and finally a very splendid Russian dressing gown from a very long ago BBC version of War and Peace. 

Sunday was our wedding anniversary. We went to Perth which was rather damp

We'd chosen it for two reasons - the morning one

It was a lovely exhibition, lots of pictures I recognised, some from seeing previously, some from  reproductions in books, and then some I had never seen before.  I didn't know whether I could take photographs so didn't, although I asked permission to take the entrance sign. as it happened I could have taken as many as I wanted but there you go. Luckily they have a separate J D Fergusson gallery so I took this rather lovely portrait pair of JD and his partner Margaret Morris. 

We'd never been to Perth Art Gallery before and it's lovely. They have a Millais gallery which we had a good look around and others that we didn't have time for. We ended our visit with a mooch around the shop, a few purchases were made, and a very reasonably priced coffee. And in addition to a great collection and a lovely building I have to say the staff were fabulous; friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. A total 10/10 ; if you are interested in art and get a chance, do go. 

And the afternoon one 

Tea at Branklyn Garden. Readers who have been here for a while may remember we did the same thing last year and it has obviously now become a tradition. The tea was delicious and they have a nice selection of hand knitted tea cosies.    

Finally with reference to my previous post about The Odyssey, I note a  friend took heavy issue with my Facebook comments about it.  She'd been to see it three times, thought the script and acting were excellent and that it raised issues about xenophobia, war, women and other things in a way that was relevant to today. And while I still stand by what I said, in the interest of balance I've no objection to putting up the other side of the argument.