Goodbye 2020

2020 has been a strange year, dominated by the Covid 19 Pandemic. A year ago, we had absolutely no idea of what would happen, and it has been terrible, with many people dying of Coronavirus all over the world. 
Despite this there have been some good times in our wee household. I'm so glad that we visited Jamie in February, because who knows when we will be able to see him again? I miss him so much. 

I did some things in quarantine that I would never have found time for under normal circumstances. I did some journaling and drawing, and paper marbling, which I enjoyed.
I have never spent so much time at our local park as this year and I have come to appreciate it. I have explored all sorts of corners of our neighbourhood and I have ascended Dechmont Hill lots of times. 
I am proud of producing Grandma’s recipe book (with James) and giving a copy of it to all of her grandchildren. Using the recipe book, I made a Clootie Dumpling and a Black Bun for the first time ever. 
In July when we were allowed to go to Ullapool we furnished and kitted out the cottage, exploring the area and welcoming visitors. We made quince jelly which was a huge success. 
In the autumn we were locked down again and entertained visitors in the garden at our new fire pit. 
And we learned how to keep in touch with friends and family using Zoom. 
Special mention should be made of James’ many lockdown projects. He furnished and painted my Writing Shed. He carefully sanded and varnished an old blanket box from his Mum’s cellar which now looks great. He spent most of the year working in three gardens: our Cambuslang garden, our Ullapool garden and Grandma’s garden. He made two bird boxes for the Ullapool garden. 
He did lots of baking including the Christmas Cake which he fed with brandy and covered with marzipan and then iced. 
As well as all this, he did about 2 hours walking every day - adding up to an amazing 8.1 million steps. 
So we did our best, despite the awful pandemic news, and also provided an environment where Ally and Cat could work from home, and David could complete his MSc - and they all worked extremely hard and Davie passed his MSc with flying colours. I was very proud of them. We also welcomed Chanel to Casa Anderson as soon as she was allowed to travel north from Liverpool.

We welcomed the young folk for holidays in Ullapool in the summer when they were permitted; also Heather, Ewan, Jenn and Russ. This has been a good thing to be able to do for family and friends, because there has been no travel abroad permitted due to lockdown.
I struggled personally in the early summer, perhaps due to all the bad news about Covid and to missing Grandma. I came through with a lot of support from family and friends which I appreciated, especially from James and Jennifer, who were my absolute heroes. Also Heather, Philippa, Jackie, Cat, Chanel, Alison B, and Ally W; I'm a lucky girl to have such friends. The restrictions were lifted quite a bit over the summer but as the numbers of cases went up again the restrictions were increased again and now we are in Tier 4 everyone is pinning their hopes on the vaccines. These should be rolled out over the next few months. 
As for 2020, the best thing that we can do is remember the good bits, hope that the pandemic will soon be over, and look forward to 2021. 

Carpe Diem

We are now in that strange time between Christmas and New Year. All the stranger in 2020 of course! It’s usually a quiet time for us with maybe a few social outings, but nearly the whole of the UK went back into Tier 4 on Boxing Day so no cafés or pubs or restaurants are open. 

As the year draws to a close we have just heard that the Grandpa of one of Ally’s friends has died of Covid 19. And one of the head teachers that I used to work with, and whom I met several times enjoying his retirement at Play, Pie and a Pint, died suddenly of a heart attack late on Christmas Day. He was only ten years older than me and in good shape. We really should enjoy life while we can. 

Despite rather wet weather, James has still been going out for his daily walk and yesterday he surpassed his year’s target of 8 million steps, which is pretty amazing. That means that this year he has walked about 4000 miles, or over 6000 km. so that means that he could have walked to India, or indeed to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am very proud of him. 

Today however the weather was cold but beautiful, with the palest of pale blue skies. This was excellent timing because we had arranged to meet Christine and Gerry at Whitelee wind farm for a walk - an area in which it is currently legal for both families to take exercise, less than 5 miles from our own council boundaries. Although it was cold there was no wind at all, so we could stroll along, pleasantly chatting. It has been snowing up there and there was a light, but not too slippy, layer of crunchy snow beneath our feet. I had brought a flask of hot juice and James had brought a hip flask filled with port and brandy, which we had with mince pies beside the Covenanters Memorial. I didn’t realise that there is a tiny Covenanters museum at the farm there; we must visit it next year when hopefully it will reopen. We had a lovely afternoon. Carpe diem. 

Christmas of 2020

Christmas Day was lovely. Ally and Davie (back home for his permitted one day of Christmas with family) came through to our room and opened their Santa stockings and it turned out that Santa had left a stocking for James and me too! Then we FaceTimed Jamie in New Zealand and were introduced to his new girlfriend, Kerry. She is lovely. 

Marjory, Forrest and family arrived round late morning and we exchanged gifts and chatted and had drinks and snacks. We had our Christmas dinner just after watching the Queen’s Speech at 3 p.m. and there was more than plenty! Then we all watched a Disney film called Coco (meh, not my cup of tea but nice to watch it together) and then Ally and Davie and I played a board game, Ticket to Ride, which was great fun. 

In other words, a traditional Anderson Christmas, for which I fell suitably grateful in this strange year of 2020 when so much has changed in our pandemic ridden world. 

Preparing for Christmas

James and I had a productive couple of hours this afternoon sorting and wrapping the last few presents and rewarded ourselves by watching the last episode of the first series of Engrenages. I like detective / police series but James usually isn’t so keen on them, however this is really well made and has good characters so he seems to be enjoying it so far. 
We had very sad news at the weekend when our friend, Gordon's wife Sue died. She was a truly lovely person and will be much missed. We had popped over with flowers for her and a wee hamper of tasty treats for the household just last week. I feel so sad for her family. 
Covid deaths continue to rise - there were 744 today which is the highest daily amount since the end of April, when numbers were beginning to decrease. Most of Europe has banned travel to and from the UK because of the new mutant strain of coronavirus, although this will hopefully be sorted out soon via testing for the virus. The same goes for all the lorry drivers blocked at the Channel ports, although sadly it will take days for them to be tested so a lot of them will miss Christmas with their families. And Nicola Sturgeon has banned travel between Scotland and England apart from for essential travel. 
I must finish with some better news. We had our traditional pre-Christmas Sunday lunch with Heather and Ewan, at new restaurant Ralph and Finns. The food was absolutely delicious, although due to current regulations there was no alcohol and due to restricted numbers (groups must not be more than six) we couldn’t meet up with our usual collection of offspring afterwards. Our Christmas lunch with our dear friends is always one of the highlights of the season for me, and at the end of this strange year, the lunch and the company on Sunday was just as lovely as ever, and in fact very important to me. 
Yesterday James iced and decorated the Christmas Cake that he made a few weeks ago. He also made dates stuffed with marzipan which are delicious. Cat and I watched Sleepless in Seattle, which she has never seen before and we both enjoyed it - the technology and hairstyles are rather dated but I think it’s still a great film. We also finished our latest “girls’ series”, which is called Dash and Lily, a feel-good Christmassy story which was very satisfying. We all played Monopoly in the lounge last night, with the Christmas tree all lit up at the window and the cats companionably lying around on the couches. The Christmas shopping was delivered at lunch time today and the cupboards are pleasantly full. I think that we are just about ready for Christmas. 

Covid - good news and bad news

The recent good news about Covid is that a vaccine has now been approved and is being given in order of priority, firstly to vulnerable and elderly people and frontline health care workers, and then by age from older to younger. I’m low down on the list and I’m fine with that. I am in good health and am happy for higher priority people to get the vaccine first. As a non scientist I am also a bit worried about getting the vaccine which has been developed and tested so very quickly. I remember all the problems that we had in the 1980s in the computer company I worked for, when we were under huge pressure to rush in newly developed software for new legislation - the notorious Community Charge or “Poll Tax.” The results were not good! 

Davie has reassured me that the vaccine has been tested properly, and I trust him, so I will get it when my turn comes. I suppose that if people refuse the vaccine then Covid will continue to spread, so I will overcome my worries for the greater good. And hope that I don’t grow fur or turn into a zombie - just joking! 

The bad news is that cases of and deaths from Covid are rising again - and this is before the five day easing of restrictions at Christmas. The governments (British and Scottish) are understandably reluctant to go back on their promise of small Christmas gatherings indoors, because it would be bad for morale and also I think a lot of people would just go ahead with their planned celebrations anyway. But on the other hand, if the number of deaths increases significantly because of the temporary easing of restrictions, this would also be really bad. So there’s a lot of uncertainty just now.

Update - late afternoon. Well I was right about the uncertainty. In Scotland the five day window of easing Covid restrictions has now been reduced to one day - Christmas Day. Then from Boxing Day we will move back into Tier 4 (South Lanarkshire was in Tier 4 at the beginning of the month but we have been in Tier 3 for the last couple of weeks) which means that the cafés, pubs, restaurants and non essential shops will have to close again. Where Jennifer lives, in Buckinghamshire, as well as in London and the south east of England, will be going into Tier 4 immediately, so no mixing of households at Christmas at all. It’s a real shame but what can we do? Keeping people safe has to be the most important thing. 

A Wedding and Christmas on screen

This afternoon a surprise message came through on Hugh and Lucy’s Wedding WhatsApp group. Like many other young people this year, their wedding has had to be postponed due to Covid, in their case from July 2020 to July 2021. The message informed us that they had just got married today in Gretna Green! To quote Lucy’s message, “This year has been pretty rubbish so we thought we'd end it on a high!” I’m very pleased for them; they are still planning to have a big celebration in due course. 
Christmas is only a week away and this evening Cat and I chose another festive film, The Holiday, which we have watched many times before, but is always good. It has a really excellent cast of actors; Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black. It also stars Eli Wallach, who we watched in “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” with Davie and Chanel when they visited us in Ullapool. He was looking very fit at 90 and in fact lived for another eight years after making the film. 
Cat and I finished watching “The Bold Type” last week. I had read that the filming of the fourth series had been interrupted by the outbreak of Covid, so the series was shorter than intended and the last couple of episodes had to be changed about. Well they did a good job because I thought it was still excellent; I hope that they commission another series. Cat and I went straight on to watch the whole of the series “Emily in Paris” which has been great fun. It’s about the adventures of a young American woman who is sent to work in Paris, and has to get used to the different culture. Lily Collins is delightful as Emily but the real star is beautiful Paris. I would love to go back there after Covid. 

Tagine Tuesday

Tagine Tuesday was a rip-roaring success! I made lamb with apricot tagine (tofu and apricot for me and Cat) and it turned out to be very tasty. The only hitch was that I started cooking later than I had intended so we didn’t eat until about ten past eight! Nobody seemed to mind and we had pancakes with maple syrup and raspberries for our dessert. 
The reason that I was late to cook dinner was that I had spent the afternoon making the final adjustments to Grandma’s recipe book. I hope to put it in for printing tomorrow. James has designed the cover using examples of Grandma’s beautiful writing. We made Grandma’s Black Bun recipe at the weekend; it consists of a great deal of spiced fruit encased in pastry. I think that we will work our way through the recipe book and take photos of the results; I’m already thinking of an illustrated second edition!
We got a lovely gift yesterday from Christine and Gerry. It’s a personalised Advent gift basket. Each of the food items comes from a different part of Scotland, such as Dunlop cheese, Orkney oatcakes, Mull biscuits and Arran mustard. There is also an Ardnamurchan Calendar, wine for James and a Molton Brown Christmas bauble filled with bubble bath for me. It is such a thoughtful and kind present and makes me feel very festive. 

Culinary

Ally and Cat cooked us a delicious meal last week. It was a spicy Japanese ramen dish and the flavours were absolutely gorgeous. James and Ally’s version included chicken and Cat made a tofu version for her and me. The tofu was browned and then marinaded and it was really excellent.

This got me thinking that my cooking is in a bit of a rut. I cook most of the evening meals because Ally and Cat work long hours and James is busy with all sorts of projects around the house. The exception to this is of course Curry Sunday, James’ tuna pasta bake, and the many times that Cat has stepped in to make the evening meal if I have something else on. I am very happy to make dinner, but recently I feel as if I’m producing the same eight or nine boring meals again and again. 

So this evening I decided to make a Mexican meal. I had all the ingredients ready and roped James in for the prep so that the constituent parts would be ready at the same time. The meal was to be Fish Tacos. My first mistake was using hard taco shells instead of soft ones which would have suited the recipe better, and my second mistake was to cut a corner by buying fish already coated in panko breadcrumbs; I thought that this would be much more convenient than coating it myself, but the result had a less homemade feel. The overall result was a bit disappointing to me. 

However I will keep trying to add a bit more variety to our menus. I enjoy making tagines, which Ally suggested when I was talking about zhuzhing up my cooking. Roll on Tagine Tuesday! 

Getting festive

Today we have purchased our Christmas tree from local supplier “Elfie Trees” and it is now decorated and resplendent in the lounge. We went to buy it a bit early - in fact we hadn’t realised that they didn’t open until 10 a.m. - but the “elves” were already there and helped us to pick an excellent tree. It is quite large in both width and height - about 9 feet high - but does not rival the amazing 13 feet high tree that Alison and Hugh have in Nairn! 

In the afternoon James and Ally fitted the tree into its stand, brought it indoors, and James festooned it with lights, enthusiastically assisted by Cat. I came into my own as chief bauble positioner. We also added garlands of our ancient tinsel. I was told recently that tinsel is currently deeply unfashionable, but fashion rarely makes any difference to our traditions at Casa Anderson. Our tree has had the same decorations for thirty-five years, with my favourite ones made by the boys added to our collection when they were at nursery and primary school, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Yesterday we received a surprise gift from Jen and Russ. It is a giant cardboard cut out of Buddy the Elf from James’ favourite Christmas film - Elf of course! I wasn’t supposed to open it until Christmas Eve but I forgot and opened it straight away, and I’m glad that I did because we will display it around the house throughout the festive season. We love it! 

Delivering Christmas Cards

Another Tier 4 Lockdown weekend has just gone by. On Saturday afternoon James and I went out to hand deliver our Christmas cards in our local area. It was raining quite hard when we set off, but we decided just to go for it anyway, and we were rewarded with a dry spell in the middle of our journey. As usual James expertly sorted the cards by street and number, which resulted in a roughly circular route. On our way we met and chatted with Ian and Margaret, who were also carrying a bundle of Christmas cards to deliver, and we found Sheila and Kathryn making a Christmas tree in their garden using a length of copper pipe and strings of outdoor lights. I saw a photo of it later, all lit up, and it looked fantastic. The rain came on again as we approached home, so we were glad to get indoors for a warming cup of tea and one of Cat’s delicious cup cakes. 

Cat and I conspired to choose a film that we both fancied on Saturday evening; Holidate, a new romantic comedy. It started Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey as a couple who don’t want to feel pressured into having a proper date for holidays, so agree to be each other’s “holidate” as friends only. It was all very light-hearted and silly and it did have some genuinely funny moments. The plot didn’t bear close scrutiny and Ally’s hilarious sarcasm about it only added to the fun. James of course had fallen asleep within the first fifteen minutes! 

James and I also watched a six part mini series on HBO called “The Undoing” which has been much hyped recently. It starred Nicole Kidman who looked ethereally beautiful and Hugh Grant who looked rather old. The plot was very slow moving (which meant that Ally and Cat were able to easily catch up and watch the last couple of episodes with us) but it was quite a good story - although ultimately I found the denouement to be a bit disappointing. Donald Sutherland turned up as Nicole Kidman’s character’s father looking great at 85 years old, with amazing old man’s white eyebrows which were like birds’ wings. All good entertainment. 

James has been baking

The days are getting shorter and the weather is getting colder. I wrote all of my Christmas cards on Tuesday afternoon, while listening to a whole afternoon of Christmas music on Radio 2. I think this must have been because it was 1st December; I can’t believe that there will be 24 days of exclusively Christmas tunes. I took off my splint to write them because otherwise my writing would be too messy. Inevitably I still have a few changes of address to sort out but I’m 99% finished. Chanel and I have been keeping in touch with regular messages and phone calls and on Tuesday I got a really heartfelt and beautiful message from her, which actually made me cry. She is a lovely person.

Ally W came round with her lovely basset hound Nelly yesterday and we went for a walk around the park, pausing on either end of a park bench for coffee from my new Chilly bottle. It’s so light and thin compared to the bulky flasks that I used to carry to school with my soup in them, and yet it keeps the tea absolutely piping hot! Ally has been ill recently so it was lovely to see her.

Today we woke to a light dusting of what might almost be called snow. James went out early for his walk and said that our street was like a sheet of ice but the park was extremely well gritted. I had a very pleasant trip with Catherine to Rouken Glen Garden Centre this afternoon. It was all carefully socially distanced but I’m not quite sure how it justifies being open as an “essential service” just now. We got takeaway coffees from the Boathouse Café up by the pond and had a nice chat. 

James has been doing some excellent baking recently which is not good for my waistline. At the weekend he made shortbread; very thin and delicious which is the way I like it. It literally melts in the mouth. And yesterday he made his signature lemon madeira cake which we have all been enjoying. 

This evening we gathered cosily on the couch and watched a Rangers game in the television room, well the other three did, while I browsed around in my phone. Rangers won 3-2 so James and Ally were well pleased, and so was Cat, who has also become an enthusiastic Rangers fan!