Simon Evans

It has been a social and pleasant weekend. We met up with Ally and Colin Walker at the Art Gallery on Friday and had lunch in the café. Then on Saturday, we took the train through to Edinburgh and had brunch with Janet and Peter. It’s a while since we’ve seen them and it was really nice to catch up; they’re looking well and were full of the joys. It was a beautiful spring day and we strolled along Princes Street and down to the National Portrait Gallery. We wanted to see the portrait of Alan Cumming because we had recently watched a television programme about how it was painted. It’s by Gibraltar artist Christian Hook, and was painted in 2014, as the winning commission for the  Sky Arts portrait artist of the year. It’s very striking and I  thought it looked even better in real life. There were lots of other really interesting portraits of Scottish people, some more my taste than others. 

We then went to the nearby Stand Comedy club, where we met Gordon and Morag for drinks and then watched comedian Simon Evans. I have never seen him before, and I was very impressed and indeed amused. He’s a couple of years younger than us and I thought he was very funny; very intelligent and confident. He seemed just to be telling us stories about his life, but it was really insightful and he made connections between all sorts of things. I would certainly go to see him again. The train was very busy on the way home but we managed to get seats and soon we were home in Cambuslang watching our old favourite, the Eurovision Song Contest. 

A Wee Girl

Yesterday I had a welcome meeting for new panel members in Hamilton, because we are now all officially qualified. Before this I met my former colleague Jennifer for a long overdue coffee in a nearby Starbucks. It was lovely to see her and we had a good chat. I had been thinking about Chanel and David all day. This was because it was Chanel‘s 20 week scan, and as well as checking that everything was okay, they were going to find out the gender of their baby.

A message arrived from Chanel on the family chat while we were still in Starbucks; “All healthy at the scan and baby growing well. Any guesses on gender?” We all started guessing and a short while later the answer arrived: “Girl!” Davie and Chanel even posted a photo of the scan photo sitting on top of a pink baby grow! I exclaimed “It’s a girl!” so loudly that people sitting at other tables in the cafe turned round to look at me and Jennifer was laughing! 

Now, just to be absolutely clear, the main and most important message here was that Baby Anderson is healthy. However, finding out the gender felt very exciting. We already thought of our grandbaby as a real wee person, but knowing that she is a wee girl makes it all feel even more real! A wee boy would of course have been equally welcome, and I would be delighted to welcome some (lots?) more Anderson boys and girls to the family in the future. How fun it is going to be to have a granddaughter! 

Oh dearie me!

We went to see The High Life at the King’s Theatre with Gordon and Morag on Tuesday after at tasty dinner at Cafe Antipasti. 
I watched this Scottish comedy programme in the 1990s, and I loved it. Strangely enough James does not remember it at all. Starring Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson, it’s about two air stewards on a fictional Scottish airline, camping it up and having various nonsensical adventures. They are supported by the eccentric and chaotic Captain played by Patrick Ryecart and terrifying chief stewardess Shona Spurtle, played by Siobhan Redmond. There were only six episodes ever made because shortly afterwards Alan Cumming went to work in America. It was really nice that all four man characters were reunited for this revival. They have made it into a musical and of course sang the catchy original theme tune. It was very funny and we all enjoyed it. 
Recently I accidentally ordered three boxes of tinned pears instead of three tins, which means that we have eighteen tins to use up! James decided that the perfect way to use these would be by adding Angel Delight, an ultra-processed powdered dessert which is whisked with milk to form a delightful mousse in various flavours such as chocolate or even better butterscotch. This was an favourite of ours in the 1980s, but we haven’t eaten it for decades. James purchased a few packets and surprised me this evening with a dessert of tinned pears topped with chocolate Angel Delight; I was transported back to the early days of our marriage in the 1980s in a positively Proustian experience. 

Psychic Cats

We decided to adopt a new strategy when heading from Ullapool to Glasgow today. The cats have become very finely tuned to clues that we are packing up, no matter how subtle we try to be. They then disappear outside and don’t return to the cottage for hours. I can’t blame them because they hate the car journey, even though they seem happy in either of their homes and settle in immediately on arrival. So today I decided that instead of trying to be surreptitious about our departure, we should just pack up blatantly, let the cats do their own thing, and be prepared to set off at any time during the afternoon or even the evening. A plan like this requires two rules: -
a) stick to the plan.
b) hold your nerve. 
By late morning James was breaking both of these rules. When the cats arrived into the house just before lunch time he wanted to set off early, despite the fact that we hadn’t had lunch or finished packing the car. When I let them back out again according to our plan he became quite worried. I hoped that they weren’t picking up on his nervous tone but I think they heard him and stayed away for longer than they otherwise would have. I then made the mistake of trying to pick Tom up as he sauntered past when James and I were sitting outside on the garden benches. Needless to say he gave me the slip and I ended up pointlessly chasing him down the lane. They arrived back at about 5:45 and we quickly set off homewards. In theory our plan had worked because we departed within our target timeframe, but I think we would have been able to set off a bit sooner if we had been more relaxed because Tom and Floof definitely picked up on our intentions.

Phil Kay

Many years ago, maybe about 20 years ago, James and I went to see a Scottish comedian at the Fruitmarket in Glasgow called Phil Kay. He was very funny and his comedy was quite off the wall; rambling stories going off at a tangent. At the time he appeared on television a bit, but we hadn’t heard of him for years. Last weekend we saw in the Ullapool News that he was appearing last night at the Ceilidh Place Venue, and we got ourselves tickets. Well he has got older, but then so have we! Now in his mid fifties Phil Kay was still rambling and often forgot what he was talking about; in fact a guy in the second front row helped him out several times by reminding him! However he was mostly genuinely funny in his anarchic way, and at some moments he was extremely funny! From time to time he would pick up his guitar and improvise a terrible song. It’s pointless to try to describe any of his jokes because they were so weird and he certainly wasn’t to everyone’s taste; a couple of people walked out and quite a few just looked bemused. Those of us who got his humour very much enjoyed ourselves. 

Plockton and Sir David Attenborough

James and I travelled from Ullapool to Plockton on Thursday, so that James could climb a Corbett in the south of Skye. Before we set off, we made sure that both cats were safely in the cottage, and loaded up their food bowls with plenty of wet and dry food for two days. The journey was only two hours, and when we arrived in Plockton, it was breezy but sunny. We checked into the Plockton Hotel, then went for a walk through the little village and up to a viewpoint where we could see across to Skye and Raasay in the distance. We had a nice dinner in the hotel, and our room overlooked the water which was lovely. The next morning we had an early breakfast and set off to sky where I dropped James off to climb his mountain. I went onto Portree where the weather was sunny, then rainy, then sunny, then rainy, changing every 15 minutes! I had coffee in a small café where I was chatting to an American couple from Oregon. I set off back along the road and stopped at the ferry terminal for Raasay, a place which holds good memories for the Anderson family. I went across on the ferry and back as a foot passenger, although I didn’t have time to disembark on the island. James had made tremendously good time on his Corbett and in fact was already waiting for me when I arrived to pick him up at 3 pm. We then drove all the way back to Ullapool, where the cats were very enthusiastic to see us; to have fresh food and to go outside to play. In the evening we watched a tribute to David Attenborough on BBC One because today, 8th May, is his 100th birthday. What an amazing person he is. He has done so much good in the world advocating for our planet and its wildlife. The celebration was at the Royal Albert Hall and Sir David attended, standing up without assistance when the audience sang Happy Birthday to him. 
His parents were pretty amazing too - his Mum was an activist during the 1930s and organised relief for Basque children from the bombing of Guernica; his Dad was the son of a grocer who worked hard to become a historian and academic, and the family took in two Kindertransport refugee children in 1939 who lived with them for seven years and kept in close touch for the rest of their lives. David and his brothers needed to get scholarships to be able to go to university (or drama school in his brother Richard’s case!) What an impact David Attenborough has had on the world! 

Pies and Music

During the days at the weekend we went with Ian and Iris on a couple of outings. They already know the area well, but hadn’t been to the new visitor centre at Corrieshalloch Gorge so we went there and walked down to the bridge along the new path. We also visited Lochinver and walked along to the harbour and had lunch at An Cala before each choosing a pie from the pie shop for our dinner, which we ate later with mash and broccoli. We even had a wee lunch sitting outside at the Seafood Shack, which has a shiny new building this season, although the seating is still outdoors. It was only just warm enough but worth it for the fresh seafood. On their last evening Ian attended a concert at the Macphail Centre which was for musicians only, so Iris, James and I went for drinks at the Argyle Hotel before wandering along to the Ceilidh Place. Our timing was perfect because we arrived there just before the crowd arrived from the Macphail Centre for that night’s session, and we nabbed a really good table at the side, from where we had a great view of all the action. I was speaking to a man called Pete McCallum because the night before he had sung an excellent song called “The Bothy Jazz Song” and I wanted to ask him who wrote it. It turned out that he had written it himself and when I told him that I had loved it he said “That deserves a hug!” and indeed gave me a big hug! We got to know quite a lot of the musicians by sight over the three evenings and chatted to some of them, they are a friendly group. We said our farewells to Ian and Iris on Monday as they set off to visit friends in Beauly.