Glad I checked Roger last night. His battery was flat and, when the AA man turned up, we found the battery was completely drained. Bit worrying since, as far as we could tell, nothing had been left on and he'd only been stood a week. Anyway, jump started him and then took for a long drive (in the snow!) to get his battery sorted again. Am going to go and check he still starts in a short while caus,e if he doesn't, I'll have to give Buittle a ring and tell them I can't make it which would be a big shame.
Anyhow, this took up a lot more of my evening then I expected so I was still waiting for clothing to dry last night so I still have to pack. Also suddenly remembered that the beef I had in the fridge (should have been Christmas dinner but went for soup and hot rolls (slighlty singed) instead) would pass it's sell by date while I was away. This resulted in me cooking a Roast dinner at about 1am. Would have been slightly sooner but I discovered (after the joint had been in the oven for half an hour) that, instead of setting the oven temperature for 200C, I had accidently set it for 20C. I thought it had reached temperature quickly. Ah well, sorted myself out and it turned out to be a very nice dinner.
Am now sitting debating what route to take to Buittle. Apparently neither the M8 nor the Biggar Road are fantastic but I know the Biggar Road better. Have put emergency shovel and sacking in Roger's boot and will be carrying emergency kit just in case
Thursday 31 December 2009
Wednesday 30 December 2009
What's to Come..
Have to get myself sorted out tonight so I can leave for Buittle straight after work tomorrow since that's where I'm spending New Year and the roads could be a little dicey. This includes making sure that Roger is working since he's spent the last week parked and under layer of snow! Really looking forward to going though.
Also to look forward to are the Mons Meg traditional ceilidh thing at The Village Inn in Leith with possible curry beforehand, the second term of my fiddle class (Must get some more practice in before then), seeing the Imagined Village in Celtic Connections (Must locate my ticket and keep it safe!) and a possible rapper tour in Glasgow while Celtic Connections is on.
Have also booked my ticket for the Big Session Festival. It's in June so I really must find a safe place to put it. This is so organised for me that I'm still trying to recover! (Must also get round to booking for Whitby Folk Week as well!)
Am waiting on my landlord getting back from holiday so that they can let me know their final decision on whether I can keep rats or not. (They were all for it and then got spooked by a friend's story of nightmare tenants with a hamster). I hope they say yes since I really, really miss having a pet. If not, might have to go flat hunting which I could live without at the moment.
Currently trying to make a tatter coat for Freaks in the Peaks Border Morris side. Have got as far as dying the shirt green and collecting the fabrics for the tatters (May also have acquired a top hat which is ever so slightly too big and will need decorating too) so should hopefully get it finished before the next event at the end of January in Hathersage.
Last but not least, there is DERT to prepare for. Must get the booking form sorted.
Also to look forward to are the Mons Meg traditional ceilidh thing at The Village Inn in Leith with possible curry beforehand, the second term of my fiddle class (Must get some more practice in before then), seeing the Imagined Village in Celtic Connections (Must locate my ticket and keep it safe!) and a possible rapper tour in Glasgow while Celtic Connections is on.
Have also booked my ticket for the Big Session Festival. It's in June so I really must find a safe place to put it. This is so organised for me that I'm still trying to recover! (Must also get round to booking for Whitby Folk Week as well!)
Am waiting on my landlord getting back from holiday so that they can let me know their final decision on whether I can keep rats or not. (They were all for it and then got spooked by a friend's story of nightmare tenants with a hamster). I hope they say yes since I really, really miss having a pet. If not, might have to go flat hunting which I could live without at the moment.
Currently trying to make a tatter coat for Freaks in the Peaks Border Morris side. Have got as far as dying the shirt green and collecting the fabrics for the tatters (May also have acquired a top hat which is ever so slightly too big and will need decorating too) so should hopefully get it finished before the next event at the end of January in Hathersage.
Last but not least, there is DERT to prepare for. Must get the booking form sorted.
The Festive Season
Lot of snow around and definitely feeling the lack of heating in the burrow so I shall have to get that fixed after the holidays. Kept warm by buying a King sized winter downey at Asda's and then using it to make a nest on the settee. No TV over Christmas due to Virgin Media striking again but not exactly a loss. Managed to watch the couple of things I actually wanted to see (mainly the Victorian Farm Christmas which was fun. I really hope they continue with these as they are well done and it's lovely to see people doing this kind of thing who actually have a clue what they're doing as opposed to the ever present 'reality shows') on the internet and then spent the rest of the holiday spring cleaning the burrow. Have so far managed the sitting room and the bathroom and feel ridiculously pleased with myself.
Went to see the new St Trinians' film with the usual suspects just before Christmas. Completely silly and somewhat logically and historically challenged but very, very funny (worth it for the 'ambulance' line alone!). We trotted along to the pub afterwards and just had a very good evening.
On Monday night, we went to see Sherlock Holmes. I think I might be just a little too much of a fan of the books (and the Jeremy Brett TV series) cause I didn't really rate it much while others in the group really enjoyed it. It did have it's good points, the lads playing Watson and Lestrade were very good and it's always nice to see Watson portrayed as competent rather than the bumbling stooge he usually ends up (even if his limp did miraculously disappear in the fight scenes!). Mark Strong is always a good villain although I felt he could have done with more to do. Downey Jr managed a decent English accent (although it suffered slightly when he was talking to the English actors) but I think it threw his timing off slighly cause I usually think he's much better than he was. Still, it was funny (not neccessarily always in the places it meant to be, but still.) and I've seen worse films. (Still feel that they could have done without the whole deja vu thing in the fight sequences which was very annoying, but made up for by the bulldog scenes!) Again we retreated to the pub afterwards for another fun evening.
Went to see the new St Trinians' film with the usual suspects just before Christmas. Completely silly and somewhat logically and historically challenged but very, very funny (worth it for the 'ambulance' line alone!). We trotted along to the pub afterwards and just had a very good evening.
On Monday night, we went to see Sherlock Holmes. I think I might be just a little too much of a fan of the books (and the Jeremy Brett TV series) cause I didn't really rate it much while others in the group really enjoyed it. It did have it's good points, the lads playing Watson and Lestrade were very good and it's always nice to see Watson portrayed as competent rather than the bumbling stooge he usually ends up (even if his limp did miraculously disappear in the fight scenes!). Mark Strong is always a good villain although I felt he could have done with more to do. Downey Jr managed a decent English accent (although it suffered slightly when he was talking to the English actors) but I think it threw his timing off slighly cause I usually think he's much better than he was. Still, it was funny (not neccessarily always in the places it meant to be, but still.) and I've seen worse films. (Still feel that they could have done without the whole deja vu thing in the fight sequences which was very annoying, but made up for by the bulldog scenes!) Again we retreated to the pub afterwards for another fun evening.
A Weekend in Manchester
Well, spent the weekend of the 18th Down in Manchester for a friend's birthday. On the way down I finally reached the end of my Ikea saga. To explain, Ikea used to sell linen fabric, bleached and unbleached which was fantastic for lower class reenactment. As I'm in the process (or will be once I manage to get myself into gear) of revamping my reenactment kit (and I do tend to veer towards the lower social orders) I decided that I needed some sturdy unbleached linen. However, Ikea was now only stocking the unbleached linen in specific stores, ie. Warrington and Manchester, both of which are not exactly local. Now this was not quite the insurmountable problem it seemed since I've been nipping up and down the country for various folk dancing and reenactment events all year and I have periodically detoured into Warrington to play hunt the Ikea. Sadly, the Ikea turned out to be very well hidden and I would continue on my merry way linenless. This time though, I was organised! I actually got directions to Ikea from the AA Routefinder and managed to drive straight there with no getting lost at all. This was sadly not the case inside the Ikea store (which I'm convinced is built by the same people who make Tardises!) but, I eventually got my linen (after trying and failing not to use the self service scanner as a ray gun!) and set off to find the restaurant for the party. Sadly, while I found the street that had been reccommended for parking, I managed to park at th wrong end (It turned out to be a somewhat long street) and, to add insult to injury, I could neither remember the name of the street the restaurant nor the name of the restaurant itself. In my defence I could remember exactly where the note was with all this information on it. It was on the burrow's kitchen table top back in Edinburgh. Anyway, I employed my tried and trusted method for finding my way to places and started wandering around aimlessly looking for names that would ring bells. Surprisingly, this worked and I was only 5 minutes late.
Had a very nice dinner before returning to Jon and Ann's to be introduced to the Wii and something called Rabid Rabbits. Found out once again that my coordination in computer games bears no relationship to my coordination in real life pursuits and didn't do well at all, however, watching other people playing was hilarious and could have kept me entertained for hours.
On Saturday, we watched The BBC Christmas Sessions on the i-player. Bellowhead were great and so were the Unthanks (although wasn't sure about their version of Bleak Midwinter it has grown on me since), loved Jim Moray's Emmanuel and discovered Balshazzar's Feast who I have not heard of before but will be looking out for in the future.
We also watched the final of Strictly Come dancing. Haven't watched the rest of this but agreed that, while the dancers who came second were technically better dancers, the couple that won were far more entertaining dancers, which, in an entertainment show, would seem to be the more important factor.
We were supposed to go and watch Morris Dancing on Sunday and did, in fact set out, but the heavy snow over the weekend had made the roads so dicey that we gave up very quickly and I set off for home.
The journey back up North was interesting. The roads were horrible up till the turn off to Blackpool were everything cleared up and I relaxed. Then I hit the lake District and found that it had all been waiting for me there. I had planned to go up to Glasgow and take the M8 across to Edinburgh but instinct took over and I automatically turned on to the Biggar Road. It didn't look to bad so I thought, oh well, will give it a go, only for a bloody blizzard to kick in. Within minutes I was reduced to driving at 20mph at the most thanks to, not just the newly slippy roads, but the reduced visibility caused by the fact that it was dark and I was driving into heavy oncoming snow which reflected my lights back at me. No matter, I spent a good many years driving on snowy country roads in Northumberland so was not really that worried and just happily ambled along trying not to use my brakes. This was thwarted slightly by the drivers behind who, protected from the oncoming snow by the fact that they were practically in Roger's boot, and having a guide in the snow in my rear lights obviously thought I should be going faster and kept overtaking only to discover just why I was going the speed I was and to slam on the brakes right in front of me! Suddenly became very grateful for the lessons in managing skids that my mam gave me just after I'd passed my test that meant I stayed on the road and avoided hitting anyone else when I had to miss them. Even more annoying, having caused all this chaos, the overtaking drivers then hovered until I passed them and then slotted right back in behind me again. Really wanted to explain to them about stopping distances and how they are not decreased by snow! Still, my fault for taking the Biggar Road I suppose. Anyhow, reached Edinburgh in one piece (and discovered I am far happier driving in the county in the snow than I am in the town!) and got back to my nice chilly burrow.
Was lovely to see everyone down in Manchester again and I did have a very good weekend despite the snow.
Had a very nice dinner before returning to Jon and Ann's to be introduced to the Wii and something called Rabid Rabbits. Found out once again that my coordination in computer games bears no relationship to my coordination in real life pursuits and didn't do well at all, however, watching other people playing was hilarious and could have kept me entertained for hours.
On Saturday, we watched The BBC Christmas Sessions on the i-player. Bellowhead were great and so were the Unthanks (although wasn't sure about their version of Bleak Midwinter it has grown on me since), loved Jim Moray's Emmanuel and discovered Balshazzar's Feast who I have not heard of before but will be looking out for in the future.
We also watched the final of Strictly Come dancing. Haven't watched the rest of this but agreed that, while the dancers who came second were technically better dancers, the couple that won were far more entertaining dancers, which, in an entertainment show, would seem to be the more important factor.
We were supposed to go and watch Morris Dancing on Sunday and did, in fact set out, but the heavy snow over the weekend had made the roads so dicey that we gave up very quickly and I set off for home.
The journey back up North was interesting. The roads were horrible up till the turn off to Blackpool were everything cleared up and I relaxed. Then I hit the lake District and found that it had all been waiting for me there. I had planned to go up to Glasgow and take the M8 across to Edinburgh but instinct took over and I automatically turned on to the Biggar Road. It didn't look to bad so I thought, oh well, will give it a go, only for a bloody blizzard to kick in. Within minutes I was reduced to driving at 20mph at the most thanks to, not just the newly slippy roads, but the reduced visibility caused by the fact that it was dark and I was driving into heavy oncoming snow which reflected my lights back at me. No matter, I spent a good many years driving on snowy country roads in Northumberland so was not really that worried and just happily ambled along trying not to use my brakes. This was thwarted slightly by the drivers behind who, protected from the oncoming snow by the fact that they were practically in Roger's boot, and having a guide in the snow in my rear lights obviously thought I should be going faster and kept overtaking only to discover just why I was going the speed I was and to slam on the brakes right in front of me! Suddenly became very grateful for the lessons in managing skids that my mam gave me just after I'd passed my test that meant I stayed on the road and avoided hitting anyone else when I had to miss them. Even more annoying, having caused all this chaos, the overtaking drivers then hovered until I passed them and then slotted right back in behind me again. Really wanted to explain to them about stopping distances and how they are not decreased by snow! Still, my fault for taking the Biggar Road I suppose. Anyhow, reached Edinburgh in one piece (and discovered I am far happier driving in the county in the snow than I am in the town!) and got back to my nice chilly burrow.
Was lovely to see everyone down in Manchester again and I did have a very good weekend despite the snow.
Experimental Gremlin
Have now managed to keep a blog thing for over a year at Livejournal which is pretty impressive for me. However, have been having problems with it recently so have decided to try pastures new and here I am. Will see how this goes.
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