Hogmanay

Here we are, another year gone, and in my case another year older since today has been my birthday. And a very good birthday it has been - lunch at Five March with David and Chanel was followed by the new Mary Poppins film at the Grosvenor. I thoroughly enjoyed it, with my one objection being that it is practically identical to the original. It would have been nice if it had branched out in some way.
I don’t have time to write a proper round up of the year because we received a last minute invitation yesterday to celebrate New Year with Steven and Hilary this evening and we will be setting off shortly. I was looking through my blog this morning and it certainly has been a fantastic year for travel; James and I have been on some great holidays and weekends away staring with skiing in gorgeous Arabba in January. All of our trips have been fun but one of the highlights had to be our Oregon and California holiday in the summer when we met up with Jamie and Aisling and Margaret. We saw such sights. Another highlight was our France and Belgium holiday in October to visit James’ Great Uncle Hugh’s grave at the centenary of the end of the First World War. We were very glad to share this experience with our dear friends Heather and Ewan, and also to visit memorials for two of Heather’s relatives and to lay a wreath for all three young men at the Menin Gate in Ypres. My two weekends staying with Ally and Cat in their London flat were absolutely wonderful too. They used their local knowledge to take me to really cool places in London such as rooftop bars and dining in Paradise Pods by the Thames and to visit the Supreme Court. They even insisted on giving up their bed for me! And we have had some great weekends in beautiful Boat of Garten with Alison and Hugh. I can still hardly believe that I climbed Ben Nevis in July, a proud and happy achievement. All of this was set against the backdrop of a long and gloriously hot summer.
I retired in June and so the second half of the year has been a big change for me - in a very good way! New adventures await us in 2019 with more changes in the offing. James and I are appreciative of all of our family and friends, we know how lucky we are to know such good people. The year has had many ups but of course also some downs, mainly regarding the health of friends and relatives. I always look on the New Year as an opportunity for a fresh start, and in 2019 I am hoping to improve my diet and fitness. James doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions but has agreed with me that we both want to work on this. Roll on 2019!

The Mystery of the Missing Cook Book

Well, James has just solved a mystery that has been bamboozling me for nearly a week. He asked me for my Gammon in Red Wine recipe, one of the Anderson family favourites for New Year’s dinner. I was given this recipe many years ago by Grandma, who had found it on a recipe card in the Danish Food Centre back in the 1970s. The Danish Food Centre used to be a very trendy eating establishment in St Vincent Street, very modern and unusual in the days when most Glasgow restaurants were very traditional Scottish, or sometimes traditional Italian. There were Indian restaurants too, but James’ and my parents would never have tried anything so spicy, they preferred the relative familiarity of Chinese food. So the Danish Food Centre was a bit different, with open sandwiches and fresh, tasty ingredients. It’s long gone, I’m sad to say, I think it must have closed by the end of the 1980s.
However the tasty Gammon in Red Wine recipe lived on in Casa Anderson. I carefully copied the recipe into a little floral recipe book that I bought when I got married. This was in the days when, if I cooked something delicious, James would be so delighted that he would take a photo of it!
However, when I looked for it this week I couldn’t find it at all. I grew increasingly perturbed, because it had many of my favourite recipes in it, some given to me from friends and family so not easily replaceable. James and I hunted high and low with no luck.
Until this evening that is. James took a look inside a folder where I keep recipes, just in case I had inadvertently tucked the recipe book inside it. And he immediately noticed a page from the recipe book, carefully cut out and filed in the folder.  Further investigation produced the rest of the pages, including our beloved gammon recipe. Only at this point did I remember that some time in the past few years I decided to cut out the pages and discard the book, in order to put all of my recipes together in the folder. Although I was a bit annoyed with myself for forgetting that the recipe book itself no longer exists, I was delighted that all my recipes are safe.
In other news we went to Oran Mor this afternoon where we saw the fabulous “Doris, Dolly and the Dressing Room Divas” with Steven and Hilary.  Originally a hit at the Edinburgh fringe festival in 2016, this upbeat and fun trip into nostalgia was perfect for lovers of musicals like me and Hilary. I have a feeling that James and Steven were somewhat less entertained. Afterwards we wandered along Byres Road and had coffee and a chat in Nardini’s.

Free solo climbing

The holidays continue in a festive manner. It’s nice to have James at home, and it’s also pleasant to have a house full of young ones coming and going. Yesterday James and I went for a 10 km walk along the Fife Coastal Path from Kincardine to Torryburn. It was rainy in the west, but as Marjory says, “It’s always sunny in Fife even when it’s raining!” and by the time we started our walk it was indeed sunny with blue skies. At Kincardine we popped in to see Forrest in his shop; we said hello but he looked extremely busy so we didn’t linger. We skirted inland round the imposing landmark of Longannet Power Station before returning to the coast and continuing east. We found the village of Culross to be very pretty with old traditional buildings, and the final part of our walk was around the salt marshes of the Torry Bay Nature Reserve. We saw geese by the shore, as well as a buzzard and some curlews. It was an easy walk in glorious weather.
Later on we went to the GFT to see the documentary “Free Solo” with Ally, Cat and Davie. The cinema was packed. It was James’ idea to see it and I must admit that I thought it would be a bit boring. How wrong I was, it was fascinating. It’s about an amazing free climber called Alex Honnold as he prepares to attempt the first free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Just in case any reader doesn’t know what that means, free climbers don’t use any ropes at all. It’s such an extreme and, sadly, usually very life shortening sport. I admire his skill but the fatal consequences for even the tiniest mistake seem too reckless for me. The side that he climbed was a sheer cliff and it was absolutely terrifying to watch even though we knew that he made it because we saw him being interviewed on the One Show last week! I don’t know how he does it; he was using the tiniest of cracks or dimples in the rock, and if he had lost his grip he would have fallen thousands of feet. Honnold is a very interesting and quite eccentric character; I’m pretty sure that he has ASD, in many ways very high functioning. I think that everyone in the cinema held their breath until he got to the top, and the whole audience applauded at the end.

And a Happy Christmas for Grandma

As is usual Christmas has been very traditional and family-centred at Casa Anderson, and I’m glad of it. At the centre of the family is of course Grandma, and I think that she enjoyed her 89th Christmas very much. We took her to Marjory and Forrest’s in the morning where we all had a pleasant and festive time. Then she had a wee nap at home before coming to us for Christmas dinner. The dinner went extremely well and we ate our fill - even Grandma, who usually has the appetite of a very small bird, ate quite a lot. She told us that when she was a little girl they had chicken for Christmas dinner rather than turkey. At 3 p.m. before our desserts, we watched the Queen give her annual speech, and then we played Trivial Pursuit, which was of course won by Ally. Although she dozed off a bit (resulting in a red wine spillage that looked like a murder scene worthy of Hercules Poirot) Grandma was very chatty and when we took her back home she said that she had enjoyed the day. She also mentioned that I am the best person at helping her into and out of her chair because I am the most gentle! I was well pleased with this compliment.
Boxing Day has been much quieter. Jamie FaceTimed us in the morning (his evening) and we had a good chat (he had been working on Christmas Day so had only phoned briefly). At 8 a.m. on Boxing Day morning, which should have been his day off, he was asked to fly in the helicopter to Queenstown to attend to wee twin premature babies. With assistance from Jamie they are now doing well. I am so proud of him. He was back in time to have a barbecue on the beach with his friends in the afternoon.
Davie was working on his dissertation all day, and Ally, James and I went for a walk along Troon Beach, which was surprisingly mild. Ally and James were running about on the sand throwing the frisbee to each other. We then had lunch in Scott’s which was delicious and we had a lovely view over the harbour with all the sailing ships.
After a relaxing afternoon, it was time for the highlight of Boxing Day; the leftovers! We all made ourselves a plate of turkey and all the trimmings and it tasted oh so good.

Happy Christmas Santa

Recently there has been controversy about the lyrics of the old Christmas song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” in the light of the #MeToo movement. Some people think that the man in the song is pressuring the woman too much and too creepily to stay with him. In response, others are outraged that a well-loved song, which has until now been seen as light-hearted, is being unfavourably reinterpreted in a modern context. Personally I have always liked the song and it never occurred to me that it was in any way intended to portray date rape, and I’m not going to change my mind now.
Meanwhile, according to some nonsensical survey, there is a desire for Santa Claus to become gender neutral as part of an attempt to politically correct Christmas. So this week I found myself browsing the news websites too see how poor old Santa is bearing up under the pressures of 2018.
It’s not encouraging. An angry (and disgusting) woman spat in the face of an elf in a shopping centre in Stockton-on-Tees because she did not have a booking so could not take her child into Santa’s grotto. In another example of a lack of Christmas spirit, an irate Santa Claus shouted and swore at children in St Ives during a fire evacuation while tearing off his hat and beard. He also shouted at them to “get the fuck out.” I suspect that this may have been a false Santa like the one in James’ favourite film Elf.
It’s even worse in the USA. In Texas, a man wearing a Santa costume, referred to by police as "Santa," and his wife – referred to by police as "Mrs. Claus" – were driving home when a man in a red car kept blocking them and then began shooting at Santa’s car. Although luckily Santa and his wife were not injured, their assailant must surely be on the naughty list!
Santa did get a bit of revenge though, when a giant inflatable Father Christmas broke free of its moorings and landed on a busy road in Cambridgeshire, causing what the BBC referred to as a “ho-ho-hold up!” And he has his supporters - well wishers rallied round Santa after he was given a ticket for parking in the wrong space in County Durham. People on Facebook even called for the attendant to get a lump of coal for Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone.

The Lying Bitch and the Wardrobe

Today we had our traditional Christmas lunch with Heather and Ewan at the excellent Italian Kitchen, followed by drinks at the Metropolitan. We were joined there by several of our progeny and girlfriends. We all chatted non stop and I couldn’t believe how the afternoon just went by in the blink of an eye. I really enjoy this celebration on the last Sunday before Christmas, and I love that whichever young family members are available usually turn up to join us. Merchant Square looked very pretty with its fairy lights and craft stalls. By about 7 pm the “older generation” (us!) decided to call it a day and we bade our farewells to the young folk and headed home.
In other festive activities, James and I popped into Oran Mor yesterday lunchtime on the spur of the moment, to see if we could obtain return tickets for their sold out pantomime “The Lying Bitch and the Wardrobe”. We were directed to wait at a nearby table, so we ordered food and drinks, and were delighted when we did manage to get two tickets. The pantomime was great fun and very Scottish, with lots of singing, dancing and jokes. There were only four actors but they did a great job, and it was only about an hour and a quarter long, which I liked - some pantomimes can go on too long I think. A clever device was used; the villain “Evilyin” had at her command an invisible army, which arrived with loud tramping noises to drag away anyone who broke her laws. The actors pointed out how this suited their small budget! It was hilarious to see Dame Beanie Bumpherton wrestling against invisible assailants while shouting “Let go of me you bastards!”
And then we went down to Dunlop yesterday evening where we were treated to a delicious dinner and convivial evening by Christine and Gerry; we all ended up playing the “National Trust Board Game” which was not only fun but full of interesting facts. The dream team of Gerry and James triumphed over the rest of us!
James is slumbering gently beside me as I write this. There is no sign of Ally, Cat, Davie or Chanel, who are presumably still out partying with Andrew!

Winter Solstice

Well here we are on the shortest day of the year. In fact we heard on the radio today that the exact time of the winter solstice would be at 10.23 p.m. We were not able to raise a toast to the solstice at that precise moment though, because we were at the GFT watching one of James’ favourite films, Elf. It is a feel-good Christmas film that we both (but especially James!) find very funny. Some of its scenes are priceless. James particularly enjoys Buddy’s excitement when he hears that Santa will be coming to the department store; “I KNOW him!” and I love it when Buddy sees a sign outside a café in New York advertising the “World’s Best Coffee” and he rushes inside to congratulate the bemused staff on their achievement! It was all good fun and I felt quite moved at the end.
In other news, I took Grandma Christmas shopping this week. She has delegated some of her shopping but was understandably keen to do some herself, and we had a very pleasant time together. All of our own Christmas shopping has been purchased, wrapped, and where required, posted. The turkey and trimmings have been ordered from the butcher and will be collected by Ally and Davie on Christmas Eve. A massive Sainsbury’s delivery of all the rest of the festive food will be delivered tomorrow morning. In other words, a very traditional Anderson Christmas, and I’m looking forward to it.

I became an Ice Breaker

This evening I went to see The Bodyguard at the Theatre Royal with Heather. It was very popular and the surrounding restaurants were packed with theatre-goers beforehand - we went to Ask Italian and I have never seen it so busy. Alexandra Burke played the rock star Rachel and she really was very good; her voice is magnificent. Benoit Marechal played the bodyguard and although his character didn’t need to sing or dance much he was a good actor with a nice touch of humour and I predict a major film breakthrough for him soon. At risk of judging by appearances, he is also very attractive. They were supported by an enthusiastic cast of singers and dancers. I have never seen the film so the story was all new to me, and it made me feel very nostalgic for the music of Whitney Houston, who was my age and became famous in the 1980s when we were in our early twenties. The mainly female audience loved the show, and there was much ribald laughter when the baddie appeared shirtless at one point; not quite producing the sinister effect that I’m sure the director was aiming for! I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
I heard an amusing anecdote today. Catherine had been at a Church house group recently and, by way of introduction, had mentioned to two people who didn’t know each other that they both knew me. This swiftly developed into an ice breaker:
“My name is ..... and I know Susan Anderson because I used to be her doctor”
“My name is ..... and I know Susan Anderson because I went to Uganda with her”
“My name is ..... and I know Susan Anderson because I’m in her book group and I went to London with her”
“My name is ..... and I know Susan Anderson because I used to job share with her” etc.
Eventually someone said “My name is ..... and I don’t know Susan Anderson!”
I thought that this was very funny!

Oh what fun we had

I’m wide awake in the middle of the night because we had a wee late night family emergency (it was to do with Grandma and she’s fine, but my adrenaline rush has not quite subsided!) We were at the Madness concert at the Hydro this evening with Alasdair and it was excellent, we were all on our feet dancing and singing. My absolute favourite Madness song is “Our House” but there are so many that I also like, for example “Wings of a Dove” and “Baggy Trousers.” The lyrics of the latter reflect wryly and kind of fondly on Suggs’s schooldays and it made me think of my teaching days; there were stressful times but also good times. It was certainly never dull!
I met two former pupils by chance today; one in the Post Office and one in a café. This is not an unusual occurrence, given that I live near all of my former schools, and I always find it a pleasant experience. One of them surprised me by apologising for the way he had behaved in my class and said “I’m sorry that I was such a nightmare!” Actually he wasn’t that badly behaved as I recall, and it was nice to see that he has grown into a handsome and pleasant young man. The other pupil has always been a delight; she rushed over to give me a hug, and again it was great to see her all grown up and happy. Both encounters made it all seem worthwhile!

Cookie Sugarsocks

We were rather disappointed on Saturday that we couldn’t make our traditional annual trip to Aberfoyle to purchase our Christmas tree. This was because of a truly appalling weather forecast, which included not only the possibility of heavy snow, but also “freezing rain”, which the BBC radio weather report assured us would turn into a sheet of ice as soon as it touched the ground. * We decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and decided to support a local business instead, the festively named “Elfie Trees”, which is a short walk from our house.
We found it easily enough because there were indeed a few elves hanging about the entrance, and in fact it was a really nice wee set up, with a Santa’s grotto and shop as well as a decent choice of Christmas trees. One of the elves looked rather familiar and turned out to be our lovely neighbour and trusty cat-sitter, Tina. We found out that her elf name is Cookie Sugarsocks, which is not something that we will let her forget in a hurry!
Ally, Davie and James soon got the tree set up in the lounge and we lit the fire and spent a very pleasant afternoon decorating it, listening to our good old Christmas music CD, and playing Trivial Pursuit (a blast from the past!) Then Marjory, Forrest, Jenny and Lucy came round for a Chinese meal later and we all watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing, which was great fun.
Sunday has been a lovely day. I wasn’t very enthusiastic when James decided that we needed a trip into town to finish off the Christmas shopping, but actually it went extremely smoothly. We were both in quite an inspired mood and were very happy with our purchases. We finished our trip with tea and scones in the café in John Lewis, at a wee table overlooking all the Christmas lights in Buchanan Galleries. Back home, both Cat and Chanel had arrived in Cambuslang and so there were a lively group of seven of us when Grandma came round for tea. Grandma was on good form, chatting away, and we all enjoyed Cat’s home made brownies with ice cream.

* the weather didn’t turn out as bad as predicted. The snow fell much further north than us, and the road conditions weren’t too bad. However it would have been very dreich on our outing, so we were still happy with our decision.

Pablo the cellist

Pablo Ferrández was certainly the star of the show on Thursday afternoon when I went to listen to Dvorák’s Cello concerto at the City Halls. As Allie pointed out, it’s nice to see someone who really enjoys their job! While waiting for his part to begin, you could tell that Pablo was loving the music, as he listened intently while swaying appreciatively in his seat at the front. Then when he played his cello he looked so happy and was smiling with the principal violinist of the SSO as they interacted musically. Such was his energy that from time to time he had to mop his brow with a little towel that he had brought along for the purpose. Even his eyebrows were energetic! I liked the concerto very much and so did the rest of the audience, who applauded enthusiastically and would not let Pablo leave without playing a wee solo. He wasn’t involved in the second half of the concert, which was Sibelius’ Symphony no. 2 in D major, so he joined the audience  and looked just as enthusiastic as during his own performance. What a fantastic young musician.

David is home for Christmas

David is home from Dundee for Christmas and it’s great to see him. This evening James and I took him out for dinner and to the cinema. Our meal at the Piper’s Tryst was tasty and the film “The Old Man and his Gun,” the recently retired Robert Redford’s last film, was entertaining although a bit long-winded towards the end I thought. Also, at 82, Robert Redford was really too old to be playing a sixty year old. During our meal David regaled us with tales of his scientific exploits. He has recently had an exam, a viva, and a symposium as well as preparing the draft of his dissertation. I find it fascinating that I have given birth to a scientist considering how little I understand science myself. Among many other subjects, we also discussed the uncanny valley, a concept which was news to me but I thought very interesting. Apparently robots that don’t really look very human, or robots who look exactly like humans, are acceptable to people. However in the middle of these two sides, which is the uncanny valley, the robots that look almost like humans, but not quite, make people feel uneasy and repulsed. It raises all sorts of questions about why this is, and explains why films with eerie dolls or evil clowns or zombies are scary.
We also caught David up with all of our news and plans. Ally appeared home later from his Christmas office night out in a very jolly mood, carrying a large doner kebab. 

Unicorn sighting

Today, as I was driving into Pollok Park to go for a walk with Kathryn, I saw a unicorn floating overhead! To be more accurate it was a child’s balloon in the shape of a unicorn, but its glittery pinkness looked surreal against the grey sky. Our walk culminated with coffee and excellent scones in the cosy basement café in Pollok House. 
In the afternoon I took Grandma for an eye check up at Hairmyres. We are well used to our routine now; I park at the drop off point, take Grandma in to the clinic, and then nip out to move the car to the car park. The process is reversed after the appointment.
Meanwhile, in London, Theresa May was having a much more stressful day, and ultimately survived a vote of no confidence against her by her own party. I don’t envy her. Politicians (of all parties) get a very bad press, but to be fair to them they at least start out striving for what they believe in, and it seems like an incredibly tough path to choose. 

Mild for December

Christmas is coming closer and closer. There have been a few frosty mornings, but not many. On one of these I was involved in a rescue of an elderly lady who had slipped on the ice. While trying to help her I slipped on the ice myself and skinned my knee, which was a bit embarrassing! Luckily another passer-by arrived and between the two of us we were able to help her back into her home, thankfully she was only a bit bruised.

However today I was struck by how mild it was when I was out and about. I had an appointment at the New Victoria Hospital in the afternoon about my persistent cough and as I strolled across the car park the breeze seemed almost warm. Having been cleared by ENT and Respiratory clinics, I have been referred to a physiotherapist. He is really positive and is convinced that the problem has been caused many years ago by a virus which affected my intercostal muscles. Strangely enough, I do remember something like this happening in the 1990s, I should have a look through my old diaries. So I have exercises to do which stretch the muscles around my ribs, and I have to gargle with mouthwash and use Vic’s menthol rub and be careful with my posture. I feel cautiously optimistic; it would be so great finally to get rid of this cough. My next appointment is in January. 

Mince Pies in Arrochar

We had very welcome houseguests at the weekend. Since their move North, we have urged Alison and Hugh to stay with us, not just to visit us, but also when they have appointments or social events in the Glasgow area. We were delighted when they took us up on this when they were attending a family party on Saturday evening. While they were out, James and I went to see the film of Mortal Engines, a book which all of our boys enjoyed when they were younger. It has a good story and the special effects of the huge traction cities were excellent. At the end credits we realised that our Peter Jackson theme of this year was continuing, because he was the producer! 

On Sunday we all (including Ally) went on the Hill-Walking Club annual Mince Pies outing. We walked about eight kilometres from Inveruglas to Arrochar and then had our celebration in the delightful Village Inn. They provided mulled wine and mince pies, and then who should appear but a rather familiar looking Santa, who gave us all gifts. Alison and Hugh fitted right in with the hill-walking club regulars and it was a really happy and convivial occasion.

High maintenance Cleopatra

On Thursday evening I went to see NT Live’s Antony and Cleopatra with some of the girls from my Cambuslang book club, plus Heather who sportingly came along at the last minute when someone had to drop out. I had booked the tickets for the Odeon at Springfield Quay, and we all arrived in good time and settled into our comfy reclining seats. I really enjoyed it. Although I have a rudimentary knowledge of the story, I have neither read Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra nor seen it performed, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found it exciting and fast paced, with an amazing revolving stage which whisked us from Egypt to Rome and back again. The actors were excellent, led by Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo in the title roles. When discussing it at the interval we all agreed that Cleopatra was very high maintenance! In fact both Antony and Cleopatra came across to me as very selfish, driven people, although their passion for each other seemed sincere. The ending involved a live snake which we were assured in the introduction would not be harmed in any way. Indeed, I noticed that after Cleopatra’s maidservant Charmian took her turn in being bitten by it, she managed to stagger behind the scenery long enough to return it safely to its handler before she finally keeled over! The play was long - three hours plus interval - but it held my attention and, being performed live in London, really felt almost like being at the theatre.

Wet but fun weekend

It has been a very wet weekend but I think that we have made the most of it. James convinced me that  the weather forecast had said that Saturday would be the driest of the two days, so in the morning we set off to walk from Cambuslang to Blantyre, a walk that we have done before but not for a while. That’s probably why I had forgotten the distance and was surprised that it was 12 km. The good news is that I took it in my stride (literally!) Perhaps my recent attempts at running are making me a little bit fitter? James’ promises of dry weather were ill-founded and it drizzled steadily the whole time.
When I got home I luxuriated in a warm bubble bath before we headed out for our Saturday evening fun; dinner and then a concert. Heather, Ewan, Ally and Cat were all going to the Midland concert at the Old Fruitmarket, and James and I were going to Australian Pink Floyd at the Hydro at the other end of town. After dropping the car off at our favourite secret parking spot near the Hydro we jumped  on a train to Argyle Street and walked for about ten minutes to the Italian Kitchen to meet the others for dinner. On our way James pointed out that it was at the furthest end of Merchant City from the station and that we would be cutting it fine for our concert. I was of course thrilled that the timing necessitated a luxurious taxi ride back to the Hydro rather than a train - regular readers will know that I always have doubts about public transport due to many bad experiences. The meal was delicious - I have been to the Italian Kitchen quite a few times but I don’t remember being quite so impressed with the food as I was on Saturday; my risotto with haddock was excellent. The company was also most pleasant and we had a convivial meal, with Ally and Cat wearing cowboy hats in preparation for their country music concert.  I would have quite liked to see Midland myself, however James had booked tickets to Aussie Pink Floyd ages ago and I have to admit that they were very good. The enthusiastic middle-aged audience were 90% male and seemed to be impressed by the authenticity of the performance, which apparently has the blessing of the members of the real Pink Floyd. There was an Australian twist to the video clips, and near the end we were treated to a giant inflatable kangaroo bouncing up and down on the stage!
Sunday was indeed a much wetter day than Saturday. James needed new climbing boots so we went to Tiso and had a tasty lunch before James spent an inordinately long time trying on two near identical pairs of boots and testing them by walking round Tiso’s rocky track in the middle of the shop. And then we lit the fire in the lounge and had a cosy afternoon and read our books and made a few travel plans for next year. So although it was a wet weekend, it was actually rather lovely.

To run or not to run

I have been using an app on my phone called Couch to 5K in order to try out a bit of running. I have never been good at running, not even when I was at school. In fact whenever I try to run fast for whatever reason I often end up by falling down, the evidence of which is some quite bad scars on my knees. The app starts by encouraging you to run for 90 seconds then walk for 90 seconds, repeating about half a dozen times. Then each session increases your exercise, presumably until you can run for five kilometres. I say presumably, because I have only completed the first five sessions out of a total of twenty-four. I’m not sure whether I will finish the course. It’s not just that I am unfit and clumsy, the main reason is that I derive absolutely no pleasure in the activity. Friends who are runners have described to me the joy they feel as they speed along, and their exhilaration at the end of their run. None of these feelings have happened to me. 

When I went out running in light rain on Wednesday I was out of breath and gasping throughout, and at the end of my allotted time I found myself resting on a low wall in increasingly heavy rain about ten minutes walk from my house. Then I realised that I was just around the corner from my sister-in-law’s home. Inspired, I texted her and invited myself round for a coffee. Not only did Marjory make me a very welcome coffee she also very kindly gave me a lift home later! 

However the jury is still out for me on running. Not only am I rubbish at it, I don’t enjoy it. Also I think I will need to buy more supportive underwear if I continue. I will report further on my progress or lack thereof.

Flora loves David Attenborough

David has always been the main David Attenborough fan in our house, avidly watching his many nature series. However he has been usurped by Floof, who last night stared fixedly at the television for a whole hour as she watched the “Lion” episode of his latest series, “Dynasties.” I have never seen Floof concentrating on anything for so long, and it wasn’t just the movement and noises of lions and their prey running across the screen that held her attention; she was just as interested in the close up shots of the lions’ faces so she must recognise their feline features. It was hilarious to see her so fascinated - but I have a feeling that if she ever met her big cousins from the Serengeti that she so admires, they would slaughter and eat her as a small snack straight away.
James, Ally and I indulged in a bit of hero worship ourselves this evening; we went to see “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the cinema; the biopic of Freddie Mercury. I wasn’t sure how this would work, because who could possibly adequately portray the amazing Freddie? But Rami Malek was fantastic and so were the other actors. After the first five minutes I forgot that it wasn’t the real band, and the music was great. Having been approved by the surviving members of Queen, who are understandably keen to portray Freddie fondly, the film was perhaps a little sanitised, but we didn’t mind and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Five March

Glasgow March 5 1971 is poem by Edwin Morgan that I studied at school. Although not one of my favourite poems, the image of the young couple as they fall into the plate glass window is certainly striking - a snapshot of a moment in time. When I started at Glasgow University in 1979, Edwin Morgan was still a professor there, but unfortunately due to my youth and ignorance I never sought out the opportunity to meet this remarkable Glaswegian poet.
I didn’t make any connection with the poem when James chose a recently opened restaurant called Five March for our meal on Saturday evening, recommended to us by one of his foodie colleagues. We went there with Heather and Ewan and had a tasty meal of small plates made with unusual combinations of delicious and fresh ingredients. We asked the waiter (who I suspect may also have been one of the owners) about the origin of its name and when he told us that it was named after an Edwin Morgan poem I immediately realised which one and was delighted by the literary reference!
Later we met up with Ally to see Jools Holland and his band at the Armadillo. As usual it was a tremendously good show with some of his favourite guests; Marc Almond, Eddi Reader and of course the marvellous Ruby Turner were all in excellent voice. When we were strolling towards the entrance we noticed that huge quantities of very young teenagers were flocking to the adjacent Hydro*. They were very lively, and in high spirits, shouting and screaming and throwing drinks bottles about. Not that we Jools Holland fans weren’t in high spirits, in fact we were soon all jigging about as much as our aged limbs would allow, but we were definitely much better behaved!

* They were going to see a band called the Courteeners, of whom I have to admit I have never heard.

Only remembered for what we have done

On Friday I went over to Carmunnock to watch their Drama Club’s winter show, which this year was a moving tribute to the villagers from 100 years ago; the soldiers who fought in the First World War and the villagers at home who worked to support the war effort. The actors all played real people and you could tell that it was very personal to the community. At the end the entire cast sang a hymn “Only Remembered” about being remembered for your deeds which had many of us in tears, myself included. It was really respectful and a lovely way for the village to remember and honour their forebears.

Fading away like the stars in the morning,

Losing their light in the glorious sun.
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Only remembered, only remembered, 
Only remembered for what we have done.
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Only the truth that in life we have spoken,
Only the seed that in life we have sown.
These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Who’ll sing the anthem and who’ll tell the story?
Will the line hold, will it scatter and run?
Shall we at last be united in glory?
Only remembered for what we have done.

by Horatius Bonar 

The next day we met Heather and Ewan at the Art Galleries to attend a talk with slides and film clips about the identification and reburial of 250 Australian and British soldiers who were killed at the battle of Fromelles on 19th and 20th July 1916. Heather’s Mum and Dad had told her about it and they very kindly invited us along. It was absolutely fascinating. The battle was a disaster for the Allies with 5500 Australian soldiers and 2000 British soldiers killed or wounded. The Germans buried the dead but eight communal burial areas were overlooked in the 1920s when most of the war dead were reinterred by the War Graves Commission. In 2008 the exercise began to exhume, identify, and bury the men, this time in their own graves with headstones. Not all could be identified, but a remarkable number were, using clothing, badges, dental and DNA testing. The film clips showing the gratitude of the families of the soldiers were especially moving. One mother had written to the authorities in the early 1920s desperately hoping for confirmation of where her son was buried. Sadly she was long dead by the exhumation but now her son has been identified and reburied, and we saw a photograph of his gravestone. For the second time in two days I was moved to tears.

Government Response

Alasdair gave me a challenge after he and Cat attended the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in London on 11th November. He wanted me to find out what piece of music is played while the Prime Minister and the other politicians lay their wreaths. I did a bit of googling but, although you can easily find a list of the music that is played each year, I wasn’t sure which piece was played when. So what to do? I contacted the government of course! In fact I sent an email to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, because they organise the Remembrance Day service.
And I was impressed when only a couple of days later I received this response:

Dear Ms Anderson,
Thank you for your correspondence of 15 November about the music that was played on Remembrance Sunday when the Prime Minister and others lay their wreaths. I am replying as a member of the Ministerial Support Team.
The department can confirm that the music played was Beethoven's Funeral March No. 1 - Johann Heinrich Walch.
I hope that this information is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Dempster Marples
Ministerial Support Team

What a helpful response - and as Ally pointed out, what a great name!

Heavy eye sockets

Last night I went to see The Madness of George III being performed in the theatre in Nottingham Playhouse - except that I watched it with Jackie at the Grosvenor Cinema in Glasgow! It’s the first time that I have gone to see a live performance being filmed and transmitted into cinemas, unless you count the live Q & A sessions after the Michael Caine and Peter Jackson films recently. But this was the whole performance, and it felt strange that although we were seeing it on the screen it was being performed live. I have seen various similarly broadcast productions advertised and it seems to be an increasingly popular (and cost effective) way of seeing live theatre performed by top luvvies.
I was slightly concerned that it would lose out by being both less polished and edited than a film, and less immediate and personal than the theatre, but I needn’t have worried. It was brilliant and funny and the acting was amazing especially by Mark Gatiss, and there was a nice wee introduction before it started. This was useful for me because I have never seen the film, so it gave me a bit of background. Jackie on the other hand has seen the film more than once and it is one of her favourites, so we were both extremely happy as we sat in the comfy Grosvenor cinemas seats and enjoyed the fine performance and chatted at the interval. I would definitely do this again, which is just as well because I’m already booked to go with my Cambuslang book club to see NT Live’s Antony and Cleopatra in December.
Today I have not felt 100%. I went swimming, and did some housework and had a really nice meet-up with Jennifer G, but by tea-time I was really flagging and took to my bed. When James asked rather tetchily what was the matter with me, I explained that my eye sockets felt heavy, which he found rather amusing.

Lunch at the River Café

We each chose a destination for our last day in London. James chose the Bank of England Museum. It’s only open mid week so our extended weekend was a good chance to visit. For me the museum was mildly interesting and I enjoyed its human interest stories, for example Kenneth Grahame (who wrote “Wind in the Willows) worked there and retired early due to workplace bullying. Or how an honest (luckily) sewer worker demonstrated to the bank officials that the bank was not secure by appearing out of a drain in the basement! James on the other hand was fascinated by the history of the place; why there was a need for a central bank and the early promissory notes. We both tried holding a gold bar (safely stored behind bars so that we couldn’t nick it) which was very heavy.
Then it was time for my choice; The River Café. Wow. Just wow. It’s at Hammersmith right beside the river and involved a journey by tube followed by a fifteen minute walk. I have wanted to go there for ages and the last time I booked it I got a phone call to ask me to postpone because they were having a private party that day. So I was very impressed when the waitress brought us complimentary champagne to say thanks, they must have made a note on my email address. Not that I could drink the champagne, but James certainly enjoyed both glasses! The decor of the restaurant is modern and bright, and the food was Italian and excellent. But as a shameless celebrity spotter I was blown away to notice that top luvvies Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson AND Tim Rice were sitting at the VERY NEXT TABLE! Oh my goodness! I was beyond excited. I went to the toilet twice during the meal so that I could casually and subtly get a better look at them on my way past. It was so exciting! James has informed me that it would be unfair to blog about what they were eating so I will refrain. We had a lovely walk along the river after lunch. I said to James “I bet that you have a much more exciting time in London when I’m with you,” to which he replied “Well, I certainly have a more expensive time when you’re with me!” 
When we got to London City Airport for our flight home, guess who was on the same flight? Was it perchance another celebrity? It was our Ewan, that’s who, on his way home from a business meeting in London. This was even better than seeing a celebrity because we could chat with him rather than glancing surreptitiously at him! And now we are home, reunited with the cats and Alasdair.

Sunday evening in Soho

Today we set off on the Northern Line to Colindale to visit the RAF Museum. It was my idea because I thought that James would like it, and it was an absolute triumph. James was just so happy and we wandered around all the hangars for three and a half hours. There are six large hangars filled with MANY aircraft. James looked at every single plane and kept up a very informative running commentary e.g. how to tell the difference between a Hurricane and a Spitfire (wing-shape and height of cockpit). As we left, James mentioned that it had been a very good “initial visit” and that he would like to return to spend more time there! MORE time? I was flabbergasted, but if that makes him happy then we shall return.
Later we went to Soho, where we found that the Christmas decorations are up and lit. At the entrance to Carnaby Street there was a sign which said “Welcome to Sohoho Ho Ho Ho” which I found rather amusing. We went to Cahoots, a tiny forties style pub in an old underground station, with 1940s decor and live music; it was like a step back in time and had huge variety of cocktails which were served in quirky drinking vessels. It had a great atmosphere. We went to nearby Dehesa for really gorgeous tapas, before strolling along Regent Street which was decorated with huge and spectacular angels. We were surprised to see several shapely young folk, both male and female, cavorting about in Piccadilly Circus wearing only pants and body paint! They looked a bit chilly actually, and were chanting something along the lines of “We love chaos!” 
Oh I do love London. 

721 Steps

There are 528 steps up to the Golden Gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral and I climbed all of them today with James, Christine and Cat. And we were rewarded with fantastic views of London. The people crossing the Millenium Bridge looked like an army of ants, and over on Blackfriars Bridge we could see a crowd of teeny tiny protestors with tiny colourful placards. The cluster of the most recent and (in my opinion) ill-matched City buildings were lit up brightly by the sunshine and looked almost attractive. It was all simply stunning. A convivial lunch in Paternoster Square with the Reids followed. How lovely to be sitting in the City of London with good food and excellent company on a sunny autumn afternoon.
Our evening entertainment was the musical “Bat out of Hell” at the Dominion Theatre (chosen by James). We were cutting it rather fine for our pre-theatre meal at The Ivy (chosen, of course, by me!) and when we arrived at Covent Garden Tube Station we headed for the stairs to avoid the huge queues at the lifts. As we started pounding up the stairs I heard an ominous tannoy announcement “There are 193 steps at this station” Whaaaat? It was too late to change our minds and anyway fleet-footed James had already sprinted upwards out of sight. To make matters worse, I had boldly overtaken a few people at the start of the winding staircase and then had the humiliation of them all passing me as I slowly slogged upwards towards street level. I was very out of breath when we arrived at the restaurant but I was soon soothed by the delightful ambience of The Ivy. This was our second visit so we are practically regulars. I just love it so much and the food was fantastic.
Bat out of Hell has the most ridiculous plot; a post-apocalyptic combination of West Side Story and Peter Pan, with gratuitously revealing outfits straight from the Rocky Horror Show, and a little bit of the aging dilemma of Highlander thrown in. However the music was great, the cast were enthusiastic and very talented, and it was all great fun. 

The Gospel according to Footloose

It has been a rather pleasant week, although I found the first part of Tuesday to be rather trying. It involved a lot of driving in surprisingly heavy traffic, first to get a minor repair on the Audi, and then to pick up a headboard for Grandma’s bed. She has now moved from her upstairs bedroom to a room downstairs which James and Ally have set up as a lovely new bedroom. Grandma has been in hospital for the last four days so we have been up and down to Hairmyres constantly, but she has responded very well to treatment and was discharged today. She is delighted to be home.
Anyway, when I was at the Audi garage I decided to go to the toilet and when I got inside, the handle broke, so I found myself locked in. I phoned the customer service desk on their external line from inside the toilet because I was too embarrassed to thump on the door. I was soon freed but I felt a bit flustered because all of the other customers were staring at me when I was rescued. By the time I got home with the headboard it was time to jump straight back into the car to meet Heather in town for a meal before our theatre outing. I was particularly keen to be on time since I kept her waiting last time, but of course the traffic was still dreadful and I became more and more stressed as I was held up at every single red light. In the end I was less than ten minutes late and I nabbed a semi-legal parking space straight away (semi-legal because my back tires were legal but my front tires were on a double yellow line) and from that point the day improved mightily. It was lovely to see Heather, and we had a good chat while enjoying a tasty dinner at Ardnamurchan, just across the road from the Theatre Royal. The play was excellent; it was a dramatisation of the novel “Still Alice”which tackles the difficult subject of dementia in a very sensitive way. And I didn’t get a parking ticket.
I was at the theatre again on Thursday evening, this time Eastwood Theatre to see an ex-colleague in the musical Footloose. I had dinner with Karen and Audrey first. Now, I have been feeling much less stressed recently, to the extent that I am not worrying about much at all. It’s great. But there is something holding me back; it’s like I don’t feel that I deserve to be happy. I have had some really sad and difficult times and it’s actually really difficult to let go of that. My goal for a long time was to make my Mum better but of course I ultimately failed at that! And then I have had a great deal of stress at work, although I did deal with it and overcame it. Over the past year I have been gradually feeling better though. And then as I sat watching the musical, which was great fun, I was very moved by something that the minister said towards the end of the play. It was like an epiphany for me.
I looked it up online today, and here it is in its entirety:
“Now, somehow I got into my head that my loss was the greatest. That my pain was the deepest. And then, last night, someone much younger than that made me realize how tightly I had been holding onto that memory. A memory that has weighed me down as surely as a great stone. And in that moment, I did something I haven’t done for a very long time: I laid down my burden. It was a terrifying moment. And it was exhilarating.”
Wow. Who would have thought that dialogue from Footloose would have made such a big impression on me. I’m not sure that I have managed to lay down my burden yet but it certainly feels a bit lighter these days.

One hundred years

Ally and Cat watched the Armistice Day Ceremony and Parade in London, from the corner of Whitehall and Downing Street. They had a tremendous view of the wreath-laying ceremony and the military parade, followed by a 10,000 strong “people’s parade”. What an historic occasion to be part of, one hundred years since the end of the 1st World War. James and I watched the ceremony on television from the comfort of our couch; we had thought about going to church but Grandma isn’t too well, and James spent most of the day at her house.
I joined him later on because I was at a fund-raiser for an Autism base in the afternoon where I ate too much cake and impulsively bought a gorgeous gold sequinned dress in 1920s style. Christine said “You will look like a slapper!” which took me aback slightly until she corrected herself and said “I mean a flapper!” I thought that this was very funny.

Looking for ancestors

I have been doing a wee bit of research on my Rennie ancestors recently and have come up against a missing link. No, I don’t mean the Missing Link between man and the apes, but an ancestor (my great-great-grandfather James Rennie) who may or may not be related to the eminent and prolific agriculturalist George Rennie. He was prolific as regards his progeny, of whom he begat eighteen, with two wives. Well, he did marry his first wife when he was fourteen years of age! Presumably this was allowed in the eighteenth century. Anyway, to prove the link, I need to find more details of the aforementioned James Rennie, who may be a grandson of the fecund George.
I have some documentation from one of my cousins which implies that he is buried at the village of Stow in the Borders, so on Saturday I persuaded James to come with me on a road trip to find James Rennie’s gravestone. Well, it turned out to be a wild goose chase. We searched both the old and new graveyards at Stow to no avail. Not a single Rennie was to be found, and only one Archibald (his wife’s maiden name). A friendly local historian spotted us and came over to chat, but he he hadn't heard of the family. The quest will continue.
We consoled ourselves with some excellent tea and scones in the delightful coffee shop in Stow, before setting off on a walk up nearby Birkscairn Hill - well there had to be a hill for James didn’t there? It was quite steep so James strode ahead and I went part of the way up at my own pace. Despite the disappointingly slow journey home due to the Satnav taking us on some very winding roads through deepest Lanarkshire (with hindsight we should have gone back via the M8) it had been a really good day out.

Walking among ghosts on Glasgow Green

When we were at the fireworks display at Glasgow Green on Monday evening, I enjoyed the sense of history that I always feel when I go there, so on Thursday I popped back over there to have a walk around and a coffee in the Winter Gardens of the People’s Palace. I love that the land has belonged to the people of Glasgow since the 15th century when it was gifted to them by the King, and attempts to use it for other purposes such as coal-mining have always been knocked back. So over the centuries it has been used for grazing animals, washing clothes, drying fishing nets and swimming. In the 18th century Bonnie Prince Charlie camped here with his army while demanding food and clothing from the reluctant Glaswegians, and twenty years later James Watt strolled around while thinking of ideas to improve the steam engine.

Many political meetings and marches have taken place on Glasgow Green in the 19th and 20th centuries, including those of the suffragettes, and anti-war protests from the 1st World War onwards. It is home to rowing clubs, there are playgrounds and a football centre. It hosts music festivals and of course the annual firework display.
When I go there, I like to imagine that I am treading in the footsteps all the Glaswegians who have been there before me, including some of my own ancestors. I love the People’s Palace and enjoyed my coffee there; the light in the Winter Gardens is always warm even when the weather outside is dull. Nearby I came across an attractive but rather mossy statue of James Watt; he looks much friendlier than his more formal statue in George Square. I wandered onwards to Nelson’s Monument and then along the banks of the Clyde to the very beautiful St Andrew’s Suspension Bridge. I stood in the middle and watched the river flowing beneath me, which was very soothing. I was amazed at how brightly coloured are the designs on the stonework of Templeton Carpet Factory, famous for being modelled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice; it really is gorgeous. Although it hasn’t been a carpet factory for a long time, it’s still a thriving business centre, including the WEST Brewery where we dined on Monday evening. Glasgow Green really is a great and historic park, and even on quite a dreich afternoon it was being well used by parents with pushchairs, runners, and random visitors like me. And thousands of ghosts. 

More Fireworks

James persuaded me to accompany him to Glasgow Green yesterday for the annual 5th November fireworks display. I don’t always go to this because I’m not very comfortable with big, council-organised firework displays. If it should go wrong it could go very wrong indeed with about 600 lb of explosives, and when the children were younger I always preferred to have our own firework displays in the garden, which I could supervise and make sure they were safe. There is also the chance of someone in the very large crowd at Glasgow Green smuggling in their own fireworks and wreaking havoc with them, although to be fair that rarely happens. Anyway, we took the train to Bridgeton, only two stops along the line from us. The fireworks were indeed spectacular, especially the finale, and we had a celebratory dinner at the nearby West Brewery, one of the many trendy micro-breweries that are springing up everywhere. The food was Germanic and tasty, with lots of sausages and goulash soup and apple strudel. When we were still at the firework display we got a message from Alasdair, who was playing football with his colleagues, to enquire about dinner and we invited him to join us. He then traversed the city from Townhead to Bridgeton on foot and arrived only fifteen minutes after us. The three of us had a hearty dinner and a good chat, before catching the train home, which was full of my ex pupils who had clearly had a bit to drink. Luckily (and possibly thanks to the alcohol) they seemed to remember me fondly!

The Aftermath

James did a lot of tidying up after the party - he hates to leave things messy overnight - so by Sunday morning the house was fairly tidy with the glassware lined up to be washed and the dishwasher going like a merry-go-round. James and I went to meet Jenn and Russ for breakfast at the airport before their flight, and it was nice to have a post-party chat. Then we met up with Heather and Ewan in town for a coffee and to return Heather’s phone which she had left at our house after the festivities, and thence to meet David and Chanel at Buchanan Galleries where we bought David the jeans and jacket that he had requested for his birthday.
By mid-afternoon we were back home and ready to finish the cleaning up, and were met with a lovely surprise. Alasdair had done all of the rest of the cleaning and tidying including washing all the glasses! Oh joy! We were able to have an afternoon nap before Grandma came round for tea, it was fantastic! I really did enjoy our party but what a pleasure it was to snuggle down under the duvet for a couple of hours with no plans or preparation to do. Grandma was on good form and after tea we looked at Ally’s holiday photos (the ones I had been too ill to look at on Thursday!) and Jamie rather heart-warmingly phones to find out how the party had gone. We all had a fairly early night. The party is most definitely over.

Party!

Well we have had our party! We ended up with fifty-six people which worked out fine although it was a bit daunting when a lot of folk started to arrive at once. Did I enjoy it? Well yes actually I did, but I must admit that it is even better in hindsight, now that I know that it all went well and people seemed to enjoy themselves. While the party was going on James and I were so busy dashing around introducing people and sorting out the drinks and food that my one regret is not being able to have a proper chat with anybody. The guests behaved exactly as good guests should, by chatting and socialising. Many of our friends don’t know each other at all but I noticed that they were all mingling and finding connections. There was much laughter and even some dancing. Quite a lot of dancing actually!
Meanwhile Ally and Davie and friends (Andrew and Sandy who were just brilliant above and beyond the call of duty) were all extremely helpful, taking coats upstairs, helping everyone to drinks and food, and later on providing an excellent firework display which was very loud and spectacular. The weather forecast for the evening was wind and 97% chance of heavy rain! Well we came up trumps with a mostly dry half hour at about 10 pm and it was mild enough to open the patio doors so that people could watch the fireworks.
Meanwhile Jennifer and Chanel were the queens of the kitchen! I had made chilli and also ordered in a catered buffet, but it didn’t look substantial enough so Jennifer nipped down to Morrison’s to get baguettes and pesto to make bruschetta - which were delicious and very highly praised by the guests. She and Russell had flown up from Buckinghamshire to come to the party and then she went out to buy and make food for it! Chanel helped with the bruschetta and also made all the mini oatcakes with cream cheese and salmon, and organised all the layout and much more besides. She and Jennifer were absolute stars.
I had phoned Jamie in New Zealand earlier in the day when I was feeling worried about the party and he was very reassuring. He said, “Mum, these are all people who want to come to your party, and they will join in and have a good time.” And how right he was. Of course the guests were great, because our friends (and family) happen to be very nice people.

Party Prep

We are having a party this evening to celebrate our joint eleventy-first birthday (I am fifty-five and James is fifty-six!) As Tolkien fans will know, this is a tribute to Bilbo Baggins’ eleventy-first birthday party which takes place at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Our birthdays were many months ago, so it’s really just an excuse to have a party, with a nod to Tolkien whose books have always been part of our lives in various ways. My Mum and Dad read the books when they were first published in the 1950s and my Dad gave them to my Mum as part of his courtship. I read both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings at a young age, as did James. And by the time our own children were old enough to appreciate them, the hugely popular films were coming out, which they enjoyed watching with my Mum. Last year we visited Hobbiton in New Zealand which was great fun.
So the invitations went out in Tolkienesque font, complete with maps of the Shire and quotes from the books. Ally and Cat gave us a sign from the gift shop in Hobbiton which says “No Admittance except on Party Business” which is now affixed to our front door. We have spent today decorating the house with lanterns (seemed hobbity) and preparing a Hobbit style party feast. David and Chanel are going to help me with the food, James is in charge of drinks, and Ally and Andrew are sorting out the fireworks. This will be a challenge as the weather is wet and windy! All we need now are the guests!

A bird in Ally’s hand

It isn’t unusual for me to come downstairs in the morning to find a large amount of feathers drifting around in the hall. These are sometimes, but not always, found near the sad little dead body of a bird; often a sparrow, and on occasion a robin (perhaps the cats’ idea of a festive gift for us). Sometimes there is no bird to be seen, presumably because the cats have taken it back outside. So today when I found a goodly pile of feathers at the foot of the stairs, I hoovered them up and thought no more of it.
Later I saw Tom staring fixedly at the top of my pulley which was festooned with washing. And there was a little sparrow hopping around up there and watching us warily. By the way, I love my pulley, it’s so handy and can carry a full load of washing.
I waved ineffectively at the bird but it showed no inclination to come down, so I waited until James came home and asked him to deal with it. He certainly noised the bird up by flicking a tea towel at it but it just flew around the room crashing into the glass of the door. So we texted our secret weapon - Alasdair. When he arrived home from work he brought through the step ladder and there was a lot of flapping (by the bird) but in the end it took both James and Ally to capture the unfortunate avian and wrap it securely in a tea towel (which has since been washed). We pride ourselves on our hygiene! When Ally set the birdie free outside, it flew off energetically into the darkness, hopefully that means that it still has enough feathers to get by.
Later when I took the washing off the pulley I found that our fowl friend had left a little present on my trousers - bird poo!

Aches and pains

I have just had the most dreadful evening. I had one of my occasional terrible gut aches, probably brought on by eating six satsumas while making the dinner. I love the tasty, sharp satsumas that you get at this time of year, but six turned out to be too many especially since I then wolfed down a hearty dinner of home made beef stew. It didn’t take long for the consequences to arrive. After dinner Ally had started showing us his photos of his holiday in Jordan, and they were really good, but I started getting excruciating stomach pains that radiated right through to my back. I had to excuse myself and paced the house like a wounded lion, as the pain got worse and worse. I couldn’t sit down because that seemed to make it even sorer, although walking about didn’t do much good either. From time to time my stomach rumbled promisingly but nothing transpired.
No enquiries as to my well being were made by either James or Ally. To be fair, this has happened before and they both had work in the morning, but a solicitous word of comfort might have helped a bit. Instead they took themselves off to bed in due course, and at one point when I was shouting particularly loudly for my Mum (why do I still do that?) I’m sure that I heard a voice saying “Shut up.” Not my Mum sending me a message from the afterworld, but the harsh, unsympathetic tones of an Anderson male.
Eventually I vomited copiously which brought almost complete relief, and I decided that since the satsumas were probably acidic I should drink a glass of (alkaline?) milk to neutralise the effects.*
Despite my almost complete lack of scientific knowledge this seems to have the desired result and I’m now tucked up in bed, pain free. What a relief.
While I’m on the subject of my ailments, I have had a very sore hand this week - not a part of my body that has ever troubled me. The fleshy part under my thumb is very achy, and so is the back of my hand blow my index finger; it almost feels like there’s a knife sticking into it, especially when I try to grip something. I presume that I have pulled a muscle and hopefully it will be better soon because it’s really annoying me.
Oh it feels SO GOOD that my poor old gut has stopped taking revenge on me!

* I have just done a google search to find out which foods are acidic / alkaline and it looks like I have got it completely the wrong way round, but it seems to have balanced out anyway!

A foray into Russian literature

After going to see Viv Groskop at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August, I read her book The Anna Karenina Fix, which was a light-hearted run through some of the Russian classics and what life lessons can be learned from them. It re-ignited my interest in Mikhail Bulgakov; he had such a difficult life due to being a writer in Stalin’s Russia. Anything that he wrote was banned by the government and he had to live in fear of being arrested, as he saw his fellow intellectuals being arrested and even executed. I read The Master and Margarita a few years ago but I didn’t fully realise how subversive it is - it wasn’t published for decades after his death. Bulgakov was desperate to travel the world and dreamed of gong to Paris but Stalin never allowed him to leave the Soviet Union and he died aged only forty-eight. I went on to read a collection of Bulgakov’s diaries and letters called Manuscripts Don’t Burn and it was really interesting. I loved the few Russian novels that I have read and I can feel myself being drawn back there.

Autumn Leaves in Rouken Glen

These past few days it has become a lot chillier, not surprising I suppose since it is nearly November. There has been frost on the grass on Sunday and Monday, but it has been very sunny with blue skies, so on Sunday we wrapped Grandma up snugly and took her for an outing to Rouken Glen park. She’s very frail and was happy to use her wheelchair, which meant that we could take her all the way up to the pond and the waterfall, and she chatted about how beautiful were the autumn colours. The park was busy, with people of all ages out enjoying the sunshine. I remember that in the early 1980s it was threatened with closure by Glasgow District Council - what a shame that would have been. Luckily it is now run by East Ren. After our walk we had a cup of tea in the garden centre and Grandma chose her Christmas cards, she was very pleased with her outing and her purchases.
And then in the evening James and I collected Ally from the airport; he was telling us all about his adventures with Cat on their holiday to Jordan, it sounds marvellous. And finally we FaceTimed Jamie in New Zealand; he was in excellent spirits and looking forward to NZ summer. It was a good family weekend.

Oktoberfest in Glasgow

Last night James and I found ourselves in the Bavaria Brauhaus in Bothwell Street, on the last day of Oktoberfest, Glasgow style. Unfortunately we had missed the oompah band that had been entertaining the punters earlier, but there was still a festive atmosphere, a DJ playing 80s music, and a huge selection of German beer from which James chose his favourite weißbier. We had already had our dinner in Tempus, the restaurant in the Grand Central Hotel, thanks to Marjory and Forrest’s generous gift of a voucher for the venue last Christmas. We decided that it was high time that we used it and we enjoyed a slap up dinner. Beforehand we had a slightly mystified wander around the busy interior of the hotel, nearly gatecrashing someone’s wedding in the process, but after making our way up and down several staircases we found where we were supposed to be. The food was tasty and the service was friendly.
The train home was very crowded and many of the clientele were very, very inebriated. There was much jocularity, pushing, shoving, shouting and a lot of people were eating fish suppers. Despite all of this it was not the worst train journey I have ever been on!

Hurricane - 303 Squadron

Recently James mentioned a film that he wanted to see at the cinema. It’s called Hurricane, and is about Polish airmen during the Second World War, who had escaped from occupied Europe to Britain, and who were formed into a Polish squadron of the RAF. However when we checked the cinema listings, we found out that we were too late and it was finished. So we decided to stay at home and watch a film on television instead. James was serving out our curry while I looked for a film to watch - and guess what? The film was available on the Virgin Media On Demand Service. James was very surprised and pleased that we could watch it after all!

The Polish pilots were at first greeted with suspicion by the British but their flying skills earned them respect and they were the highest scoring of the Hurricane squadrons during the Battle of Britain. What was very sad was that after the end of the war they were not included in the 1946 London victory parade for political reasons, because they were loyal to the old pro-democracy Polish government-in-exile. Instead, representatives from the new Soviet-backed Polish government were invited. The airmen were invited at the last minute to march with the RAF but declined, and then the Soviet-backed Polish Government didn’t turn up either - because the pilots had been invited. It was certainly an interesting film but there was something kind of awkward about the script, it seemed a bit stilted sometimes and I felt that it could have told the story better. But I learned some new things; I remember my Mum and Dad talking about how badly Poland was let down by the Allies after the war.

Bizet not Brahms

I went to Symphony, Soup and a Sandwich today at the RCH for the second time. Catherine came too and we had a nice chat over lunch. Lunch was held in a dining area beside the Strathclyde Suite where the concert was held. It’s fair to say that Catherine and I felt quite youthful compared to most of the other customers! We were seated at round tables for about ten people and the atmosphere was friendly. The lady next to me overheard me mentioning Bizet and told me that I was mistaken, and that we were going to listen to Brahms, which was printed on her ticket. After having a look at it I gently pointed out that she had brought her ticket for January instead of for October! We were offered scones or cakes as well as our soup and sandwiches, followed by coffee or tea, so by the time we went into the hall to take our seats I felt quite replete.
More people arrived for the actual concert and the hall was full. A younger crowd joined our ranks and I wonder if some of them were on their lunch hour from work. First we were treated to Fauré’s gentle Masques et Bergamasques, and then we heard Bizet’s Symphony in C which was very lively. Conducting the RSNO was the enthusiastic young conductor Tung-Chieh Chuang. I thoroughly enjoyed the music; what a lovely way to spend lunch-time.

Psychedelic

Having been to see Roger Waters performing in Prague in May, James and I recently went to see his erst-while band mate Nick Mason in concert at the Armadillo in Glasgow. Nick Mason was the drummer in Pink Floyd, and he as with his newly formed band “Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets.” This included former Spandau Ballet singer Gary Kemp. James explained to me that much of what they played was early Pink Floyd music from the 1960s, and he seemed to enjoy it very much. So did the rest of the audience, clearly all Pink Floyd devotees. I did like it fairly well myself, finding only some of it too obscure for me. By obscure I mean not tuneful enough. I like a proper melody.
Since Richard Wright and Syd Barrett are dead, James pointed out that we need to find out if David Gilmour will be touring soon so that we will have been to concerts by all three living Pink Floyd members. Of course in 1988 I did see Pink Floyd play at Wembley - although Roger Waters had left the group by then. James saw all four of them at Earls Court in 1980 when he went to see The Wall with Gordon. He certainly is a stalwart Pink Floyd fan!

Swimming Bangers

A few months ago I purchased a set of waterproof earphones with an inbuilt MP3 player, with the intention of using them to listen to music during my swimming sessions. Needless to say, when they arrived I had no idea of how to load music on, so they lay on a shelf for some time. Enter David, who very kindly set up a file of the sort of exuberant music that I wanted, gave it the title “Mum’s Swimming Bangers” and started loading it onto my MP3 player. After this promising start, progress ground to a halt because the music stubbornly refused to be uploaded. Then in September, enter Jamie, who, after much footering, successfully uploaded my music. Since then I kind of forgot all about it - until today!
After yoga, I went for my swim at Hamilton, armed with my swish headphones. There was a slight hitch at the poolside when I couldn’t remember how to switch them on, but luckily a young and helpful pool attendant showed me how, and soon I was swimming up and down the pool while listening to some of my favourite music. I loved it, and I felt really happy and well disposed towards my fellow swimmers. Several people even stopped me to ask where I got the earphones! I will definitely use them again.

Rainbows over Ullswater

After another comfortable night in the Pooley Bridge Inn, followed by a slap up breakfast, we bade farewell to our hill-walking club chums and set off for a Sunday morning walk. Our destination was a small hill behind Pooley Bridge called HeughScar. As we walked up the steady incline I began to feel quite nauseous; my poached eggs and toast washed down with copious amounts of coffee felt as if they were churning my around in my tummy as if in a washing machine. James was understanding when I asked for a rest fifteen minutes from the top, where there happened to be an attractive little curved stone seat, looking over fine views of the Ullswater Valley and the fells. Just above this was the 2000 year old Roman Road, where once marched Roman troops on their way from Galava to Brocavum * along the gentle slopes of High Street fell (named for the road). It was easier for the Romans to build this high road over the fell tops rather than in the marshy, forested valleys.
I recovered my equilibrium and we walked up to the summit of Heughscar where we were rewarded not only with more beautiful views of the lake but also a gorgeous rainbow (and briefly a double rainbow) which appeared and disappeared tantalisingly as the sun peeped from behind the clouds. On our way back down to the village it started raining, but we were soon enjoying tea and scones in a cosy tearoom, before an easy run home of less than two hours. We really should come to this lovely area more often. We were given a big welcome home by the cats, who would definitely not have approved of the canine fraternising that we have indulged in over the weekend.
* Ambleside to Penrith

Doggie heaven

Pooley Bridge is definitely doggie heaven! I have never seen so many families with their dogs as I have at this friendly little resort at the east end of Ullswater in the Lake District. There were lots of dogs on the ferry to Glenridding this morning, from where James and I then walked about 12 km to Howton. Needless to say, there were lots of pooches on the ferry back to Pooley Bridge too, all enjoying the fresh air with their families, and very interested in each other too. And in the bar at the Pooley Bridge Hotel, where we are spending the weekend, there is a dog under just about every table. They are provided with cushions by their people (I won’t say owners because I have a feeling that it’s the other way round!) fed with snacks, and generally admired. Occasionally there is a brief outburst of yapping but generally these pampered pooches are extremely well behaved.

Drake White

Heather wasn’t able to go to the Drake White concert as planned last night because she was at a conference in Cardiff. So very kindly I was invited to go instead, and after a remarkably painless parking experience I met up with Ewan outside St Luke’s. I had heard of St Luke’s but have never been there and I was very impressed with it as a music venue. It’s an old church and as I approached all of the windows were lit up, giving a strange red glow in the darkening evening. Inside it was warm and welcoming, with several bars and food on offer. Ewan asked the bouncers if we could go to the upstairs balcony, which gave us an unimpeded view beside two friendly country music super-fans, Carol Ann and Gordon. They knew all of the same bands that Ewan and Heather know and will be going to the Midland concert among many others.

As for Drake, well he was the real deal. Born in Alabama, his songs are about the country life - love, the outdoors, his dogs, his grandfather, drinking whisky. And it was such great music. I have always leaned towards a bit of country music and I found every song to be tuneful; some happy, some more thoughtful. He has a great voice and was attired in flared jeans and a cowboy hat; he was full of energy and likes to dance too. The audience loved him and so did I.

Eye infirmary encounter

Grandma and I are quite the regulars at her monthly eye appointments. I have learned to arrange them for the afternoon if possible because she worries about morning appointments in case she isn’t ready in time. Although she has carers to help her to get dressed in the morning and make her breakfast so she really would be ready as long as the appointment isn’t too early! All the same, if she has a morning appointment she doesn’t sleep properly the night before and tends to get up way too early to attempt to get ready by herself, and this means that she is exhausted and upset by the time I come to pick her up.
So I have learned that afternoons go much better, and after the appointment (which often involves a scary eye injection) we usually celebrate with a cup of tea in the hospital café. The hospital is in East Kilbride so nine times out of ten I run into a former colleague or pupil. Tuesday was no exception and I was chatting to a lovely lady whose agency worked closely with mine, and with whom I had shared many a challenging adventure. We reminisced briefly about “the old days” and congratulated each other on our retirement.

They Shall Not Grow Old

This evening we went to the cinema to see the premiere of Peter Jackson’s documentary about the First World War. We first heard about it last week from Ewan, and then we saw Peter Jackson at the Menin Gate, so we were keen to see the film. Then afterwards - it was being screened simultaneously at 250 cinemas throughout the UK - we stayed on to watch Mark Kermode interview Peter Jackson at the London Film Festival, attended by Prince William.
I knew that the film involved enhanced and colourised archive footage, but I was amazed at how effective this was. Like The Wizard of Oz, it begins in black and white. The war starts and soldiers volunteer, and the footage looks familiarly old-fashioned. But when the soldiers arrive at the front, the footage blooms into colour and suddenly the young men look so real and alive. And we hear them speak too, thanks to lip readers and the voices of actors. Mind you, rather than say much, they mainly smile self-consciously for the camera and nudge each other and burst out laughing. They look so young and full of fun, although the documentary also showed the horrors of war with some really distressing images. The filming takes place mainly in the trenches and behind the lines, because of course the cameras were far too big and unwieldy to be carried on to the battlefield. So the small amount of battle film is quite distant and unclear despite Jackson’s best efforts at enhancing it. It was still brutal though. I felt moved by the scene where the British soldiers and their German prisoners of war are sitting together laughing and swapping hats; there is no difference between them and it highlights the futility of war.

New painting

James and I recently decided to buy a painting to go above the fireplace in the new front room. We were keen to choose some aspect of our beloved north west of Scotland, preferably a sea or mountain view. So when we were at Ullapool at the end of September, we called in at the Rhue Gallery before we set off home on the Monday. We had a look around the display of acrylic paintings by James Hawkins - James was in the gallery working on his new collection of mountains of the Himalayas and we were chatting to him. The paintings that we liked were a bit surreal, with vibrant colours. Some of them were very big - James pointed out that we would need to build a bigger house in which to display them! However one painting stood out for both of us. It was neither of mountains nor the sea, but of a bright woodland glade at the height of summer, with the dark blue waters of Loch Achall beyond, and mountains in the distance. We really liked it, and I suggested that we take some time to think it over. However James said that sometimes you have to be spontaneous and go with your instinct, so we purchased it on the spot. And I’m very glad that we did. It is now installed in the front room at Casa Anderson and I love it.

An unwelcome gift

After the amazingly sunny and warm five days that we enjoyed in northern France and Belgium, we arrived home to a very rainy Scotland. Yesterday we stuck close to home as it rained constantly, (apart from going round to Marjory and Forrest’s for a delicious curry and a convivial evening) but today the weather is rather fine in an autumnal way - although quite chilly. I’m glad that we have put the winter duvet on the bed; th autumn is definitely further on here. In Belgium the trees were in their full array of red, gold and yellow, but due to stormy weather in Scotland last week, many leaves have now fallen from the trees and James and Ally are both out in the garden raking them up just now. Ally has also cleared all the leaves from the gutters, and as I watched horrified from the window he leaped agilely from the back room’s roof to the grass below, landing as lightly as Tom Cat would.
I have been doing a bit of tidying for Alison and Hugh’s imminent arrival. It’s funny how our normal level of cleanliness- which I like to think is perfectly acceptable - suddenly seems a bit shabby when guests are going to be spending the night here. * Also, we found a mouse strolling around the kitchen earlier this morning, presumably a gift from the cats to welcome Alison and Hugh. I hope that they haven’t left any more surprises. **  My hero Ally captured the little creature and we gave it a little piece of cheese before setting it free. It was really hungry! James commented darkly, “Now it will know where to come back to if it wants more cheese.”

* Not that our lovely guests Alison & Hugh would ever say such a thing!
** Inevitably, just as we were having dinner, Flora came in through the cat flap with another live mouse in her mouth, and was swiftly intercepted by Ally.

A sunny morning in Ypres

Friday was our last day in Belgium and we really made the most of it. We walked around the city ramparts; it was very peaceful and beautiful, lined with magnificent autumnal trees and quiet apart from the sound of church bells pealing. We descended at the Menin Gate and I paid a visit to the Leonidas Chocolate Shop to purchase a few delicious souvenirs and gifts. Next stop was the “In Flanders Fields” museum which is housed in the Cloth Hall, followed by St George’s Memorial Church, where Ewan expertly (by looking it up in the register) found the Lenzie Academy plaque for its ex-pupils who died in the 1st World War. We were keen to see it because Heather went to Lenzie Academy and so did Andrew and Jennifer.  

We then left Ypres and headed for the German Cemetery at Langemark. I remembered it from our previous visit nine years ago, with its hundreds of flat dark grey markers, each marking the graves of about eight soldiers. There is also a memorial for those who could not be found or identified, for the staggering number of twenty-five thousand soldiers. Most of these were killed in the first few months of the war when the Germans were pushing forwards. It’s a sombre cemetery, shaded by oak trees.

And then it was time to make our way back to Brussels Charleroi airport. I’m glad to say that there were no delays, either on the road or plane journey - it’s always more pleasant when the end of a holiday goes smoothly. James checked the mileage on our hired car and we have travelled 695 km over the five days, not including our trip to Bruges which was by train. We have seen so much, some places revisited and  many new. It has been a unique and memorable holiday with great company. 

Tasting chocolate in Bruges

While we were at the early planning stages of our holiday in France and Belgium, Heather suggested a day in Bruges and we all decided that it was a splendid idea. So this morning (Thursday) at 9.15 a.m. we turned up bright eyed and bushy tailed at Ypres railway station to take the train to Bruges. This early start meant that we had all day to explore the beautiful medieval city at our leisure. It was another gloriously sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky, and we had a fantastic time. We took a boat tour on the canal, and James and Heather expertly took us on a self guided city walk. We ate lunch sitting outside in a wee cobbled square, and climbed the 366 steps up the Belfry (towers are made to be climbed!) from which we could see all the way to the sea at Zeebrugge.
We briefly visited the Church of Our Lady, where we saw the tomb of Mary, the 15th century Duchess of Burgundy and the Low Countries, who died in a riding accident when she was only twenty-five. Her effigy looks so young and beautiful, wearing a jewelled hair net and a little crown. I was very moved by this for some reason; unlike some effigies she looks very real.
And of course we visited several of the chocolate shops for which Bruges is famous and were offered samples to try! By the time we took the train back to Ypres in the evening I was exhausted, although I was hungry enough for another lovely Belgian dinner in one of the restaurants on the Großmarkt. It was a truly perfect day.

Vimy Ridge and the Menin Gate

We left Amiens on Wednesday morning and travelled to Ypres. On the way, we stopped at Vimy Ridge. We joined a tour which took us into the tunnels underneath No Man’s Land. I was surprised at how close the trenches are to each other. We walked along the line of the battle to the memorial which is at its highest point. It was bright white in the sunshine and I felt that it is very dignified and beautiful; it can be seen from miles around. 

We pressed on towards Ypres and stopped at Zonnebeke for lunch, in a café called Koklicoo. We speculated about he meaning of its name, with the front runner being “Silly cow”. However it actually means Poppy! (similar to the French “coquelicot”).

Tynecot was very busy with school parties, which made it even hard for me to imagine the battle there, but its size was sobering, with many of the soldiers unidentified, so written on their gravestones was “Known unto God”. On the memorial wall we found the name of another relative of Heather’s, James Kessack of the Cameronians. 

It was lovely to walk around Ypres in the evening sunshine. We had a drink in the Albertus café before the Menin Gate Ceremony. We were there to lay a wreath to remember our three Scottish soldiers; Hugh Anderson, Neil Chisholm and James Kessack. It was very crowded but we were ushered to a separate (and delightfully central) area with the other “wreath-layers”. At this point Ewan recognised that a person standing just beside us was in fact Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. I think that he was with his partner, Fran Walsh the screen-writer, and possibly their son. I was suitably amazed, and thanks to Ewan we even knew why he was there this year. Ewan had just been telling us this week that Peter Jackson has recently made a ninety minute film, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, by colourising footage from the 1st World War. He also employed experts to lip read what the soldiers were saying in the newsreel and arranged for actors to voice what they were saying. I’m really looking forward to watching it. The Last Post was sounded, then Peter Jackson spoke the lines by Binyon,

“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old ...” which always makes me feel very emotional. There was a minute’s silence and then the wreath laying took place. There were about six small groups, and we were signalled to come forward in turn. The four of us crossed the road side by side, and walked up the short flight of steps to lay our wreath, then we bowed and walked back to our place in single file as instructed. The reveillé sounded and the short dignified ceremony was over.

Dinner was at the cosy Klein Stadthuis right beside the Cloth Hall. My Flemish stew and café gourmand were absolutely delicious.

The Somme

On Tuesday morning we visited a few memorial sites around the Somme area. We started with the Canadian Newfoundland Memorial at Beaumont-Hamel. A friendly young Canadian guide told us about the battle, which started on 1st July 2016 and finally ended in November of the same year, with only a couple of kilometres of ground gained. She was very informative and I felt that I learned a lot. We walked round the battlefield on our own afterwards and you can still see the trenches and shell holes, although due to the erosion of time they are less deep than they once were. You could see the layout of the battlefield very clearly. At the Highlanders memorial a pupil from a secondary school in Alloa was playing the bagpipes to honour all of these young men who died when they were only a few years older than he is now. A small graveyard had the most gorgeous yellow roses in full bloom; I’m still struggling with reconciling the undoubted beauty of these memorial sites with the horrific battles that happened there. I try to imagine what it must have been like but it’s too peaceful and verdant (even the graveyards, which are beautifully tended).

Thiepval was our next destination and we looked for and found the name of Heather’s relative, Neil Chisholm, a solider of the Middlesex regiment, who is commemorated there because when he died aged twenty-three in 1917 his body was never identified. Nearby, we visited Lochnagar Crater which is huge, and has been turned into a memorial too. It was created by the British setting off explosives that had been tunnelled in beneath the German lines on the first day of the battle of the Somme. 

Flying Buttresses in Amiens

From the window of our little hotel in Amiens we have an amazing close up view of 13th century Amiens Cathedral, which is just across the road. We have been incredibly lucky with our weather this holiday and the gothic cathedral, complete with flying buttresses and gargoyles, is set against a cloudless blue sky.
Our charmingly quirky hotel used to be a priory and has a disturbingly uneven staircase and wooden beams sloping everywhere. It is run by the very helpful Thibaud, who gave us useful advice on things to do and places to eat. His first recommendation was of course to visit the cathedral. He asked if we had ever visited Notre Dame in Paris. When we replied in the affirmative he informed us proudly that two Notre Dames could fit inside Amiens Cathedral.
When we visited it on Tuesday afternoon we were not disappointed; it is not only lofty and spacious but bright too, with light streaming in through the stained glass windows. Painted sculptures depict biblical scenes and there are plenty of statues, chapels and paintings. The outside facade is very imposing with a multitude of statues of kings and saints.
We then went on a very unusual boat trip; the Hortillonages. Right in the centre of Amiens, beside the River Somme, there is a network of small canals and islands, started by the Romans and developed in the Middle Ages by draining marshes in order to grow vegetables. It is truly amazing that this peaceful area, only accessible by boat, exists in the middle of a bustling city. Our forty minute boat trip was a pleasure and Ewan pointed out that it was the location for the boat trip in the first part of Sebastian Faulks’ novel Birdsong.