Wishing and hoping

We are having a difficult time at Casa Anderson. Grandma is very unwell. She’s a strong and brave lady and we’re hoping that she will recover. So at the moment I’m too sad and preoccupied and busy to blog much. She’s a wee honey. That’s all for now. 

Three mustards Ally

On Saturday morning James and I decided to go over to Ikea at Braehead for a couple of reasons; to have a look at bathroom units and to buy a couple of frames for posters. During our marvellous ski holiday to Arabba I popped into the tourist office, and when I asked about posters was delighted to find that they were free! So we decided to get frames for two of them, one a photograph of the glacier and the other an attractive piste map. Needless to say, when we got to Ikea we not only purchased the frames but also spotted other items that we felt we needed such as a small coffee table, beer glasses, tealights and two bags of frozen meatballs!

The meatballs were of course for Ally, who had accompanied us to make sure that we didn’t make any bad choices regarding the bathroom units. I find it quite sweet that he feels such a responsibility to look after his ancient parents! He also has a vested interest in the bathroom because Catriona has put a great deal of time and effort into designing it for us, which we very much appreciate. 

On the way out of the store Ally asked if he could have a hot dog from the café, which was so terrifyingly cheap you have to wonder what’s in it. He then proceeded to add not one, not two, but THREE different types of mustard to it and had consumed it by the time he got back to the car! 

Chris Bonington looking good

Last March we had booked to see veteran climber Chris Bonington speaking at the Aye Write festival. Sadly he took ill and was unable to attend. Given that he was eighty-three at the time, I wondered if perhaps he would give up public speaking if his health was precarious. However I’m pleased to say that he was back in Glasgow on Thursday evening to speak about his autobiography “Ascent.” I’m not sure if he was an early booking for this year’s Aye Write or the previous booking rescheduled from last year!
Now aged eighty-four, Chris looked fit and well, and he’s an excellent speaker. He talked about his adventures, how he got into climbing, and his thoughts on leadership and life generally. He was knowledgable, funny, and at times very moving. We had taken Ally along and Gordon and Sue were there too, so afterwards we eschewed the rather long queue for book signing and instead nipped round the corner to have dinner at Horn Please, a modern Indian restaurant which we have visited before and we had a very tasty meal. 

Rubbish on television

This evening I watched a programme “24 Hours in A&E” with Alasdair. It’s one of those dreadful voyeuristic reality television programmes, each episode of which follows the stories of several unfortunate people who end up in A&E. I don’t even really know why we started watching it; Ally had come home quite late and we were chatting and it was on in the background and I suppose it caught our attention. The stories were padded out with lots of unnecessary background information about the patients e.g. “He was a bad boy when he was younger but now he’s a great person.” It also kept cutting to the sombre features of “State the Obvious Nurse” who pronounced banalities such as “If you are stabbed in the chest you may damage a major organ.” or “Becoming a father is a huge step in life.” It was truly a waste of an hour.
It did remind me of a visit to A&E with a pupil a few years ago, who had fallen awkwardly while swinging on a classroom chair. He was a nice lad but not the best behaved. He lay in the cubicle shouting “Where did she put my fags?”*  and I had to reassure the hospital staff that this was normal behaviour for him and not a result of his head injury. Luckily he was not seriously hurt.

* I had confiscated his cigarettes earlier when he tried to light one in the ambulance. 

Under the weather

It has been a funny old weekend. I have felt a bit tired and out of sorts for much of it. I have managed to meet my walking target of 5 km per day, but it has felt like a chore and there has been little spring in my step. It could be that my energy levels have been left a bit depleted by the cold which I developed during our ski holiday, however the cold has been well and truly over for the last several days I’m glad to say, so maybe it’s not that.*
It could be the cold and snowy weather, replaced today by lashing rain, but who knows. When I popped round to see Grandma this afternoon she said that she was feeling out of sorts too, so we both decided that what we really need is Springtime! I have been sleeping a lot. We were very late to bed on Friday evening after a brilliant evening over at Heidi and Alex’s, so we were both tired the next morning. After our walk at Drumpellier I took to my bed mid Saturday afternoon (this is very unusual for me), got up for a few hours in the evening, and then slept right though to the next morning. My Mum would have said that I must have needed it. Sunday has been better but I’m still early to bed, unlike Ally who arrived home from visiting Cat in London at 10 p.m. this evening and then went straight back out again to watch the Super Bowl at a friend’s house! Oh the energy of the young!

* I am however being blamed by James for giving him the cold which he has just started today, and which in my opinion he could have picked up anywhere. In an attempt to clear my name I messaged Jamie in New Zealand to ask about timings, but he replied I could have been contagious for up to a week after developing symptoms, and that the incubation period for most respiratory viruses can be from 24 to 72 hours. Annoyingly, according to those timings I can’t quite prove that James didn’t get it from me! 

Winter walk

Well the snow last night didn’t come to anything but the weather continues to be very cold. The light covering of snow on the ground is quite slippy. Today we went for a walk in Drumpellier Country Park, round the loch and through the woods. The sunlight slanting through the leafless trees onto the snowy path was very pretty, as was the ice covered loch. The area is now part of the recently created Seven Lochs Wetland Park which is an urban park between Glasgow and Coatbridge. Today we only walked about 5 km of it so we will need to go back and explore it further. 

Lisztmania and cold weather

Its very, very cold here in the Glasgow area just now, although the ground is covered with frost rather than the snow that is sweeping through the south of England. This makes it very pretty and I enjoyed going to a walk around Stewartfield Loch this morning with the tree branches all white and frozen, and the sky a pale cloudless blue. The little loch was partly frozen and the ducks were walking around on the ice. The sun was very low in the sky and as I drove up the hill I saw not one but two accidents where three or four cars had all shunted into each other, probably because their drivers were dazzled by the sun - like Prince Philip who was in a scary looking crash last week. He emerged remarkably unscathed and luckily the people that he pulled out in front of weren’t seriously injured either. Probably it's time that he stops driving though!
Yesterday I was in Glasgow for another of the SSO’s afternoon concerts, after a delightful lunch in Café Gandolfi with Ally W. This time the main piece was Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, played by the amazingly talented Stephen Hough. Apparently Liszt was such a superstar in his day that audiences would scream or even faint with excitement when he turned up to play the piano. I enjoyed it very much as well as the Bartók orchestral suites that were also played. The Danish conductor Thomas Dausgard was very lively, leaping about and flicking his beautifully coiffured mop of silver hair. These concerts are such fun and full of energy.
By the way I have just looked out of the window and it is now snowing quite heavily!