Sprinkles

My Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Ickle Bruvva

2012-01-29T10:09:00.001Z

Dear reader, this is my little brother, Andrew. Everyone say hi! I snapped this stunningly attractive photo on the bus this morning.

I love my little brother because he does things for me sometimes and... Well that's about it...

As well as this, my little brother never cleans the kitchen, never turns off his computer and has a stupid hole in his face.

But then I would think that, cos I'm his big sister.

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Diet Coke is the Nectar of the Gods

2012-01-24T16:49:00.001Z

No really, that Zeus and his nomads drank. I read it.

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Then Let Us Drink A Cup Of Tea

2012-01-22T21:21:00.001Z

"I pour the tea and we sip in silence. We have never had our tea together in the morning, and this break with our usual protocol imbues the ritual with a strange flavour.

"Yes, this sudden transmutation in the order of things seems to enhance our pleasure, as if consecrating the unchanging nature of a ritual established over our afternoons together, a ritual that has ripened into a solid and meaningful reality. Today, because our ritual has been transgressed, it suddenly acquires all its power; we are tasting the splendid gift of this unexpected morning as if it were some precious nectar; ordinary gestures have an extraordinary resonance, as we breathe in the fragrance of the tea, savour it, lower our cups, serve more and sip again: every gesture has the bright aura of rebirth. At moments like this the web of life is revealed by the power of ritual, and each time we renew our ceremony, the pleasure will be all the greater for having violated one of its principles. Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time. Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in turn - and in all this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes its merry way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn: human life continues to throb.

"So, let us drink a cup of tea.

"Kakuzo Okakura, the author of the Book of Tea, laments the rebellion of the Mongolian tribes in the thirteenth century not because it brought death and destruction but because it destroyed one of the creations of the Song dynasty, the most precious among them, the Dr of tea. Like Okakura, I know that tea is no minor beverage. When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet.know how to set.a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

"The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to simple, authentic and refined sensations, a licence granted to all, at little cost, to become aristocrats of taste, because tea is the beverage of the wealthy and of the poor; the tea ritual, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives an aperture of serene harmony. Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, the autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And with each swallow, time is sublimed."

- an extract from The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

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More Nails

2012-01-21T18:53:00.001Z

Hi guyz (my phone just tried to autocorrect guyz to Fitzgerald...)

I'm pretty sure I didn't show you these before, which is an error on my part cos they're really cool! These are Nail Ease decorative fools and they are a super easy alternative to actually being good at nail art - essential for those of us who are particularly uni-dexterous.

They take about 20 minutes to apply and there's no drying time. You get two sets in the packet, a cuticle stick and a nail buffer, and the instructions of course. You need a nail file as well. Remember to seal up the packet again so the second set don't dry up.

Mine lasted two days looking pretty perfect and I didn't take them off for about a week cos they still looked alright. I removed them using a cuticle stick, and then a wipe of polish remover to get rid of the residue.

They came off better than Nail Rocks (a similar product) but the range of designs is smaller and less imaginative. You get enough to do two manicures with these as well - Nail Rocks only have 16 in the packet.

Aaanyway, that's just my two cents.

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Tape, Crackle and Pen

2012-01-16T12:34:00.001Z

Still no sign of that new computer I'm afraid, but don't worry, you've not got rid of me that easily!

I had a quiet weekend due to a stinking cold, and I spent most of my time eating ice cream, knitting, and reading Harry Potter. Oh and last night I dropped an entire 2l carton of milk on the kitchen floor.

The coolest part of this weekend was definitely my nails. A couple of coats of No. 7 Me! Me! Me! Polish for the pink. Then I cut some strips of sticky tape, and placed them on, one nail at a time, then painted black Barry M Nail Effects over the top. The trick with this is to remove the tape before the crackle starts drying (easier said than done) so that flakes of it don't lift up too. I didn't do very well at that, so I used a silver Top Shop nail art pen in an attempt to neaten the edges. Unfortunately I'd never used the pen before so I didn't do a fabulous job, especially on the right hand. Also, I was too lazy for top coat, and then pen wears off pretty quick, so don't be like me!

Hope you like them anyway.

Love and hugs

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Hardware Fail = Blogging Fail

2012-01-11T17:42:00.001Z

Sometimes, life is really inconvenient. Especially when you're just minding your own business on facebook (what an oxymoron!) When your laptop does of a short circuit and you have to wait weeks until you can afford to buy a new one!

I do have some news though - I'm going to Paris at the end of March, and hopefully start working full time in May. Super excited. :)

Love and hugs

Ps, how cute is the baby!

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Itty Bitty Baby Booties!

2012-01-04T18:04:00.001Z

Today's blog post is a tutorial on how to make these origami baby booties! They are the most adorable little things, suitable for all manner of baby-related decorative uses. For example, you can make them small, like this, and attach them to your gift wrapping for a cute personal touch. For small presents, you can make them bigger, and then put the presents inside them before tying them up. That would be adorable.
If you have far too much time, or a rainy day and a bunch of kids, you could make lots of them and make a garland. You could make a mobile, you could make them in gold and have them as Christmas tree decorations (write your kids names on them and put sweeties in for an extra treat), you could use them on your nappy cake.

I used these to wrap a gift for my friends' new baby (who is the most adorable creature on the planet with his tiny tiny fingernails and his wrinkly old man head) but as my blog links go on my facebook, and so do my friends, I won't tell you what the gift was in case they see!

But the booties, I will show you.

Fold a square of paper in half, top to bottom, wrong side facing you. My paper was the same on both sides but if you are using origami paper or cute gift wrap, it makes a difference.

Then, fold the top and the bottom over by a little bit. I used the edge of my ruler to make sure this narrow fold stayed straight and even.

Then fold in half from side to side.

Then fold each edge into the middle.

Mark the centre of the top half by folding the top to the bottom and just creasing over the centre line. This isn't a fold, it's just a marker, so you want to keep it small.

With the assistance of the mark you just made, fold the top right hand corner into the centre of the top half, so that the corner is in the middle of the little crease-cross.

Fold the left side in as well, so that the left top edge meets what used to be the right hand edge.

Fold back the sloping left back edge twice, so it rolls over itself - this will be the channel for your ribbon in the end.

Fold in half backwards. Or, flip the paper over, fold in half top to bottom, and flip it back. Either way, half the height, with the ribbon channel still at the front.

Lift the ribbon channel and fold up, to make the heel of the bootie. The middle of the channel should be the left hand edge, and this part should look the same on both sides.

In the same manner, lift up the sloping edge on the right hand side and fold up to make the toe. The bootie should now be entirely the same on both sides.

Fold up the front section of the bootie on a line between the two side points.

Then fold down the top to the middle, and fold up the bottom to the middle.

Then fold the top to the bottom, to get back to your bootie shape. Is this not adorable? Well you're not finished quite yet...

Fold the bottom right hand corners up inside the shoe to shape the toe.

Now to make it 3D! Push the sole flat and persuade the ankle part to stand up straight.

Inside the shoe you will see two edges which nearly touch in the middle, lying flat against the sole. Lift each of these out to the side and form the toe.

You also need to shape the ankle/ribbon channel by making little creases, so that the ankle makes a nice curvy shape.

Unfold the top-most part of the heel.

Slide a piece of co-ordinating ribbon underneath the flap that remains, then fold the top back down again to keep it in place.

Tie a bow in the ribbon at the front and trim the ends.

If you wish to hang your booties off something, like a garland, a christmas tree, or through the knot of the ribbon on your wrapped gift, thread a needle with a piece of thread in white, or a coordinating colour. Push the needle through the heel of each bootie, and tie a double knot in each end. You can use a dab of glue to secure this as well.

Now try not to drown in cuteness.

Love and hugs

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T19:39:00.001Z

No Malawi post this evening I'm afraid. This is because I spent all weekend celebrating Hogmanay and I haven't written it. And I didn't write it today because I was asleep.

Hope you guys all celebrated in style!

Love and hugs

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New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-31T17:27:00.001Z

Happy Hogmanay everyone!

This year, I have decided not to make just one resolution but twelve! I'm not very good at keeping resolutions - goodness knows why...
Each month, I'm going to attempt to keep a different resolution, and that will stand me in good stead for carrying on for the rest of the year. And of course, I'm telling you them here, so that you can hold me to it! This novel idea I read on the Unclutter blog over the past year - Erin who keeps that blog has had a different resolution every month for 2011 and it seems to have worked for her.

The second part of my plan comes from something I recently read on Lifehacker. The tip come from Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, who keeps track of his progress on a resolution (his was writing every day) with a wall chart and a red marker pen. If he is successful that day, then he puts a big cross on that day. After a week or so, he gets a run going and this motivates him to keep on going. Sounds good to me anyway :)

What are your resolutions for this year? And what's your plan for ACTUALLY achieving them?

Love and hugs

Our Christmas

2011-12-28T17:19:00.002Z

Today's entry is a video post of my family, after we'd opened all our presents.

I'm not a very skilled videographer so you will have to put up with the poor lighting and the wobbly camera (I used my phone!). My sincerest apologies.

Love and hugs

Malawi #4 - Anteloping Around

2011-12-26T18:13:00.002Z

Disclaimer: All photos were taken on disposable film cameras. Therefore they are pretty crap.

Whilst we were away, although we spent the majority of our time in tents at the site, we did all get a day or two of respite from such "tortuous" conditions. The most significant of these trips was our trip to Mvuu, which is a National Park in the south of Malawi, only couple of hours drive away from the site.

Everyone on site got to spend a night there, with a swimming pool, a real bed, and meals cooked for us, as well as one trip out on a land safari, which I'll show you some pictures from here, and one on a boat safari, which I'll cover in my next post.

Pumba and his family were the first wildlife we saw, from the dining room at the lodge, in fact! Interestingly, warthogs kneel down on their front legs when they are grazing, as their necks aren't long enough to allow them to reach the ground! There were a lot of monkeys and things kicking about the lodge as well, as the scavenge leftovers from the tables whenever possible. The lodge is built with low walls, and a roof held up by wooden pillars, so birds and other wild life could come and go. The park wardens tend to chase the monkeys away with a catapult, however, as they are pests, even if they are rather sweet.

Out on our drive we saw a lot of things I didn't manage to get photos of on my disposable camera, which is a shame, but then, there are lots of good pictures of these things online - far better than any I would take. The list of what I didn't photograph includes sable antelope, roan antelope, duikers, bushpigs, elephants, zebras, sparrow weavers, hartebeest, kudus and guinea fowl. Seeing the zebras in the natural habitat was particularly exciting as I've not seen many before, but they're quite a famous animal.

I did manage to get photos of the impala, but we saw loads of those, so it was easy to wait for some right near the truck.

I also got this one picture of a buffalo which came out alright, although it's still pretty far away. Maybe by the time I go again (which I probably will, you know what I'm like) then I'll have a decent camera with zoom lenses and things!

We also saw a few baobab trees in the park. These are pretty cool - rather esoterically African, so they were nice to see again. We actually went to Mvuu the last time I was in Malawi as well, and there were a few things I saw this time which I didn't see before!

After the game drive, we met up with the other jeeps and went down to the riverside. We wanted to watch the sunset but we didn't actually get there on time, so we just had drinks in the dark before we went back to the lodge for dinner.

Love and hugs

Part 1 - The Epic Journey
Part 2 - The Daily Grind
Part 3 - Not Your Average Sunday Morning

Happy Christmas!!

2011-12-25T21:00:00.001Z

Love and hugs from Sprinkles (and family)

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It's Chriiiistmaaaaaaaaas!

2011-12-24T16:58:00.002Z

I am 99.9% sure that you cannot be as excited about Christmas as me! Christmas is hands down, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite day of the year. You get to sing carols and eat too much and people give you presents and cards and everyone is cheerful in the shops and everything looks pretty and you can wear nice clothes just because and take pictures all day. Birthdays are pretty good too, but Christmas is more general, and everything everywhere gets decorated. And birthdays don't have all the carols.

Now, I know you have been eagerly awaiting this since the snippet on my last post, but here it is, the grand reveal:
MY CHRISTMAS TREE!
Isn't it spectacular! It was the last tree left at the tree place, and we only just managed to fit it into the room!

This is my dad's favourite decoration - he plays the french horn so we got this for him a few years ago.

And this one is my mum's favourite - she's a big fan of having the baby Jesuses at Christmas time, so she likes this wee nativity that we've had for as long as I can remember!

Here are the presents (you don't get that big a pile when there's only five of you and you're all adults!)

And here are the dinky trees that we've had since we spent a winter in Taiwan (the millennium, in fact.) Do excuse the naff tinsel hat on the clock. My mum seems to think that this is an appropriate way to treat wee bits of tinsel. Not sure I agree.

These are the cookies which I posted about the other week, which I iced with the royal icing left over from the cake.

And this is the aforementioned cake with its ADORABLE nativity! Isn't it cute? I love the sheep. They're so dinky! We've got a big red ribbon to put around the outside to hide the fact that I can't smooth off royal icing for love nor money, but that has to wait until the icing is much drier.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Love and hugs

Preparing for Christmas!

2011-12-22T17:58:00.009Z

I had hoped to be able to share with you a recipe for sweet chilli sauce that I made at the weekend, however, my attempts at making it, or else the recipe itself, were severely flawed. But I will work on it, and then I will share it with you :) I promise!

Instead, just a few photos of recent stuff.

I got a haircut - here's my adorable face :p This vintage effect makes me look like a doll!

The bus journey up to my parents house was very restful. We all slept most of the way! (Andrew has this photo as his profile picture on facebook at the moment, so I'm sure he won't mind me sharing it here as well!)

It was pretty snowy in some places on the way up, but there's not much in Tongue at the moment.

Obviously Mum and Dad were very pleased to see us, although they were only in Edinburgh a few weeks ago! We had lunch in the Tesco cafe, nom nom nom.

If you remember that windy weather we had a week or two ago (nicknamed Hurricane Bawbag by all the Scottish people on twitter), it managed to knock over a big tree in my parents' garden! There was some discussion as to whether or not we could turn it in to a Christmas tree, but we figured it's probably a bit big...

And even the tree we did use was too tall! We had to cut off another four inches to get it to fit in and I literally had to trim the tree to get the angel to fit in as well!

You'll have to wait for my proper Christmas post on Saturday to see the tree in full, and the adorable marzipan nativity I made today for the top of the cake.

Love and hugs

Malawi #3 - Not Your Average Sunday Morning

2011-12-19T12:26:00.003Z

Disclaimer: All photos were taken on disposable film cameras. Therefore they are pretty crap. Unless they are ones which I nicked from people off Facebook, in which case they will be appropriately credited.

Church in Malawi was a brand new experience for many of the young people on the trip. A lot of them do not regularly attend church at home, and may find the whole experience to be dull and unimaginative. Going to the local church in Malawi was a completely different experience from church at home, and even I found it new and exciting, despite having been to the very same church on more than one occasion, four years previously.

The first time we went it was the final English service of the academic year, as all of the students had finished their exams and were heading home for the holidays. We caused quite a stir as we arrived in full uniform and kilts, with bagpipes and all. I saw more than one person snap a photo on their phone as we paraded past - some things never change.

One of the students from the school did the sermon and she was incredible! It was the kind of passionate straightforward sort of preaching I hadn't heard in a while. No talk of the wider church, nothing to suggest that we're doing it wrong. Just an impassioned plea to people that if they love God, they should express their gratitude and put their money where their mouths are. Their church desperately needs some renovation work. If you love church, you need to help us to fix it.

Needless to say they had a record offering that week. Thanks to a bunch of rich white people who reckoned that 500MK (about £2) was a perfectly reasonable sum to put in. The girl who was preaching suggested that 100MK was the kind of thing people should be putting in, if they could possibly afford it. I was just glad we could help them with their roof!

After the service, the young people from the school showed us around the whole mission site. It's a boarding school, so we saw where they lived, where they ate, where they learned. There is a clinic there as well, although we didn't see inside. The tour around the grounds was something we didn't get to do last time so it was really great to see everything.

The following week, a smaller group of us went along to the church again to the Chichewa service, which local people attend, rather than the school children. They were very accomodating at the church, and gave us bibles and hymn books in English so that we could still join in. Unfortunately the English and Chichewa hymnbooks don't match up, so whilst they were singing, we were struggling to fit the words to the tunes, even when we knew them! A lot of the hymn tunes were familiar because the church was founded by missionaries from the Church of Scotland, who would have taken their own hymns and tunes with them, many of which are still used here in Scotland today.

Interestingly, the offering at the Chichewa service was given in cash, but also in kind - people brought in food that they had grown themselves - it is a farmland area - and collected this for distribution. I didn't catch the full explanation of what it was for, as it was in a different language, but that seemed to be the gist of it anyway.

Both times we were in church we were asked to sing for them. Fortunately I knew about this, and we were prepared, but if you ever happen to be in a church in Africa with a group of people, beware they may ask if you have a choir. And if you say only one song, they will ask you for two.

Love and hugs

Part 1 - The Epic Journey
Part 2 - The Daily Grind

Festive Fun

2011-12-18T11:05:00.001Z

I got a new phone! I can take pictures and blog from it :) hopefully this means you'll hear from me a bit more!

Last night, a group of us went to Bar Italia for our Christmas meal. Although we didn't have any Christmas food...

Love and hugs

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Delicious Sugar Cookie Recipe

2011-12-15T21:49:00.010Z

What's that you say? A sugar cookie recipe? At Christmas time? Original, I know, but I had to share this one with you, it's super delicious. Buttery and and flavoured with lemon, almond and vanilla. I could eat them all day, except that I keep eating everything else and then I'm always full. Nom nom nom. I love Christmas.

This particular recipe I got from The Kitchn, and made these Melted Snowman cookies.

They were so good, I had to make the recipe again, so I could share with you. And so I could eat some more cookies.

Put a cup of sugar in a bowl and add a cup (or 9oz - who measures butter in cups anyway) of softened butter.

Cream them together until they are light and fluffy.

Then add an egg.

Mix it up again then add 2 oz cream cheese. Yes, I did say cream cheese.

Mix it up and add some flavouring.

Then mix that in and add three cups of flour (one at a time), some salt and some baking powder. By the time you get to the last cup you may have to get your hands dirty.

You should get some nice lovely dough.

Wrap it up in cling film (plastic wrap) and put it in the fridge for an hour, while you go to work, or over-night, depending on your time scale and life style etc.

When you take it out, it may be as Hard As A Rock. Mine was, so I had to slice the dough into smaller chunks for the next bit.

Place the dough on a floured surface.

Roll it out to about a quarter inch thick, then get your lovely dinky scalloped circle cutter and cut out an even number of circles - then you can stick these together to make little empire biscuits. Nom nom nom.

OR get your favourite gingerbread man/teddy. Cut out some teddies, and then use your scalloped circle cutter to take bites out of them. Your very own Already Been Chewed Cookies. What a treat!

This made three and a bit trays of cookies for me (45 in total) so I had to do them in batches. Cook at gas mark 5/350F for 8-12 minutes, depending on how pale or golden you want them to be. Mine are somewhat variable as I was not paying full attention. But they are good if they are soft or if they are crisp, so don't worry about it.

Cool them on a wire rack and then ice them as you prefer. If you can wait that long.

Store them in the fridge if you need them to last more than a few days.

Here's the proper recipe :)

Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies between 36 and 48, depending on size
1 cup OR 9oz unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
zest and juice of half a lemon
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the egg, cream cheese and flavourings, beating after each.
Add the baking powder and the salt, and the flour one cup at a time.
Mix together to make a firm dough.
Wrap it in cling film (shrink wrap) and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Place the dough on a flour surface roll out to 1/4 inch thick.
Heat the oven to 350F or gas mark 5.
Cut the cookies with cookie cutters and place onto baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper.
Bake for 8-12 minutes, until pale or golden, as suits your preference.
Cool on a wire rack and ice when cold.
Store in an air-tight container, in the fridge if for more than a few days.

Love and Hugs.

My New Flat (With the Occasional Christmas Decoration)

2011-12-10T13:12:00.008Z

You haven't seen my new flat yet! Well, I will do you a tour!

Welcome to Your Pants. We decided to call it that a long time ago. It's not funny any more. Although occasionally someone will come up with some daft pun and we will all giggle again.

This is my bedroom. It's the best one. It's also chilly. But to make up for that, I put awesome stuff on the walls.

Like this ticket to We Will Rock You, which I went to see on Wednesday.

Or these pictures from Malawi which are some of my favourites.

This is my fireplace. It's the best bit. The fairy lights are a year-round feature but they look particularly festive underneath the paper chain. I made paper chains this year because I am cool.

This is the view from my window :D

This is the bathroom. It's a funny shape.

This is the den. It's where we keep our retro Magic Roundabout lampshade-turned-ornament. And our not-old-enough-to-be-retro telly. And my not-old-enough-to-be-retro parents, when the come to stay.

This is Andrew's room. There's Andrew.

This is the kitchen. It's huge. And also chilly, like my room.

This is the other end of the kitchen. I told you it was huge.

This is Peter's room. He calls it a cave. Usually it's dark in here but he's out and I opened the blind, so it actually looks quite bright and not cave like. Sorry about the mess. My brother is a boy.

And this is the hallway. With our Christmas tree. And our mountain moving boxes which have been here since October. The removal company claim they are coming back to get them but so far have failed to do so. But don't worry, I like them. They make an excellent fire hazard.

Obviously, these photos are all crap because I took them on my phone in the winter. Its half two and its already starting to get gloomy!

When I have a decent quality camera to work with, then you can complain about the poor quality of my photos. For now, you shall hold your peace. Thanks.

Merry Christmas!

I'm sorry

2011-12-10T11:15:00.003Z

My poor dear reader,
I claimed to leave you with a whole bunch of queued up posts and yet those posts didn't post, they vanished instead. I will be writing them again soon. I promise!
I always wonder why it is that I struggle so much to blog. I like taking pictures and I like writing, so how difficult can it be, right?

Well a good workman never blames his tools, but I never claimed to be one of those... My camera's screen is broken so I can't see the pictures I'm taking - which means I'm not really taking any right now, certainly not arty ones of things to put on my blog.

I always feel like I don't have enough time, but really that's not true. I've started a new job, which is only part time at the moment, but it means I have a couple week day mornings free, and the weekend actually feels like the weekend. Having days where I go in to work makes me grateful for days I don't have to get up early and makes me feel like I deserve the time to do something creative.

So I am gosh-darn-well going to do something creative! It's getting really close to Christmas time and there's lots of creative things I could actually be doing! I've already done some baking and it was very well receive so I may do some more during daylight hours and then actually take some step-by-steps. I have lists of edible gift recipes that may come in to play, and lots of pretty wrapping ideas and things.

I've also started getting into some beauty treats, now that I have some actual money from my actual job, and I'm going through a nail art craze, so hopefully one or two of that myriad of extra curriculars will actually make it as far as this blog!

My current plan is to have two posts a week - Saturdays and Wednesdays if all goes well, and when I get those Malawi posts finished they'll go up every Monday for your enjoyment.

Sound good? Well you'll have to hold me to it!

Love and hugs

Malawi #2 - The Daily Grind

2011-09-28T16:00:00.001+01:00

Disclaimer: All photos were taken with a disposable film camera, so I apologise for the poor quality. I also apologise for my mediocre skills as a photographer and photo editor.

Many of you, I'm sure, will be familiar with 6am starts, which are never fun. You live for the weekends, right? I know. Unfortunately, weekends were pretty much the same. Those of you who are not familiar with 6am starts, I recommend you do not discover them whilst you are also sleeping on the ground in a different hemisphere with a new diet and weird medications and outside noises. However, there was no real choice in the matter - we had to get up with the sun and get on with things. I was working on base camp for most of the trip, so I had to help the team of young people on duty to make a vat of porridge every morning to feed the hungry masses. Breakfast was at 7, sharp. No excuses. Incredibly, we nearly always managed it too! I love porridge. Unfortunately, I can only make it for 60 people over a fire. I have no idea how much porridge you make for one person, or how to do it in a microwave.

Since we were a group of fully-invested, promise-keeping Scouts, we ran flag break every morning at quarter to 8 - usually in our casual uniforms, but full shirts and kilts on Sunday's and special occasions. It's kind of nice to have that sort of official start to the day. For me it marked the time where I started to feel like a human being again, and not a morning zombie. If we were lucky there'd be bagpipes!

Project work started at 8 o'clock (more on that in a different post) and the base camp team would go back to tidy up after breakfast, and send a small group off into town to go shopping, nearly every day. There was always bread to be bought, as well as meat, vegetables, eggs and so on, depending on the menu for the next few days. The young people planned most of the meals themselves - the leaders were there to be facilitators for the most part. The shopping party would take the van into Zomba to visit Metro and Shoprite, the Wonder Bakery, and the market. I wish I had photos to show you of this, but it can be considered rude and there was never a lot of spare time for tourism anyway.

Lunch was typically rolls, with corned beef, tinned luncheon meat, or egg mayonnaise, tomatoes, fruit and sometimes crisps. I developed an incredible taste for corned beef and tomato sandwiches, and I miss them probably even more than the porridge.

Dinner could be anything from macaroni cheese (a rarity - cheese costs a fortune), to chilli, to goat curry, to chicken and nsima. Some of what we achieved was quite impressive considering the ingredients and cooking facilities we had available, and that is entirely down to the hard work of the cook team each day. When you have a group of people who are living and working outside for a month, it's really important to keep them properly fed, and I was so proud of how well every team did, despite all the challenges we faced.

One of the most exciting things to cook was chicken. This is because the chickens arrived on site in all their feathered, clucking, flapping glory (that's how you know they're fresh - no fridges where there's no electricity!) and had to be corralled and stopped from escaping (you've seen Chicken Run, right?) until we were ready to take care of them. I'll spare you the graphic details. It's not something I did myself, and not something I enjoy talking about. I was OK with the plucking, and OK with taking the wings and legs and things off, but the rest was all just a bit much.

Nsima is a traditional Malawian food made of milled maize (much coarser than your average bag of cornflour) which would be cooked with water until it thickened into a substance which is hard to describe. It was similar in consistency to cookie dough, but looked like mashed potato, and which tasted of not-really-anything-at-all. You're supposed to roll it into a ball with your hands and dip it into a relish - made from vegetables, kidney beans, and/or meat if possible. The cooking process involves a lot of stirring - I did my best but I wasn't really strong enough, given how HUGE the pot was. Do excuse how awful I look in the photo. I had no idea I looked like that or I would have done something about it. I'm dirty and sunburnt and my hair needs a wash. But hey, there were no mirrors, and I have red hair so I can't help the sunburn, even with SPF 50+!

Dinner was usually served not long after it got dark, around half past 6, and after the washing up was all finished there might be a campfire, some ceilidh dancing, a disco or just the chance to sit around and chat or write diaries or play games. The disco equipment was rented from the nearest wee town with a night club - two enormous speakers and a box with twiddly knobs (that's the technical description) which was wired together just with lengths of insulated wire. I'm not sure it would pass a health and safety inspection but it got the job done, and they were loud as anything, it was quite incredible.

Despite all the routine, every day was different, and every day I learned something new about camp cooking, mass cooking, Malawian cooking, the people I was working with, or how to try and deal with some spectacular cooking disasters!

Love and hugs

Part 1 - The Epic Journey
Part 3 - Not Your Average Sunday Morning

Malawi #1 - The Epic Journey

2011-09-26T12:00:00.002+01:00

Good afternoon dear reader! Today begins a series of posts about the incredible trip I took this summer to Malawi with a group of Scouts. I'm moving house soon (I told you that already!) and I figured it would be good to ensure some regular posting whilst I'm all tied up with that. So for the next 3 weeks or so, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you will be supplied with my ~~over-long and somewhat tiresome~~ dazzlingly funny stories about what I got up to in the warm heart of Africa.
*Note: I didn't actually manage to schedule the posts properly so they were not posted in order, but they will all be linked at the end of each post in the series, so you can still read them in sequence.

Disclaimer: All photos were taken on disposable film cameras. Therefore they are pretty crap. Unless they are ones which I nicked from people off Facebook, in which case they will be appropriately credited.

Our epic journey to Malawi began on Thursday 30th June, 2011. And you probably read epic and assumed I was exaggerating, but that wouldn't really be fair. For a start, there were 10 leaders and 34 young people (aged 15-18), 45 kit bags, 1 large plastic box, 1 guitar, and 14 enormous canvas tents. Well, we were going for 4 weeks, so we couldn't really help but have a whole heap of crap with us!

But yes, the epic journey began on Thursday, when we left Edinburgh on a coach at 7am (roughly!) to begin our first leg, on the motorway to Heathrow. So far, so blah. It was like getting the megabus, except you knew everyone, and you were allowed to wear your pajamas...

We arrived more than 9 hours later, at half past 4, queued for a very long time to check in, spent a very long time getting through security, and then spent a very long time waiting for our flight, which was around 9pm.

Our first flight was the red-eye to Addis Ababa, which took about 8 hours and arrived at 7am (5am UK time). So we were knackered, achey, travel sick, but excited. We weren't there yet but we were in AFRICA! Yuss!!

A few hours later we hopped on a shorter flight to Lilongwe, which is the capital city of Malawi. I sat between to lovely America missionaries and we started off having a conversation, but they'd been travelling as long as we had, and so all three of us fell asleep in about 20 minutes and barely woke up until we started our descent. THAT knackered people. So sleepy and disorientated that I, in fact, left my best ever jumper that my mum knitted me under the seat on the plane, and did not even realise until like 2 weeks later when I wanted to wash the other jumper I had with me that I had actually brought two jumpers with me out of Edinburgh. Well, what can I say, it's hot in Africa. You don't need jumpers that much! But yeah, I shed a few tears, I won't like. She is making me a new one though, because she's an official babe.

But yes, we arrived (less one jumper) in Lilongwe, and met up with some of our old Scout friends from my 2007 trip (more on that another time, perhaps) and some new ones, and hopped into another coach and to the Korea Garden Lodge. It was great. Nice clean rooms, and GREAT food, and a swimming pool which was FRICKIN' COLD! But good after all that hot sweaty travelling. One of the kids, who's pretty tall, decided to dive in across the ways (parallel with the short side) and zoomed across and hit his head off the wall. Idiot. He had this massive cut on his nose, and our resident nurse was out at the Scout HQ looking for a geocache *eyeroll* but we patched him up and he was fine really.

The next day (this is Saturday now - I was confused too) we were up early again and onto our trusty coach (they had to open the hatch to the engine to get the thing started!) We had to stop for diesel, police checks, toilet trips and all kinds, so we got the opportunity to oggle the locals through the window, and see the gorgeous scenery as well. These adorable kids were at one of the stops, and at another one, this teenage boy was trying to propose marriage to some of the girls through the window. I was amused.

Our final stop was in a place called Liwonde, which is right down to the south of Lake Malawi, where the Shire River and the main road cross over. We stopped for a juice, and we were hoping for something to eat, but the cafe didn't really have the capacity to feed all of us. But some helpful person told us there was a "supermarket" which was "just round the corner". Half an hour's walk later, we arrive at this miniature Cash and Carry - different from what you would get in the UK or the US I imagine - and just about managed to buy enough bread, bananas, peanut butter and pilchards to feed the crowd, as well as a whole stack of paper plates and some knives. After a lot of confusion due to a lack of phone contact, the bus eventually arrived to pick us up and so the grand sandwich adventure began. I don't know if you've ever tried to make sandwiches for a bus full of hungry teenagers, on a paper plate in your lap, on the bumpiest road known to man, where one of the kids is somewhat allergic to the peanut butter you're trying to feed to everyone else. I would recommend it. Although we were laughing at the time, probably to stop us crying...

An hour or so after that, about 4.30 or 5pm, I reckon, we eventually arrived at the Makwawa Scout Campsite. Huzzah! Fourteen hurriedly pitched tents, one massive pot of spaghetti bolognaise, and a check under the toilet seat for scorpions later and it was pretty much time for bed.

Love and hugs

Part 2 - The Daily Grind
Part 3 - Not Your Average Sunday Morning

Budding Interior Designer?

2011-09-23T11:20:00.003+01:00

I had some time to kill on Friday morning so I spent about 45 minutes wandering around John Lewis, which is rapidly becoming my favourite thing to do. All the stuff in there, is gorgeous. And it's not like going to Harvey Nichols or anything, I figure one day I would probably be able to afford a new duvet set, a rug, a pair of curtains, cushions, photoframes, massive black and white photographs of models and actors and maybe even a sofa.

You see the thing is, and some of you will already know this, but I'm moving house soon. I've lived in this house we're in now for my whole entire life apart from two years while I was studying where I lived over in Newington, but those days are past now, and in the past they shall remain. Because ladies and gentlemen, dear reader, I'm moving up in the world. Literally, our flat is on the top floor. It's high. There are lots of stairs. It's also in Bruntsfield, which is just cooler than Newington in every way.

Perhaps when I have moved I shall show you some of the reasons why, but today's post is on interior design. Now, I'm pretty sure John Lewis would not be my friend if I went around taking photos of all of their stuff on my crappy camera phone, so I have done my best to find the things on their website - yay for professional quality photos!

Now the first things that caught my eye were some gorgeous patterned Persian rugs - really big ones because the new rooms are really big. But they were like more than £1000 and I'm not made of money. And what I really fancy is something with an incredibly thick pile that you can wriggle your toes into, because there's a fair chance of me ending up in a room with a hard wood floor, and if I only have a tiny bit of carpet, then it has to be the best carpet EVAR.

John Lewis Derry Rug, Dia.150cm, Lacquer
Dear reader, this rug truly fits that description. It comes in a lovely red wine colour, or taupe if you prefer neutrals. It's circular, although there's also a rectangular version which didn't float my boat so much. That pile must be, what, 2 inches thick? It's incredible. I want to marry this rug.

But then my loyalties were torn. I wandered up to the lighting department and found this bad boy.

John Lewis Jolie Table Lamp, Yellow
Now, not only does it come in yellow, which is the best shade (no pun intended) for a light, in my humble opinion, it also comes in bright pink, and bright green, which are the coolest. And some other less awesome colours, if you are a neutrals person (who are these neutrals people? Who wants a taupe rug and a beige lamp? You? WHY ARE YOU READING MY BLOG??? This is not a blog for any form of neutrality, lets be honest. I get too excited about things...) So I may be divorcing my rug, and marrying my lamp.

And then, having just yelled at all the neutrals people, I found an incredible sofa. Although it's huge, so I might just get the chair.

John Lewis Calanda Leather Chair, Chocolate
Yes it's brown, but it also came in cream. And this is chocolate, which I would hardly count as a neutral. Whatever, who cares what colour it is, look at those ARMS! They are the most gorgeous arms I've ever seen on a chair. My favourite way to sit in a comfy chair is not really to sit, but to curl up in a tiny ball, or stretch my legs way out over one side. None of the furniture we have at the moment makes this very comfortable - the arms are all too hard, and you have to find a cushion and it's just so much effort. Look at the arms on this baby. I tried it out in the shop. I didn't curl up but I did sit on it, and they are as soft and squashy and pillowy as anyone could ever wish. It's just a shame about the price tag. That'll be the one I'm saving up for.

Dear reader, if you ever felt like helping out a graduate in great lust of better furnishings, just let me know - I could set up a gift list...

Love and hugs

My Second "First Class"

2011-09-21T00:38:00.002+01:00

Bet you weren't expecting to hear from me again so soon eh?

Well, regardless, I'm back, with a post inspired by another adult ballet blogger, Dave Tries Ballet who also wrote about his second "first class".

I took my first ballet class waaaay back in January, did two terms of Classical Ballet Beginners and then had a hiatus for a couple of months while my ballet school was closed for the summer holidays and then the Edinburgh Festival. And now term has started again and I have moved up a class - I'm now an Improver, and not a Beginner. Although I still feel extremely beginnery. My teacher and I both noticed that I wasn't being fully challenged by the beginner level class towards the end of the last term. By no means was I perfect, or even that good, but my extra term had put me enough above the level of a lot of the others that I felt a wee bit out of place.

So now I've moved up and the class is much more challenging. We only did pirouttes en dehors (I don't know who thought those up but I'd dearly LOVE to give them a piece of my mind). If you don't know what's so bad about them, check this post here for my thoughts on my first encounter with the things.

Apart from that the rest of the class was all things I felt able to do, although many things I'm not that great at. Apart from balancing. I can't balance on the ball of either foot. I can barely balance on the whole of one foot when in arabesque. Or on the balls of both feet. Or just, like ever. That's probably why pirouette are so hard - because I wobble like a wind sock in a storm.

But I did spend the whole time smiling to myself. I'm just that glad to be back.

The other thing that's different about improvers is the class "style". In beginners, everyone was all about hiding bums and legs with skirts and shorts and joggers. In improvers, it's all leotards with slouchy t-shirts and no skirts.

All very Flashdance.

I also really want a pair of thigh high legwarmers. Probably because most of the girls I've seen wearing them are really skinny.
You can get them for less than £5. I'm SO tempted!

Love and hugs

National Museum of Scotland

2011-09-18T20:53:00.005+01:00

You will have noticed, dear reader (if any of you are still out there?) that regular blogging is not my forte. However, I have eventually returned with another offering.

Last week I took a trip to the National Museum of Scotland, recently reopened in my own fair city after a long refurbishment process. Anyone who visited the museum in the past will no doubt remember the fish pond? Alas, it has been removed. Perhaps all the fish were dying of copper poisoning... who knows.

But the refurbishment is great. I wish I'd had a better camera with me, although I still don't think it could capture the incredible space in the main gallery. It's a huge airy chamber with a glass roof, four floors high, with all of the display galleries branching off it. It's the kind of room I'd love to get married in - it feels like light and air, very uplifting. Like a cathedral but brighter.

So no pictures of that because I really couldn't do it justice, but one of the exhibits everyone's been talking about is the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and indeed it's very impressive.

It's in the gallery which used to have (if I remember right) the skeleton of some enormous sea creature. But it's been so long since I went before the refurbishment that I don't really know for sure.

That gallery is also four stories high, but it's smaller, and the lighting is lower to preserve the taxidermies and things. And instead of that single massive creature that I only half remember, they now have a whole parade of watery creatures, including the ocean sunfish, with whom I made friends.

I also quite liked the painted stork - but you'll have to forgive the glassy reflections of my snazzy pink camera phone!

In the geology section, looking at how the Earth was formed and rocks from space and things, they had this enormous geode, full of purple crystals, which was formed by cooling lava. The bubble shapes cooled and solidified first, but the heat evaporated whatever solute was present, leaving these beauties to form on the inside of the shell. Incredible.

And the last thing that caught my eye was this slice of iron meteorite with "Widmanstätten patterns" on it. They're formed by the presence of nickel-iron alloys which cool over MILLIONS of years to form these big visible crystals, which you can only see when you slice and polish an iron meteorite. And because it takes so long to form, we can't produce them in a lab and they are proof of the extraterrestrial nature of an object - they're like as old as the Earth's core.

The museum also has lots of exhibits of foreign cultures which didn't interest me nearly so much as the natural history, and also some sculptures, including Greek and Roman ones, up at the top of the main gallery, on the top floor, which I enjoyed because I've studied Classics and I knew what they were about.

The Chambers Street section of museum has displays of British and Scottish historical artefacts which I didn't look at on this trip but which are definitely worth a look.

In fact the whole place is is worth a look - set aside an afternoon, or a whole day if you want to read through everything in the place. There's something for everyone, wherever your museum-based interests might lie, and this is really only the tip of the iceberg.

Love and hugs

Scottish Ballet at the Playhouse

2011-08-28T19:34:00.008+01:00

Last night, I had an absolute treat! I 'splashed out' on a student ticket for the Scottish Ballet's programme at the Playhouse, part of the Edinburgh Festival. It's the first time since I started studying ballet and taking a firm interest in it that I've seen any live ballet, so don't expect an expert's opinion! Not that you would of course, you know me too well for that dear reader.

The first piece was a brand new piece called Kings 2 Ends, which was choreographed by Jorma Elo, specifically for the company. Set to music by Mozart and Steve Reich, this is a beautiful work of art, and although not a narrative piece, tells a different story to each individual who sees it. I adored the pas de trois in the third section, and the pas de deux sections danced by Noellie Conjeaud and Teun van Roosmalen (above) were incredibly fluid and well co-ordinated, although all the couples were beautiful.

The second piece, Song of the Earth, was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in 1965 and explores the idea of mortality as a young man struggles with it in his life and in his relationships - the link above the McMillan's website explains the whole thing a lot better than I could! I have to admit, I didn't read the narrative description before I watched the piece - I had no money for the programme - so my own interpretation whilst I was watching it was somewhat different - I saw two best friends and a beloved sister. However, I don't think that detracted anything at all from my enjoyment of the piece, which showcased some excellent dancing from the male danseurs, and some incredible pas de trois from the three soloists, Erik Cavallri, Adam Blyde and Sophie Martin. The music was Mahler's Das Leid von der Erde (the Song from the Earth), which is a beautiful song-cycle, translated from eighth century Chinese poetry into German. The music was performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, led by Sian Edwards, with Katrina Karneus and Peter Wedd as the soloists.

All pictures are from the Scottish Ballet website, taken by Andrew Ross. They have a few more production photos of these two pieces in their gallery there and also on their flikr photostream.

Love and hugs

Rosal Township - Highland Clearances

2011-08-21T20:38:00.002+01:00

Today was my last day in Tongue - early bus home tomorrow as I have an important afternoon appointment. This afternoon, I went with mum and dad to the township of Rosal, which was left after the highland clearances. It was a big field with stones and signs in it, but if you like that sort of thing, it's pretty good. The information boards are frequent and very interesting, and told things from the point of view of the people who lived in the township and were eventually cleared out of them. Life there was by no means easy, but it was much better than living by the coast, which was where they had to go.

The clearances occurred because the people who owned the land, who were mostly rich enough to start with, didn't make enormous profits from their tenants, who were mostly crofters and worked enough to feed and clothe themselves but weren't interested in profits and property and such nonsense. However the landowners realised they could make a lot more money by grazing sheep on the land - not the wee highland sheep that the crofters looked after, but big, hardy ones. Demand for meat and wool were increasing as the country industrialised, and so the highlanders were cleared and moved to the coasts, to the cities, or emigrated to America or New Zealand mostly.

The sheep still graze on the land here - apparently descendants of the ones that were the reason for the clearances. They didn't seem as interested in the stones as we were.

On the whole I'd say it was a really good site. The walk from the car park through the forest was lovely, and it would be a great place to visit if you have kids studying the clearances, like I did when I was 14, or just an interest of your own.

Clambering upon Archaeological Artefacts

2011-08-20T22:01:00.004+01:00

I still haven't stitched our panorama so today's post will be about the end of the day on Friday, rather than the main event.

After we'd come down of the mountain we drove a few minutes up the road to see the remains of another Iron Age structure - this time Dun Dornagil broch.

These were probably defensive/offensive places, with hollow outer walls that had staircases in them to take you up to various galleries with different rooms that people lived in. There was a space in the centre which went right up to the top, so that they could have a fire quite safely. The wikipedia article on brochs is quite informative so do direct your general enquiries in that direction.

The one that we saw was intact only as the outer structure, and it had been filled up with earth, perhaps to protect what remained of the structure from people like me who clambered all over it. The tall remaining wall had been reinforced as well, to stop it collapsing into the road, and to preserve it for interested people.

To be fair I only climbed up to see if I could see inside it. Which I could not. It was just too fun to come down right away. And the view was pretty!

A Teeny Weeny Tiny Underground Adventure

2011-08-19T23:24:00.001+01:00

Today's adventure in real life was a "yomp" (Mum's favourite hill-walking related word) up a Munro, but I'm going to save that til later. I took a 360 panorama from the top which I'm working very hard on stitching, but it might be a day or so yet and I reeeeally want to show you.

So instead I'm going to tell you about something I missed out previously - the day Mum and I walked to the Iron Age wheel house, we also went along to see this thing called the souterrain.

Those of you with an elementary understanding of French may have worked out that this is an underground thing, and in fact, apart from its age, that's the only remarkable thing about it. It's also, I believe an iron age structure, and happens to be just off the road from Laid to Durness, so not a two hour round trip like the wheel house.

It's just a small structure - only one chamber, and only just underground, with a few steps down, which was likely used for storage rather than dwelling, I would have thought. I don't have a useful tourist leaflet beside me to confirm the details, but it was an interesting wee hole in the ground anyway. It had a few inches of water in it, as it floods in the rain, and since it's pretty low to start with and we weren't wearing wellies, we just took a few photos from the bottom of the steps and headed back out again. It was only about a metre across at the widest, and maybe a metre and a half high, and it was about 4 metres long (I'm guessing, size/quantity estimates are a massive failing point of mine).

My favourite part was the way the entrance was so hidden from the road, but really nearby, and even if you were going that way you might almost walk past it.

The Tongue Hotel

2011-08-18T22:36:00.005+01:00

My younger brother, Andrew, had his last day at work yesterday, so in order to celebrate his freedom we went for lunch at the Tongue Hotel with my parents. It's about 100 yards down the road so it was about 20 seconds walk, and there was no one else in the restaurant when we arrived (which is nothing against them, its just that this is the middle of nowhere and people don't "do lunch" on a Thursday.

We had two courses each but it was a bit of a jumble.

Andrew had a smoked salmon starter and a steak and ale pie with mash and veg and a side of chips (glutton! And he couldn't eat them all).

Dad had a smoked salmon bagel and then cranachan for dessert. For those who don't know, its made of raspberries, whipped cream (sweetened if you like), oatmeal and usually some whisky too, and it's absolutely delicious!

Mum had potato and leek soup with crusty bread and then a warm chocolate muffin with cream.

And I had a roast beef sandwich and then a piece of white chocolate and marshmallow cheesecake. The menu had said toblerone cheesecake but they'd only just made that and it hadn't set yet, so I got a bit of yesterday's instead, but the chef put two triangles of toblerone on as garnish to make up for it. No complaints here!

A Quiet Day

2011-08-17T23:58:00.007+01:00

It would be fair to say that it was a quiet day up here today. I didn't really do anything at all, except dissect the more exciting social lives (at least at present) of some of my nearest and dearest.

So in honour of my quiet day I'm going to keep this a quiet post. Instead of deafening you all with my chatter I'm going to leave you with this gif of a kitty in a hamster ball. I hope you enjoy it.

This is how I feel when I spend too long up here with no one to cause trouble with... ;)

A Few "Holiday" Snaps

2011-08-16T23:42:00.005+01:00

Today was another quiet day up here on the coast. Slept late. Read a lot. That's about it. We had sweet potatoes for tea.

So your substitute entertainment this evening is going to come in the form of some photos. I'm tired though, so this is going to be a wordless post. I'll tell you the stories another day, I promise.

Wheel-y Tired!

2011-08-15T19:50:00.024+01:00

Dear reader, I'm exhausted! Despite my youthfulness and lack of obese-ness, I'm really very unfit. My day has tired me out, so if I seem to doze off and lose track of myself in the middle of this post, you'll know to blame my mother...

Yesterday afternoon wasn't so tiring. We went down to Coldbackie Beach and had a wander around there. No shark wrestling, no picturesque welly boots. Just me and my mum being a bit silly. You can see the results of our silliness in yesterday's blog post if you're curious - today I'll be sharing some of the more sensible photos.

This is the view across the beach which you see walking down the hill from the road. The sand dunes before the beach are about 20ft high, which is very impressive, and there's a stream that comes all the way down to the beach in wetter weather, parts of which make a very good flume (water slide).

This stream at the north end of the beach was pretty, but probably less enjoyable to slide down...

The high water mark is an interesting feature of this beach. It's seems that there is a stream which runs along the edge of the beach - that is, a counter current that runs at right angles to the direction of the tide. The effect of this is to create a sandbank at the edge of the water, which moves up the beach as the tide comes in, and gets left behind, like this, as it goes out.

Some interesting geological features as well - for example, part of this rocky outcrop was shaped and coloured just like me... Kidding. I think we were actually interested by the stripe of quartz in the rock behind me. However, I know nothing about geology, we just thought it was pretty.

There was also a massive cliff at the south end of the beach, about 100ft high, with this wee cave at the bottom. It doesn't go very far back, but its full of reeds that get washed in by the highest tides, and if it wasn't soaking wet, I imagine it would be quite a cosy bed...

Today's expedition was much further away. It's Dad's day off, so he went to play golf over at Durness, and he dropped us off in a place called Laid to go for a walk.

We headed from the tea room there, up the side a very pretty burn (stream), following a path marked by little heaps of stones, called cairns, and big long upright stones balanced in the top of cairns, or stood up by themselves.

The view of Loch Eriboll on the way up was incredible - I just wish I had a better camera for panorama shots.

Anyway, the main reason for our walk up and along the ridge was to see an Iron Age Wheelhouse. Now, I know absolutely nothing about the Iron Age, so instead of trying to say something intelligent off my own bat, I'll quote from a guide leaflet instead (entitled "Laid Heritage Trail" produced by Durness Community Council).

"A Wheel House is a dry stone dwelling house used in the Iron Age. Circular in construction with slabs of rock forming the basis of a roof, these slabs also appear to mark interior divisions of a family habitation."

"Considering its age of some 2000 years it is in excellent condition, one of the best preserved in Scotland. It measures 5.5 metres NE-SW by 5 metres NW-SE within its dry built wall, 1.1 metres thick and 1.4 metres high, with the entrance in the east. In the interior a circle of 7 [uprights] set at a distance of about 1 metre from the wall, one of which is lintelled and another partially with roofing slabs lying close by."

This particular Wheel House is the only one of its kind in the area, the rest are in Shetland, the Hebrides and Caithness, for the most part. Also, most of those are much lower down, and seem to be associated with other buildings. This one is high and isolated. The leaflet suggests "one explanation which can never be proved is that it was built by strangers, possibly from Caithness, who were only allowed this spot to make their home." Caithness is east of this area.

Can you imagine how much it would suck if you'd just walked miles and miles from your own home ranges, only to be told by your grumpy new neighbours that you had to go build your house a mile out the way and 900 metres further up hill. I might be moving soon and I have to say, I hope our new neighbours are nicer than that!

Daily picture of Mum, taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me taking a picture...

Love and hugs

Warning

2011-08-14T19:53:00.002+01:00

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Love and hugs

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2011-08-13T23:37:00.005+01:00

Dear reader, today is a special day - that's right, a post not about my mum, but about my dad, because it's his birthday today *blows hooter, waves tiny flag*

Well actually, the post isn't about him either, because today was actually an interesting day. As days up here go, that is. We had a party! Not a birthday party though, a painting party!

As my dad is a minister, that leaves him with responsibilities for things like looking after church premises. You would think he'd be quite busy chasing that flock around, but apparently not so much. So today, my mum, dad and myself went to the church at Melness, on the other side of the kyle. It has a gorgeous view!

Along with some of the other church folk, we did some work on the window frames. We scraped off old paint, we dug out rotting wood, we sealed up some draughty gaps, and we put on some shiny new white high gloss top coat. There were a myriad of problems of course - more rot than expected, more peeling paint than expected, no undercoat, bigger draughty gaps than expected etc etc, so the job is only partially done, however the size of the thing (there are 19 windows in the church, and we're working inside and out) and the size of the working party (six) we did about as much as might be expected of us anyway.

I learned how to use silicone sealant, and as such did all the windows. Actually, I lie I only did 13, but that's still quite a lot. I quite enjoyed it. Pretty sure I deserve an NVQ now (national vocational qualification). Jussayin. We had two tea breaks, with cake, and cake with our lunch. I ate a lot of cake. Apparently because I am still a "young thing" I am expected to eat vast quantities of cake. This is why the youth of today are fat, dear reader. We need to start a revolution! No more force-feeding cake. That said, I did what was expected of me without hint of complaint. What? Don't look at me like that, it was good cake!

After we'd cleared up all the mess we made, mum, dad and I headed over to Bettyhill, because there's a chip shop there (it's the closest one, and it's 13 miles away! Talk about the middle of nowhere). Om nom nom nom.

Then we went for a walk along Farr beach, which is actually not very far from anything, it's right behind the chip shop/tourist information centre (yes, they are the same place, officially). It wasn't sunset, but the sun was starting to get low in the sky, in a very photogenic manner. And there was a lost photogenic welly boot lying in the wash of the tide. It was so romantic... (!) check out my ace photo.

Ever wanted to hire a welly boot photographer? I'm thinking of starting a business - boot photography, well-shod AND well-shot. No? I shall continue.

We saw other things on the beach too, like this dead dogfish. Did you know, a dogfish is like a shark's little cousin? They both have five gills and the same kind of skin. Dad moved it. That's right, you heard me. On his birthday this year my dad wrestled a shark... Honest...

It was very pretty generally, so I took lots of pictures - you can see a selection of these below. If you're my facebook friend you can see them all there. If you're not, then that's a shame. I don't think my photography is good enough to deserve a flickr account. Not that other people let that stop them.

Anyways, that's all for today, its WAY past my bedtime, and daughters of the manse must get up for church on Sunday mornings. Therefore dear reader (I have discovered from my blog stats that there are actually other people than my mum out there, so you've been promoted from imaginary, in case you were wondering) I must bid thee adieu and farewell, and on the morrow you shall hear from me again.

Did you know, the more tired I am the more I don't shut up... who knew!

Love and hugs

The Hybrid Medieval Space Bonnet

2011-08-12T22:22:00.008+01:00

Hello dear (imaginary) reader. My stay up north is getting no more interesting. Today I did the ironing, read Harry Potter, and went to the post office and the spar. My dad fixed my laptop power supply, and then my belt broke. I watch some funny stuff on telly. Not really worth a blog post.

SO instead, I'm going to kick off telling you what I did this summer.

The FIRST thing I did this summer was to graduate from university!

(Look, there's my mum!)

The graduation ceremony at University of Edinburgh has some interesting traditions. We graduate in the McEwan Hall, which is a grand, circular building with classically-inspired paintings inside, and gorgeous architecture outside. The ceremony of actual graduation involves walking along the platform and getting "doffed" on the head with this hat - the Geneva bonnet.

Now this hat was made, apparently, out of an old pair of John Knox's breeches, which is nice... The Dean was also telling us how a former student called up one day and asked if he could take the hat into space! Unfortunately, the hat is somewhat sacred to the ceremony, so instead he took up a university emblem patch which was then sewn into the hat onto its return. You can read about that here.

After four years of solid hard work, it was nice to finally get a bit of time off to have a drink with my friends (!) We had a really great day, and I'm so proud of all my friends who graduated along with me.

Love and hugs

Edinburgh Festival

2011-08-11T18:12:00.009+01:00

Tongue is gorgeous today dear (imaginary) readers. Beautiful weather. And yet still I didn't go out. I sat in the house in joggers and did very little all day. Mum and I made pasta salad. And I did some work towards a research proposal. Don't ask me who I'm going to propose it to, I haven't figured that out yet.

So instead of trying to eek out a post from my boring day, I thought today I'd post for you about a much more exciting day that I had at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before I came up north.

In the afternoon, I went with my best friend, her mum and brother, and my other best friend (yes I'm 22 years old and I still have best friends) to see a show called Potted Potter which was on at the Pleasance.

Really enjoyed the show - it was very funny, and very Harry Potter, so unless you are a big fan of Hazza P, or you are a child, then it might not be to your taste. But to Potter fans I recommend it most highly, I'm sure you'll enjoy the incredible dragon, the epic story telling, and your very own game of Quidditch!

After the show we went for something to eat at the Tron - don't get a baked potato - and then we went off in search of some free comedy. There is quite a lot of free comedy around the High Street/Cowgate area, and if you just wander around people tend to give you flyers for things that are starting soon and send you in the right direction. After umming and erring and trying to chose between a few things, we ended up at 2Facedbook 2 by a guy called Jools Constant at Sin Club and Lounge.

This was really good too. A bottle of beer was £2.50, not too bad, and the guy was pretty funny. He ripped me to shreds for being a posh girl because I knew what a duck island is. If you don't know, google it.

After that we went back to the Tron to meet some of our other friends and by chance got offered free tickets to see another show. The basement bar in the Tron turns into a venue during the festival called Just The Tonic at the Tron for various comedy shows. We got tickets to see Get Happy in Edinburgh and the hosts called it a "working mens club" and had us playing darts, downing pints, and watching burlesque dancers. There was some weird stuff too but it was all pretty funny. The last act of the night was this bizarre comedian, something like Mr Bean but not quite. I got his flyer but I left it in Edinburgh - very sad :( he was really funny and I feel he deserves mention!

After that show we hung around in the basement and we saw this other show, called Set List which has apparently moved to the Caves, probably because it was awesome and they wanted more space.

This was funny too. There was a line up of different comedians, and each of them got a set list of topics which they had never seen before, including some audience suggestions, and they had to do a five minute set based around this material. Some of them were really really funny, including one lady who wasn't even doing a fringe show this year she just wanted to perform for a laugh. I really wish I had a note of everyone's names! If I was an entertainment blogger I'd be far more professional than this. Never mind.

After that we went to the Hive and I met this guy:

who is in this show: The Joker.

I haven't seen the show but may be going when I get back home. He was really nice anyway, and when I saw him on the telly he was quite funny so I hope I do get to see it!

Any of my dear (imaginary) readers seen anything in the fringe this year? Or anything you've heard of that's decent and not too expensive?

Rain and Wild Raspberries

2011-08-10T18:30:00.010+01:00

My mother tells me I need to update my blog more often. She's probably right. I'm pretty sure she's the only person who reads it anyway...

So for the next couple of weeks I'm going to update every single day! Mostly with pictures of her.

But what's that dear (imaginary) reader? You thought my mum lives far away and that's why she actually reads your blog, so how are you going to have pictures of her? Well, dear (imaginary) reader, I'm on holiday. Staying in my dear (non-imaginary) mother's spare room.

It's very nice. I like it here. In fact, the bed and the duvet are so comfortable that I stayed between them for the whole morning. It was great.

This afternoon the weather was like this:

It was raining. So I stayed in mostly, doing this:

I went to the post office to get birthday cards for my older brother and my dad, but I didn't take a picture of that.

This evening mum took me to her Zumba class. Except they don't call it a Zumba class, they called it Dance Yourself Fit. It was run by a lovely lady called Magda, from North Coast Leisure, Bettyhill, and there were about 25 people there of all ages. Here's a picture from Facebook of the class a few weeks ago:

We walked up the wee path past the river and saw it rushing down - its been raining here for weeks - and we saw some wild raspberries.

And here's me, outside the centre, after class. Apparently I have a forehead the size of Jupiter. I'm glad I was able to share that with you :)

This evening, we watched a really gross programme about ants, and now we're watching another one about code in nature. It's annoying. You know what else is annoying? My laptop power cable has finally given up the ghost. So who knows if I'm going to manage to post every day or not. My dad might fix it, or else I'll be stealing a turn on my mum's computer. And if she gets annoyed of me talking about her on the internet she might not let me.

Dear (non-imaginary) mum, please let me keep updating my blog. For the benefit of all my dear (imaginary) readers.

Love and kisses

Pirouette en dedans and en dehors

2011-06-18T17:31:00.002+01:00

You'll have noticed by now that regularly posting on my blog is not my strong point. Largely this is because I am not really interesting enough to tell the internet things about my life. Everyone else is more interesting than me it seems, and someone else has always already said what I was going to say, but more eloquently.

But despite that fact, I shall keep my blog, and every now and again, write the odd post (and I mean odd), just to catch you out.

Today's is because we learnt something brand new in ballet yesterday, which I wasn't expecting to happen since I'm retaking the beginner level course.

We did pirouettes en dehors. Usually we do them en dedans, which is FAR easier. You would never believe it. It's difficult to explain the difference to the uninitiated. I know this, because I had to read a whole bunch of things myself before I really understood.

To do a pirouette en dedans, you are spinning away from the working leg. This means if you are standing on your right foot (on your toes of course), with your left leg raised in passe (left toes just under right knee), then you should be turning to the right, with your right elbow leading, in a clockwise direction. En dedans means "inwards". Your left knee, the raised one, is coming inwards, towards your body, in order to turn. When you do a pirouette en dehors, it is different. If are turning to the right, you stand on your left foot with your right leg in passe, so that your right knee is leading - you are trying to push your leg outwards and away from you in order to turn. En dehors means "outwards" hence the different names for the pirouettes. Another difference is that en dedans, the working foot starts behind and winds up in front, while en dehors, it starts in front and ends up behind.

We've been doing our en dedans pirouettes from a lunge-type stance in fourth, so that you have the momentum of your left leg coming forward to passe as well as your left arm coming from second to first to help you go round. This means that although you might not turn very elegantly, and you might over balance part way round, you nearly always have the momentum to go a full turn. However, en dehors, you start in fifth, so the only momentum you have is the arm coming from second to first. The first couple of times I barely managed a quarter turn. It was horrible. I just didn't get it. Pirouettes en dehors are all in the mind guys. You need to use every muscle on the left side of your body to turn. Its just that you don't get to move any of them very far. It's strange. But yes, the fact that I worked this out, means I managed a rightwards pirouetted en dehors! And then I did another one! They were by no means brilliant examples, but I went all the way round and put my foot down behind and didn't fall. Then I tried a third one and came down of demi pointe a bit funny and hurt my ankle and scared it away. Turning leftwards was never better than a quarter turn at the moment, which is hugely frustrating. But its like a whole bunch of things, you have to learn it separately for the left side and the right side. Hopefully I'll get there. We'll see how it goes :)

Swan Lake

2011-04-09T02:52:00.002+01:00

Found this online today.

It's the whole of Swan Lake in one YouTube video :D so if you have a spare 2 hours 15 minutes where you don't need your eyes for something else, feast them on this!

We have Svetlana Zakharova as our Odette/Odile, and Roberto Bolle as our Siegfried, and the rest of the Teatro alla Scala, an Italian company based in Milan. I really enjoyed it but was slightly disappointed that they used the happy ending, rather than the traditional tragic one. But the dancing is still beautiful so I'll let them away with it!

Love and kisses

The Red Shoes

2011-03-24T20:22:00.005Z

This evening I watched, courtesy of BBC iPlayer, a film about ballet called The Red Shoes. Starring Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook, and the stunning Moira Shearer, and produced in 1948, this film was quite different to nearly anything I've seen before. It got off to a bit of a slow start, I have to say, without much ballet, and the little that was there didn't seem very good (in my inexperienced eyes), and I nearly turned it off.I'm glad I didn't though, because it was a really great film, and included an abridged, film-rather-than-stage version of the title ballet, which I really enjoyed. The films and tv programmes I have watched about ballet never seem to show you much of the ballet that they're featuring, and so I really enjoyed getting the whole picture of what the ballet was about, which made it much easier to see the parallels with the main storyline of the film.

Speaking of the story line, the film focuses on a ballet company, whose artistic director is man named Boris Lermontov. His abrupt, angry, controlling manner make him an impossible character to like, and his moustache is awful, but it suits the role so I'll let him away with it.

In the initial scenes, we are in the theatre watching a ballet put on by this company, with both Vicky Page, and Julian Cramer. Lermontov meets Vicky that evening at a party, and refuses to watch her dancing, but hires her to his company anyway. Cramer writes to Lermontov the next day and explains that he wrote the music for the ballet we've just watched, but it was stolen from him by his professor, who gave it to Lermontov. Cramer is given a job as an orchestra coach.

Both of the young characters are initially well treated by Lermontov, in his own way. Vicky is made a principle dancer, and Cramer composes a new ballet for her to dance, and it is over this that they fall in love. This makes Lermontov very angry, when he eventually finds out, as he is besotted by Vicky, and plans to make her famous. Its hard to blame him, she's talented, classy, and extremely gorgeous.

So Lermontov fires Cramer, and Vicky is upset and leaves the company, goes with him and they get married. But she stops dancing, because her husband is focussing on his career. Its very romantic, but this is a girl who has said that dancing is her life, and that she dances because she must. She apparently goes to class every day, and always keeps up her form - you can tell she still wants to dance, and its heart breaking for her that she cannot.

Lermontov meets Vicky again later, almost by chance, and brings all this up, and begs her to dance again, promising he will make her an amazing dancer and a massive star. Cramer is in London, at the premier of his opera, but he leaves to come and find Vicky, and is gutted to find her in a dressing room, minutes away from the opening scene of the Red Shoes. She says she loves him, he says she loves dancing more. She realises he's right. Cramer leaves, Lermontov does a victory dance. Then she realises she was wrong, and jumps off a cliff into the path of a train. Funnily enough she is not instantly killed but survives long enough to tell her beloved to take off her red shoes.

The three leads were all very well done - each character made sense, and their interactions were not predictable but they were believable (apart from the train thing, and the one moment where Vicky gets up in the middle of the night and her slippers have high heels - or maybe that was just a fashion thing...) I love films from this era as everyone is so elegant and charming, and I adore the way everyone talks to each other.

The ballet in this film is very different to modern ballet. They do all the same steps and things, but here it seems less extreme, and tortuous. Here, all the ballet dancers look like they are having fun. In other ballets and ballet films that I have seen, which were more modern, it always seemed like a chore. The dancers spend every second minute telling you its all worth it because they love dancing, but usually I'm not sure I believe them. In this, however, Vicky really does seem to love what she does, and in the end, its not the pressure of dancing that causes her problem. No one ever tells her she's not doing well enough or that she's easily replaceable. The problems in this film stem from the relationships among her and Craster and Lermontov. All in all, I would have to say that anyone who wants to watch a film about ballet, to be encouraged to do it, then they should watch this, and not Black Swan. It might be older, but there's more dancing in this, Moira Shearer is a professional dancer, the story line is nicer, and the leading lady is a red-head.

All Work and No Play... But Not Any More!!

2011-03-16T02:55:00.002Z

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to announce that I have now FINISHED my final honours dissertation! Apart from a few issues with formatting, and the fact that I have to get it print and bound.

I feel I have completed the boss level of my university education. Well sort of. I still have seven exams to do in April/May.

But nevertheless the completion of the project means I will have more time to do all of the things that I have not been doing over the last few weeks, especially in relation to the summer, and some of my other responsibilities.

I will be cooking more, working more and maybe going to some more ballet classes. And I'm considering jumping on the bandwagon like the rest of my blogosphere and doing the 30 Day Song Challenge. Having spent so much time studying recently means I've been listening to quite a lot of music - it stops me from feeling so lonely - and sharing tastes in music with folk as well. So there are a few bands I've come across lately which aren't all up there in the charts that deserve a shout out!

I absolutely ADORE Spotify - I honestly don't know what I'd do without it. I hate paying for music downloads and don't want to download them for free, partly because its illegal but also because my laptop is dying enough already and doesn't need the clutter. Spotify lets me listen to anything I like, whenever, and if I don't like something, I just won't add it to any of my playlists - it won't be clogging up my hard drive for the rest of eternity. If you don't already have it, go to their website and have a look. It's like having the worlds biggest CD library. AND you don't have to hunt through it for that disc you put back in the wrong box!

But now I'm off for a few hours sleep before tomorrow's final edits, printing and binding.

Hugs and kisses

Real Ballet!

2011-03-05T00:23:00.004Z

Class today was verrry exciting! We did a few new things today, rond de jambes at the barre, and grande battements, and we did a new centre sequence with lots of port de bras and something called a chasse. I didn't quite catch all the French, but I'm sure when we do it again I'll remember!

Anyway, the exciting part was that instead of the usual things we've been working on in centre - sequences with pirouettes, soutenous and waltzing, and corner-to-corner things with temps levees and grand jetes, we learned real ballet! I know right! :D

We started learning the Spanish Dance from Coppelia, which is just a very short part, of course, and not too complex.

Here's a video I found on youtube of Lisa Pavane dancing the role of Swanhilda in Coppelia with the Australian Ballet. This particular clip begins with the Spanish dance, which is convenient because I don't have 8 minutes to spend watching the whole thing as well as writing a blog post for you! The proper choreography part that we learned begins at 0:14 and finishes at 0:44, although the whole dance is a bit longer than that. We did the arms a little different, and only one chaines (the turns in the second bit eg 0:32) instead of two, but its the same stuff. I'm really excited to be able to show you what I'm learning, although I don't imagine ever being at this sort of standard!!

The story of Coppelia is interesting - wikipedia can explain better than I can with such a rushed post! Have a look at it here. At the point of the Spanish dance, Swanhilda has gone into an inventor's workshop and pretended to be his mechanical doll, called Coppelia (after the inventor who's name is Doctor Coppelius) come to life (bit of imagination required of course). The Spanish dance, and the Scottish dance which follows (and is also in the clip) are just showing off really - no story, but very entertaining.

Anyway, that's all for now. Massive deadlines looming so very little time to write. My writing will improve when I have more time to draft posts! Sorry about it for now :(

Hugs and kisses

Feeling It Again

2011-02-22T15:35:00.002Z

So today I'm not such a big fan of ballet stretch as I was yesterday. Today I am suffering the ache of stretched muscles. All of them. We did full body stretching so now I have full body aching. The effort involved in getting out of bed this morning was too great. So I put it off to this afternoon, and still feel achy. Warm bath for me this evening I think!!

One of the reasons I have started blogging about my ballet classes is because I have found a few other blogs from adult ballet beginners and they've been informative and encouraging :) But there's only a few of the. It's nice to read that other people are doing I'm doing and achieving a good degree of success, and they say lots of useful things about how to make progress as an adult beginner, how to talk to people about what you do, why you should wear a leotard and pink tights to class, and many other useful things.

So if you are interested, here are some linkies!

Adult Beginner is a woman in her 30s in America who has been taking classes for well over a year now. She still can't do a pirouette, even though she takes 2 classes a week at open level. This is a source of great relief. I thought I was a weirdo for being so bad at them, turns out I'd be a weirdo if I was doing it right after 6 weeks! She chatters like she's talking to a non-ballet friend. She likes to pass on crazy metaphors from her teacher (nicknamed Smirnoff, because he is Russian!) and she posts photos and sometimes cartoons. She also reviews books. She's hilarious, and I love her :)

David, of Dave Tries Ballet is another interesting character. He's 23, and has been doing ballet for a few months, but is ALREADY of a level to be performing on stage! Jeals. He's doing a small part in Coppelia with his dance school in Princeton. And he takes 6.5 hours of class a week! I wish I could take that many classes. Maybe then I would make as much progress. Or maybe I would just ache all the time! He tells us about his classes, about ballet more generally, and about ballets he goes to see. He also has some advice for brand new beginners as well. I like how much of a ballet nerd he is. It makes me feel a bit less crazy!

Henrik, who posts on Tights and Tiaras, is not a beginner at all, but I love the way he writes. He's not condescending at all and has a lot of really interesting information, including a series on the tools of the trade, and he's just posted the first part of a collaboration on partnering, which is really interesting.

There are a couple of others on my blog roll too, but these ones are my three favourites.

Love and Kisses

an Excellent Start to the Week

2011-02-21T10:11:00.003Z

How does getting up at 6am to go to an 8am ballet class before a full day at uni, trip to the cinema, and then heading to the pub quiz and out dancing sound for a Monday? Like crazy? I know right.

I've never done such an early class before. Even at school we only had to be in by 8.35am! But this ballet thing has really caught my attention (as you may have noticed from yesterday's enormous post). I'm genuinely loving it, and I decided that I wanted to do *more ballet* than just the one hour a week. But I didn't want to tell you I was going to go to the early class, in case I failed to get up and then had to come and admit it to you.

But I did make it, so now I can tell you! In fact, I made it a whole 35 minutes early. Unlike all the normal people who kept it to a fairly sensible 10 or 15 minutes. I just wasn't sure exactly what the protocol was. So I thought I'd be too early rather than too late. Sitting in a changing room on your own for a while is far less embarassing that being the last one into class and not really prepared to begin!

But it wasn't like that at all. It wasn't even a ballet class, it's a stretching class using ballet style. So we did some things in first position, and second position, and we did plies, tendues and port de bras, and we held our arms in first, second and fifth positons. But we also did a lot of stuff not turned out, and there was no particular focus on ballet technique, it was just stylistic.

Anyway, as you would expect from a class named ballet stretch, we stretched a lot. My legs feel so long. I never understood the concept of feel the burn in stretching before now. I've felt the dull, pleasant ache of gentle stretching. But for example, we were sitting on the floor, legs out to the side as far as slits will go (I'm about 60 degrees tops. I'm pathetic at side splits) and then stretch forward as far as you can. Again this is about 60 degrees for me, and I can really feel it in the tendons in my legs. But then she was like breathe in, and as you breathe out slowly, push further down. So I did. And I was like streeeeeeetch. And then again, and then a third time. And then hold, but keep breathing and sink lower if you can. And the she came round the whole class one at a time, and gently pushed us from the shoulders and waist. Like, not shoving, just pressure, and I was a whole new world of bent over. It burns. But then when we stopped, it stopped burning. No pain. Just stretch. My legs really do feel long.
We also did front-back splits, and turns out what I thought was a pretty mediocre front-back split that I can do is actually kind of alright. I was by no means the lowest in the class, but also not the highest.

I worked really hard in class, came out sweating slightly, again, but had never moved faster than a gentle jog, and that was just at the start to get us warmed up.
And although I've only walked from the studio to uni, about 10 minutes, I feel taller, composed, well held. Quite frankly I feel gorgeous and leggy, which is not something I very often feel at 10 in the morning when I'm not wearing make up.

Ballet stretch is about to become a regular on my schedule :)

love and kisses

Adult Ballet Beginner

2011-02-20T18:09:00.005Z

Hi everyone!

I am now an adult ballet beginner! How exciting is that! I've had six classes now and am starting to get the hang of some things! My balance is improving, my hands are becoming more graceful, and when I come out of class I'm ever so slightly sweaty! Nice.

I realised I wanted to learn to dance maybe five years ago now. I'm in an amateur variety show which is really good fun, and we have a dance cast within the main cast. It seemed like they got the cooler costumes, and they were more impressive. Plus if you could sing AND dance properly, at the same time, then it seemed you were nearly guaranteed a solo and a dance number. So I auditioned. Probably one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. I had no idea how to dance, really struggled to pick up the steps because I was so unfamiliar with everything, plus everyone else seemed to have at least done some dance classes, so they had a vague idea of how to move around. After that I was totally put off wanting to dance, and was quite happy just being in the regular cast. Until the next year, when the directors decided to have the entire cast doing dance numbers. Obviously, not quite to the same standard as the "proper" dancers, but more than just the glorified actions we were doing before. And even though it was hard and I didn't always get it right off and it made me totally exhausted, the dance number was the highlight of that show! And now every year we do at least two main cast dance numbers, and they're always my favourite to perform. I've even started being put near the front sometimes, like where people can see me, which must mean I've been doing some things right.

Then last year my dressing room of 7 girls had 5 dancers in it, me, and this other girl, who'd also gone to that audition I had and hated the whole thing. And all week, I was just really envious of their costumes and how pretty they looked on stage, especially when they were doing ballet.

So I decided, right, that's it. I'm taking a ballet class. So now I'm taking a ballet class, and I absolutely adore it! I'm doing it with a friend, and unfortunately she's had to miss a couple of classes, so I'm not sure she's enjoying at as much because she feels behind everyone else. But I love it. I look forward to it all week. I used to practise the barre exercises at home every time I had a minute, although I have recently discovered that practising on your own as a beginner is a sure fire way to learn really bad technique, so now I've stopped. Instead I've been practising balancing, on one foot flat in passe (anyone know how to get accents on my e's?) and also on releve in first, second and fifth positions, and in passe.

I know right, get me!

Passe is when you have one foot (supporting leg) on the floor, turned out of course, and the other foot (working leg) is raised, out to the side again, and your foot is pointed so that your toes are just under your knee, like this.

This dancer is obviously en pointe, which is not something I do. No no. That takes a good few years of training, doing up to 10 hours of class a week and some exercises every day and stuff. But this is passe, and its the posture you typically use in pirrouettes (you know those, the twirly things), which I suck at. Practising the posture without turning builds the strength in your legs so that you can hold the pose better whilst turning, and therefore not wobble, flail and fall over.

Now, what about releve? That's easy, it's just standing on tip toes. Not pointe, like in the picture, but on the balls of your feet with your heels up. Like when you reach for something high up need to be a little taller. So I practise balancing on releve in first position, which is with both feet turned out to the side (from the HIPS, not the knees or ankles), and heels together, if you were standing flat. I also practise in second position, which is with the feet about a foot apart when flat, but still turned out, heels pointing towards each other. Fifth position is with the feet crossed over, so that (in theory) you make an = sight, with heels touching toes. Lots of people find they can do this, but they are often rolling out their ankles. This is how to injure yourself in ballet. As a beginner, I'm good with my fifth position looking more like > or <, with the heel of the front foot touching the toe of the back foot. As the turnout muscles in my thighs and bum get stronger, my turn out will improve without the risk of injury! To do a proper fifth position releve, our teacher tells us to bring our toes towards each other as we lift up, so that our heels are crossed over. We do this at the end of our barre sequences, raising the outer arm to fifth (just forward, but above the head, gently curved like the dancer above), and when we have balance, we have to bring the barre arm up as well, and hold for 8 counts.

So, that was a bit of a ramble, I hope you'll forgive me! But I am finding ballet very absorbing, and extremely exciting! I'm considering, now that my weekly uni classes have stopped (for ever! I have no more before I graduate) I might try fitting in an extra class - the studio I go to has drop in classes - ballet stretch on a Monday at 8am, or gentle ballet, which is an hour and half, on Fridays mid morning, which seems much less offensive. But my regular class is on a Friday night, so I feel it might be better to embrace Monday mornings, and get my week off to a good start! lol

Love and Kisses

Statue of Liberty Headdress Tutorial

2011-01-17T02:16:00.007Z

Happy New Year everyone! How are things?

I was at a fancy dress party last night for a friend's 21st! It was really good fun :D

I ordered a costume off the internet, which arrived the morning after the party. Useful huh! So I spent the afternoon before the party preparing an alternative costume - I went as the Statue of Liberty. I already had a dress in the right colour so it was the spikey headdress I had to recreate using things I already had in the house and with only a few hours.

In the end I used half a large cereal box, some greeny blue card, an old greeny blue tshirt, scrap paper, needle and thread, double sided foam tape (or PVA glue as an alternative, but that's messy!) and a glue stick.

To start with, I used a bit of string to figure out how big my head was from ear to ear, where a hairband would sit. I used this to help me draw a rough arch the shape of the top of my head. Above this I then drew in the spikes, although not all the way to my ears. To make it symmetrical I just drew half, on a piece of folded paper. Cut out your paper template.

Unfold and stick it down on one side of the cereal box. Use a craft knife and rule for the spikes if you have them, or just old-school scissors. Don't cut right up to the curve at the bottom, leave about half an inch - we will need to make tabs from it.

Cut this strip lots of times to make tabs, and score them lightly at the top. Fold alternate ways.

Place your template onto the bluey green card, hopefully you will have a big enough piece to cover the whole thing in a oner. I didn't, so I did the best I could and then filled in the gaps afterwards. Bend all the tabs one way so that you can draw the head-shaped curve in the right place. Alternative you could have thought ahead and used the paper template to cut the curved shape. Just cut the curve first, and stick it on, and cut around the spikes with your craft knife/scissors. Repeat for the other side.

Choose one side to be the front and use the scrap card to make three large diamonds as decoration, to give the design a hint of depth.

Next, cut a strip out of cardboard the length of your ear-to-ear that you figured out before, and twice as wide as the tabs are long. Refold the tabs alternately. Cover the strip in glue from your glue stick, and press it in to the curve, and persuade all the tabs to stick down. Use some bits of string (or the discarded hems from a tshirt you chopped for another project, like me) to tie around the headdress to keep it in place while the glue does its thing.

Whilst waiting for the glue, get that old tshirt and lop off the hem. Cut off a band from the middle which is a little over twice the width of the card strip you've just been working with. Slice the hems so you have two bits of fabric, about 2 and a half inches wide, and long enough to wrap at least half way round your head - it depends how big your tshirt was really.

Take one of these pieces, fold it in half longways - like a hotdog bun - and sew up a tube. Turn it right side out before anyone sees your really wonky stitching. Also try to hide the fact that you didn't cut straight and so your tube is very skinny at one end.

If you are hand sewing, this will take you ages, and so your glue should be fine. Untie the string, and get your foam tape. Put a strip of it along the middle of the headband, on the head side. Stick your second piece of fabric to this tap,making sure there is enough to fold up and round on both sides, and both ends are covered. The photo isn't super clear - I'm sorry, I was in a hurry!

Then place strip of tape on either side of the card spikes, on top, and fold the fabric up and around. Don't worry it's a little to wide - it's home made fancy dress so you make up the rules.

Fold the ends under and sew them down. Remember that no one will see this, so be as messy as you like!

Next, take that long skinny tube from before and sew it on at one side. I sewed all the way round to reinforce a bit better. Unfortunately you can't do this with a machine, but it only takes a minute or two.

Tie your hair in a pony tail. Sit the hairband on top of your head, and bring the strap round the back of your head and up beside your ear. If your fabric is stretchy, pull it tight enough to stay on, without squeezing so it gives you a headache. Mark how long your tube needs to be - probably a lot shorter than the tube you just spent ages sewing, but such is life. You could measure this before hand and save yourself the trouble. Trim off the extra bit and sew the end in place on the other side. Because my tube is wonky, this side was wider so I was able to attach like this, which looks slightly neater. Keep the stiches on the sides small because they will be just visible.

And that is all you have to do! Now go out and show off your home made headdress. A long blue/green dress, a torch (or a wine glass) and a book to carry around will complete your outfit :) And when the party is over, remember you can wear your crown all the time in front of your computer because no one will see you and you can pretend you are queen of the world :D

Pretzels

2010-11-20T12:33:00.006Z

So today I made pretzels! The nice doughy German kind that you can never get here except when the German market pitches up for Christmas. I found the recipe online, at bittersweetbaker, and made a few dinky changes to suit me.

To make the Dough you need:

1.5 cups warm water

1tbsp sugar

2.5 tsp salt

2.25 tsp instant yeast

22oz plain (all purpose) flour

4tbsp butter, melted (which means you measure it then you melt it)

vegetable oil

Combine water, sugar, salt and yeast in a bowl and stir slowly until dissolved. You may have to squish little clumps of yeast which form. Then add the flour and melted butter and mix until it comes together. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth. Then transfer into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film (plastic wrap). Leave it somewhere warm for 50-55 min, until its about doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 220 C (or 450 F) and put 5 cups of water on to boil. Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll each one into a 24-inch (60cm) snake. Curl the ends round to make a circle

Then cross the ends over and tuck them round to make that classic knot shape

Lay them out on trays lined with NON STICK or GREASED BAKING PAPER. Not greaseproof paper like me. Greaseproof paper is not non-stick. It is about un-non-stick as you can get, apparently.

Anyway, by now your oven should be hot and your water boiling. Add 1/3 cup bicarbonate of soda/sodium bicarbonate/baking soda to the water. It looks awesome.

Then place each pretzel in, one at a time, for 30 seconds each. This is the part that's going to make them nice and hard on the outside!

Although at the moment they'll just be weird and slimy. My dough cracked because I'm rubbish at rolling dough snakes. Don't be like me. Or do, because the cracks wind up looking kind of cool, as you will see later on.

Next mix up 1 egg yolk and 1tbsp water and brush it all over the tops of your boiled pretzels, for colour and shine. If you like crunchy salt crystals, sprinkle over some kosher salt at this point. Beware making them too salty though - you may wish to cut down on the salt in the dough.

Then put the trays in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, turning half way through. Also swap them top to bottom, so that one lot don't brown too much and the other not enough.

Cool them for at least five minutes so as not to burn your poor fingers, then eat warm, or save them for later. Good with butter and cheese or ham. I've never tried them with anything sweet, but given the recent trend of salty chocolate (weirdos) then I suppose they might be good with chocolate spread or dipped in melted.

And DON'T forget to use NON STICK PAPER unless you want to go without the bottom layer of crust, which is just as yummy as the top layer.

*EDIT*: Hi guys. I have corrected the amount of salt in the recipe and made things slightly clearer about the salt crystals you typically see on these pretzels.
Also, I was at the German Christmas Market the other day and bought an authentic German pretzel and found the flavour to be a bit different from these. Will have to make another batch and do some comparisons to see how I can make this recipe more like the real German ones!

Dreams and My "Calling"

2010-10-26T23:47:00.006+01:00

My whole entire life I have always wanted to be the best at all the things I did, including things that I wasn't very good at. Some things I have come to accept. I will never be good at running or sports, and as such will never be very fit. And although I think it would be brilliant to climb Mount Everest and stand on top of the world, I'm never going to get there without some serious motivation from some outside source.

On the other hand there are plenty of things I can do reasonably well, like writing, cooking and graphic design, which I wish I had the time to do more often and therefore get better at, but because I'm not that great in the first place, I don't think that any of them will ever be a career for me, or even a means to support myself. So these activities get pushed aside in favour of ones which are in the long run more economically productive. And that is why I never write much on my blog, why I rarely make new dishes, and why I don't do digital scrapbooking any more.

And then there are things which I am pretty good at. Maths, logical thinking and academia. And the problem there as that those things aren't colourful and pretty and creative. And colours and prettiness and creativity are the things that I would love to be able to base my entire lifestyle around. But instead I'm going to be a scientist, because that's what I'm good at. I'm not sure there's anyway to make clinical psychology very pretty or colourful. But when (if) I get there, I'll let you know.

And then there are a few things that I've never tried but would love to try. Most importantly motherhood. People talk about having a calling and I always struggled with that idea because I could never find something I wanted to do my whole entire life. Because in school they want you to pick a career, which makes good sense really, now that women don't go directly from parents to husband without ever having to support themselves entirely. And of course married women have careers too. Wonderful ones. And that's great and I was up for that. Except that I didn't know what to do. Journalism was something which appealed to me greatly for a long time. But then I realised I actually wasn't very good at English. So I couldn't be a journalist.

I looked through a really big book in school one day which basically listed a ton of careers. I was sure that eventually I would find one that fit me. The best I could do was a speech and language therapy. I thought I was set. And then I discovered that they also teach people how to eat and swallow, after brain injury or whatever, and they have to put their hands in peoples mouths and stuff. And I was like no thank you. If I wanted to put my hands in peoples' mouths I'd be a dentist.

So I was back to square one with no career. And so I picked subjects that I enjoyed and I went to uni and I did Classical Studies. And I picked Psychology because I like people and I thought it might be fun. And I fell in love with the subject, so that's what I do now. And I want to be a Clinical Psychologist not because it's colourful and pretty like I crave. But because it's helpful, you get to look after people. And I realised that that is what I want to be good at. I want to be great at looking after people.

And most importantly I want my very own little people to look after. If I could get married tomorrow to the "perfect man" who ever that is, and have babies and babies, then I would be delighted. I can't think of anything I want more than to have children and to raise them and love them and teach them to be good, loving people, who get a lot out of life and who will want the very best for me when I can't look after myself any more, never mind anyone else. I want children so much that even at the age of 21 I have said to every one of my friends that if they ever get pregnant by accident, and don't want an abortion for whatever reason, I would adopt that baby and love it like my own without a second thought. And I know that I'm at university, and I'm trying to get a degree, and a career, and a husband, so that I can have a lovely home and then stay there looking after my kids and not having to work. And if someone was to hand me a baby tomorrow, that would mess up the plan a bit. But it's not about the house really, its about that kid. I want to be a great mum. I want my kids to be the best kids.

I read a lot of blogs my women who are stay-at-home mums who cook and who homeschool their children and who get to write and be creative and have beautiful homes and who take fabulous photos and who can make digital scrapbook pages til the cows come home (literally for some) and I want that. I know it's pretty weird at my age and stage of life. But I'm almost jealous of the girls from my year at school who stopped school when they were 16, got pregnant, even by accident, and are now raising families. And yeah its really hard for them because they don't have a lot of money, and a lot of them are single mums, but there's a whole part of me that wishes I had that too. I'd take the hardship and not being able to go out and not having any kind of a career and all of that if I could have kids to look after. I know it's a little crazy. Sorry. You'll have to deal with that.

It's probably a good thing I was raised like I was because otherwise that could be exactly where I am right now. And I might hate it. And that would be horrible. I know that it is far more sensible to focus on some form of a career just now, because kids are expensive, and to wait until I'm in a stable relationship with someone who I love and am married to, because that security is important. I just wish sometimes I could fast-forward to the days where I have a little kitty, a big dog, a baby boy on my hip, twin girls playing together with friends, and two wonderful teenagers who don't find me *too* embarrassing, a loving husband, dinner in the oven, vegetables in the garden, and fresh flowers and my own photography embellishing my cosy family home.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll have plenty of fun on the way

And what about you, trusty, invisible reader? Do you have any dreams? Where do you wish you could fast-forward to in your life

Not All Sunshine and Daisies

2010-08-18T23:40:00.002+01:00

So it turns out that house keeping is not all I thought it was going to be. None of this "ooh I think I'll bake me a pie" nonsense, and more like "I want to go out tonight but I can't because I have to come home and cook dinner and clean bathrooms and hang laundry and tidy up and be stressed out because I had a bad day."

I know it's not always going to be so stressful. I'll get into the swing of things and then it will be more fun and winter I can bake pies if I want to. But right now, I want my mummy back to run around after me. I didn't mind in the flat because it didn't REALLY matter if the place was a mess.

Deep breaths. And some sleep. And then up bright and early in the morning. Yay.

Creamy Chicken and Leeks with Hasselback Potatoes and Garlic Mushrooms

2010-08-14T22:22:00.002+01:00

So, the big move was two days ago now and tonight was the first night I cooked properly! Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures, which is a bit useless :( Especially since Hasselback potatoes are SO pretty!

I made chicken, leeks and bacon in a creamy sauce, and I did the potatoes and garlic mushrooms to go with. I really wish I could show you a photo. Bad Katie!!

Creamy Chicken and Leeks

adapted from Easycook Magazine (Spring '08)

3 rashers bacon (unsmoked), diced

2 chicken breasts, cut into strips

1 leek, sliced

1tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour

300ml (1/2pt) chicken stock (I used vegetable boullion)

3tsp creme fraiche

Fry the bacon in a medium-sized pan over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Then add the chicken strips and cook for another 3 minutes. Then add the leek, reduce the heat, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until wilted and tender.

Stir in the flour and then gradually add the stock, stirring continuously. Stir in the creme fraiche, season, and then simmer for 5 minutes until lightly thickened and creamy.

Serves 2, with potatoes and garlic mushrooms or green veg.

I found this recipe actually makes quite a lot of sauce so we moped up the extra with buttered bread, and I saved a little to throw over some rice or something for a quick lunch tomorrow.

I'll save posting the potato recipe for another time when I bothered to take a picture!

Second-Hand Book Shops

2010-08-07T19:47:00.002+01:00

There's something that seems so romantic about a second-hand book shop. All those books that have gone through so many pairs of hands so many times before. They are the exact kind of place, along with old libraries, that I would love to spend more time in. I love the idea of literature, and I'm a big fan of words, and of comfortable old books. There's something about an old book that makes it feel like a long lost friend.

I was in some book shops today in fact, the second-hand kind of course, looking for some of the old classics on the list of books I'm planning to read and to share my opinions on. I love how haphazard they are, and how it's all a treasure hunt really. And although I don't have much experience of them there were a few things I noticed.

It seems, for example, that no shop's collection is complete with out brand-new-looking copy of Dan Brown's novels. A remnant of all that hype, I imagine. Alexander McCall Smith also seems to get around. Perhaps these are modern classics - the ones everyone reads to say they've read them, and then they pass them on. As this idea occurred to me I realised that I'm not reading this list because someone said they are the books I should read - I'm reading because I want to find more books to fall in love with. I already know I love Jane Austen - if I could go back in time I would meet her before Einstein or George Washington or Queen Victoria. That kind of society is where all my day dreams end up - where rich women do "work" which is really just making pretty things for the home, and people go riding, and walking is exercise and everyone has a horse. Obviously this was only for the upper classes, but that's what I've fallen in love with. Don't look down on me too much!

Anyway, today's foray into second-hand world did not see me empty-handed. I picked up a copy of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy; Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens; and for some lighter reading, The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (and yes, that is on the list!).

I started War and Peace on the bus on the way home, and it's the longest of the four, so it may be a week or so before my first review. I will be updating about other things as well though, so keep coming back for more!!

I've Moved!

2010-08-01T17:42:00.002+01:00

So now I no longer live in Newington! I'm back home at the parents and already struggling not to wind everyone up!

I went out last night and was going to come home on the last bus... but ended up sauntering in at 8 in the morning, not having slept yet. It's a long story. Parent's not so impressed that I had brought Marsailidh with me unannounced.

But everything seems calm again now. Phew!

I've been spending the last week or so packing and cleaning and getting stressed over whether or not our landlady will return our deposit and all sorts of things, but when I've had a little free time I've been recipe hunting on-line. I've got loads and loads of things I'm just itching to try!

Food blogs are my new favourite thing, I'm especially loving:

A Sweet Pea Chef

The Nobel Pig

The Kitchn

and The Parsley Thief.

nom nom nom nom nom

Soon I shall be cooking and photographing. :D

I also found on-line a list of books that everyone should read before they're 30. I don't know that it's the most authoritative source in the world but I like the list, so I'm going to be collecting these titles from second-hand and charity book shops and reading them over the summer, and in my spare time during term as well. Hopefully I will be able to post my humble reviews of these in due course!

Things Are Changing

2010-07-24T20:05:00.002+01:00

Hi everyone!

It's been about 6 months since I posted before which is an awfully long time really!! I don't really have an excuse so much as I just felt I didn't have anything worth telling anyone.

Anyway, my family circumstances are about to change more than they ever have before! My parents are moving to the north coast of Scotland because Dad has a job up there. My younger brother is just starting university and will be moving into university accommodation, and I will be leaving my flat in the centre of town and moving back out to the sticks... um I mean the suburbs... to my parents' current house, to live there with my older brother and to look after it, and the house, until the house sells.

On the plus side, I will have more space, and more money. On the downside I'll be a long way away from the university campus, and the night life in the city.

Although I've lived in student flats for 2 years, the concept of "keeping house" is not something that has ever applied to me. Student flats are conducive to subsistence living, where groceries are only bought when you are starving, dishes only washed when there are no clean ones to eat off, and the place is only tidy when the landlord is coming to inspect. It's going to be quite different moving back home where the place has to be tidy all the time (or at least twice a week) for viewings, and my brother and I will be living as a household, rather than as ships passing in the night.

This blog, I am hoping, will be somewhere I can share recipes and useful house-keeping tips with my grown-up friends from the internet, and also somewhere to share news with my parents - although I will probably speak to them every day and see them quite often.

I can't remember exactly where I left all my avid readers (ha ha jk) in terms of my news, but I am no longer engaged, I passed all my third year exams, and I'm getting close to the stage where I might be able to sit my driving test.

More updates soon on the dramas of moving back to the house (Tuesday) and dealing with the landlady's hospital-worthy cleaning list (Thursday or Friday).

I love you all very much :D

Soap Opera Much?

2010-01-29T16:13:00.004Z

I'm reading a psychology article at the moment about thought and language and intelligence, and its talking about the computer metaphor for the human mind.

Before computers existed, terms like "believe", "know", "think", "talk" and so on were not considered to be scientific terms, but mentalistic. People who wanted psychology to be a serious science tried to stop using these terms when describing how people work - this is how the behaviourist model came about. When this went out of vogue, it was the ghost-in-the-machine idea which was popular again, but there were still difficulties with this.

However, when computers came about, everything changed. According the article, computers are "fairy-free, fully exorcised hunks of metal that could not be explained with out the full lexicon of mentalistic taboo words."

For example:

"Why isn't my computer printing?"

"Because the program doesn't know you replaced your dot-matrix printer with a laser printer. It still thinks it is talking to the dot-matrix and is trying to print the document by asking the printer to acknowledge its message. But the printer doesn't understand the message: it's ignoring it because it expects its input to begin with '%'!"

Pinker says "the more complex the system and the more expert the users, the more their tecnhical conversation sounds like the plot of a soap opera."

For example:

"Why did Mary stop talking to me?"

"Because Mary doesn't know that you changed your phone number. She thinks she's talking to you and is trying to do this by asking you to apologise. But she doesn't understand why you aren't apologising now: she's ignoring you because she expects you to say your sorry!"

Well, it made me smile!

I know I can't prove God exists but...

2010-01-22T20:03:00.002Z

I know I can't prove God exists, but I was thinking about that today.
I had a tutorial this morning for my group project this term, and we're looking at executive functions. These are the processes in your brain which exert control over the other processes. We were talking about some research which investigated a number of putative executive processes and it brought up the question of the use of strategy when performing tasks, and how this decision was made. How is it decided which control process should be used? Psychologists are long past the stimulus-response ideas of the Behaviourists, which suggested that everything we do is an automatic trained response to present stimuli, so we concluded that strategy wasn't simply dictated by the task at hand. Aside from anything else, there are often numerous strategies which can be used so the choice is not always an automatic one.
I suggested maybe the choice was made by the conscious self. Like "you" decide which strategy to use, and another girl in my class (whose name completely escapes me) asked in return what process regulated consciousness? Not as in whether you're awake or asleep, but what is going on in your mind consciously, what you think and so on.

Now that is a very good question. If we continue to hypothesise and research and develop new methodological and statistical techniques, will we eventually be able to reduce the whole of cognition down to a series of processes? Or do we believe that human consciousness is something special, which can't just be measured with a big scanner or factor analysed out of a questionnaire. It's the whole mind-body question all over again.
This was something I studied in philosophy in high school (something which I gave up as soon as I was able, for the most part), and at the time, I guess I didn't really get to the nub of it. I mean I never really though that I or anyone else was just a series of biological functions. Then we might as well all be slugs, and where's the fun in that. What I never realised was the importance of the question, and at least in my eyes, that there is really only one possible answer.
The human mind is so creative. Every second we think thing we've never though before, we say things we've never said before, we organise things we've never done before, we draw things we've never drawn before. If everything was a biological process, then because of evolution (let's not get into that right now, it's a whole other question) it would theoretically all have been done before already. But it hasn't. Human beings are creative because they were created. They're not just biology because they didn't just happen thanks to a big old science accident.

Sometimes I wonder if there really is a God, and other times I could possibly doubt it.

Another Driving Lesson - Finally!

2010-01-16T13:51:00.002Z

So I had my second driving lesson on Wednesday morning, and it was definitely better than the first one.
At the end of the first lesson, all I had done was set off, change gears and pull in again a few times, and I was worried I wouldn't progress onto anything else until I had mastered doing those things. Now you may think, well that's OK, those things are easy, but they aren't when they're brand new! You guys have just been doing it long enough that it has become automatic. Not so for me. So I was thinking, yeah I want to learn to drive, so I'll keep getting lessons, but I'm going to be terrible and it's going to take me such a long time.
Well after lesson number two, I'm feeling a lot more confident in my own ability. I drove all the way along the road in one go, then we practised turning in a wide street-end bit, doing circles and figures of eight. Then I did a three-point turn to get round. The first bit was OK, the reverse part, I mean, because there was loads of space, but then when I was setting off forward again, I forgot that it would have to be really slowly because I had to turn, and instead set off like normal from the side of the road. That gave the instructor a bit of a fright, but fortunately it's a dual control car so nothing bad happened!
Then we drove a long the road and up and down some hills and turned between roads, doing indicating and all that. I was doing pretty OK until I had to make a sharp turn left onto an uphill road. I think I would have done it OK, except that I put it into third gear instead of first! Then after stalling, right in someone's way, I was a bit flustered, so at the top of the road forgot how to do what he was telling me and stalled again. Fortunately I didn't have to do anything to complicated after that because it was near the end of the lesson.
Oh and we practised hill starts as well. Aparently I was quite good at finding the balance point with the clutch and accelerator to stop the car rolling either way. It didn't seem that hard though so maybe he just says that to everyone.

But yeah, it was pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to it now, I quite enjoy it really. Got another lesson booked for next week so we'll see what I get up to then!

Does snow get old?

2010-01-07T17:37:00.003Z

Technically, I suppose snow can get old. I mean, if it's been lying around for a few days. Like at the moment, there's a layer of ice on the pavement underneath the fresh snow, which got trod on, and it melted a little when it warmed up and then it froze again when it got colder again.
But I meant like as a fun thing. I LOVE snow. It first snowed on the 17th December, which was the day of my last exam, and I was so excited when I came out the door, because I totally wasn't expecting it! It's been snowy every day since then, even if any hasn't fallen it's been cold that it hasn't really melted. And it's forecast to carry on like this for the rest of the month.

Now, I love snow. I've always loved snow and I probably always will. But people keep saying we haven't had snow like this for 20 years, or 30, or 50 - they keep changing their minds!
But ACTUALLY, I think it might be a good thing that we don't get it too often. There are so many things that are annoying about snow.
*It's always really cold, so much so that this morning I woke up and there was ice on the inside of my window! Freeeeeeeezing!
*It's really hard to walk anywhere! And it makes your shoes all wet and your jeans and it's annoying, and they take ages to dry because it's cold as well.
*I had my first driving lesson on the 18th when it hadn't got too bad, but I haven't been able to have another one because of slippy roads and the weather. I've got another one booked but who knows if it's going to be good enough, I might have to postpone again again. RRRrrrubbish.
*The worst thing, however, was the closure of Gatwick airport. Chris was supposed to get to Gatwick on Tuesday night but the plane couldn't land because, as they were on the approach of all things, the runways closed. So instead they landed in Paris!! Eugh. Not Edinburgh. Apparently Paris is closer to London. Whose idea was that!
*Today, when Chris's train was due into Edinburgh around 12 o'clock and it was so late I got so cold I could die! I got my hugs and stuff but it was still pretty cold!

So yeah, a list of reasons why extended snow is rubbish.
But I suppose it's not so bad. Snow it pretty. And it is fun. And I love watching it fall. I think it will always make me happy. Even when I'm 80 and crabbit and cold all the time, I really hope I will still love snow. Or even if I end up somewhere where it snows all the time I wouldn't want to not like it, that would be rubbish! I hope however inconvenient it is, that snow will always make me smile, just like a bright summers day, or a rainbow, or running in warm rain.

New Year, New Start!

2010-01-04T12:30:00.002Z

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you're all well. I can't believe it was really October when I last wrote! Madness. Anyway, one of my New Year's resolutions was to blog every week! Very exciting. When term starts next week I'll pick a day and hopefully do it the same day each time, so you'll know when to expect me - it's unlikely to be Monday, that's just when I've got round to it this week.

Anyway, I thought for my New Year's post I would pay tribute to David Tennant, who used to be the Doctor, up until New Year's Day anyway.

The last episode was spectacular with a couple of surprising plot twists and a good bye to all of the Tenth Doctor's companions, lots of bangs and flames, some pretty cool CG stuff, and some brilliant acting!

I only got into Doctor Who when I watched the Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, because Kylie Minogue was in it. It was then I discovered that the script is well written, the acting was great and the actor was gorgeous! Catherine Tate took over as the new companion in 2008, which was the only full series of Doctor Who that I've seen, and then in 2009 there were a series of hour-long specials which came out at Easter, in Comic Relief Week, in November, on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day, which had us saying goodbye to the Tenth Doctor in floods of tears.

Matt Smith has been cast as the Eleventh Doctor and was introduced at the end of Tennant's final episode, when he regenerated. Although he may struggle to fill his predecessor's shoes, I supposed we'd better give him a chance before we write him off completely.

The end of the David Tennant era is also the end of the Russel T Davies era. Davis has been a script writer since 2004, when the series restarted after a 15 year holiday, and has done an excellent job. Davies says the new guy, Steven Moffat, is brimming with ideas, and in fact he has already written a couple of episodes since the series revived. Hopefully he too will not be lost in his predecessor's shadow.

With two major changes at once in the Doctor Who team, with the shows amazing popularity continue or will the new kids find themselves unable to live up to the old masters?

Let's not get angry about Nick Griffin and the BNP

2009-10-23T01:04:00.012+01:00

I watched BBC's Question Time this evening because people kept shouting about it on Twitter and I wanted to know what the fuss was for.

I have to say I don't know why people were getting so angry. I understand that Nick Griffin's policies and party are dispicable, and that politics should not be about race, but I agree with what Bonnie Greer said, don't you?

"The British people have got too much common sense."

The British National Party will never be a significant part of main stream British politics for just this reason. I think it's quite clear from Nick Griffin's own responses and behaviour on the show tonight that he does not himself have a clear understanding of how his policies relate to Nazism, denial of holocaust, racism, genocide and religious conflict. The lack of integrity he showed was astonishing - whenever confronted with a quote that put him in a bad light, he claimed to be misquoted and shook his head in denial even when claims were backed up with video footage, on YouTube, clearly visible to the world.

There is no need to get angry about a man who is clearly confused about his own opinions. Whilst not all British politicians have integrity or know what they're talking about, I think its safe to say that when these faults are combined with despicable policies and associations with racial hate groups internationally, even the most patriotic Brits will not be fooled into supporting them. This assumes of course that the main stream alternatives are getting things right, but that is a debate for another post, probably on another blog.

The BNP leader was also challenged about his association with the Klu Klux Klan, in particular when he was photographed meeting David Duke, a leader of the KKK in America. According the the Telegraph, Mr. Duke claims in his book,"My Awakening: A Path to a Racial Understanding", published 1998, that the integration of different ethnicities is racial genocide.

David Dimbleby quoted the BNP website as saying that the current government's immigration policy is "the greatest act of genocide against the British people in history." Nick Griffin agreed with this, and another quote saying that the government was committing an act of "deliberate, calculated genocide" against the British people with this policy. I smell a distinct comparison.

Like Baroness Warsi, I am appalled at the use of the word genocide by both of these groups in this context, especially when you take into account the violent and horrific nature of other genocides around the world. I also believe that the BNP should be ashamed to have such an association and such a similarity of ideals as the leader of the KKK, classified as a hate group in the United States.

I would have verified Mr. Dimbleby's quotations myself, but the BNP website was down, so all I got was a temporary page with bullet-pointed one-liner policies, and large buttons suggesting I "Donate", "Subscribe" or read the newsletter. No thank you.

Getting the Hang of the Gym

2009-10-16T13:27:00.004+01:00

So I've been going to the gym for a couple weeks now - today was my fourth time! Kirsty and I had booked to go to a hula hooping class which we were really looking forward to, and we'd gone half an hour early to put in some time on the machines first.

However, it all went to pot when we discovered that our class had been cancelled and they were holding "Aero Express" instead. While waiting in the queue to ask exactly what that entailed we didn't want to do it unless it involved some kind of bubbly chocolate (is it just me or are half the gym classes also kinds of food... lol).

Turns out its just regular aerobics and we weren't really up for that so we gymed it for 40 minutes. Then we thought we'd go through to the weights machine room and get a hot gym advisor to show us what to do, but it turns out you have to book an appointment, and there were like none available for weeks. It's pretty rubbish. And it doesn't help that Kirsty's going to Paris on Wednesday next week for a whole week! I might go without her while she's away! Shhh :p

After discovering that we weren't really in the mood for going back to the cardio stuff so we just quite while we were ahead. I kicked ass on the stepper today though, even if I do say so myself. I'm getting used to the machines and which programmes to pick on them. The weights machines are the next step it's just going to be a little while before I can learn them and find out what I should be doing.

Got to get to class now anyway, bye for now!
Katie

Phone Line and the Internet

2009-10-13T16:56:00.010+01:00

So today was the day when we were going to set up our internet! We've had the box since last week and this morning we got texted the activation code, so Gale started the whole set up procedure. But she found that the phone socket beside the piano wasn't connected properly, so she unscrewed it and slotted the little doodad in place and tried again.

No luck.

So I followed the wire to see where it went, to make sure it was a real wire. Above the kitchen door I found another phone socket which had a connecter by it but not plugged in, so we plugged that in and tried again at the piano socket.

No luck there.

Continuing to follow the cable through the kitchen I found a third socket right by the window, where the phone line comes in from outside.

Well that didn't work either - no prizes for guessing that.

So Gale tried plugging the box into the socket above the door, which was an exercise and a half as there wasn't a power socket too near by - it's right across the hallway!

You guessed it - that failed too.

I couldn't see the above-the-doorway socket to unscrew it, not from the stool anyway, would have had to get a ladder, so first I went to the more manageable one beside the kitchen window.
As soon as I unscrewed it I could see a problem. There were no wires connected to the actual socket part of the casing - so when we plugged in the cable it wasn't even attached to a broken wire! But I could see wires in there, and more screws, so I got at those as well.

I think its fair to say that on the removal of the second panel the problem was pretty clear to me.

The wire which came out from the window had 7 smaller wires inside. 2 connected to the front casing, 2 broken and tangled and 3 cut off completely.

The wire which goes from this socket to the rest of the flat (the big white cable in the above photo) had another crowd of wires - at least 5 - which were also broken off and not connected to anything - no wonder neither of the other sockets worked!

So now we need to get in a man to fix the cables. We're going to bother the landlady about it. We haven't studied the lease yet but I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is her responsibility, not ours. We're quite happy to pay line rental, but the physical line - well that's like the walls or the furniture surely - we don't get to take it with us, so we don't really deal with it, we just complain about it.

So I'm still stuck to the library unfortunately, although I am doing a lot of my reading on the laptop at home.

Hopefully it won't take too long to get sorted out and then I can get on with posting about ALL the exciting things I'm doing at the moment, not just the occasional one.

Love you all
Katie

*edit at 00.42 14th October '09 *

Apparently I was wrong. The orange and white wires which are connected to the front panel of the doodad are all we need. That's right, we has internets :) and a phone. I would photo it for you but it's not that exciting-looking.

'Night then.

Busy Times

2009-10-08T09:42:00.004+01:00

After all my promises about more regular updating I got off to a great start.

Then my source of internet in the flat failed and I have to come to the library again, at least until Tuesday when we should get access again. Fortunately I can bring my laptop and sit somewhere quiet rather than being tied to the hot whirring computer labs full of students having whispered conversations and laughing at YouTube.

I've been quite busy lately, socially as well as studying wise.

Gangshow on Sunday afternoon was pretty good - I had lots of fun. The only rubbish part was when we were learning this tap dance that all the girls are supposed to be doing. Watching me try to tap dance is funnier even than seeing Michael McIntyre. Well not quite, but its close. After I'd stopped stressing out about how rubbish I was and realising I'm so near the back hardly anyone will see me, it was pretty amusing. I can smile and head in the right direction. That's enough for me I think.

On Thursday (today!) it's the South East Region's first AGM (a big Scouty thing in the area) and the GangShow were asked if they could provide a little entertainment. It's only a small group going, like 15 people, and we're doing one of the numbers from the show (the very patriotic one with songs from the Proclaimers). Because its just a small group, the regular soloists aren't all going (they're busy) they had to give them to other people, just for this one off, and I got a couple lines to sing! :D Just my luck its the line about "When I get drunk..." lol

On Monday evening I was at Cubs, as usual. We were having a foreign food night so after playing a couple themed games, we tried some different things (microwave ready meals from tesco!). We had moussaka, nachos and vegetable curry. Almost everyone thought the nachos were the best (I think it was the cheese, lol) and no one like moussaka the best, although they still finished it between them! Moussaka is one of my favourites so I was a bit gutted, but never mind. Afterwards I had them all draw posters of their favourite foreign food. I don't think I've ever seen so many drawings of pizza in my life, or so many variations on the spelling!

Tuesday morning brought my first trip to the Edinburgh University Gym (well not since I went to see it during my freshers week in 2007!) I went with Kirsty, Megan and Gale, and we had a good time. We stayed for an hour so I only went on a couple different CV machines, just to suss the place out a bit. They have a separate room with all the weight machines in, but the others weren't really up for it so I didn't go look this time. Kirsty and I are going back tomorrow morning. We're hoping to get into a hula hooping class, but Rosie says their usually full unless you book in advance, so we may just stay in the gym the whole time. I'm really looking forward to it though, it's much more interesting than running, and an off-peak membership is only £60 for the full year (off-peak means before 14.30 on a week day, or any time at the weekend) so I can see myself being more diligent about gyming than I am about running.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went to see Kirstin in the afternoon. We played a game with these tiles that had different patterns of squares on them and you had to match up trails of as many of the same coloured square as you could. She beat me. Gutted. After that I took her to McDonalds for a burger and an ice cream, then we got the bus to her youth club in Portobello.

I got back to the flat and had some home made pizza (from BBC Good Food except mine was ham and pineapple, not the topping here) then Megan, who has a pre-paid cinema card and ets Orange Wednesdays, took me to the cinema for free. We went to see the new Fame movie. It is the BEST. FILM. EVER. We were walking home and we just couldn't get over how good it was and how much we wished we had some kind of talent like the kids in the film. Neither of us could decide whether we'd rather sing or dance. But we are going to learn a dance of some sort, to show off, and for fun. Probably the Hoedown Throwdown from Hannah Montana although it looks pretty hard to learn!

So that's you all updated. Hopefully I'll drag myself to the library after the gym tomorow and before class so watch this space for my gyming and GangShowing antics!

Much love

Katie

Chiquitos and Chiquitas

2009-10-04T11:57:00.006+01:00

So last night we had a really good time.There were loads of us at Chiquitos, like 16 of us? And that wasn't even everyone either - some people could come, like Andy Phil, who had to go to the hospital to get his hand X-rayed!

We were sat at two different tables because there wasn't enough room for all of us at the one!

Here is the other table:

But I forgot to take a picture of everyone at my own. Finlay remembered, so I shall steal it when it gets put on facebook!

Unfortunately the service wasn't great - we didn't get our drinks for 40 minutes after we ordered them, and they came at the same time as the food,

which we'd ordered well after them. And the other table had their order taken ages before us

so they were mostly done by the time we got our food. All in all it was a bit shocking, so we didn't leave a tip. I'm sure it was just because they were really busy, so I'm not dissuaded from going back some other time. I just wouldn't go with a large party on a Saturday night!

Aside from the service the food was really good (I had shredded beef burritos and a side order of coleslaw) and we had a really good time :) Marsailidh liked her present from me, and all her other presents too. After we came back to the flat, every time someone new arrived I would totally be like "Look at the awesome thing that I made!" - I'm so not cool like that.

So yeah, like I just said, after dinner most of us came back to the flat and loads of other people pitched up too. We had the rest of the awesome cake that Mars's mum had made for her birthday, and we were mostly just hanging around chatting and laughing at people's drunken stupidity. It was good times really.

I persuaded Faisal and Kirsty that they wanted to come to see the Gangshow, so they've got front row seats on Saturday night - at seat 7 and seat 20! The only seats together were at the back or at the top, so they weren't really up for that. I'm pretty excited about it. We're going to go for tea before the show and Roisin's friends new restaurant that's opening around that time, on Lothian Road (I shall totally review it when we go!)

Here's some photoleos for your viewing pleasure :)

Me and Kirsty

Marsailidh

Roisin and Carl

Gemma and Gale

Kirsty being TALLER than Marsailidh (this has never happened before!)

Richard, Keith, Gale and Marsailidh

Kirsty and Becky

Kirsty, Marsailidh and Kirsty

Marsailidh's Present

2009-10-03T17:26:00.005+01:00

I am obviously an awesome friend.

How do I justify this statement you ask? Well the amazing personal-ness of the present which I've got Marsailidh for her birthday kind of gives it away!

I made her this scrapbook page:

Click here to see more.

Then I got it printed and framed, like so:

I think you'll agree. It's awesome!!

Going to give it to here when we're out for dinner tonight. AWESOME :D

Inverter Trouble

2009-10-03T14:30:00.002+01:00

A while ago, the screen on Chris's laptop stopped working. He took it to a computer shop but they were unable to do anything with it, so he bought a shiney new one. I begged the old computer off him, hoping that there were better computer shops in Edinburgh where I could get it fixed for less than the £335 it would have cost to get Dell to do it for us. That was way back in like May. I used the laptop with a monitor for a while but then a bumped a connector one day and that stopped working too, so I decided I'd better get round to seeing if I could get it fixed.

I packed the thing up and took it with me to various computer shops in my local area. The first guy said he would replace the screen for £200 and be done. Seemed alright but I wasn't convinced I wouldn't get a better deal else where, and the guy barely even looked at the computer to see what might be wrong. The next place I took it didn't actually do laptop repairs, and the last place said they would run a diagnostic test for £40 and see what was wrong with it. So they seemed like the best bet.

I totally meant to ask my parents for some money for it, because I was totally skint at the time, but some how it just kept slipping my mind and as the summer came I got too busy to worry about the laptop in its box gathering dust in my room.

Then came the 16th of August and I moved out my flat, finding the laptop and feeling sorry for the poor thing.

Having lugged it back across town again when I moved to my new flat two weeks later, the feelings were less of pity and more of resentment. In my new, smaller (cheaper) room, I needed to use the laptop to make it worth the storage space, and at the end of the month my student loan eventually came through.

On Thursday I took it back to that computer shop again, to see what they could do. In about 10 minutes he had determined the problem - my inverter was broken. Whatever that was. How much will that cost? £35-£70, and a labour charge to fit it. Seemed pretty good to me, compared to Dell's offer of £335!! So he got out his screwdrivers and took off the panelling around the screen. He showed me the inverter and said it was unusually attached - he was worried it was integrated into the screen so that he wouldn't be able to replace it separately. The £ signs rolled across my eyes as I thought about how much that would cost. But he found some more screws and was able to get at the back of the LCD screen, from which angle he could see that the inverter was in fact separate, and I breathed a sigh of relief as he began to screw it all back together.

He said he would order the thing and phone me when it came in, probably Monday or Tuesday. The £109 bill had to be paid in advance unfortunately, so it was rather depressing to part with all that money and still have a broken computer. It was fair enough though. If they ordered the part and I never reappeared then they'd have lost out.

So that was Thursday. You can imagine my surprise when I got a call on Friday morning to say they'd had a really fast delivery and I could bring the laptop in that very day to have the part replaced. Intending to go back to my studying, and to take the laptop in after my lecture later on, I thanked him and hung up the phone. About five minutes later I was too excited to concentrate, so headed over to the shop. I watched the guy take out all the same screws and put them all back in again like he had the day before. A quick test showed everything was fine and I was so happy I could have skipped home!!

So now I have my very own laptop to use - I'll be online a lot more now, so as long as I'm not to busy I think you'll be hearing a lot more from me.

Hope you're all very well,

Love Katie

Psychology 3

2009-10-02T18:35:00.002+01:00

Well as I suspected there is a LOT of reading involved in my course this year. Someone once told me that you should treat your university course like a full time job, so you should do 35-40 hours a week. So I divided the time between the modules and split it up across the week, and I've got more than enough to keep me occupied.

First there's Biological Psychology - I had a lecture for it today, which was quite interesting. In terms of lecture related reading this one's easy - one chapter in a textbook covers two 2-hour lectures. Nice and simple. However, in week 7 we have a "Brain quiz" worth 25% of our grade for the module which involves drawing, labeling and describing the various bits of the brain, and research methods into brain biology. Lots to study for that. We even get to borrow model brains from the department to figure out where things go. I'm looking forward to that but my turn isn't until the 10 days before the test! arg!

Then there's Differential Psychology - this one's about individual differences, specifically in personality traits at this stage, and there is a lot of reading for this. A couple chapters in a text book, 3 or 4 compulsory journal articles and a few extras, for each lecture. Some lectureres might give more or less than others so i'm hoping it eases of later in the term! Fortunately there's only the one final exam for this course, so nothing in particular to stress about until much later on.

Tuesdays is Social Psychology, which is actually pretty interesting. At the moment we're looking at social comparison, and how everyone tends to rate themselves at being better than the average person on any particular dimensions. In other words, most people think that they are nicer than the average person, but obviously this can't be true because we can't all be above the average, some people have to be below! Its called the better-than-average effect (no points for imagination) and the various bits of research and theory that have gone towards explaining it are very interesting although they can be confusing at times! Reading for this course is 4 or 5 articles per lecture, for all the lectures this year, although we do get a week off with this class, which is nice.

Methodology is certainly not the worst for reading, but two hour statistics lectures are rough. I need to re-learn how to use the statistics programme, SPSS, before next term when we have to do practical projects, because lets just say it wasn't my strong point last year! Although there isn't much reading for these lectures, you do have to spend some time going over things to understand the formulas and how to do it in SPSS and what it actually means and what its actually for and all that kind of thing. We get some demonstrations as well as just lectures so they should help clarify things.

By far the heaviest work and reading load is, however, the literature review, which is worth twice as many course credits as each of the other modules, and is almost completely private study. We get three one hour tutorials on it, and are expected to hand in a 5000 word review by the last week of term. Rough! Fortunately i managed to get the topic that I really wanted: "Can mental imagery help treat movement disorders and/or limb pain?" You may find that as term goes on and I start to try and make sense of all the articles and "synthesise" them together i start ranting on about it here - I'll try to make them as lay-person friendly as possible, they might make interesting reading, and you all can constructively criticise my writing. Obviously I can't put up sections from the report until after its marked, but you can give me pointers on things which aren't making any sense.

Anyway, enough about me and my degree, how are you all?

love Katie

Back-to-School Time

2009-09-23T22:27:00.002+01:00

Hi y'all, long time no see!

Sorry I haven't posted, I've spent the last couple of months swinging wildly between periods of intense activity and periods of intense laziness.
I went on holiday for three weeks in the summer, and should really tell you about that, but at the moment I'm making a scrapbook of it. When I upload it to print, I will post a link, and maybe I'll post a couple of previews before then.

Since I got back I've moved into a new flat, with the same flatmates plus the addition of Megan. We haven't got internet sorted out in the flat yet, although it is now in the pipeline, which is my main excuse for not updating you all, although not a very good one.

Yesterday was the start of the university term this year. I only had a one hour introductory lecture in the afternoon, so it wasn't a very taxing day! We got handbooks and registration forms and literature review lists and forms, and the lecturer read through the handbook with us, which wasn't really necessary!

Each semester I do three specialist topic modules (which are set for everyone), and a methodology module. In semester 1 I also do a 5000-word literature review, and in the second semester we all have to do group projects and hand in a 3000-word report.

The choices for the literature review don't really relate well to clinical psychology, which is unfortunate. However, there is one on the treatment of movement and pain disorders which is relevant, and two on dementia, and one on "the talking cure" all of which are also relevant. We have to choose 6 options, so my other two were just random ones that seemed interesting. We won't get told which option we've got until Monday, but I've already started doing some reading on pain and movement therapies, because I'm really enthusiastic about working at the moment (don't know how long it'll last though!)

Aside from that I haven't been up to much interesting.
I fell over yesterday and bruised my sacrum, which is still really uncomfortable, and quite painful when moving between standing and sitting positions, and when I stay still for too long. I thought for a bit it might be broken but I don't want to go to the hospital in case they put me on bed rest for two weeks or something - I need to go to all my lectures and stuff this year if I have any chance of getting a First! Besides, the pain is easing off so it can't be too serious.

Hope you are all well, and hopefully now I'm back online more regularly and doing things at uni I'll have more time to post and more things to post about.

Hugs and kisses
Katie

My Birthday & Holidays

2009-07-17T16:00:00.007+01:00

I know I'm a really irregular blogger anyway, I just thought I would let you all know that I'm going away on holiday for a while! However, you'll all be delight when I return because I will have lots of things to say and lots of pictures to show you.

The more exciting part of this post is below:

I made a scrapbook page of my birthday barbeque. My actual birthday was like 2 weeks ago, and we had the BBQ on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately the weather stayed good and dry, although there was patchy cloud sometimes.

The journalling is a little hard to read so here it is:

I had a barbeque for my birthday, in my parents garden. A whole bunch of people came - it was really good fun! Chris had come up for the weekend and some of my friends from school came - Martin and Kirsty and Marsailidh. Rosie was there too, and Rachel, Michael and Brenda from church.
A friend of Chris’s who was on a road trip came with his friends Scott and Dave and they were really cool. Dan himself is a singer - that’s how he knows Chris, so I had a very harmonious rendition of Happy Birthday this year! I was a little bit worried that things would be difficult because of my lack of concrete planning but everything went just fine.
We had burgers and sausages and kebabs on the barbeque, fruit salad, strawberry tarts and chocolate birthday cake with 20 pink and white candles.

Products used were made by the designers at digitalscrabookplace.com. See the page slightly bigger here: http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=325417&ppuser=123153

Have a look at some of my other stuff too :)

Have a nice time while I'm away!

Catch 22 Comedy Club at the Arc, Stockton

2009-06-29T15:42:00.002+01:00

I was at Chris's this weekend and we had a really good time :)

Usually we go out to the pub on a Saturday but this weekend we went out to a Comedy show instead. It was in a theatre/club venue in Stockton on Tees, a slightly trashy town in Teeside, a short drive away from (the much nicer) Guisborough. We went with Nick and his new girlfriend Jazz (short for Jasmine), Andrew and Faye, Peter and Debbie (dad and stepmum). It was a really good night. There were three comedians on and an interval between acts for bar and loo trips (NEVER go to the toilet during a comedian's act - you will be laughed at!)

The first guy was really fat, which I have nothing against at all. It was just disappointing that his whole routine was based around fat jokes, and that got a bit old pretty quickly. It was funny, I laughed a lot, just a little stale.

Act number two was a policeman and he was really funny. He had all policeman jokes two but they weren't so stale. Faye's a police officer and she said they were all kindo of old but I hadn't heard him before and I loved it.

The last guy was definately the funniest, as is usually the way with these things. His set was all about his failed love life and although sometimes rather crude was really really good. Unfortunately towards the end of the set some members of the audience were getting a little the worse for wear but they didn't manage to spoil the set.

The compere was also really good. The guy who was supposed to do it had a family emergency so this guy got called in at short notice so he didn't know the area at all. He was asking where people were from, just as a warm up thing, and they all had to explain where things were next to and all that. In all the cuffuffle Chris's shouts that I was from Scotland were drowned out so I didn't have to suffer the teasing because of that.

I don't have any pictures or anything, I thought I'd just tell you a story.

That's all for now,

Hugs and kisses

We've got a Flat

2009-06-01T11:11:00.004+01:00

Flat one was very nice. We found it in February, at a viewing one evening. The letting agent said that whoever was first to the office in the morning would get the flat, so we figured we'd go down at 7, because they opened at 8. Unfortunately, one group was waiting from 6.

Flat two was also very nice. The letting company seemed keen to have good references for us and stuff, so we filled in all the forms and got all the bits of paper and took them down, only to discover that yet again, another group had got there first.

Flat three we actually managed to put down a deposit for! It was in Rankeillor Street, and it was a private let. But about a week after we paid up, we spoke to the land lady, only to discover that she'd managed to sell it unexpectedly, so our deposit was returned.

This is flat number four!This first floor corner flat is perfect. It has a large kitchen, 5 bedrooms (2 smaller ones pay less rent), 2 bathrooms, a box room and a piano! We paid the deposit and signed the lease last night, and we are just SO excited about moving in.
The flat goes from the bay window to the far left, above the traffic lights, along and around the corner, above the JFK hairdresser to the window above the door to the stair with the blue To Let sign.
We absolutely love it!

Some Pretty Close Up Bugs

2009-05-18T08:50:00.002+01:00

So yesterday I was revising in the garden and Dad was gardening and he spotted all these cute red bugs! Apparently its mating season, but I've saved the blushes of my mum by not putting up the ones where they are actually doing it! :p
My camera has a "super macro" mode which lets me take pictures this close up. Its my favourite thing in the world! I do it ALL the time!

Now back to the revision!

Check out the wedding photos in the previous post

2009-05-05T20:27:00.002+01:00

check out the previous post for all the wedding pictures!

This is just to make you laugh when I should be revising...

Worlds tallest man and matching dog*

*this is not the worlds tallest man, its my friend Pidge. And its not his dog either... lol

An Easter Wedding

2009-05-02T20:16:00.007+01:00

Apparently y'all are missing me! That's very sweet! So I thought I would update you all on what I've been doing.

I was at Chris's for Easter and we went to our friends Chris and Ruth's wedding! It was at the church on Easter Monday, and the reception afterwards was at Rushpool Hall, a beautiful old country house converted into a hotel, about 40 minutes drive from Guisborough.

Me, Chris and Nick

Nick, Peter and Debbie
Chris and Ruth

The cake, made by the mother of the groom
The back of the dress
Chris and Chris
Julia (the cheif bridesmaid) and Peter, her other half.
Chris and me

It was great day. Chris and I were singing in the choir for the service so we got a different view than one often does. The old rector Philip and the new rector Graham were both doing parts of the service. The choice of hymns was excellent - All Things Bright and Beautiful was nowhere to be seen! The signing of the registers took place in the main part of the church, before the prayers and the final hymn, so the choir got to sing an extra two short anthems. After the service the choir processed out in front of the bride and groom and formed a guard of honour for them outside the church. A photo was taken with the choir, then we hung around for ages while the photographers were working inside with the couple, then we hung around some more when the came out and took pictures in front of the door, at the gate to the Priory next door, and in front of the car.

Chris's dad Peter drove us all to the reception, where we hung around for even longer waiting for all the photographs to be done with.

The dinner was really good. Starter was vegetable soup or a filo pastry basket with cheese and mushroom sauce, then the main course was a three-meat carvery, with the biggest Yorkshire puddings I have seen in my life and loads of piggies in blankets. Dessert was treacle sponge or profiteroles.

After the meal were the speeches. The father of the bride, the groom and the best man all said their bit. Ste, who was the best man, was totally hilarious, definately the best best-man speech I've ever heard or read! He began with a short anecdote about how Chris, the groom, had been doing very well in Craft/Tech at school, until the day he'd put a power drill through the classroom wall!! Then he told us about a memorable choir hike where Chris had sat down on a rock, not far from the end, and proclaimed, dramatically "I'm not going any further, you all go on, leave me here!" and had promptly been given a piggy back by the assistant organist. He then explained how when the two of them were at high school together, neither of them had a girlfriend. He could understand it in his own case, he said, but he was confused how it happened to Chris, a 16-year-old lad with his own mode of transport and a penchant for drilling things...

Needless to say, we were in fits of laughter, Chris's poor mum couldn't even speak for five minutes!

After that we all got chucked out of the dining room for it to be tidied and reorganised for the evening reception. A lot of folks went home to get changed, but we had planned to stay, and sat in the comfy chairs around the bar chattering.

A lot of people from the choir were there in the evening, so there were plenty folk to talk to, and there was a DJ, who played old school swing dancing music, as well as some more modern stuff, and my own Chris (i.e. not the groom) was even prevailed upon to dance more than once! There was a buffet, and the cake was cut and shared around - it had been made by the groom's mum Christine and it was really really good! We dragged ourselves home between 11 and 12, full and happy but totally exhausted!

Hmm... Falafels

2009-03-06T12:35:00.002Z

Turns out I'm not a huge fan of chickpeas, so I didn't really enjoy the falafels I made last night.
They look pretty good, they just taste rather bland, and then the little flavour that the chickpeas actually had was kinda icky. They would probably be fine smothered in sauce - the soup I made on Wednesday went so thick over night I could stir in some rice and mushrooms and have a curry. I do like lentils though, I can see myself doing more with them. I'm certainly not put off the concept of vegetarianism, but need to try a little harder to find out what I like. Really I just wish I could afford the meat!

Not much exciting going on this week. Watched quite a few slushy films - Pride and Prejudice, The Wedding Planner, and The Prince and Me. All wonderfully romantic. Although you do wonder sometimes how people manage to fall so violently in love when it appears they hardly know each other! Having said that, I may be a little guilty of it myself...

Vegetarianism

2009-03-04T11:24:00.002Z

I decided this weekend that I was going to go back to being a vegetarian most of the time. Why? Beans and pulses are cheaper than meat! I'm not of course going to be a real vegetarian - if a meat option is as cheap as/better value than the vegetarian option then I'll be right in there!.
To be honest, I was being mostly vegetarian before, just not in too healthy a way - I mostly ate bread and pasta, with dairy and eggs for protein.

But I was at home this weekend and looking through some recipe magazines that mum had, and there were some really nice-looking things in the vegetarian one, and they were all so much cheaper than the meat recipes in the other ones. Some of them are even "super foods" with more vitamins and minerals than I can count on one hand!! It's lower in fat, especially saturated fat (although dairy stuff isn't) and can still have plenty of protein.

So my menu this week? Home made tuna patties (tuna is cheap! and its fish, so its fine), sweet potato and red lentil soup, felafels, a Frankensteins burger (on Free Food Tuesday) and steak, courtesy of my mum, at the weekend.

Love it :)

Pretty Flowers and Pancakes

2009-02-25T14:45:00.005Z

Things I love about Spring: all the lovely flowers growing. Pancake day.
I thought I would write a post about them both.

Every time I walk through the Meadows and George Square these days there are more crocuses springing up.
The purple ones are my favourite! I'm loving the super-macro function on my camera, which lets you take close up photos like these. The colours are so good, and I love playing with all the different colour and exposure settings, just to see how they turn out. I also really like the way most of the shot is out of focus, like in this one. And then all the tiny details of the veins and stuff that you can see in the petals.
It rained last night, just a light shower, but enough to make me all wet and to make my hair go curly, on the way to the library. It was worth it though, because this morning everywhere was covered with flowers and it was sooo lovely!

The other great thing about spring is of course Pancake Day! Its traditional in the UK to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, to use up perishables, like eggs, milk and butter, before the fasting period of Lent. These days people don't really fast in the same way much, because the church isn't so important to them, its more about giving up chocolate or smoking or something. But we still like to make the pancakes because they're yummy!

This was my first Pancake Day that I haven't been at home, and I nearly didn't make any, but then I saw people talking about it on Twitter all day and it made me pretty hungry for them, so I went to Tesco's on the way home.
We didn't have a mixing bowl, so I used a lunch box, and we don't have a measuring jug or scales either, so I was guessing really.
I used 6 rounded dessert spoons of self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 and a half dessert spoons of sugar, and 1 egg, and some milk. Seived everything together, added the egg, then kept putting in a little milk at a time, stirring with a fork, until it made batter that looked like my mum's! I greased the frying pan with some oil on some kitchen paper.
They were pretty good. The first few were rather brown because the pan was too hot, and a little soft in the middle because I made them too thick, but I got the hang of it eventually! Also, I think I should use a spoon next time, rather than a fork, because they made a lot of bubbles. Or maybe they're supposed to. Comments please?

The last two really tiny ones were meant to be heart-shaped but I'm not sure that really comes across... Marsailidh really liked them, which made me pleased because before she said that she didn't like pancakes :D

2009-02-24T16:20:00.002Z


Love this word cloud I had made of my Tweets on twitter :)
I find it quite funny that the unique tinyurl code for my psychology project comes up as a word (down on the right hand side). Do you use twitter? I'm hiccup42 there as well :)

Kisses From God?

2009-02-19T19:20:00.004Z

So yesterday, I was having a really crappy day. I'd been home to get something to eat, and I'm going through the meadows on my way back to the library and what do I see? Crocuses!
Spring appears to have sprung! And I was just delighted, they were so cheerful, these sprouting flowers amongst the muddy debris of winter.

Their colours were simply gorgeous! Bright yellows, rich purples and pale lilacs, its was really beautiful.
Then when I got into George Square I saw that the daffodils had sprouted too, although they weren't flowering yet, and it all just made me so delighted, with all this amazing new stuff when a week ago it was miserable and cold and wet. Snow is great but its got nothing on Spring!
It reminded me of a book I'd read a while ago called Captivating. It was a Christian book, and the woman writing it talked about kisses from God. I never really got how great those were until today. I was miserable about my photos and there were these gorgeous new subjects all fresh in their beauty for my eagerly awaiting lens! Every flash of colour, every fresh green stalk was another loving kiss.
And the other photos? Yeah I'm sad, but I'd rather have flowers than snow. And the other ones of my friends - we were just messing about at the pub really, it was nothing special. It wasn't something that we would only ever do once. I'll never have the same photos again, but in a couple months time I'll have so many more that I won't even remember that I'd lost these ones!

So Happy Spring everyone! And I hope you get some kisses from God too! :)

P.S. Still looking for Questionnaire Participants!

http://tinyurl.com/c3cfp9
ta

Really Really Sad

2009-02-18T11:35:00.002Z

I was going to post a lovely blog entry with lots of photos of the snow there was a couple weeks ago. I just transferred all my photos of the last like 3 weeks from my camera directly onto my USB drive, because my university drive wasn't big enough. Then my big fat idiot brain deletes them all from the camera. Then I go to reorganise the photos in the folder on the drive and discover that every single one of them is corrupted and won't open. I hate my life.

Here is the link to my questionnaire
http://capisci.org.uk/Y2limes/index.php?sid=64156&lang=en
But I just got a text from Chris to say that it isn't actually working properly. Maybe its just him - you could give it a go anyway

Having the worst day like EVER

Psychology Project

2009-02-17T13:32:00.001Z

Hey everyone,

Not much interesting to share recently. I'm working on a project for my psychology report, and haven't been doing much else. I can't tell you too much about it because I will want you all to participate. Its an online questionnaire and some games to play, and I will post a link when it is ready. I would really appreciate your participation, we're trying to get the largest and most varied group that we possibly can.

Thanks in advance.

I bet you wish you'd told me who you were now!

2009-02-10T13:24:00.002Z

I bet you wish your name was here... Why? Because this is a map of the coolest people in the world! The ones who read my blog. Oh wait you are reading my blog! Why are you not here!! You should tell me your first name and where you live. Then I can add you to my wonderful map. It would make me feel good about myself and that is always a good thing! :D
Thanks

York!!

2009-02-06T15:00:00.035Z

Last weekend, Chris took me on a surprise trip! We went into town, and I was totally under the impression that we were going to the cinema (which, by the way, is why i'm not wearing any make up in the photos!), but in fact we went to the station. I was really surprised and confused, but then I guessed that this was the surprise that Chris had mentioned earlier in the week (and later told me it wasn't going to happen!). The York train was standing on the platform so I knew straight away where we were going and got really excited.

We walked along the city walls from the station, in towards the town. The first of my treats was that I was allowed to take as many photos as I wanted with Chris in them. This was a treat because he usually gets annoyed by me wanting to stop every five minutes to take photos of stuff. He gets even more annoyed usually if I want him to be in them but today he just agreed happily and made silly/happy faces as required :)

Our walk along the walls took us to the bridge over the River Ouse, which runs through Yorkshire. There were these fancy lamp posts on either side of the road, at the middle of the bridge.

We wandered around a bit, and went into a few shops, then Chris told me that my next surprise was that I could choose any food and any restaurant I wanted for us to have lunch in. Being the imaginative type, I chose Pizza Hut. Although this was largely because I could smell pizza at the time, coming from Pizza Express, and I knew that Pizza Hut is better AND cheaper - so it made sense to go there!

On our way there we walked up the big pedestrianised street (I have no idea what it was called or anything) and there was this York Residents Festival, or something, going on. In the middle of the street there was a brass band playing - a really good one, so we stayed and I took a couple of photos and we listened a while. We had to queue to get into Pizza Hut but not for too long, and the pizza was great :)

My next surprise was probably the best one - I got to pick anything I wanted and Chris would buy it for me! Naturally I chose carefully, and looked in lots of shops. In the end Chris spotted this lovely little dress, and the necklace as well, in a little shop called Echoo. I tried it on and it was just brilliant, and not too expensive either (he didn't mind but I would have felt guilty if I'd spent much more of his money!

After shopping we went for a drink in a pub called Lendal Cellars, which was underground!

Then we went for a walk around the botanical gardens

and down to the river.

We saw a ruined watch tower or something on the shore,

and we found the ruins of the abbey as well.

Evensong at the minster began at 5.15pm so it was getting pretty dusky by the time we got there (at about 4.45, to make sure we got good seats). The music was really lovely, although I had a small issue with the tenor soloist. But he didn't really spoil things. The sound of the choir girls and the male choristers just sent shivers up and down my spine!

Our train home was a 6.30, and I slept most of the way. I'd had a really lovely afternoon, it was a great surprise and a day I will remember for many years to come.

Anyone from the U S of A??

2009-02-03T17:53:00.003Z

This is my visitor map from the USA. If you think one of these might be you, then give me a shout! Comments are still being moderated, but unless you tell me otherwise then I'll post them when I get them (I like to show them off!)

Thanks

Visitor Map

2009-01-27T19:15:00.004Z

Hey guys! This is a map of where all my recent visitors are from - pretty cool huh?
I was thinking it would be really cool to know who was who and stuff, so next time you have a read, leave me a comment with your name/dsp user name, and where you live, and i'll see how many of you I can match up! The counter tells me your ip address, your isp, your browser and your screen resolution, so if you wanna tell me those things as well, I'll be sure of getting people right.

Obviously I get the whole privacy thing and will attempt to set the comments private. Will let you know when that's done so you can feel safe posting your info if you want. *EDIT* ok comment monitoring is on, so if you send one with personal info I will make sure no one else sees it.*end EDIT*

BTW, Dad, I already have you. Not sure if Mum has the same IP address as you or not... But I think I have her at work, cos her company came up as an ISP.

tg13, there was one from iceland was directed from a comment on your blog so i'm guessing that was you!

But I don't know anyone else :)

Selective Colouring Tutorial

2009-01-26T13:21:00.008Z

Ok guys, here's the tutorial I promised. I use Photoshop CS but I think I kept it simple enough to be transferable.

1. Open your image in your program save a new copy of it before you start editing.
I picked this one because the focal part, the long building, is not very obvious, but I don't want to crop the photo. Selective colouring will highlight the building without losing the rest of the scene.

2. Duplicate the layer
3. On the top layer, select the portion of the photo that you want to be in colour - just do a basic square just now, if you want to make it shaped you can do it later.

4. Reverse/invert the selection (in Photoshop, there is a Selections menu at the very top...) and delete, so only the part of the image you want coloured is visible. (it won't look different yet because the same image is underneath!)

5. Select the lower layer by clicking on it in the layer palette. Desaturate the whole thing. Now you should see your coloured part against the b/w part.6. At this stage, you may want to keep the colour just to your focal object - the building in my picture. Select the top layer again, the coloured one, and make sure there are no marching ants indicating selections. Then take the eraser and simply rub out all the bits that are coloured which you don't want to be. If you make a mistake, simply undo.
If you know how to use masks, you can use those instead of erasing and deleting parts of the top layer. That way if you rub out a bit you don't mean to, or you change your mind and want more of the image in colour, you can just draw it in. If you don't know masks, there are loads of tutorials on the web, so just google it!

Thanks for looking
Katie

2009-01-25T21:28:00.004Z

http://www.pixarra.com/
www.panosfx.com

I'm just putting these here to remind me to look at them later! lol
You can ignore this post

MOUSE!!

2009-01-22T13:52:00.002Z

We caught one of the mice!!!! Look how cute and tiny it is!! Gale found it sniffing around a big crisp bag in her room and scooped it up in the bag then tipped it into a jar. We kept it overnight and took it to the Meadows this morning to set it freeeee!
It was so cute! Gale totally wanted to keep it as a pet but I wouldn't let her.

Christmas and New Year

2009-01-01T13:16:00.006Z

After all my exams had finished, I took the train down to Guisborough to stay with Chris. I arrived at lunchtime on the 19th; my last exam being the day before.

In the evening we went to choir practise, for 9 lessons and carols on the Sunday night. I really enjoyed the singing, and learnt some nice new carols as well, including Dixit Maria, which Chris wants me to come down the aisle to at our wedding (although I think it's a bit too long really).

On Saturday morning, we got up really early and went to deliver Christmas cards for Chris' Scout Group's Scout Christmas post. It was nice to be out in the fresh air and we got the job done twice as fast because there were two of us. After lunch we went to the local supermarket to join the rest of the Scouts bagpacking, to raise money for camps and things the following year. I had a really good time, although it was hard work! In the evening we went out to the pub with Chris' friends for a few drinks and a chat. It was nice because I haven't seen them since October!

Sunday morning brought church, as always. Peter(Chris' Dad) and Debbie(Step-mum) brought Ella, Debbie's granddaughter, and Chris, Nick(younger brother) and I sang in the choir. Peter made a lovely roast dinner for lunch and I wrapped some of Debbie's Christmas presents for her while Chris and his brothers went to deliver some more Christmas cards for the Scout Christmas Post.

In the evening was the Nine Lessons and Carols service. It began in darkness with one of the sopranos singing Once in Royal David's City, then the rest of the choir joined in on the second verse and we processed up the aisle from the back of the church and into the choir stalls. All the readings were well done, and all the carols were good. I had a couple of moments where my mind went blank, and at one point I sang during a men's verse but nobody except the choirmaster seemed to notice! At the end of the service we sang Hark the Herald and the choir processed back up the aisle and out the door of the church (then we ran back round and in through the vestry door because it was freezing cold outside!) After the service, a lot of the choir and other folks had been invited for drinks and nibbles at Bill and Kath's (a couple from the congregation)

We spent the next few days before Christmas visiting all Chris's family. We went to see Nanna, at the cafe she works at, and we got scones and drinks for free. Afterwards, Chris took me out to the the little layby which doubles as an overflow for the carpark, and started teaching me how to drive forward and back really slowly, just on the clutch. It was probably the scariest thing I have like ever done, which I know is silly because there was no other cars, and there were only bushes to crash in to, not exactly life threatening!! One evening we went to see his Grandma and Grandad for a cup of tea and a chat, and then went on to see his Aunt and his cousins. We also visited his brother and his girlfriend at their house to exchange Christmas presents with them. We took Lewis and Adam, the kids of the brother's girlfriend, to visit Chris's mum Helen, and Barry, and we played with trucks and cranes and diggers and things all afternoon! We didn't do much else though. We spent a lot of time eating and watching TV, and doing some present wrapping, and we generally just relaxed.

On Christmas Eve we went to Midnight Mass, which started off the same as Nine Lessons and Carols, but was a full length Communion service, so I was really sleepy by the end. There was plenty to sing though, all my favourite carols so I managed to stay awake.

Christmas Day was really good fun. We got up to go to church again, another communion service, although this one was a bit shorter. After that we opened all our presents!! I got slippers and socks and a dressing gown and blankets, some Baileys liquor and truffles, perfume and jewellery and some moisturiser and stuff. Peter(Chris's Dad) made the dinner - we had turkey and roast beef and stuffing and Pigs in Blankets and all the trimmings, it was really great. And we had a proper flaming Christmas pudding with brandy butter! It was quite a treat! Debbie's (Chris's stepmum) family were there too - her son, and her eldest daughter and son-in-law, and her step dad all came for dinner, as well as me and Chris and Peter and Matt (Chris's twin) it was quite a crowd. After dinner Debbie's younger daughter came with her grandaughter Ella and her partner, Ella's dad. When they arrived Ella opened all her presents and made a mess everywhere with the wrapping paper - I wish I'd had my camera!! In the evening, Chris and I went over to see his friends Chris and Ruth, and our other friend Ste(phen) came as well. We had drinks and a midnight feast and we swapped presents and we just had a lot of fun. Chris (not my one, the other one) had got a labyrinth game for Christmas - you roll a ball bearing around a wooden board which has walls to go round and holes to avoid falling down. It was really good fun but totally frustrating!!

On Boxing Day, we went carol singing in the hospital and nursing homes in Guisborough, with the choir, and I really enjoyed it, although it was SO warm in there! We also went shopping in Middlesbrough and Chris bought an iTouch (really fancy iPod thing) for himself with all his Christmas money. I got a jumper and a pretty top in the sales, so I guess I did quite well. It wasn't nearly as busy as we were expecting, but that was definitely a good thing, and we had a really good day as well. In the evening we went to the pub with a Peter and Nick (one of their pubbing friends, not Chris's little brother called Nick!)

The 27th was a Saturday, but we didn't do much really. We hung around at home most of the day and then in the evening we went out again, Nick and all the others who weren't there on Boxing Day.

Sunday bought more church and more singing, and a gorgeous turkey and leek pie, with the last of the Christmas turkey. And a trip to the pub in the evening. It was really all very civilised and normal after the excitement of Christmas!!

On Monday we went to visit Helen and Barry again, and we had a lovely dinner of stew and dumplings, with a selection of puddings left over from the festivities to finish up. In the evening, I had to get the train back home. Marsailidh, Megan, Gale and Andy Phil came and met me at the station and helped my carry all my bags home, which was nice, because I would totally not have managed on my own!

I spent all Tuesday tidying up and Chris arrived in the evening, too late to do much except go right to bed! On Wednesday morning, we did a little shopping, for a sporran and a ghillie shirt for Chris to wear with his kilt, and we met up with Peter and Debbie for a while, who were also in Edinburgh for New Year. In the afternoon we headed over to the house to see my family and to stay a couple of nights. Wednesday was also Hogmanay, so Princes Street and the Mound and the Royal Mile were all cut off from traffic to set up for the street party, and there were barriers all along the pavements making it jam packed and noisy, but the atmosphere was so exciting!! In the evening, my parents and brothers, Chris and I and Peter and Debbie all went to a ceilidh at my church to dance in the New Year. We had a really good time, and everybody got on well, which was a bit of a relief, seeing as our parents had never met before! Afterwards, we all came back to the house for a couple of drinks, and then took Peter and Debbie back to their hotel. Christ and I and Peter went along to our friend James's house to First-Foot and wish them all a Happy New Year! We didn't stay too long, and headed back to the house about 3 to crash into bed for like 10 hours!!

On New Year's Day, we had a relaxing day at the house, playing on the WiiFit that Peter and Andrew got for Christmas. We had a nice beef casserole for dinner, and a lovely red wine, and afterwards we played the game Chronology, which Chris excelled at, even though he'd never played before.

On the 2nd, a Friday, Chris and I went shopping in town, to exchange his sporran for one which wasn't rusty and broken, and to see if we could find anything in the sales (although we didn't). In the evening we went to the pub, Jekly and Hyde, for a few drinks, with a whole group of my friends and on the way home we found loads of temporary "No Parking" signs left over from Hogmanay, and did the city a favour and cleared them up :)

He had to go home on Saturday morning, which was dissappointing because we'd been together for so long. His term started on the 5th, but I had another week, so I did lots of shifts at work, and spent the rest of my time lazing around and feeling holiday-ish. I'm back at uni now, but that's a whole other post.

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year!
Katie

December!

2008-12-29T21:33:00.002Z

So, the First of December, Chris and I got up at 4.30 to get him to the station for a 5.50 train, and we went outside and there's snow on the ground!! :) After seeing him off, I headed to the 24hr computing lab at uni to finish of my Psychology report, before a 2 o'clock hand in (bit last minute, I know! lol) Then straight away that afternoon I had to start on my Ancient History essay which was due on Friday! See now why I've had no time for blogging?!?!

My Cubs on Monday night were making puppets for the show we were planning for the following week, and on Wednesday, I went over to Kirstin's to write Christmas cards and watch a DVD. After my essay hand-in on Friday, I did some Christmas shopping, which was great fun :) I went to the German market and bought myself a traditional pretzel to have with some soup for my dinner, and I managed to get three presents as well :)

On Saturday I went up to Bonaly Scout centre, on the bus, all on my own, to go to Cub camp, because I was in charge of three whole activities! In the morning we made Chinese lanterns, and in the afternoon we made African drums out of plastic cups and greaseproof paper and elastic bands :) and the third one was just a game to move sweeties around using chopsticks, which some kids struggled with but they all loved :)

On Sunday morning I was back home for church in the morning, then in the afternoon I did a shift at Corstorphine hospital, before heading back to the flat to start revision for my exams!!

I had no classes from Monday 8th onwards, so I spent pretty much all of my time revising, apart from going to cubs on Monday night, and doing a shift on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, right up until my first exam on Friday, which was Classical Art. That went ok, although maybe not as well as I had hoped it might.

On Saturday morning, I had to go bag packing at M&S with the Cubs and Scouts, but only for two hours, and afterwards I managed to finish off pretty much all my Christmas shopping. In the evening Kirstin and I made another trip to the cinema, this time to see the film Inkheart, which was really really good :) Sunday was church as usual, and I spent the afternoon at home revising the calculations for the statistics section of my Psychology exam. In the evening, Mum and I went with Dad to the Nine Lessons and Carols service at Abercorn, one of the churches in the parish where his final placement is, and I got to sing almost all of my favourite carols, AND Dad dragged me into doing his reading at the last minute - the one about the shepherds. It was a nice little church and a nice service, and we got mulled wine and mince pies, and I got to practise my carol singing before going to Chris's the week after.

Monday 15th was our last night at Cubs so we played the chocolate game and we had chips, which is a treat for me because I so rarely eat them! Literally all of the rest of my time that week I spent studying for my other two exams. Ancient history was alright, although like Classical Art, could have gone a bit better, and Psychology was really good. Well, you know, as good as exams could ever be! My classmate Eddy and I swapped Christmas presents as well - I'd got him one of those heads made out of saw dust and grass seed in a stocking-ball, which grow grass as hair when you water them. He thought it was brilliant, and promised to grow it and trim its hair to look like his own :) He'd got me a woolly hat (so I'd stop stealing his) and a pair of pink Minnie mouse slipper socks.

That evening at the flat, Megan came over, and she, Marsailidh and I had pizza and nachos and we watched a DVD :) after that I had to pack all my stuff ready to go away because I was getting the train the next morning to go and stay with Chris for Christmas!!

I feel this story would fit better in a post of its own, so although I said two posts, I think I shall write a third as well, although it will have to wait because my train is nearly into Edinburgh, and I have a lot to say!

Speak soon! Katie

Gang Show

2008-12-29T20:50:00.004Z

Dear friends,

I'm sitting on the train, eating a gammon sandwich, and feeling lonely, so I thought I would take this opportunity to update you on what I've been doing for the last two months. As you may guess from my lack of posting, I've been really really busy, so I'm going to split it into two different posts for you, in case you need an interval!

The Gang Show was actually on in the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh! It ran from Tuesday 18th to Saturday 22nd, including a matinee performance at the weekend! Fortunately I had no assignments due that particular week, so I was able to join the rest of the Senior Gang in some socialising after the shows on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, and also attend the Champagne breakfast on Thursday morning. We got a 4-star review in the paper (the highest ever given to an amateur such as our own) which was very exciting for all of us, and I really had a brilliant week. Chris came up on the train on Friday night and stayed over because we had arranged to meet a friend of ours, George, on Saturday morning for brunch and to talk over an expedition the two of them are planning to Gambia next Christmas time. Unfortunately he couldn't stay long enough to see the show, as he had to leave at lunchtime to go to a First Aid training course that evening. After the After-Party on Saturday night, I slept pretty much all day, getting up just for a few hours to do some work on my Classical Art Essay.

The next week was fairly quiet. I had my essay due in on Tuesday 25th, and I saw Kirstin on Wednesday evening. On Thursday night I had to go to choir practise for church on Sunday morning, and I spent most of my free time working on my final Psychology report for the term. Chris arrived late on Friday evening to stay for the weekend so that was really good.

In the flat on Friday night we had a gathering to celebrate St Andrew's Day, although it was 2 days early, but we know that no one comes to parties on a Sunday night! On Saturday, I pretty much finished off my report, while Chris did some uni work as well. On Saturday night, we had a Murder Mystery party which was brilliant fun. We dressed up and all sorts :)

On Sunday morning Chris and I got up super early to get the bus across town to go to another choir practise before Church. It was the first Sunday in advent, so the choir were singing an anthem, which they don't normally do. That afternoon we fell asleep on my parents' sofa watching Shrek, and we had some dinner and then went back to the flat so that Chris could pack for going home on Monday morning.

That's all for November, see the next post for my December antics so far!

Just When Things Were Calming Down...

2008-11-15T10:54:00.006Z

... Here we go again!!

I'm in the library reading for my next essay, but I thought I would take a little break to catch up with you all :)

My stay in Glasgow, from 31st October to 1st November, for the Scouttish Scouting AGM went very well. On Friday afternoon, Rob, my co-presenter, drove us over to the place in Glasgow where the AGM was being held, so we could practise for the presentation the next morning. It was a long afternoon but eventually we cracked it and we headed back to the hotel with all the other speakers and the crew. We had a lovely dinner and stayed at the bar for some drinks, tumbling into bed at half 12, totally exhausted! It was an early start the next morning as the conference surrounding the actual AGM began at 10 and we had to have another run through before the delegates started arriving! It all went off very well, aside from a little microphone trouble initially. We got treated to lunch as part of the conference, then I had to head off back to Edinburgh on the train by myself. I wasn't bored because I was so tired I slept the whole way!

On Saturday evening, mum picked me up from my flat and took me to the Scout Centre at Bonaly for my training courses. The trainees were invited to dinner first and it was really good - we had a thing called Sussex Chicken - which is basically roast chicken covered with cheese and crushed up crisps! And then there was apple tart and ice cream for desert :) I did one training course on the Saturday night, and a few of us stayed over at the Centre to do more courses in the morning. There were supposed to be two in the morning, finishing at 1 and then another in the afternoon, and my training advisor had wanted me to go to all three, but I had a Gang Show rehearsal on Sunday afternoon so I couldn't stay. I was telling the organiser this, and he said they would see if they could go through the other two modules fast enough that they would get the time to do most of the third one with me before I left so they could sign it off for me, so I was very pleased.

GangShow rehearsal that afternoon was very tiring, so I was glad to go home and crash out!

On Monday night, we took the Cubs on a Ghosts and Ghouls tour in the city centre with a company called the Mercat Cross tours. It began on the Royal Mile with ghoulish stories of hangings and witch-burnings and lots of pooey stories, then we went underground to the vaults of the city underneath South Bridge, which are supposedly haunted. The guide was a very good story-teller and the kids were all convinced they'd seen, felt or heard a ghost, and they all had a very good time :)

On Tuesday I had an exam in Classical Art, which counted for 25% of my grade for that course this semester. I hadn't done as much revision as maybe I could have but I'm pretty sure I did ok, although some of the dates I put down were wrong.

I then spent most of my week writing my Psychology report which was due for the next Tuesday. I got that finished on Friday night and had it printed on Saturday. I had another pretty busy weekend again. On Saturday I went to the cinema with Kirsten to see High School Musical 3, which is FABULOUS! Sunday was Rememberance Sunday, and I went to church and actually stayed through the sermon (last time I was there I got asked to do Sunday School so I left with the kids half way through). It was a bit of a change, having got used to Chris's church's sermons which are never longer than 10 minutes, to listen to Jerry for a whole half an hour! Even so I really enjoyed the service, and it felt good to be back :)

This week has been all caught up with reading for my Classical Art essay. It's not due until the 25th, but I also have another Psychology report, for 1st December, and an Ancient History essay for the 5th! Most of the books I need to read are in the Reserve section of the library, so I can only have them for 3 hours at a time. Which has led to me LIVING in the library just about! I did try staying a bit late at the library, until the Reserve books were available for overnight borrowing, and then I would take them home to read, but Marsailidh, my dear flatmate, just bought the box set of the entire 9 serieses of Friends, and all she and Gale do while they're at home is watch them, and then I get sucked in too! Also, when I study at the flat, I have a tendancy to eat almost constantly, which is very bad for my waistline (I'm actually starting to get a muffin-top, ARG!) so I'm avoiding it at all costs!

Also this week have been the final preparations for the Gang Show, which opens on Tuesday! Rehearsals were on Sunday, Tuesday, Friday, today, tomorrow and then Monday is the dress rehearsal, and on Wednesday we had a costume call as well, so it's been really busy! I also managed to squeeze in a shift at the hospital on Thursday afternoon, after which I came to the library until midnight, and I was here yesterday as well from half 9 in the morning until midnight again, appart from the couple hours I took to go home and drop off some books, and to go the the Gang Show rehearsal.

Today, however, I'm only in from half 10 until 12 noon, because this afternoon I'm going to the cinema again with Kirsten, this time to see Easy Virtue, and then I'm staying at house-home tonight because I miss my mum's cooking and because I'm going to church on Sunday morning. Gang Show on Sunday afternoon is in the theatre, and I am REALLY excited about that :)

I'd better get my head down to work for another half hour or so. I'll be back sometime after Gang Show is over - I won't have any time at all next week :)

Love and Hugs

Busy Week!

2008-10-29T11:27:00.002Z

Hello dear friends, oh how I have missed thee! Lol

I was at Chris's this weekend - it was great. I went down on Thursday evening after all my classes had finished. We had a pretty good time just doing all the normal things. Choir on Friday and Sunday, pub on Saturday and Sunday nights etc etc. Chris has a class on Friday afternoon, just the one, so while he was at that I went shopping! I bought a birthday present for Andrew and a new dress for myself to wear out on Saturday (my wardrobe was in serious need of some new additions - I've worn all my other dresses about a hundred times each!!)

On Saturday afternoon we drove over to Kirby Knowle to see Chris's mum, Helen, and her partner Barry. There house is pretty cold so we had bacon rolls and cups of tea and we made a fire to keep warm :) We went for a walk with the dogs and we chattered a lot, and Helen made a roast dinner, which was lovely :) For pudding we had a delicious dessert called Chocolate Mud, which is very similar to Brownies but has no flour in it. Gorgeous sticky gooey fun! Very good with ice cream :)

Sunday was church as usual, then Chris's dad Peter made a roast dinner for lunch as well! We had lamb, which was just delicious, and for pudding we had a plum and apple crumble with custard. I must say that now I'm back at the flat I'm really missing proper home cooking - warm bagels with butter are nice, as are cheese toasties, and tomato and cheese pasta. But it's not quite the same :(

As for this week, my schedule's pretty tight! I got the train back on Monday morning in time for classes, then in the afternoon I had a shift at work and didn't get to bed until late.
Tuesday brought my only full day of classes, starting at 10, and finishing supposedly at 5, but this week we didn't get out until 6 because something went wrong with the statistics program in my Psychology practical class. Then in the evening I started revision for the Classical Art Slide Test (they show us a slide show of pictures and we have to write about them for just a few minutes each!) which counts for 25% of my grade for the course this semester!
This morning (Wednesday) I started at 10 o'clock again. I have this one hour off between my two classes, then at half 1 I'm meeting someone for lunch before heading to the library to do reading for a tutorial tomorrow and some more revision. This evening I'm looking after a girl I know with special needs - her mum and I are taking her to a trampoline centre, so that in the future I can take her myself. After that I may be going to see High School Musical 3 with my flatmates and friends, if I get back in time that is!
Tomorrow I have two lectures and a rather taxing tutorial (it's taxing because our tutor is Italian and her English is not always clear, and also because she asks questions which are totally different from the ones in the preparation, and expects really developed complex answers) In the afternoon I'm working again, then in the evening it'll be even more studying!
On Friday I'll be studying some more in the morning, then I'm going to Glasgow late afternoon to stay here until Saturday. On Saturday is the Scottish Scouting AGM, at which I'm doing a presentation of the major events of the last year. It's in the form of a news program, and I'm one of the presenters!
On Saturday evening, once I've got back from Glasgow, I'm heading up to the Scout Centre at Bonaly for a training course and staying over there on Saturday night, to do two more courses on Sunday morning. I finish at one o'clock then I'm getting picked up (by my dear darling parents) and whisked away to Gang Show rehearsals on the other side of the city! After Gang Show I may do some shopping, go to the house to see my dear family for the evening, then probably head back to the flat before bed time.

See you in a few days or so! If I can keep up! :)