Leap Year

I returned to Inverness yesterday after a couple of social activities, leaving a rather dreich morning in Glasgow which brightened up as the train travelled through Perthshire, and by the time we approached Inverness the sun was breaking through the clouds. I alternately read my book and enjoyed the beautiful views of mountains and fields. I do enjoy a train journey. I met up with James at Inverness Station and we had lunch before heading back to Ullapool. 

Today is 29th February because this is a Leap Year, and it felt like a kind of bonus day. After a walk round the village with James in the sunshine, I spent the rest of the day updating the Ullapool Notes book, a record that I keep of our activities here. It’s not like my blog, it’s more a series of dates and bullet points with topical lists at the back, such as places that we have eaten and walked and swum and visited. I managed to finish it right up to date and I was very pleased with myself. This evening we watched a film I have been wanting to see, called “It Happened One Night” starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, a romantic comedy which won many Oscars in 1935. It had its witty and quite funny moments, but was inevitably very dated. When we were discussing it we agreed that it was probably very daring at the time, for example an unmarried couple sharing a room, even though it was divided by a blanket on a rope. At nearly ninety years old there are probably jokes in the film which James and I simply don’t “get.” It was mildly amusing and somehow a bit reminiscent of the dialogue in “It’s a Wonderful Life” which is not surprising because they were both directed by Frank Capra. 

Mountain views from the train

James and I had a walk around the village and the harbour this morning in beautiful weather and then drove to The Storehouse, a very good wee restaurant on the Cromarty Firth north-east of Dingwall, to meet Alison and Hugh. Hugh’s sister Lyndsey had recommended it and it was very good place for lunch, relaxed and spacious with lovely views of the water, and the food was excellent. It was so great to catch up with Alison and Hugh, we had a lovely chat and a laugh. Then James dropped me off at Inverness train station where I caught the train to Perth and then the replacement bus service from Perth to Glasgow. The train was almost empty and I had the most amazing views of the snow-capped Cairngorms as I travelled south. The replacement bus was waiting right outside the station and the staff were very helpful at pointing people to the correct bus but oh dear, oh dear, what a long time the bus took to get from Perth to Glasgow Queen Street. More than an hour and a half; it did stop at Stirling on the way which must have added to the time. I was home by 9 p.m. The house was very quiet without James and the kitties. 

Ullapool after the storms

We returned to Ullapool on Thursday and could immediately see the effects of the wild weather they have had since the beginning of the year. Glasgow had storms too (most of which we missed when we were in Austria and London!) but not on this scale. The fences have all been blown down in Morefield Lane and there are trees uprooted all over the place. Our garage door was blown open and buckled in the wind; our neighbours Anne, Natasha and Heather all rallied round and managed to wedge it shut. We are lucky to have such good neighbours. We warmed up the cottage and lit the fire; Tom immediately went out to explore his northern territory but Flora preferred to stay indoors, apart from a jaunt outside just before bedtime. The weather is fine although a bit too chilly to sit outside, after all it’s still February. We have been strolling around the village, plenty of places to have a coffee even this early in the year. Natasha and Marcus came round for coffee, they are such an interesting and pleasant young couple. Marcus is a proper native of the area, their croft has been in his family for many generations. Natasha comes from Lincolnshire, they met at college and they both have full time jobs as well as working on the croft, they are very hard-working. Tom was very affectionate to Natasha and graciously allowed her to rub his tummy. 

We are watching a new spy series called Slow Horses. It is very good. Gary Oldman plays a cynical old manager of a unit of misfits and failures, and he has all of the best lines e.g. “I know that you didn’t mean to kill him. If you had meant to kill him he’d still be alive!” 

Meanwhile Jamie spent his 34th birthday yesterday going to a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney, Australia with Kerry and some friends. They did well to obtain tickets which were much in demand, and decided to make a celebratory weekend of it. I hear that they had a marvellous time. 

French for cats

I am still enjoying my French course by Zoom very much. It has reignited my ambition to improve my French, and I like the teacher and my classmates. However there is someone else who is unexpectedly enjoying the class with me - Flora! She likes to climb up onto James’ desk and sit watching the screen. I think she likes seeing the faces of my classmates as we talk, and she seems to pay close attention to the worksheets; perhaps she will become a bilingual cat! Occasionally she stands up, has a stretch and walks around the desk a bit, at which point her tail can be seen on the screen as she passes. This causes a bit of excitement and I have been asked her name and to introduce her to the group, who are all cat lovers as it turns out. In fact there is only one of the six of us who doesn’t have a cat! 
I was at book club at Jenn’s this week (she is another cat lover although her cats were not in evidence during the evening) and we had good chat as well as discussing the book, a detective novel called Death in the Dordogne by Martin Walker. I gave it to Jennifer (sister) as part of her Christmas present and also read it myself. It was a wee jokey present because she and Russ have just bought a house in the Dordogne! We had a good discussion about it; Susan T pointed out that it is more than just a light read; it’s well written and addresses political and historic issues as well as the inevitable murder or two. We chatted about all sorts of things as usual. It’s always interesting to hear from my former colleagues about what is going on in schools currently, and there were excellent recommendations about good box sets to watch as well as chat about family and life in general. 

Bill’s funeral

This poem was read at the end of Bill’s funeral today. I thought that it was very apt. Alison and the family gave him a good and very loving send off, with music from the Beatles and a reading from Douglas Adams. 

Epitaph on my own friend by Robert Burns

An honest man here lies at rest,
As e’er God with His image blest:
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this. 

Home from London

We went back to the Two Magpies for brunch in our last morning in London. We bought a box of baklava from the recently opened and rather delightful The Baklava Company across the road from the café, and also a wee bunch of early daffodils, and left both in the flat as a thanks to Ally and Cat for their hospitality. Back in Scotland we have been catching up on useful stuff around the house and also enjoying a bit of socialising. We had a lovely dinner and evening at Heather and Ewan’s on Saturday and I had a very nice coffee and catch up with Hilary today. I also visited Alison on Monday, it was good to see her but I also felt so sad for her. 
Months ago I impulsively purchased tickets for “I Should Be So Lucky” a new musical based on the 1980s and 1990s hits by Stock Aitken and Waterman. This evening we went along to the King’s Theatre to see it and as I expected it had a really rubbish plot to cobble together the songs, and a hologram of Kylie Minogue which appeared in a mirror. In fact I even considered leaving. But as it went on, I was won over by the talented singing and dancing of the enthusiastic young cast, and by the end I was singing along with the rest of the audience to “Never Gonna Give You Up.” 

The Imperial War Museum

Today we walked from Limehouse to the Imperial War Museum which was about 6 km, a mixture of riverside and urban walking. We had lunch in the museum café before spending the afternoon looking at the displays on the 2nd World War (James) and the Holocaust (both of us.) The displays have been updated since our last visit (at least a decade ago) and were very good, we were there for several hours without realising it. We met Cat for dinner at Koha before going just round the corner to Wyndham’s Theatre where we met Ally (who had had a late work meeting) to see a comedy called The Unfriend. As we went in I had the tickets all ready to display on my phone screen, but for some reason when I showed it to the ticket checker, a photo of Ally swimming at the Fairy Pools in Skye came up instead! The show was amusing; it starred Lee Mack and really had the vibe of an extended episode of his tv show Not Going Out! Lee Mack’s physical comedy was excellent, he is very funny, and supporting actors Frances Barber and Sarah Alexander were very good too. We all enjoyed it. Back at the flat we had hot chocolate and said our goodbyes before bedtime because we will be leaving tomorrow while Ally and Cat are at work.