Two bongs from Big Ben

We got the front seats on the DLR on the way to meet Ally and Cat and it was great fun pretending to drive it! We met Ally and Cat for brunch in a delightful French café called Chez Antoinette near St James’ Park, then made our way to Westminster for our Big Ben tour. We have toured the Houses of Parliament before, but none of us had ever climbed the 334 steps up to the bell tower. The tour was great, the tour guide told us so many interesting facts about the clock tower, its history and mechanism. We had fantastic views from the top and then came the main event; we were provided with ear defenders just in time for the bells to chime the hour, and since it was 2 p.m. we were treated to two resounding “bongs” from Big Ben (which is the name of the bell rather than the tower.) The whole experience was even better than I had hoped. After a quick coffee, Ally and Cat took us to Portobello Road to see the shops and the market. On the way we noticed that the actress Celia Imrie was sitting near us on the tube; when we disembarked Ally offered to carry her case up the stairs for her. She accepted and called him a gentleman - I was so proud of him! We have never been to Portobello Road before and it was vibrant and busy, we were reminded of the song and dance scene from the film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and we saw the bookshop that featured in the film “Notting Hill.” We went to a nearby pub for a tasty dinner and then took the tube across London to the National Theatre to see Ballet Shoes. Ballet Shoes is one of both Cat’s and my favourite childhood books, in fact Cat gave me a copy of the book and a DVD of the recent film for my birthday a few years ago. So going to the play felt like a bit of a risk in case it didn’t live up to our expectations. I need not have worried; it was an excellent production and we all enjoyed it. What a great day we have had! 

Dot to dot

Today we set off to London to see Ally and Cat, our journey enlivened by delays on the motorway and booking tickets for Kelvingrove Bandstand while in the queue for security! And then we booked a boat trip on Loch Katrine while we were on the plane, before we took off! (a lovely birthday present to James from Heather and Ewan.) 

Arriving in London we went straight to the National Gallery and had a delicious sandwich lunch in Supporters’ House, before going to see the Neo-impressionist exhibition “Radical Harmonies: From Seurat to Van Gogh.” I was pleased to see it because Heather and Ewan enjoyed it and I thought that I would be too late, however it’s on for one more week. The paintings, whose genre I was taught at school was called “pointillism” * were pleasant, especially from a distance, and I can see that it’s a sort of progression from Impressionism. However it did seem that they were restricting themselves by this method of painting. James said that the paintings were “the occasional triumph over technique” - in other words he thinks that they went to a lot of effort without matching results. I concur with this, although I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition. 

In the evening we phoned Kerry in New Zealand to wish her a Happy 30th Birthday. It’s still 30th January here in the UK but they are 12 hours ahead in New Zealand so it’s already her birthday (31st) there. We were pleased that our card and present had arrived in time to their new Auckland address. Kerry already works in Auckland, and Jamie will start his new consultant job there on Monday. Excitingly it’s now a year until Jamie and Kerry’s wedding in New Zealand. I got them a wee countdown chalkboard for Christmas, where they can mark how many days until the wedding. 

 * Apparently the neo-impressionists hated being called pointillists, probably because they felt that there was much more to their work than dots! 

Home again

It felt like a long journey home from Italy on Saturday, although it all went smoothly and the plane was only a bit late taking off. We had gorgeous snowy views in the bus ride to Innsbruck Airport, and an interesting commentary from the Inghams rep; for example she pointed out the building works for a bypass for the lorries that make the motorway too busy. They will be shuttled underground by train, although the project will not be finished until 2034. Innsbruck airport was very busy and we had to stand in a long queue for passport control, but I have stood in worse queues in the past so I’m not complaining. Once we landed at Edinburgh Airport and said our farewells to Heather and Ewan, it was only a 45 minutes drive to home and a fond reunion with the cats. I had a nice hot bath which made me so sleepy that I dropped off to sleep the minute my head hit the pillow. 
Since the weekend we have had rather dreich weather and have got back into our normal routine including a Children’s Panel training day for me today which required quite a lot of preparation. The training was intense but very practical; such a lot to take in! Our lovely course leader assures us that it will all become like second nature eventually. Tonight we went to another fun quiz night at the Rowantree Inn with Davie and Chanel; we came a respectable fourth. 

Fantastic Holiday

We are relaxing in the hotel lounge this morning, in that strange limbo of waiting for our lunchtime coach to Innsbruck Airport. It is snowing heavily outside and looks very pretty. Thursday was James’ 64th birthday and what a great day he had. He received cards and presents at breakfast as well as some birthday messages, and then set off happily for a long and sunny morning of skiing with Heather and Ewan. We all had a late lunch at the Luigi Gorza Refuge at Porto Vascara way above the village at 2478 metres high. Our table by the window overlooked the stunning Dolomites with the Alps of Austria in the distance. The food was very special as was the company, it was a joyful occasion. After lunch we took photos of the mountains from the terrace, and one of the waiters kindly took some good photos of the four of us. We had a lovely rustic dinner of “local” Val Gardena food, which was great but perhaps a few too many grains and pulses for me, especially after the huge bowl of polenta that I had at lunchtime! My stomach felt very full! The food in the hotel is excellent and I will miss it. 

My knee finally gave out after four (short!) days of skiing, so I amused myself by strolling around the village and having coffees and reading my book (House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende) and enjoying the scenery. Although a bit disappointing, four days isn’t bad and hopefully I have not quite yet reached the end of my skiing years! On the other hand James, Heather and Ewan all skied for an impressive six full days. The weather has been so fantastic, it has been such a good holiday. 

Pink Dolomites

My second and third ski lessons went well in terms of technique, however my knee continued to be very sore. I was not downhearted however, and still had fun and enjoyed the sunshine and snow. The scenery in the Dolomites is just amazing and the mountains above Arabba glowed pink in the sun. James, Heather and Ewan continued touring the area and covering huge distances. Heather showed me their route on the Strava App which is very impressive, there is an option to animate the route so you can see the cursor moving along all of the lifts and pistes that they skied, you can even see the line wiggle down the steeper slopes where more turns were required! Today I took the gondola up to the mid station at Porta Vescova after my ski lesson and had a coffee and croissant surrounded by mountains. It was really warm sitting outside in the sunshine but then the sun moved behind a cliff and it suddenly became very cold! The others arrived back about an hour after me and following some après-ski drinks, Heather and I went to the hotel spa and chatted while relaxing our legs in the jacuzzi before another delicious dinner. 

Sunshine and snow

A much better ski day for me today! I met up with my pleasant ski instructor, Federico, in the morning and we spent two hours on the blue run practising my turns. I felt more confident although my knee still isn’t great. Most of all I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I’m so delighted still to be skiing. Federico is 24 and has a cat called Osvaldo known as Ossie. The weather is fantastic, with sun and blue skies. Meanwhile James, Heather and Ewan skied the Sella Ronda including a stop at the famous woodcarving shop where Heather purchased another hand-carved deer for her collection. To my surprise they got presents for me too. James gave me a cute round-bellied marmot and Heather and Ewan got me a gorgeous little kitten. Both of these were hand-carved in Val Gardena from pine wood, so you can see the grain of the wood. I felt very moved that they all thought of me. Another great evening ensued. 

Return to Arabba

The journey to Arabba went very smoothly yesterday; we flew from Edinburgh to Innsbruck and then had a two and a half hour bus journey to Arabba. Ewan informed us that the last time we were here was six years ago, in 2019. We are back in the same hotel, the Sporthotel, and it’s just as smart and comfortable as I remember, and the bedrooms seem to have been refurbished in new, lighter wood. We were too late for dinner but were served cold platters of food in the bar area. After a celebratory brandy in our room we slept well, although woken at 7 a.m. by very loud church bells! I dropped straight back to sleep and woke in good time for a hearty breakfast. Then;  came the inevitable footering around to walk down to the ski hire shop, leave our skis at the chairlift, back up to the hotel to leave our snow boots and then back down to the chairlift. My skiing started disastrously; despite going down a reasonably easy blue, my right knee was instantly painful and I felt that I could hardly turn to the left. I encouraged the others to ski on while I made my way back to the resort. I managed down ok and decided to go up a wee chairlift that I could see culminated at a short wide blue run. Except that I got into the wrong chairlift and was lifted back up to the top of run 22 again! So down I painfully skied a second time and then went to book myself three individual lessons at the ski school for the next three mornings. I will also buy a knee support because foolishly I didn’t bring one of the couple that I have at home - I say foolishly because I already knew that my right knee has been deteriorating; last week I couldn’t bend it when I was attempting to get out of the bath! And this morning it was very sore when I was pushing my foot into my ski boot. I spent the afternoon in the spa and was impressed to find out that James, Heather and Ewan had skied 32 km today! We had a convivial evening and by the end of dinner we noticed that it was snowing lightly. 

Northern Renaissance Brunch

We left Ullapool on the rainy afternoon of Tuesday 13th January after an excellent fortnight in sun, wind, snow, sleet and rain. The next day was the first session of my (resumed) Children’s Panel training. * It was informative and interesting, and the group I’m training with are all very friendly. When I got home I did the homework from Day 1 straight away because I will be on holiday next week. I will then have a few days to do the preparation for Day 2 which is in a fortnight. I had a busy couple of days of shopping, haircut, packing, and I met up with Sue for brunch in Burnside. I met Sue on my Northern Renaissance Art Course, and it was very nice to see her again; we chatted about lots of things including Krakow and the Marian Altar in St Mary’s Church. I got my results back from the course a few days ago and was delighted to get a “B” with just over 70%. I found doing the essay and visual test to be helpful in consolidating my understanding of the course, the whole experience was great fun. I’m hoping to do another History of Art course later in the year, and it will be interesting to learn about a different art movement, but there will always  be a big part of my heart in the Northern Renaissance! 

* I paused my training in March last year when I was unwell, but was encouraged by my tutors to resume it this year. 

Hamnet in Inverness

We had a pleasant wee half day out in Inverness today. We had lunch in the Marks & Spencer‘s café in the town centre. This also gave us the opportunity to stock up on a few items for the freezer. Then after a quick trip to the bottle bank, we went to the Vue cinema to see the much anticipated film of Maggie O’Farrell’s book, Hamnet. I enjoyed it, and it was fairly true to the book, although it missed out an important thread about the approach of the plague which I think is a pity. And it was much more about Anne (Agnes) Shakespeare than about Hamnet, whereas the book had more about Hamnet’s life; somehow it lacked something of the humanity of the book. We enjoyed chatting about it on the way back and arrived in Ullapool before dark. 

Storm Goretti

Many areas in England were affected by Storm Goretti yesterday and today. It was much hyped in the news with predictions of high winds and snow. There were indeed high winds with lots of trees blown over in the south west, and very sadly one person in Cornwall was killed by a falling tree. However I was rather taken aback this morning when I saw, on the news, the photos of the snow deposited by Storm Goretti in the Midlands. There seems to have been only a thin layer of snow, maybe about 4 to 6 cm at most, and it is clearly melting quickly because you could see that the roads were already fairly clear. Despite this underwhelming amount of snow, buses and trains in England have been cancelled and road traffic has been hugely disrupted. There has however been little coverage of the significant amounts of snow that we have had in the north of Scotland over the past week, where there has been no fuss at all about the genuinely difficult driving conditions. 

Wood

The cold snap continues. We had a snowy walk around the village yesterday where the views were so beautiful in every direction that we were forced to stop constantly to take photos! We had lunch in Cult Café and then walked back via West Terrace where we could see the Summer Isles in the distance, covered in snow and lit up by the low winter sunlight. 
We ran into Basher at the chip shop on Thursday where he was ordering himself a hearty lunch, and asked him if he could deliver some softwood; pine logs. Soon he arrived round with his trailer and unloaded a huge pile of wood onto our driveway. James positioned himself beside the woodpile just inside the garage door, while I threw the small logs into the garage beside him. James then built a new pile of wood, which will dry out over the next few months. After a few near misses the inevitable happened and I did hit accidentally him on the thigh with a chunk of wood, for which I apologised profusely. 
Whilst having a cosy evening by the fire, I came across a wee two part series called Stories from the National Gallery, about its history and some of its paintings, made for the 200th anniversary in 2024. It was awfully good. I think that the National Gallery may be my favourite Art Gallery that I have ever visited. 

Rogie Falls at last!

It snowed a lot during the night into 3rd January and is lying much thicker on the ground now. Davie and Chanel set off for home by car about lunchtime. They let us know when they were safely home late afternoon; the roads were very snowy between Ullapool and Inverness but they took it easy and got through okay. Meanwhile James, Ally and Cat went for a walk up past the quarry and along Loch Achall, while I took photos of snowy scenes around the cottage. We had mince pies that Ally and Cat had brought from Fortnum and Masons with brandy cream while sitting beside the fire. What have the cats been up to over New Year? I think that they have very much enjoyed the company and attention of the young folk, and they have loved lounging about near the fire, but are not very keen on the snow outside! 
This morning we were up early to give Ally and Cat a lift to Inverness Airport. Their flight wasn’t until 11.50 but it had snowed again overnight and we wanted to allow plenty of time. Sure enough the road out of Ullapool was completely covered in snow and James had to drive slowly, although we soon passed several snow ploughs and the road conditions improved steadily as we approached Inverness. We had time to have breakfast in Tiso before dropping Ally and Cat at the airport. Their plane was only slightly delayed and Ally sent us a photo of the de-icing machine spraying the plane; soon they were on their way back to London.
James and I decided that we should head straight back to Ullapool because more snow was forecast. However on the way we made an unscheduled stop. James and I have had a long running joke that although we pass the car park for Rogie Falls (near Contin) every time that we go to Ullapool, we have never visited the waterfall. Well today was the day! We set off down the snowy path through tall trees whose branches and twigs were heavy with crisp snow. It was so pretty! The sun slanted through the trees but it was very cold. We crossed the little suspension bridge over the falls which were cascading enthusiastically over the rocks into the Black Water which was indeed very black. The snow didn’t start until we were back at the cottage where we had a cosy evening with the cats. 

A Snow Angel start to 2026

We had an extraordinarily late night on Hogmanay at the Ceilidh Place followed by a few drama of whisky back at the cottage, so we all had a long lie on the first morning of 2026, emerging in due course to drink coffee and eat lots of toast and butter. 

The snow arrived in the afternoon, but not very heavily, leaving only a thin layer on the ground and alternating with hailstones. Some of us went out for bracing walks, some read and played cards. We had our New Year’s meal at about 4.30 p.m. and it went very well. We had very full tummies and had a relaxing evening. 

Today Ally and Cat were both working and James and I went for a walk down to the village with Davie and Chanel. It was snowing gently, and we had a look at the boat in the harbour before having filled rolls for lunch in the Ceilidh Place. Later on, we had a cozy afternoon of playing cards, watching the film Matilda the Musical, and having chilli con carne for dinner. A cozy and pleasant evening by the fire ensued. When James and I were getting ready for bed we heard voices outside so we looked out of our bedroom window; Ally and Cat were in the garden, laughing in the blizzard of snow! Cat even lay down to make a snow angel! Oh to be young! 

Hogmanay Hoolie

Hogmanay was my 63rd birthday, and what a lovely day I had. In the morning we all drove to Rhu and walked down to the lighthouse. It was windy and the sea was an amazing teal colour with white crested waves. We looked for the hump-backed whale which has been spotted off the point over the last couple of weeks, but it was not to be seen. 
Later we headed to the Ceilidh Place for the Hogmanay Hoolie. It was great! The buffet was generous and absolutely delicious, with Middle Eastern salads as well as hearty venison stew, jackfruit curry, quiches and lots of desserts. There was a worrying moment when we thought that they had run out of pavlovas, however another tray of them appeared immediately, to our relief and delight. The ceilidh band was slightly delayed because one of the musicians was missing! However he turned up and the dancing started. We all danced a lot and became rather overheated. There were some nice people to chat to at our table, including a young couple who had never experienced a Scottish Hogmanay before; I was very proud that Ally, Cat, Davie and Chanel included them and taught them all of the Scottish country dances, they had a wonderful time. Owner Jock was especially grateful to Ally and Cat for leading Strip the Willow! We brought in the New Year on the dance floor and the band (after a pause while they got themselves some beers) played Auld Lang Syne. I was persuaded into the centre of the circle with a fellow birthday girl called Nicki, which was a brilliant experience, the crowd surging towards us and away. And so 2026 began!