Chatiryworld

Je vais a Bruxelles pour mon anniversaire.

Grand Place - Bruxelles, originally uploaded by Spigoo.

A few weeks ago, as we sat down to dinner, Jon informed me that Sigur Ros were playing in Glasgow in November.

'We've got to make sure we book and go!' I said enthusiastically.

But Jon looked a bit odd.  He had to spoil a surprise, that was why.  He'd booked tickets to see them in Brussels on my birthday and this was going to be my present.  He had to tell me so that I didn't get suspicious as to why we weren't going to the gig in Glasgow.

I suppose it's a good job he told me, not least because I had to get another passport (application posted on Friday, received passport the following Wednesday, unheard of!), but also so I can do my usual reading up and plotting.  Not that we'll be there for that long.  We'll travel to London on the Friday, have an early night and get the first Eurostar to Brussels on Saturday morning, giving us a good chunk of Saturday and then Sunday in Brussels.  Back to London and then Edinburgh on the Monday. 

We're staying a with a very good friend, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her.  I'm not sure what we will do in Brussels, we'll be staying very near the centre in a lovely area.  Both of us have been to Brussels and have a bit of a soft spot for it.  I can see lots of just wandering around and stopping for waffles and hot chocolate.  Yum.  Jon's never been to the comic strip museum so I'm sure we'll end up there.

I love having an adventure to look forward to, especially when it involves one of my favourite bands and my birthday!

Doors Open Day

Last Saturday was Doors Open Day here in Edinburgh.  Every year we get the brochure and see things we want to go to, and then never go.  This year was different.  Whilst Jon was out at life-drawing, I decided to go to the Scottish Poetry Library book fair, By Leaves We Live, and check out a couple of buildings that were nearby.

First stop was Dovecot Studios, shown above.  This is now the home of Edinburgh Tapestry Company, and it's a converted swimming pool, you can probably make that out.  There is also exhibition space that felt a bit dark and claustrophobic, but overall a lovely building.

Next I popped in to The Breakfast Mission, home of Richard Murphy Architects.  Lovely building, and there was masses of information about their projects including films, plans, photographs and scale models.  They've designed Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, Maggie's Centre in Edinburgh, and the Fruitmarket Gallery, also in Edinburgh, amongst other things. 

After that I headed down to the Poetry Library.  The book fair was fascinating, lots of small presses including Wild Hawthorn and Alice Melvin.  It was also packed and almost impossible to browse in a relaxing way, so I gave up after a while and battled against throngs of stag and hen parties and went home. 

Although I could have fitted in many more Doors Open Day buildings, I don't think I had the patience for it.  Hopefully next year I'll try and do some more, maybe looking at some older buildings this time.

I...

Here's a meme that Croila tagged me for:

I am: trying to change things for the better at the moment.

I think: a lot, possibly too much sometimes.

I know: that you need to look after yourself.

I have: a lovely family.

I wish: that I didn't need to take Prozac, but see 'I know'.

I hate: right-wing religious fundamentalism.

I miss: my Granny Pip

I fear: right-wing wing religious fundamentalists in this country having too much influence after the donations they make to government.

I hear: Radio 3's Late Junction on the BBC iPlayer.

I smell: freshly-baked raspberry and walnut muffins.

I crave: a garden.

I search: pretty well, I am a librarian by training after all.

I wonder: about lots of different things.

I regret: leaving my Granny Pip's old umbrella in a shop in Leeds somewhere.  It was an ugly thing, but it was the most robust umbrella I ever had.

I love: Jon of course!

I ache: when I bump into things, which is quite often because I am clumsy.

I am not: particularly sociable.

I believe: in scientific explanations of why things happen in the world.

I dance: not as well as I did when I went to ballet lessons.

I sing: rarely, usually only with small children. 

I cry: way too easily, I'm going to be a mess on our wedding day!

I fight: for things I believe in.

I win: sometimes on the Wii.

I lose: a bit more often.

I never: knit a tension square, yes I am that careless knitter.  You can cease to have any sympathy with me when I blog about knitted items not turning out quite right.

I always: have a knitting project on the go.

I confuse: people.

I listen: not always as well as I should considering I've been on courses for it.

I can usually be found: on the sofa.

I am scared: that the Republicans are going to get in again.

I need: a new job (see 'I am').

I am happy about: going to Brussels for my birthday, more on that in another post!

I imagine: what our wedding day will be like.

Ok, now I need to tag.  I'm never quite sure that I have any readers left but how about Ben, Emma, Crafty Green Poet and Gemma.

Religion in schools

It's funny how the homeschooling movement is sometimes seen as being something religious parents do to ensure their children are indoctrinated brought up in a particular religion.  Of course not all homeschoolers are like this but reading the first two letters from this week's National Secular Society Newsline makes me think home education is a safer bet if you don't want your children indoctrinated.  Absolutely disgusting that this kind of thing goes on.

For more information about home education in Scotland have a look at Schoolhouse, and in England and Wales, Education Otherwise (better and more informative website to be honest).

Hats

First up, what I call the SouleMama hat, because that's the name of the blog where you can download the pattern for free from.  SouleMama is one of my favourite blogs, lots of seasonal living, crafts, home education and family loveliness.  I'm starting to use circular needles and dpns more, and this hat involved both.  To think I was once scared of dpns...  I knit it in some yarn I brought back from Orkney, the yarn is from North Ronaldsay and is dyed by Pam Murray.  I chose this particular colourway as it's so reminiscent of the Orkney landscape.

And here's some more stripe love for little ones.  After I made these mittens back in the summer I decided that a matching hat would be really sweet.  I wanted to practice using dpns more so I found a free pattern on Ravelry, Sweet and Simple Baby Hats, from Knitting Foundry.  I knit in leftover Rowan 4 ply Cotton.  It's gone in my pile of things to save as baby gifts. 

Right, back to looking up recipes.  We had our first organic veg box delivery from Damhead today, lots of goodness in there!

Do something wonderful

I seem to have a couple of things to blog about (nothing exciting, just knitting and life and stuff) that I'll spread out over the next few days, in recent weeks I've felt like I have nothing to say but I suppose you could argue that's what blogging is about.

A couple of times I've posted about our little friend Emily, who as you can see is a lovely wee girl and very clever with it too.  We've alluded sometimes to her having a few health problems, but I've never expanded on it as it's not our story to tell.  However, Emily's mum Clare has asked me to help with some fundraising that Emily is doing (see, told you she was clever, can use the internet at only 19 months) for Aid for Children with Tracheostomies (ACT).  Emily currently breathes through a tracheostomy - that's the thing in her neck that you might just be able to make out in photos.  This is obviously quite a serious thing, and her family have had a pretty rough time of it, spending just about the whole of summer last year at Yorkhill Children's Hospital.  ACT have been enormously helpful and supportive throughout this difficult time.

So, although it's only September, if you are thinking of buying christmas cards this year, have a look at the ones Emily and her family are selling for ACT.  Although I've mentioned charities on here before, this is one I feel pretty strongly about having seen how it affects a family.  It's also something I knew next to nothing about until Em came along, and I suspect that's the case for many other people so ACT needs all the publicity it can get because it does a fantastic job.  You can find more details on the fundraising page.

I'll put a widget up in the sidebar, and mention this again nearer the festive season.  I'd also like to do something myself to help, but I haven't quite figured out what yet, it may involve knitting and/or the advent calendar I do every year. 

Puffin Post is back

Look!  I was never in the Puffin Post club, but before going to school I was in the Junior Puffin Club.  A story in the magazine you got with it was the first thing I ever read by myself, I can still remember.  It was one of those stories that replaces words with images (I know they have a proper name but my memory has been eaten by Prozac so I can't remember useful and intelligent things like this, only things I have no need to remember).

Glimpses from Skye

I don't feel like we really did that much, but here goes:

Staying in the ever-wonderful Tigh an Dochais and being very well looked after by Neil, the muffins were as good as we remembered.

Eating out every night at the Harbour Restaurant where Martin and Linda looked after us.  The food was fantastic, including the best vegetarian haggis I've ever had.  Sadly they are retiring so this was most likely their last season.  We wish them all the best, they've really helped make our holidays in Broadford for the past 3 years.

Going for a major walk (for us, anyway) to the cleared village of Boreraig.  Discovering very quickly that our walking gear wasn't actually that good when it came to pouring rain.  We felt pretty miserable but when we got back to Tigh an Dochais we discovered 2 white waffle bath robes in our room so we were able to play at being in the White Company catalogue.

Waking up to a beautiful sunrise.

Less ambitious walks the following day, round to Broadford Pier followed by a bit of yarn and second hand book shopping, then later round the very sweet area of Waterloo, lots of lovely croft houses.

Amazing sunset that evening as we walked back from the restaurant.

And then back home, accompanied by an idiot drinking Fosters, so we moved carriages on the second leg of the journey.  Very good decision.

Photos from the trip can be found here.  I borrowed a friend's Holga too so we will see what turns out from that when I finish the film - just waiting for some decent light outside.

Modelling my handiwork

Emily liked her hat.  Operation Stripy Jumper was a bit too big though.  Actually, the hat was too, but she styled into a kind of beret/Rasta number.  The rest of the afternoon was spent reading books and pointing our arms in the air saying 'Choon!'.  An afternoon with a toddler can be very cheering.

(Em's mum and dad, I'll email the photos to you tomorrow!)

 

Atheist at Christmas

If the train fares weren't so damn expensive at that time of year I might just make an effort to go to Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People.  It sounds fab. Some of my favourite people will be there: Phill Jupitus, Mark Thomas, Ben Goldacre and Richard Dawkins amongst other people.

Via Friendly Atheist.

Home again

Beinn na Caillich, originally uploaded by chatirygirl.

Meh. Got post-holiday/rainy day/can't hang my washing outside blues. Skye was of course wonderful, in the main we had excellent weather but paid for it by getting spectacularly wet on a long walk.

More soon.

American politics is scaring me at the moment.

Not that things are perfect here though of course. 

Doing

We had a nice couple of hours with my dad and family over in Lower Largo yesterday.  I saw one of my sisters for the first time in 3 1/2 years which meant it was also that long since my dad had all his children together.  Jon can now claim to have met all my siblings as well.  We just chilled out, ate good food and watched the kids kayaking.  There was a little visit to the farm shop and we were on our way.  After 11 year old Rory explained his plan for a carwashing business with his friends, of course.  He's going to be the manager and not do any of the manual work.

Earlier this week Jon had a migraine and is still feeling the effects of it so unfortunately we haven't been able to take advantage of the tickets to Hydro Connect Festival that we won for today (local friends, they were unfortunately non-transferable so you'd have to have had plastic surgery to look like Jon and then taken his photo ID to pick them up, that's why we haven't been able to offer them up...).  Shame because we would have loved to see Sigur Ros, Elbow and Goldfrapp. At least we're not getting soaked in the rain though.

On Wednesday we're away to Skye for a few days, we can't wait.  We'll be dining at the Harbour Restaurant every night and have no concrete plans for the daytimes, just chilling out and enjoying the Highlands.

And then autumn beckons.  I love autumn but can't help the feeling that we've been cheated out of another summer.  The glorious weather of May and June seems such a long time ago.

Farewell towers

sheffield towers demolition, originally uploaded by siandara.

Looking at some of these photos and watching the film of them coming down is bringing a tear to my eye.  Sound a bit melodramatic for some ugly cooling towers?  They are/were an icon for Sheffield, Yorkshire even.  When I was a kid and we drove back up to Ilkley from holidays, you'd know you weren't far from home when you saw the towers (and even nearer when you got to Harry Ramsdens, which was a landmark for one of my sisters).  I will admit that for a while the consumerist 'paradise' of Meadowhell next door held more appeal but as I grew older the towers became a bigger part of the landscape. 

Once I moved to Sheffield, they would be the signal to put your book away as the train neared the station, or a dramatic sight as the tram to Meadowhell (which by this time I was trying to avoid like the plague) swung past.

I haven't been to Sheffield for nearly three years now, circumstantial rather than not wanting to go, but next time I do go it will seem very strange not to see the Tinsley towers as the train nears the city.

Food swaps

Just been reading about food swaps in the Guardian's Money section.  It mentions Organic Lea in London, who work to produce food on a former allotment site.  What interested me is that they go 'scrumping', whereby anyone in their area with a surplus of apples and/or pears can donate them to be distributed locally.  There is also a particular day each year when volunteers go and pick/collect excess fruit from the area, keeping some of it and selling the rest to help with the running of Organic Lea.  Plus they have a food swap day, where you can swap your homegrown veggies, preserves and baking for someone elses.  I love this idea.  Growing Communities has some photos of their food swap day, also in London.

The photo above shows something we came across walking over to Morningside last autumn, I'd like to think that I'd do the same.  When I was about 11 or 12, our neighbours had a surfeit of tomatoes in their greenhouse and invited us to take as many as we wanted.  I think we lived off tomato soup and pasta with tomato sauce for a while, freezing plenty as well. 

Last week I bought a chilli plant for £1 from a colleague who had germinated too many, brilliant!  Maybe I should offer up some of our surplus of sage? 

In a follow-up to my slow post of the other week, I am now reading In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore, as recommended by Ben.  It's a great read and I'd urge you to read it if you have any interest in the slow movement.  Going by the number of date stamps in my library copy of it, plenty of people do want to know more.