Horrible January

Words cannot express how glad I am to see the back of this January. It has never been my favourite month. I find it cold and bleak, and I associate it with exams as well as various unhappy events in the past, including my Dad’s death twenty years ago. And the death of my beautiful Ruby last week really put the tin lid on it this year. There were some good things in January. The kindness of friends and neighbours last week was heart-warming. The lady who found Ruby went to a lot of trouble to get in touch us so that she could be brought home. Our lovely neighbours Christine and Tina went with poor Ally to identify her. And Cat came through from Edinburgh so that she could look after Ally – and James and me too! So I’m now determined to look forward to the spring, which I anticipate by the end of February – there are wee snowdrops already in the front garden. 

Ruby

This morning when I woke up, Ruby was on the bed. When I patted her she rolled onto her back so that I could rub her tummy. She reached out for my hand with her wee paws and bit my hand very gently, she was so happy. And that was the last time I saw her.

Now she is dead, knocked down by a car this afternoon. How can such a beautiful amazing creature be gone? Poor Ruby. And poor Tom, who knows that something is wrong but doesn't understand what he has lost. 

Good day

It has been rather a splendid day. I'm feeling good after our healthy weekend in beautiful Perthshire. Work went particularly well. Our new fireplace was installed - it looks great. I went back to yoga (after skipping it last week because I was feeling under the weather) and loved it. Ally has passed all of his Law Diploma exams with high grades, including the extra one he took to keep his options open in case he wants to become an advocate. I ordered a new cookery book called The Happy Kitchen, which is about healthy food that boosts your energy levels and well being, recommended by Jackie. And I have finished reading She-Wolves by Helen Castor - an excellent and thought-provoking read. A good day indeed. 

Perthshire Birthday

After our convivial Burns Supper at Guay last night, Heidi and I decided to spend the day together while James, Ally and Cat went to bag a Munro; Meall Chuaich. It was James' birthday and Cat gave him a Vulcan bomber mug which he absolutely loved! Heidi and I went for a walk from the Hermitage to Rumbling Bridge - a very leisurely walk - and we had a great chat. Then we had tasty parsnip and sweet potato soup in Palmerston's Café in Dunkeld, another favourite place of mine from Duke of Edinburgh expeditions past. 

Heidi dropped me off at home mid afternoon so I had some time to potter about before James and Ally returned. Grandma hasn't been too well today; she had to get the emergency doctor to visit and was given antibiotics. However she insisted on coming across as usual for tea, for which I admired her spirit but also felt a bit worried, she is getting so frail. She gave James a lovely shirt for his birthday. Then came the boys' present to James; a set of very smart looking wireless headphones which the three of them had clubbed together to buy. Jennifer had sent him a book about mountains which he was very pleased with - I think he has had a very good birthday with such thoughtful presents as well as an energetic hill walk. 

Muddy

I have had a lovely day at Guay in Perthshire, a place of which I am extremely fond. We arrived last night after having dinner at home so as to avoid the heavier traffic, and set off at about 6.30 pm. The journey is an easy one hour and twenty minutes, and the only hitch was the news that Cat was delayed in Edinburgh by a punctured tyre on her car (Ally travelled up with James and me but it made more sense for Cat to go directly from her flat). We weren't very happy at the idea of her having to change the tyre by herself in the dark, however she is a very capable young lady and soon got it sorted, arriving safe and sound about an hour after us. 

Anyway, the four of us had a jolly evening with Bob, Allan and Heidi in the lodge at Guay, and this morning we set off on our various hill walks. Mine was very simple; the 8 km round trip up the hill behind Guay and around Loch Ordie. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting my old haunts, even though the views were not quite up to their usual standard due to it being a misty day. The path was very boggy in parts, but I was lucky that I met a couple of very pleasant cyclists at the very worst big area of mud that I encountered. As I hesitated, one of them suggested that he swing me across the mud while I clung on to a handy gate! I'm not sure that I looked particularly elegant as I sailed across the marshy ground but it did work! 

La La Land

On Saturday evening James and I went to see the much praised film La La Land with Ally and Cat. It is like an old-fashioned musical set in the modern day. It pays tribute to films such as Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris; through parts of its plot, its settings and its dance sequences. The bittersweet ending (I hope that Cat doesn't mind me saying that she was crying at the end!) was clearly a tribute to one of my very favourite films, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, which really touched and delighted me. The music was fantastic and I can understand why this film has captured people's imaginations; it's both modern and nostalgic, sad and funny, and beautiful to watch. 

The case of the missing contact lens

Yesterday when I went to put my contact lenses in I was most puzzled to find one of them missing and the case lying open in the shelf. Alasdair's contact lenses were still in their case however. How mystifying. With a little deduction I realised that Ally must have put my contact lenses in by mistake in his haste to get ready for hill-walking with James. One of my eyes has a similar prescription to Ally's but the other is way worse, so the puzzled Ally had discarded it to put in a new one. He didn't realise what had happened until I spoke to him on the phone later. Cue much hilarity and case solved.

If only the last episode of Sherlock this evening had been so straightforward or indeed so entertaining. The convoluted but ultimately silly plot bore little resemblance to the witty, interesting stories of the early series; I'm afraid that this erstwhile entertaining programme has latterly come to take itself too seriously and lost its originality in the process. 

Silver Ferns

I'm feeling a wee bit under the weather this morning - just a cough - so I'm having a long lie in bed while James and Ally set off to climb Ben Vane. It's cold but sunny so they are taking the opportunity of the window in the weather. So here I am, all cosy and about to read a bit more of She-Wolves. James brought me breakfast in bed before they left which was really nice of him - he always brings me breakfast at the weekends so I'm a lucky girl. Another nice thing that happened is that when I got in from school yesterday I found a package that had arrived all the way from New Zealand with a beautiful pair of earrings from Jamie. He was visiting Akaroa, which is near Christchurch, and he saw some earrings that they thought I would like. They are little silver ferns, which is a New Zealand symbol, I love them. 

Matilda

The snow arrived in the early hours of today. There was enough to lie lightly on the garden and the cars, but the roads were perfectly clear. It snowed on and off all day to the great excitement of the pupils, but never amounted to much. It's still very cold though and the street has turned very icy this evening. I suppose that we're still a long way from the Spring! 

However I am feeling very warm and cosy. I've just had a lovely bath where I was reading more of "She-Wolves" - I am loving it! It's so well written. At the moment I'm reading about Matilda, daughter of Henry I and mother of Henry II. 

Tasty Chilli

I'm tucked up in bed listening to the wind whistling around the house. The weather has turned very chilly today; pale blue sky and a raw wind. Snow is allegedly forecast for tomorrow. 

James and I cooked a tasty chilli con carne for dinner, and we made enough that there is enough to put in the freezer for two more meals. I have two recipes for chilli, both dating back to the 1980s. The most basic, but nevertheless very flavoursome version, was torn from the packaging of a jar of chilli powder, and I still refer to it to make sure that I have got the quantities right. The other recipe is fancier with a variety of additional spices, and also tastes very good; probably richer in taste. It was given to me by someone I worked with thirty years ago at ICL, and it is printed on old-fashioned music-ruled computer paper, the kind that folded into a stack of paper as it printed. It was a suitably warm and comforting meal for such a cold evening. 

And back to Zumba

This evening I went to Christine's Zumba class. It was great to be back. Needless to say I found it to be very strenuous, but I enjoyed it and loved the music. There is a Zumba Toning class straight afterwards but I thought that one hour was enough to start with! 
Instead I went home and had a shower before watching "Silent Witness" with Ally. We managed to do a decent job of guessing who was this week's culprit in the rather far-fetched plot. 
I've started reading the book that James gave me for Christmas - She-Wolves by Helen Castor. It's about the medieval queens of England and France and the particular challenges they faced because of their gender. It's so fascinating.

Return to Yoga

This evening I went to a yoga class, run by my friend Jennifer. It is not quite my first yoga experience- I tried yoga on the island of Limnos in the summer of 2012, in a class that was held outdoors overlooking the sea. I loved it so I'm not sure why I haven't joined a yoga class at home before now. Anyway, just before Christmas Jennifer told me about her career change to become a yoga teacher and her Monday evening class tied in nicely with my current aspirations to improve my health and wellbeing, and especially my creaky joints. 

So off I set in the pouring rain to a nearby community centre to join her class. It turned out that there were a few familiar faces in the class which was lovely. It was really good, and we were encouraged to push ourselves only as far as we felt comfortable. I felt very stiff at some points which proves that I really need to work at becoming more flexible, my wrists were the sorest part. I especially enjoyed the relaxation part at the end - I didn't know that we were supposed to bring a fleecy blanket to wrap ourselves in so Jennifer kindly lent me hers. It was an excellent session. 

Speedy Reading

I have noticed that after reading a book that I find quite intense and all-consuming, I read my next book very, very fast. It's as if I have been walking up a mountain and then suddenly I am able to run down the other side. Although that's not a perfect analogy because, depending on the terrain, some mountains are hard to descend as well. Anyway, examples of these big, powerful books that I have read fairly recently are "Ulysses" by James Joyce, "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust, and most recently "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Anyway, I become increasingly obsessed with these magna opera while I am reading them and I start into my next chosen book with the accumulated speed of a ship at full steam. It takes me several books to slow down to my normal reading pace (which actually is still quite fast!)

That's why I have taken only a couple of hours to read the delightful "Crooked Heart" by Lissa Evans, a novel about a young refugee in the Second World War. I'm now well ahead with my Book Club reading! 

Date night

With all of the younglings otherwise occupied, James and I decided to go out for dinner and then to the cinema. We went to a new and very unusual Indian restaurant called "Horn Please" which a colleague recently recommended to me. From its minimalist but somehow friendly decor to its tasty and surprising menu, it was a fantastic experience. Although there were plenty of spices in the food there was only one traditional "curry" on the menu; apparently this is contemporary cuisine which has become popular in Indian cities. We both absolutely loved it and will definitely be back. 

And so we proceeded to Cineworld where we watched "Passengers" - an unlikely but absorbing adventure set on a space ship which is on a one hundred and twenty year journey to colonise a new planet. However something goes wrong and one of the five thousand passengers wakes up ninety years early from his suspended animation. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are on good form as the main characters but Michael Sheen totally steals the show as the android barman! It was a good evening.

Social and Solitude

I had some more road trips today in a final whirlwind of social activity before the end of the holidays! First of all I went over to Bishopton (it only took me half an hour) to have coffee with Jennifer and Elspeth at Mar Hall Hotel where they are having a spa break. It's a beautiful place and we had a lovely chat - to my surprise Jennifer totally spoiled me some extra birthday presents! I was a tad concerned that I might be intruding on their spa break and time together but they both made me feel so welcome that my fears were allayed.

Another pleasant half hour of driving took me straight along the M8 and M74 to the Bothwell Bridge Hotel where I met my former colleague David for lunch. It was great to catch up with him and we had a good chat.

When I got home I tidied round a bit then settled down to finish Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (or "Crapitude" as I have jokingly been calling it when discussing it with Ally!) Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Let's just say that the ending was certainly appropriate for the book! I still don't regret reading it though! 

Back to Dundee

I went on a wee road trip to Dundee and back today. I was taking Davie and Chanel back to University for the new term, and they needed a lift because Davie was transporting various gadgets and Christmas gifts which would have been to bulky to carry on the train. For example one of his Christmas presents was an A3 Laminator; perhaps not a typical gift for a twenty-one year old to request but that's our Davie! 

It was a lovely day for a drive, and when we arrived in Dundee the three of us had a tasty lunch in our favourite Bridgeview Station Restaurant. After a quick trip to Tesco I dropped Davie and Chanel off at Davie's flat and enjoyed a pleasant drive home while listening to my music. 

Invitations

Today I went to Stobhill Hospital for a routine Gynaecology appointment. I didn't enjoy it but I appreciate that it was necessary for my well being. Readers will be delighted to know that I am not about to relate any further details, apart from the fact that all of the staff that I met were both efficient and pleasant. 

Instead I will mention the two lovely social occasions to which we have very much enjoyed over the last two days. 

Yesterday we went to Janet and Peter's in Edinburgh for lunch. Janet had made a truly wonderful Spanish meal with all sorts of different dishes such as paella and patatas bravas meatballs, finished with key lime pie. Then we spent the afternoon laughing and chatting; they are relatives who have also become great friends. 

And then this evening we went to Christine and Gerry's for dinner. Christine made an amazing fish pie and a melt in the mouth toffee dessert. We also had a delicious Swiss cheese called Tête de Moine which is served in an unusual way; you use a blade to scrape the cheese as you turn it which produces thin shavings. Again the company was great fun and we sat in the lounge after dinner discussing all manner of interesting things. 

Now that I have somewhat addressed my work life balance and I am looking ahead to the next phase of my life, I would like to get back into proper home cooking. I used to be an enthusiastic cook but it kind of fell by the wayside - maybe I can get my cooking mojo back! 

One Hundred Years of Solitude

I am currently reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Alasdair read it during his travels in South America last year, and recommended it to me. It was written by Marquez in 1967 and is seen as his most important work. 

I have been finding it rather hard going, but now that I am about two thirds through it I am becoming obsessed with the fate of the Buendia family. The novel tells the story of several generations of this fictional family, who first found and then live in a mythical town called Macondo in Colombia in South America. 

Although I haven't finished it yet I can see that one of the main themes is repetition; in the names of family members, the events that happen to them and the mistakes that they make, in fact it all goes round in circles. Another main theme is the solitude that the Buendias either end up seeking or have thrust upon them. There are also themes of war, trade, money and friendship that are woven throughout the book. According to Ally the story of Macondo is meant to tell the history of the 19th and early 20th centuries in South America, and the book is on every school's curriculum in Colombia. Since I don't know anything about South American history this is difficult for me to discern, but I can see many references to colonialism, especially when the "gringos" arrive and change the nature of Macondo. 

It's written in a style of writing called magical realism, in which supernatural events are presented as everyday e.g. nobody is surprised that Rebeca's parents' bones keep click clacking even after they are buried, and even ordinary things like meal times or doing the laundry are given a surreal spin. The family's ghosts don't really leave after they die and therefore can be found hanging around the house and garden! 

I haven't really made up my mind whether I even like "One Hundred Years of Solitude", but I have a feeling that it's one of those books that gets into your head and stays forever. 

Brilliant day

This has been one of those really great days when everything just goes right from morning until bedtime. 

We went over to Lenzie for our traditional New Year walk with Ewan and Heather. It was crisply cold with blue skies - perfect weather for an enjoyable and friendly winter hike. We walked to Torrance via Lenzie Moss and stopped for a drink before striding along the canal towards Kirkintilloch. The Stables pub proved to be very busy on this fine day so we continued onwards to Nonna's Kitchen where we had a tasty and convivial Italian meal. On the way back to Ewan and Heather's house we saw the crescent moon with a very bright planet Venus beside it. We had walked nine miles and although my legs were tired I felt really energised.

When we got home I asked Ally and Cat to show us their South America photos from last summer, which I have noticed them editing these past few days. They obliged and James, Davie, Chanel and I had a fascinating time looking at the photos on the big screen of James' computer which Ally brought through to the lounge. It was warm and cosy beside the fire and Ally and Cat told us lots of stories about their brilliant holiday. I had heard about some of their adventures before but it was great to hear the full story; they had such fantastic experiences! 

The whole day was just delightful; friends, family, laughter, healthy exercise and relaxing!

Delicious New Year Dinner

Welcome to 2017. We brought in the New Year with Davie and Chanel; Ally and Cat were at a party. The cats arrived indoors shortly after the bells; there were fireworks being set off so they preferred to come indoors! We didn't stay up too late because James, Ally and Cat were planning to go hill-walking in the morning.

Sure enough they set off quite early to Meikle Binn while the rest of us had a relaxing day in the house.

We had a magnificent leg of lamb for New Year's Dinner, marinated by James for three days in oil and red wine vinegar with garlic, rosemary and juniper berries. I made a traditional gratin dauphinois to go with it and we also had roasted root vegetables. It was all delicious and a fitting meal with which to welcome in the New Year.