Between Christmas and New Year

The time between Christmas and New Year always feels to me like a strange no-man’s-land, when it’s hard even to remember what day of the week it is. However during this time we were invited to some very pleasant social occasions.

On the 27th Heather and Ewan invited us to go for a walk and then for an early curry at 5 p.m. This sounded like a splendid idea and I suggested that we go for a walk in Mugdock Park. I even printed off a map but there was no need, Heather knew her way about very well and if there was any doubt James whipped out his phone and consulted his Ordnance Survey App. Although it was a dreich day the proper rain held off for about 95% of our walk which was very lucky. We walked for an impressive 14 km, by the end of which I was just beginning to feel my legs getting tired, so it was a good length. Near the end of the walk we found ourselves at a dead end where the road was blocked off with fencing and stone walls. Rather than walk all the way back to the way we should have gone (which admittedly wasn’t very far!) we opted to climb over the wall to the pavement of the main road. James went first and prepared to steady the rest of us as we dropped down. Heather and I scrambled over unscathed although we got our fleeces a bit dirty on the walk. However as Ewan swung his leg over the walk, he pulled a muscle in his thigh and had to retreat. I happened to take a photo at the very moment that this happened and it was unintentionally very amusing; in the snapshot James is oblivious, Ewan’s face is a study as he realises what has happened to his leg, and Heather (who doesn’t yet know what has happened) is laughing heartily in the background. Luckily the pain in Ewan’s leg eased off as he continued walking. Back at Heather and Ewan‘s we had pre-dinner drinks before heading down to our favourite Indian restaurant, Rasoi. Alistair and Andrew both joined us, and the six of us had an absolutely delicious meal, chatting and laughing all the way. It was really nice to spend the time with our close friends, walking and relaxing together at this festive time of year.

Christine and Gerry invited us to Dunlop for lunch on Tuesday 28th, and to an Archery session beforehand at Crawfurdland Castle. It was the perfect activity for a rather grey day at the end of December. There were eight of us including Cat’s lovely 82-year-old uncle Dave, who turned out to be one of the best of us at archery. Cats brother Euan is home visiting from Canada (for the first time in more than two years due to Covid travel restrictions) and he also turned out to be extremely good at archery, having used to compete in it at a high level. The rest of us just did our best! The instructor was very pleasant and encouraging, although she seemed a little nervous when she realised just what an expert Euan is and kept consulting him on whether she was doing things correctly. After a few practice rounds we entered into several different competitions which were great fun. James and I (we chose “The Hoods” as our team name) didn’t disgrace ourselves, however we were nowhere near the amazing score of the winning team of Gerry and Ewan, who had rather confidently (and prematurely) named their team “The Winners”, although it did turn out to be appropriate! The last competition was an elimination round where we had to aim for different circles on the target . It ended up being a shootout between father and daughter as Gerry and Cat were the only two left in. Cat was the eventual winner. Back in Dunlop we had a delicious lunch prepared by Christine and Cat and then repaired to the lounge for a very convivial afternoon beside the warm wood-burning stove, where there was much chat and hilarity.

Christmas Cheer

“The best way to spread Christmas Cheer is singing loud for all to hear” as Buddy the Elf says in James’ favourite Christmas film, which we watched on Christmas Eve with Alasdair. Well, our Christmas has been filled with cheer and we had a lovely day yesterday. Santa visited Ally during the night and filled his stocking with gifts, which showed that Ally must have made it onto the “nice” list. In the morning we went round to visit Marjory and Forrest and had a convivial time with them and Jenny, Neil and Lucy, enjoying their generous amounts of champagne, mince pies and stollen cake. Back at home we checked on the turkey, which was cooking nicely, and then opened our presents in the lounge. We felt very lucky at the thoughtful presents that we received from friends and family. Ally seemed very happy with his gifts too. At 3 p.m. we watched the Queen’s speech, as is traditional at Casa Anderson. Having lost her husband this year, the Queen seemed older and more vulnerable than usual, and her speech paid tribute to Prince Philip and was very touching.

A flurry of kitchen activity led up to Christmas dinner being served at 4, and all went very well. The only thing was that the turkey was far too big for two, no matter how valiantly Ally and James munched away at it. Tom appeared at the table, and had to be told off several times for climbing on to the table, such was his enthusiasm for the turkey. He was delighted to be given some scraps of turkey. James told him that he should hunt 6 kg birds for us rather than the unfortunate tiny feathered creatures that he sometimes brings into the house. Strangely enough Flora is not interested in the food we eat, she never begs at the table like Tom does. I’m intending to freeze the remainder of the cooked turkey in small portions to make soups, sandwiches, risotto etc. so it won’t go to waste. 

Replete, we staggered through to the front room for a rest, because we couldn’t face Christmas pudding or trifle just yet. We decided to watch that most hotly-debated Christmas movie *, Die Hard. By Jove it was excellent; it really hasn’t dated at all, and Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman were both tremendous.

At this point we decided to tackle the trifle, lovingly made by James to Grandma’s recipe. It was very, very good. Too good as it turned out, because my second helping was my downfall. After a University Challenge contest with Ally, which he won hands down, I went to bed with an overly full tummy and had a terrible night’s sleep. Nothing was wrong apart from my intestines’ struggle to process the huge amount of rich food that I had guzzled. 

And so Christmas is over. Of course we missed Jamie and Davie, but spoke with both of them during the day, and we had a really lovely time with Ally who was on very good form. It has been an excellent Christmas. To quote Bruce Willis in Die Hard, Yippee-ki-yay! 

* the debate is whether it’s a Christmas movie at all, or just an action movie which happens to be set at Christmas time. My opinion is that of course it’s a Christmas movie! 

An evening with Rick Wakeman

James and I drove along a very cold and misty M8 on Saturday evening to see Rick Wakeman at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. James booked it because he is a big fan of the prog rock group Yes, with whom Wakeman has played keyboards for many years, on and off. He is a classically trained pianist and has played with other groups as well as with David Bowie and Cat Stevens. So he is an extremely accomplished musician and it was an absolute pleasure to listen to him as he played the piano and the keyboards. He played a selection of his well known works and interspersed these with Christmas tunes, all from memory without written music. He is also very personable and chatted easily with the audience in between his pieces, reminiscing about his music career and telling tall tales and corny jokes about village life. The audience were all at least our age and some were considerably older; Rick received several standing ovations from these stalwart superfans and deservedly so in my opinion.

We hadn’t really known where we should have dinner beforehand, so booked a nearby restaurant called “Blonde” which was quite a find; delicious food and attentive service, we will definitely be back. 

After the concert it was time to head home through the freezing mist, which was thicker than ever at Harthill. 

Not quite Christmas as usual

Yesterday we went for our annual Christmas lunch with Heather and Ewan, traditionally enjoyed on the last Sunday before Christmas. We went to the Italian Kitchen in Ingram Street and the four of us had a lovely meal, followed by drinks at Metropolitan with Andrew. 

Metropolitan was decorated in an appropriately festive fashion with lots of Christmas lights, but with the recent rise in Covid cases the Fruitmarket was just not as busy as it would usually be at this time of year, and as a result there wasn’t quite the same buzzing atmosphere as usual. Of course this didn’t bother us as we chatted away the afternoon, very happy in our own company. 

Today James and I noticed the same slightly toned down feeling at the Play, Pie and a Pint Christmas Pantomime; Cinderella 2, I Married a Numpty. Usually it’s completely sold out and very crowded, but today there were a few spaces in the audience. It was very funny and we thoroughly enjoyed it, but it wasn’t quite as exuberant as usual. 

Ally and Cat went to see The Prince of Egypt in London last week, and noticed the same thing: although fairly well attended there were still gaps in the audience and at the end of the performance the cast came back into the stage to thank the audience for turning up in these difficult times.

The government seem to be waiting to see just how overwhelming to hospitals the Omicron variant turns out to be, before imposing yet more restrictions. I understand their hesitation - if they lock down more that necessary people will be very angry and demoralised, but of course if they don’t lock down enough then they will be blamed if the daily death toll increases significantly. I would hate to have to make that call.  

Goodbye to Longannet

On the 9th December, before my visit to Manchester, James and I went on a trip near Falkirk to watch Longannet Chimney stack being demolished across the River Forth. Longannet Power Station was in service from the late 1960s until 2016, and most of it was demolished earlier this year. We have a personal connection to Longannet because James was the Station Accountant there for a couple of years in the 1990s.

The chimney stack was scheduled to be demolished at 9 a.m. so we set off in plenty of time. However three separate minor road accidents on the motorway delayed us and we ended up cutting it very fine. We arrived at the place James had selected just a few minutes before demolition, and not surprisingly the narrow lane was already lined with vehicles and people with cameras. James jumped out of the car with his camera to find a good viewpoint, and I drove slowly onwards to find a place to park. Just before 9 a.m. I noticed that the car behind me had stopped so I did too, and I wound down the window just in time to see the chimney come down. First of all a ring of smoke appeared round the middle of the chimney, and then it buckled and collapsed, as if in slow motion. 

I then noticed what I thought was a suitable parking space, so swung the front of the car round in order to reverse into it. But the lane was very narrow and one of my front tires went into the ditch of field that it bordered. I was completely stuck! How embarrassing, and also inconvenient for the rest of the drivers behind me, who had seen the chimney come down and were ready to drive away except that I was now blocking the lane. Luckily everyone was very pleasant to me, including the police who turned up to see what was causing g the hold up. A helpful man attached a tow rope to the car and I was so relieved when James appeared to take the wheel when the car was finally pulled out of the ditch. With much thanks and apologies we drove away. 

James wasn’t really very angry at all, and we decided to go to see the nearby Scottish Kelpies; the giant metal statics of two horses’ heads which I have seen many times from the car on the M9. They are even more impressive close up, and were shining in the cold December sunshine. Even better, there is a lovely wee visitors’ centre where we had coffee and croissants before heading home. 

I love Manchester

I’m now on the train back from Manchester after an eventful and enjoyable week visiting Davie and Chanel. Since I set off, Covid restrictions have been tightening again due to the rise of the new Omicron variant. As the train set off from Manchester a police officer made his way through the carriages, checking that everyone is wearing a mask (or is in possession of an exemption certificate). 

So, Manchester - what a fantastic city! Davie and Chanel took me to the Christmas market in the city centre and it all felt very festive. The market consisted of attractive stalls with much food, drink, Christmas ornaments and crafts, and it was situated along several of the pedestrianised shopping streets. I like the way the old traditional buildings in Manchester, built from red brick or red sandstone, coexist harmoniously with the brand new glass-fronted buildings. I noticed this throughout my stay.  On my first day Chanel and I went to a Spa whose owners had kept the bricks and beams of the interior of the old building alongside the new swimming pool and gym equipment. We had a lovely and relaxing spa day and Davie made dinner for us when we got back to the flat. The day that we went to the Christmas market we went to a very old pub called “Old Wellington” which was half-timbered with little mullioned windows, it was so traditional with great food, and it sat comfortably alongside smart new shops and offices. As well as visiting the centre of the city we went to Salford Quays to see Six the Musical at the Lowry Theatre. Salford Quays is a development located in what used to be the docks area right on the Manchester Ship Canal. It has a mall, outlet stores, restaurants and businesses such as media - the huge BBC building is among the modern, edifices overlooking the water. I would like to return in daylight to explore it further. I loved Six the musical although it was quite short at one hour and twenty minutes without an interval - I wished that it was twice as long!

Another place we went was the Trafford Centre, an impressively large shopping and leisure centre with lots of places to eat and a cinema, where we watched House of Gucci, which we enjoyed very much. The Centre was all decorated for Christmas with a life size Santa and his reindeer flying across the domed ceiling. 

During the days when Chanel was at work, David and I did some Christmas shopping, went to an Escape Room (great fun!) and visited Bridgewater RHS gardens, which were very interesting to visit even in the winter. 

David and Chanel were great hosts and I had a fantastic time - I can’t wait to visit Manchester again. 

Bookcases

I’m on the train to Manchester for a pre-Christmas visit to Davie and Chanel. It’s a really lovely day; sunny and cold with blue skies. The sun is very low and is slanting across the fields. James and I have been doing a lot of re-organising in the house. Now that his study has had its new furniture installed (although still not completely finished) James has been left with the old bookcases which are made of pine and still in very good condition. So we decided to move them into the room upstairs with the bed-settee, to replace several items of old and mismatched furniture. The good news is that they look lovely and smart and the room feels bigger and lighter. The downside is that this caused a huge amount of upheaval as books, folders, stationery and much more were emptied from the old furniture and then sorted and put into their new storage places. James worked very hard moving the furniture upstairs and it has taken us most of this week to get it done. 

I have also written and posted all of the Christmas cards, and James is hand-delivering the Cambuslang ones today. We chose our Christmas tree from local business “Elfie Trees” and had it delivered, and we have ordered our Christmas turkey from the butcher’s. And yesterday we decorated the tree. Flora found a pile of tinsel in which she made herself a little nest, she was a bit annoyed when we displaced her so that we could use it. 

Among other pleasant social happenings I went to my EK book club’s Christmas meal yesterday evening. And very pleasant it was too, but it turned out that the restaurant was geared up for a party night rather than the quiet dinner we had envisaged. So the music and the other customers were very loud, and got even louder as the disco started at the end of the meal. We couldn’t hear ourselves speak let alone each other. It was still very nice to see everyone and I had a good chat with Elaine in the car on the way home.

No-one Loves Me

Recently the father and step-mother of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes were convicted of torturing and finally murdering him in June 2020. They recorded audio and video of him in distress, and at one point the dying child cried “No-one loves me.” I found that very difficult to hear about. It got to me in the same way as the murder of James Bulger in 1993 or the murder of the children at Dunlane Primary School in 1996. I may not have been the greatest mother and made many mistakes, but I do love my three boys, and even when they are annoyed with me I am sure that they know it. I tell them that I love them and I hope that I show it. And the idea of that wee six year old boy dying at the hands of the people that should have lived and protected him, and in the end thinking that no one loved him, hurts my heart. 

I read a poem recently that I think balances the good in the world with the bad. It’s written from a new mother to her children. I think it’s very good.

Here it is: 

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. 

The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake.

Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. 

I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? 

You could make this place beautiful.

An unexpectedly excellent day

Racked with guilt for not accompanying James to Australian Pink Floyd yesterday, I was determined to accompany him to the Hill-walking club’s annual Mince Pies Outing today. I was worried that I would still be feeling under the weather after my Covid booster, but I woke up feeling much better. We met the others (there were fourteen of us) at the Faerie Tree Inn in Aberfoyle, and had breakfast rolls and coffee before setting out on our various walks. While the majority of the group set off to climb a nearby Marilyn up past the David Marshall Lodge, Iris, Hilary and I went on a very pleasant low level walk around picturesque Lochan Spling. Well not quite all the way around it, because there were quite a few trees blocking the path after the recent high winds. It was a beautiful day; cold and crisp with blue skies. As we walked along who did we meet but Liz from my book club, also out for a walk with two friends on this lovely morning. It’s a small world! We ended up walking about 8 km and arrived back at the Faerie Tree Inn not long before the others. And then of course we had mince pies and mulled wine and Santa even made an appearance! I gave my “Hill-walking Quiz” which I think went down well, and Bob did his raffle. It was a fun and festive occasion. When I got home I was absolutely exhausted and am blogging in my cosy bed. 

Out of sorts

I have been in bed nearly all day feeling very much under the weather. I got my booster Covid vaccination yesterday (in my left arm) and my flu vaccination (in my right arm.) My flu vaccine is completely unnoticeable. However my upper left arm is sore where my jag went in, and the pain has spears right round under my armpit. I have had a headache all day and felt so sleepy that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I sensibly took to my bed. I woke at 9 p.m. feeling much better so I got up, had a snack, and I’m now back in bed. 

Unfortunately this meant that I couldn’t go to Australian Pink Floyd this evening and James had to go without me. I was glad that he went because I knew that he would really enjoy it. 

On Thursday I went to the film Spencer at the Showcase Cinema, accompanied by Heather. I had been intrigued by it and Heather kindly agreed to come with me. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Despite being full of well known luvvies like Kirsten Stewart and Sally Hawkins and Timothy Spall, it was a rotten film. It was factually inaccurate, from big things (like portraying Diana’s former home as derelict when in fact it was converted to a care home for the elderly) to small things like Diana sitting outdoors in broad daylight at 5.30 p.m. on Christmas Day, when it would of course have been dark. The Royal family were portrayed as sinister to the point of absolute silence, including the children; the servants were also gloomy, sinister figures; someone put a book about Anne Boleyn on Diana’s bedside as a sort of threat; and then the ghost of Anne Boleyn appeared and saved Diana’s life by persuading her not to throw herself downstairs. I don’t know if Diana was supposed to be a sympathetic figure compared to the ghoul-like royals, but the film made her out to be as mad as a hatter. It was all quite ghastly, and made worse by dreadful discordant music that made me feel quite ill. To make matters worse, I took a wrong turning on the way there (the route has changed since the motorway changed route but stupidly I thought that I could wing it without using Google maps) and ended up nearly ten minutes late, which made me feel very flustered. Luckily the film hadn’t yet started. And believe it or not I also took a wrong turning on the way home, adding another ten minutes into my journey. Heather was very pleasant about the film, but I felt bad for suggesting it!