All packed for my holiday

On Sunday the Iranian state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed along with many other state officials. However Iran is still attacking other countries with missiles so the regime is still not completely gone. I don’t know how all this is going to end. Alison and Hugh arrived late on Sunday from Gran Canaria on their way home from their holiday and departed on Monday morning after we all had a leisurely breakfast and a good chat. After a sunny session of pickleball outdoors at the tennis courts I finished packing for our holiday. In the evening I completed all of my preparation for CHS Training Day 5, which for me will be at the beginning of April. I was glad to get it done before my holiday but I will need to do a wee bit of revision before the next session to refresh my knowledge!
Which brings me to today. Despite having already packed I spent the morning footering about with chargers and adapters, and checking that I had packed everything. It was a classic case of a task expanding to fit the time available! The cats were suspicious when we took our suitcases downstairs, in case we were about to load them into the car to travel to Ullapool, but we were able to say a proper goodbye to them before they scarpered out of the cat flap. Now I’m on the plane about to take off to Heathrow, before our long flight from Heathrow to Santiago in Chile. 

Military Strikes on Iran

It has been a pleasant week at Casa Anderson. I went over to Heather’s to watch a French film with her; La Passion de Dodin Bouffant. It was delightful and very French! Set at the end of the 19th century, it was a love story about French cuisine. 
James and I were back at the Citz to see George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan with Gordon and Morag. While he was not hugely enthusiastic, James enjoyed it a lot more than Waiting for Godot! I thought it was excellent, the young cast were amazing and the minimal scenery worked well. It was in the wee theatre which felt very intimate, especially since we were in the second front row. 
I also had another day of Children’s Panel training, my last with my current group. This is because we will be away on holiday for most of March so I will need to join another group in April for my final three sessions. I was sad to say goodbye to my chums. 
This evening we had Heather and Ewan over for dinner; I made estouffade de boeuf in honour of the French film we watched, because it was a similar recipe to the pot-au-feu made by Dodin Bouffant. It seemed to go down well with the meat eaters, and James’ crême brulée was delicious. 
However things are not so peaceful in the wider world. Today the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran. Several top Iranian leaders have apparently been killed in the strikes; and Iran, immediately started firing missiles at Dubai, Qatar, and other places who are allies of the west. The hotel that we stayed in with Ally and Cat in Dubai four years ago, the Fairmont at the Palm, has been hit and is on fire. Pete and Roisin are ok and following government guidelines to stay indoors. And Kevin had only just left Qatar by plane ahead of the missile strikes, on his way to the UK to visit his brother. 

Those Canadian fingers

Alison and Hugh arrived yesterday to spend the night with us before their holiday to Gran Canaria. It was great to see them and we had a good chat before dinner; then watched the Winter Olympics closing ceremony together, which was quite entertaining. There was much music including some excellent excerpts from Italian opera, and of course the competitors all marched into the stadium in a happy mood.
The British commentator pointed out, “The Canadians are wearing gloves, no doubt to protect those all important fingers.” This was a funny and apt reference to the controversy during the curling, when a Canadian player was clearly seen applying his forefinger to the stone of the curling stone after he let go of the handle, thereby giving the stone an extra wee push after it entered the “no further contact” zone. He got away with it because apparently the players had already all signed off at the end of the match that it was played fairly, and that shot luckily didn’t actually affect the outcome of the match, but he still got into a shouting match with a Swedish player over it. The umpires kept a very close eye on the players during the rest of the matches so no harm done. 
Alison and Hugh left very early in the morning while we were still asleep, and we will see them again next week on their way home.
I had lunch with the ladies today; Helen, Wendy, Maggie and Libby. We had lots of news to catch up on; Libby’s son Cameron got married on Valentine’s Day, and Maggie’s daughter Megan will be having her first child in a couple of weeks, and lots more. We had a good time in Il Pavone and the food was delicious. Late afternoon James had an appointment at Braehead and afterwards we decided that the traffic on the M8 would probably be very busy since it was about 5.30 p.m. so we spontaneously decided to go to the nearby Odeon cinema. We went to see a film of which we had not heard, called “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” mainly because it was about to start! It turned out to be a good choice. It was about a strange man who appears in an American diner and tells the customers that he is from the future and needs their help to save the world. It had a really good plot with a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. It starred Sam Rockwell who is always excellent, and it was quite funny as well as portraying a terrifying and believable future for the human race. My only criticism was that it was derivative of several other films and tv series that we haven’t seen, such as Terminator, Ghostbusters, and several episodes of Black Mirror. James and I both thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Crail for lunch

We drove through to Crail today to visit Margaret. We walked from her home to Crail golf club, a pleasant 5 km along the Fife coastal path. Luckily the weather stayed dry for us and we had beautiful views of the rocks and pools and the sea as we made our way along the path. The club house is absolutely immaculate and we sat at a table overlooking the golf course and had a tasty lunch. Margaret had thoughtfully parked her car at the golf club in the morning so she could give us a lift back to her house after our meal. As we headed back to the west the rain came on very heavily, so we felt pleased that we had enjoyed the best of the day. On the way we listened to not one but two episodes of The Rest is History podcast, continuing the series on Nelson which was very interesting and quite moving. We have reached Nelson’s death; he was only forty-seven and had literally dedicated his whole life to his country. He wasn’t perfect, his affair with Emma Hamilton verged on the obsessive; however he was the right person at the right time to win the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and secure Britain’s hold over the seas for the next hundred years, as well as scuppering Napoleon’s plans to invade Britain. It came at a cost though, with thousands killed as well as Nelson. 

James did not wait for Godot

We have been to see two plays, two nights in a row. The first was “Midsomer Murders, Murder at Badgers Drift” which was great fun. It starred Daniel Casey, the actor who originally played John Nettles’ sidekick in the tv series. I have only seen a few episodes of Midsomer Murders over the years but it was a neat wee murder mystery and quite funny too. The best line had to be from Barnaby: “I have been a police officer in Midsomer for thirty years and admittedly it doesn’t have the lowest crime rate in the country ….” Heather and I are old hands at this genre of theatre, however this time James and Ewan sportingly came along too, because I had accidentally booked four tickets! I booked two tickets for Heather and me almost a year ago, forgot all about it and then booked two more tickets six months later. I only realised when I went to write down the second booking into my diary. So we had a nice dinner in Il Pieno first, and I appreciated that Ewan had come straight from work by train to join us. James was bemused by the play; he didn’t hate it but ultimately thought that it was “tosh” which is why he avoids murder mysteries on television. 
Then we went to see Waiting for Godot at the Citizens Theatre with Gordon and Morag. We had pizzas first which were delicious. They have a strange system where you can’t order your pizza until a pile of pizza boxes can be seen being carried in from the restaurant next door, upon which the customers waiting in the bar rush forward to buy them! The excellent George Costigan played Vladimir and Matthew Kelly played Estragon. James wasn’t looking forward to it because he had read the play at school and loathed it. Unfortunately he didn’t enjoy seeing it performed either, and intermittently dozed off as well as sighing heavily from time to time and at one point during a very long monologue I distinctly heard him mutter “Shut up!” So I wasn’t too surprised when the interval he announced that he couldn’t bear to stay for the second half and was heading home. In other words, James didn’t wait for Godot! The other three of us enjoyed it though; Morag said that it was performed more humorously than the London production that they saw recently. It was spell-binding despite being described by critics during its first production as “the play where nothing happens - twice!” 

Walks and waterfalls

When I was walking up the drive the other day I saw that Flora was watching me from inside the living room window. She absolutely stared at me and according to James, who was also in the living room, she started moaning and growling. As I approached the house I could see her wee mouth grimacing and James told me that she was hissing loudly! Flora has done this before with many people that she knows well; I think it must be territorial and she hates to see someone invading her territory and this overrides her recognition until they are close to her. Yesterday, James and I walked round one of our favourite places, Chatelherault Country Park. It was dreich rather than full on rainy, and James was equipped appropriately in his walking trousers, gore-tex jacket and backpack. As we approached the café for lunch after our 8 km walk, a family were just emerging into the drizzle. I saw them looking at James, and I heard the father say, “Look at him, dressed like that, he’s ready for any weather!” I felt proud of my husband’s preparedness! I was also wearing waterproof clothing, but James always looks particularly smartly turned out, whatever the occasion.

Today the weather was much better when we went for a 12 km circular walk at New Lanark via the Falls of Clyde and Kirkfieldbank. There was a huge amount of water plunging down the waterfalls; thundering with clouds of spray as it rushed down the valley; it was spectacular. The paths were muddy underfoot and there were lots of snowdrops on the river banks. It was a lovely walk. 

Walking beside the River Broom

We had a great five days in Ullapool. I did some Children’s Panel prep, some painting and some reading. We also had a good video call with Jamie and Kerry to chat about wedding plans. We also enjoyed doing a bit of walking along the River Broom from the small bridge at Auchindrean to the bridge at Lochbroom Lodge. We walked along the river path which was pretty and involved climbing up and down lots of steps. When we got to the main bridge we turned up the hill and then walked back along the unsurfaced road to the car, about 10 km in all. Then the next day we parked the car at the main bridge and walked along to Clachan Church. It was from here  in 1773 that 189 local people were rowed out to the sailing ship Hector which was moored in the loch nearby. Eighteen of them died of dysentery or smallpox on their eleven week journey to Pictou in Nova Scotia, where they were not given their promised year’s worth of free provisions, so had to scramble to survive. As the song goes, “I wonder how you got on when you reached the promised land?” After looking around the churchyard we walked on past the start of Loch Broom for about 3 km before retracing our steps. It was interesting to explore a new part of the area. We headed home on Tuesday afternoon; on the way we listened to a couple more episodes about Nelson on The Rest is History.