Long time no blog, what with two delightful weekends full of friends to keep me busy.
First there was the long-awaited hag do for Fiona and Ailsa: a fantastic event over three days organised with precision by Barry, Colin, Hils and Helen. There was a meal in the intimacy of a private room at Channings, where we could get all loud and annoying without worrying that we were bothering other people. Then on Saturday were split into two teams (I was on Fi's) and set on a series of challenges including golf, cryptic clues, rounders, tug of war, a beer mat collecting exercise and cheese and wine tasting. I was mediocre at all of these but nevertheless our team triumphed overall.
That evening we had a two round poker tournament, playing for actual money: £10 in the pot from each of 14 of us made it a prize worth winning and really very exciting. I made it to the second round on the back of extreme luck, including being dealt a natural full house, but Barry proceeded to amass a heap of chips so huge you could barely see his eyebrows. I went all in on the last hand - three threes - and won most of Al's stash (he claims, in the misguided belief that I would have done likewise, that he 'donated' them to me knowing I had the better hand) but even that was not enough to overcome Barry's hoard and he was declared a worthy winner.
Humph.
Sunday found us at the Sheep's Heid in Duddingston, a pub I've been meaning to go to for years but never got around to. It claims to be the oldest pub in Edinburgh, with a tavern on the site for the last squillion years, and boasts an old-fashioned skittles alley. To be honest I was hoping for a little non-competitive, genteel, ad hoc skittle action, but being us we once again organised into teams. Luckily a round of sausage sandwiches from the pub barbecue revived us enough to not lose every single round, but not enough to deny Ailsa the chance to claim a victory.
Last weekend Mo and Ray came up to visit, seeing the cottage for the first time. It is, at least, just about habitable for visitors now, though we still need a new spare bed. The current one is nailed together with planks and the mattress is too big and hangs over the edge. I have booked Al in for a trip to Ikea before my mum arrives. Anyway, Morag and Ray were most patient with it, and apart from the study, which still looks as a bit empty and seems to get covered in muddy paw prints as fast as I can hoover them up, the rest of the place cleaned up nicely after a two hour frenzy with the vacuum and duster.
We'd planned to do very little and enjoyed a leisurely lunch followed by a two and a half hour walk along the back roads to Tillicoultry, where ice creams were purchased, and back along the railway. It was the first time Al had done this route, which is familiar to me from running. It's a lovely walk with hardly any roads and Dougal loved it, romping happily with passing hounds. Back home he summoned just enough energy to eat his dinner before curling up on my lap and sleeping - the first time we've managed to tire him out!
I made a lasagna while Morag and Ray erected a massive Leaning Tower of Cake from the sponges I'd made earlier. Well, Morag mostly made it while Ray provided helpful comments, took photos and prevented Dougal from eating things. The shelves inside the oven have slipped so cakes come out a bit squinty, but my assistants managed to match the layers of sponge beautifully. Held together with whipped cream and an entire punnet of strawberries, it was a sight to behold.
After the previous weekend, Al had the poker bug and we had requested that our guests bring cards and chips. Fortified by cake and whisky, we pokered away until Al had won everything and then we went to bed.
I dragged myself up at 9.30 to let Dougal out. Having done so, I went to the loo and returned to the kitchen to find Al letting a rather confused Dougal out again. He (Al, not Dougal) had mistaken a pile of duvet for my sleeping form and was sleepily surprised to find me downstairs as well as still in bed.
While not exactly sunny, the weather was at least making some attempt at warmth and we spent a pleasant morning in and around the hammock with the papers before tootling off to find a pub for lunch. We tried to track down one in Powmill, which Al's parents had recommended, but we couldn't find it and returned to the Muckhart Inn instead. Al and I were on the bike, so Mo and Ray headed home after lunch and we motored back to the hound and more hammock time.
I took another look at my courgettes. They still haven't grown, even though I've watered them and been stung by nettles weeding them. Expert opinion (ie my mum) suggests that they are now goners. How ungrateful of them. At least my herbs are making a brave showing, proving that I am not a complete plant Jonah. The basil is even recognisable as basil already.
Back to work for a short week - Friday to be spent at a Secret Location for the non-wedding of the year. Took Dougal to the vet yesterday as he has an eye infection - probably from running through acres of eye-height grass. I was much more nervous than him. When the vet picked him up to put him on the table he thought he was getting a cuddle, and then he kept trying to lick the torch used to look in his eye. Now we have eye drops to administer, which takes a while as Dougal thinks they'd be much better taken orally.
Otherwise, I've been kept occupied following the Glasgow East by election. As Ray noted over the Sunday papers, the Sunday Times seems to be under the impression that the Tories could win this seat. Possibly their thinking goes: Labour not looking good, therefore Conservatives not looking bad. But I'm pretty sure that, in their desperate search for a way to show Gordon Brown where to stick his 10p tax band, the people of Glasgow East are not clinging to the legs of Tory politicians and pleading for forgiveness for the crime of never having voted for them before.
Oh no. I think the SNP will probably do quite well.
Especially if Labour keep coming out with stuff like this, from Labour minister David Cairns: "Councillor Mason [the SNP candidate] has finally let the cat out of the bag. He has admitted what we knew all along – he is a hard-line Nationalist who sees his role at Westminster to bring about independence."
Um, am I the only one who thinks that possibly the cat was never in the bag in the first place? That, in fact, the cat was sitting some distance away from the bag, sunning itself and opening flaunting a yellow SNP badge? Hello - it's called the 'Scottish National Party'. The clue is in the name.
Now I don't support Scottish nationalism (yet). I'm not quite convinced it's in Scotland's interests to go it alone, or that the rest of the UK will ever let go of all that lovely oil that Alex's relying on. But I do support democracy. And if the people of Scotland vote for an independent Scotland then that is what they should get.
David Cairns seems to think that if you support nationalism, you shouldn't be allowed to express that support democratically by electing someone to bring about such a state of affairs by peaceful political means. He's out of touch if he thinks that wanting an independent Scotland makes Mason an unacceptable representative to most Scots.
Quite apart from the fact that independence is not, north of the border, viewed with the antipathy it is in London, the SNP has managed over the last year and a bit to establish itself as more than a one issue party. I didn't want to like them. But they keep doing things I agree with.
I want Labour to win Glasgow East because I want Gordon Brown to stay prime minister. So my advice to Margaret Curran (who seems a lot more on the ball and is a proper Weegie to boot) is to ignore Cairns. Don't try and denigrate the SNP for being what they are, when what they are is popular. Instead, Labour might do well to consider why they're not so popular themselves right now.
First there was the long-awaited hag do for Fiona and Ailsa: a fantastic event over three days organised with precision by Barry, Colin, Hils and Helen. There was a meal in the intimacy of a private room at Channings, where we could get all loud and annoying without worrying that we were bothering other people. Then on Saturday were split into two teams (I was on Fi's) and set on a series of challenges including golf, cryptic clues, rounders, tug of war, a beer mat collecting exercise and cheese and wine tasting. I was mediocre at all of these but nevertheless our team triumphed overall.
That evening we had a two round poker tournament, playing for actual money: £10 in the pot from each of 14 of us made it a prize worth winning and really very exciting. I made it to the second round on the back of extreme luck, including being dealt a natural full house, but Barry proceeded to amass a heap of chips so huge you could barely see his eyebrows. I went all in on the last hand - three threes - and won most of Al's stash (he claims, in the misguided belief that I would have done likewise, that he 'donated' them to me knowing I had the better hand) but even that was not enough to overcome Barry's hoard and he was declared a worthy winner.
Humph.
Sunday found us at the Sheep's Heid in Duddingston, a pub I've been meaning to go to for years but never got around to. It claims to be the oldest pub in Edinburgh, with a tavern on the site for the last squillion years, and boasts an old-fashioned skittles alley. To be honest I was hoping for a little non-competitive, genteel, ad hoc skittle action, but being us we once again organised into teams. Luckily a round of sausage sandwiches from the pub barbecue revived us enough to not lose every single round, but not enough to deny Ailsa the chance to claim a victory.
Last weekend Mo and Ray came up to visit, seeing the cottage for the first time. It is, at least, just about habitable for visitors now, though we still need a new spare bed. The current one is nailed together with planks and the mattress is too big and hangs over the edge. I have booked Al in for a trip to Ikea before my mum arrives. Anyway, Morag and Ray were most patient with it, and apart from the study, which still looks as a bit empty and seems to get covered in muddy paw prints as fast as I can hoover them up, the rest of the place cleaned up nicely after a two hour frenzy with the vacuum and duster.
We'd planned to do very little and enjoyed a leisurely lunch followed by a two and a half hour walk along the back roads to Tillicoultry, where ice creams were purchased, and back along the railway. It was the first time Al had done this route, which is familiar to me from running. It's a lovely walk with hardly any roads and Dougal loved it, romping happily with passing hounds. Back home he summoned just enough energy to eat his dinner before curling up on my lap and sleeping - the first time we've managed to tire him out!
I made a lasagna while Morag and Ray erected a massive Leaning Tower of Cake from the sponges I'd made earlier. Well, Morag mostly made it while Ray provided helpful comments, took photos and prevented Dougal from eating things. The shelves inside the oven have slipped so cakes come out a bit squinty, but my assistants managed to match the layers of sponge beautifully. Held together with whipped cream and an entire punnet of strawberries, it was a sight to behold.
After the previous weekend, Al had the poker bug and we had requested that our guests bring cards and chips. Fortified by cake and whisky, we pokered away until Al had won everything and then we went to bed.
I dragged myself up at 9.30 to let Dougal out. Having done so, I went to the loo and returned to the kitchen to find Al letting a rather confused Dougal out again. He (Al, not Dougal) had mistaken a pile of duvet for my sleeping form and was sleepily surprised to find me downstairs as well as still in bed.
While not exactly sunny, the weather was at least making some attempt at warmth and we spent a pleasant morning in and around the hammock with the papers before tootling off to find a pub for lunch. We tried to track down one in Powmill, which Al's parents had recommended, but we couldn't find it and returned to the Muckhart Inn instead. Al and I were on the bike, so Mo and Ray headed home after lunch and we motored back to the hound and more hammock time.
I took another look at my courgettes. They still haven't grown, even though I've watered them and been stung by nettles weeding them. Expert opinion (ie my mum) suggests that they are now goners. How ungrateful of them. At least my herbs are making a brave showing, proving that I am not a complete plant Jonah. The basil is even recognisable as basil already.
Back to work for a short week - Friday to be spent at a Secret Location for the non-wedding of the year. Took Dougal to the vet yesterday as he has an eye infection - probably from running through acres of eye-height grass. I was much more nervous than him. When the vet picked him up to put him on the table he thought he was getting a cuddle, and then he kept trying to lick the torch used to look in his eye. Now we have eye drops to administer, which takes a while as Dougal thinks they'd be much better taken orally.
Otherwise, I've been kept occupied following the Glasgow East by election. As Ray noted over the Sunday papers, the Sunday Times seems to be under the impression that the Tories could win this seat. Possibly their thinking goes: Labour not looking good, therefore Conservatives not looking bad. But I'm pretty sure that, in their desperate search for a way to show Gordon Brown where to stick his 10p tax band, the people of Glasgow East are not clinging to the legs of Tory politicians and pleading for forgiveness for the crime of never having voted for them before.
Oh no. I think the SNP will probably do quite well.
Especially if Labour keep coming out with stuff like this, from Labour minister David Cairns: "Councillor Mason [the SNP candidate] has finally let the cat out of the bag. He has admitted what we knew all along – he is a hard-line Nationalist who sees his role at Westminster to bring about independence."
Um, am I the only one who thinks that possibly the cat was never in the bag in the first place? That, in fact, the cat was sitting some distance away from the bag, sunning itself and opening flaunting a yellow SNP badge? Hello - it's called the 'Scottish National Party'. The clue is in the name.
Now I don't support Scottish nationalism (yet). I'm not quite convinced it's in Scotland's interests to go it alone, or that the rest of the UK will ever let go of all that lovely oil that Alex's relying on. But I do support democracy. And if the people of Scotland vote for an independent Scotland then that is what they should get.
David Cairns seems to think that if you support nationalism, you shouldn't be allowed to express that support democratically by electing someone to bring about such a state of affairs by peaceful political means. He's out of touch if he thinks that wanting an independent Scotland makes Mason an unacceptable representative to most Scots.
Quite apart from the fact that independence is not, north of the border, viewed with the antipathy it is in London, the SNP has managed over the last year and a bit to establish itself as more than a one issue party. I didn't want to like them. But they keep doing things I agree with.
I want Labour to win Glasgow East because I want Gordon Brown to stay prime minister. So my advice to Margaret Curran (who seems a lot more on the ball and is a proper Weegie to boot) is to ignore Cairns. Don't try and denigrate the SNP for being what they are, when what they are is popular. Instead, Labour might do well to consider why they're not so popular themselves right now.
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