While I don't exactly wish my life away I do like to be getting on with it. Various things give the year tempo - work (to a point); my daughter's school year to a large extent (next week end is half term, half way through another school year, which is frightening); the seasons.
One of the things that I find drives on this early part of the year is the 6 Nations Rugby. I went to my first international at Murrayfield in 1976 (I was 10 and we drove the five hours from Easter Ross to go). I still remember it well. I continued to go sporadically until 1979 when I went away to school and from 1979 to 1999 or beyond I didn't miss one. I was there for Scotland's Grand Slams in 1984 and 1990, both great days, the latter in particular as the noise levels in the ground barely dropped during a fantastic and unexpected victory over the English. These were whole week-ends - not just a few hours on a Saturday. They were the rare days when we all went somewhere (even my mother whose love of rugby is not great) and were occasions, with drink and food and friends. It is different now - I only go if asked and, while I quite enjoy it, I can't pretend I wouldn't rather stay at home. I don't particularly like doing, as a business exercise, something that I always regarded as a personal pleasure.
The expectation has not however diminished - I look forward to international week-ends. If I am here and Scotland are at home I love the way the city plays host to visiting sides, crowds of men with wives with shopping bags wandering along Princes Street on Saturday morning; groups of men crowded into bars; the all pervading smell of cigar smoke - it is welcoming; hospitable; visually stunning. So this afternoon I will be in front of the telly, with a gin and tomato soup and I might even, for the authentic car park experience, cook some sausages at 11.00 and wrap them in tin foil until 1.00.
And once this afternoon's matches are over I will start to wish away the week until the next ones and so the year will move on.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Windy Golf
I have spent the last two or three weeks rushing around at work. It is often like that. When it is, it is nice just to veg at week-ends. This week-end however, in the midst of this rushing around, we have rushed around. We drove to Northumberland first thing yesterday morning; we were back here by 3.30.
I got up this morning at 7.00 and drove back again to golf. I can't get too excited about golf and the "good walk spoiled" tag in many ways hits home. However I spent a number of my childhood years on the north east coast of Scotland where everyone golfed and, during those years, I golfed every day when I was at home. As a consequence of that you'd think I'd have some residual competence. I do not. Rugby intervened between 15 and 30, and it was only when my wife started to play (golf, not rugby!) that I picked a club up again.
Today I played very badly - I need to play every day for a week to go about the game competently at all and so I rarely play well before Easter. It was however a fantastic day - the sky was clear, the sun was out, it was dry all day for the first time in ages and the wind, which blew hard throughout our round, provided at least some excuse for my poor display. When I was 13 how I played mattered; I enjoy it so much more now it doesn't.
I got up this morning at 7.00 and drove back again to golf. I can't get too excited about golf and the "good walk spoiled" tag in many ways hits home. However I spent a number of my childhood years on the north east coast of Scotland where everyone golfed and, during those years, I golfed every day when I was at home. As a consequence of that you'd think I'd have some residual competence. I do not. Rugby intervened between 15 and 30, and it was only when my wife started to play (golf, not rugby!) that I picked a club up again.
Today I played very badly - I need to play every day for a week to go about the game competently at all and so I rarely play well before Easter. It was however a fantastic day - the sky was clear, the sun was out, it was dry all day for the first time in ages and the wind, which blew hard throughout our round, provided at least some excuse for my poor display. When I was 13 how I played mattered; I enjoy it so much more now it doesn't.
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Trees
I don't have room to plant many trees. It doesn't stop me doing so from time to time. Strangely on New Year's day both a friend we had staying (who I suppose at least has the excuse of having started, but not finished, a forestry degree) and my brother, who came for lunch, expressed a desire to plant some trees. It is a desire I too have been secretly harbouring against the day when I have the space to do so. I half considered clubbing together, buying a field and just planting the things randomly when we had the time and money. If this is a mid-life crisis I suspect it is a harmless, in fact even mildly entertaining, one - there is to my strange mind something quite funny about three mad old chaps planting trees in an otherwise empty field.
My office has for some months been engaged in a programme of confiscating waste paper bins, preferring us instead to put our rubbish in a variety of strategically placed re-cycling bins. It is not the concept that bothers me - it is the fact that we believe we should have someone spend their time thinking about this stuff when there seems to me so much else to do. I have no problem with recycling - the majority of our household waste is paper (we read a lot) and bottles (we don't hold back on the drink front) and we pretty religiously manage to put it in the appropriate box for collection. It doesn't mean we don't have bins about the place. On Friday the office bins in my department got a reprieve. I will try to put my stuff in the re-cycling bins. To salve my conscience (and more importantly because I enjoyed doing so) I planted a tree this morning to offset my wastefulness. In my view much better environmentally, economically and for my sense of humour.
My office has for some months been engaged in a programme of confiscating waste paper bins, preferring us instead to put our rubbish in a variety of strategically placed re-cycling bins. It is not the concept that bothers me - it is the fact that we believe we should have someone spend their time thinking about this stuff when there seems to me so much else to do. I have no problem with recycling - the majority of our household waste is paper (we read a lot) and bottles (we don't hold back on the drink front) and we pretty religiously manage to put it in the appropriate box for collection. It doesn't mean we don't have bins about the place. On Friday the office bins in my department got a reprieve. I will try to put my stuff in the re-cycling bins. To salve my conscience (and more importantly because I enjoyed doing so) I planted a tree this morning to offset my wastefulness. In my view much better environmentally, economically and for my sense of humour.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Liquid
My daughter has come home from school today with a homework instruction to create a list of liquids and volumes. After her bath we are going to my (substantial) drinks cupboard. Am I a bad parent?
Sunday, 6 January 2008
New Year Gloom
For some reason I have started this year in a gloom. I shouldn't feel like this. We had a good New Year, with friends on Hogmanay and fantastic village fireworks at midnight, and a house full on New Year's Day. My father was then in hospital for tests, which, if it hadn't been for the fact that they were generally good, would have been a reason for gloom, and so ought instead to be a reason for celebration, and I am pleased. They now seem to be plotting a trip to Australia. I think they should go on a freighter from Berwick which one can apparently do and would be an adventure. If I had time (and they do, although my mother is not a sailor) I'd definitely do it that way.
To say its not like me would not be entirely true as I'm inclined towards aggravation, although usually my mood is more positive. Work was busy in November and December and, while I managed to do Christmas things (including our daughter's school's really lovely carol concert) , it was generally in a rush. Then Christmas came and everyone seemed to disappear off the face of the earth so the last couple of weeks have been quiet. I know (and have known for the last two weeks) that they'll all be back tomorrow desperate to make progress. One of my team returns from a secondment and it will be good to have him back to provide an extra pair of hands. We have managed without him, but I think it may have been more of a struggle that we think.
I have just dismantled two lots of Christmas decorations, never the most cheerful job and we have spent the last hour tidying our daughter's room. She has so much "stuff" and it is so plastic. To be fair she's not a greedy child - her note to Father Christmas ended "It doesn't matter if I don't get it all." - but she seems to accumulate huge numbers of dollies, animals, paper, paints etc. etc. We are relatively doting I suspect, and I hope we provide more than just the material. I do however feel a strange (self imposed) pressure to provide and provide. For her first Christmas, knowing years of plastic things lay ahead, I bought an original illustration from "Noddy Goes to the Fair" and found a reasonable copy of the book. It (the picture that is) moulders away on the wall behind her blackboard. Presumably years of providing Christmas cheques lie somewhere between now and when I can next impose my taste on her!
I usually read John Macnab when I'm in this fettle - it is the ultimate comfort read - but I suggested it as my book group book for December and, even for me, to read it again now is too soon. We banished the television from our bedroom last year, but its only gone as far as the spare room, so I think we'll go there and watch Foyle's War - I'm not sure it'll cheer us up, but at least its proper Sunday night TV.
I promise to brighten up soon - not to be grumpy is one of my New Year's resolutions!
To say its not like me would not be entirely true as I'm inclined towards aggravation, although usually my mood is more positive. Work was busy in November and December and, while I managed to do Christmas things (including our daughter's school's really lovely carol concert) , it was generally in a rush. Then Christmas came and everyone seemed to disappear off the face of the earth so the last couple of weeks have been quiet. I know (and have known for the last two weeks) that they'll all be back tomorrow desperate to make progress. One of my team returns from a secondment and it will be good to have him back to provide an extra pair of hands. We have managed without him, but I think it may have been more of a struggle that we think.
I have just dismantled two lots of Christmas decorations, never the most cheerful job and we have spent the last hour tidying our daughter's room. She has so much "stuff" and it is so plastic. To be fair she's not a greedy child - her note to Father Christmas ended "It doesn't matter if I don't get it all." - but she seems to accumulate huge numbers of dollies, animals, paper, paints etc. etc. We are relatively doting I suspect, and I hope we provide more than just the material. I do however feel a strange (self imposed) pressure to provide and provide. For her first Christmas, knowing years of plastic things lay ahead, I bought an original illustration from "Noddy Goes to the Fair" and found a reasonable copy of the book. It (the picture that is) moulders away on the wall behind her blackboard. Presumably years of providing Christmas cheques lie somewhere between now and when I can next impose my taste on her!
I usually read John Macnab when I'm in this fettle - it is the ultimate comfort read - but I suggested it as my book group book for December and, even for me, to read it again now is too soon. We banished the television from our bedroom last year, but its only gone as far as the spare room, so I think we'll go there and watch Foyle's War - I'm not sure it'll cheer us up, but at least its proper Sunday night TV.
I promise to brighten up soon - not to be grumpy is one of my New Year's resolutions!
Friday, 21 December 2007
Boast Letter
We never send a boast letter with our Christmas cards but, while rude about the ones we receive, do like to hear peoples' news. So:-
"Dear All
I can hardly believe another year has gone by. It seems like yesterday when I sat down to give you last year's news from the ON household. What a busy year it has been! [Why do people write this twaddle]
The year started, as have the last few, in Northumberland with friends and we celebrated our fortieth birthdays in January with a fantastic party in the Signet Library in Edinburgh. Most of you were there. It was a huge privilege to be able to eat, drink and dance with so many of our friends and family in such a superb setting. It was a highlight not only of this year, but of the last 40.
The first few months of the year saw builders in this house and we are now firmly moved in to (and have messed up) the really quite good space they have created in our attic. The small child has moved up there and, at least for a while, kept many of her toys there. While the project had its bad days (twice flooding our downstairs neighbour who was really pretty stoical throughout; the constant complaints from next door about the noise - a bit much - we didn't once mention theirs when they did it; nights with buckets to catch the drips from the light fittings as the rain poured through the (admittedly) enormous hole in the roof) we quite miss the Bobs as they were christened.
We remain very busy at work although change is afoot. Mrs ON has served notice of retiral from her firm and, while she expects to continue to do some work for them, intends to have more time with the small child at least for the meantime. This gives us the ability to consider a house move and we are currently looking for a new house for 2008, probably in North Northumberland so I will become a commuter. I am strangely relishing the prospect of starting my working day a little earlier on the train and trying to bring some sort of regularity to my evening hours, which this year have been frequently out of control. This all seems like considerable upheaval after 10 years of very stable living, but at the same time life should not stand still and many people cope with far greater, far less self imposed, change. 2008 will therefore be exciting. Work has been its usual mix of company and commercial work, although the opportunity to work with my private client colleagues on a significant (and very last minute) heritage purchase of a house and its furniture collections was a highlight of the working year.
We are not wide travellers these days. We did however have a good Easter week in Belford (hot and sunny) and returned (being the creatures of habit we are) to Sardinia in the summer. We went to London in October to admire our good friends' new baby and hope to see them again next week for New Year.
Away from work we continue to try and spend as many week-ends as possible in Belford. We missed a lot in the early part of the year because of the building works here, but since April we have been a lot. We continue to enjoy the beaches and countryside. I have golfed sporadically and fished a few days on the Kyle of Sutherland rivers, the Ettrick and the Tummel; we continue to garden away; and have added to the already many pictures about the place. I have limited the feeding of my D Y Cameron habit to one etching and, just this week, a really nice drawing - I feel very virtuous at having resisted a fantastic oil of Iona Abbey seen in London in October. Again because of the building works we didn't see many people here in the early part of the year but have, since the summer, eaten and drunk too much with at least some of you and have been fortunate to have been away for week-ends with some of you. We remain involved with a number of organisations away from work including CHAS, Queen Street Gardens, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and the Muir Maxwell Trust.
The small child continues to love school. One of the serious downsides of a move is the need to move her. She has persisted, mostly with enjoyment, with the piano and riding lessons and has many friends, through school, but also more widely through Brownies and ballet. She is on the whole great fun and a general life enhancer.
Christmas sees us as godparents, tomorrow, to my brother's daughter. We will all be there bar my youngest brother who has emigrated to Australia - holiday opportunity there. They arrived a month ago and have settled down quickly. Otherwise our families change some, but not greatly. We will see them over the next fortnight and are looking forward to it.
Roll out the goose and a decent bottle of burgundy. Have a very happy Christmas one and all and all the very best for 2008.
Lots of love
ON"
Pass me a bucket!
"Dear All
I can hardly believe another year has gone by. It seems like yesterday when I sat down to give you last year's news from the ON household. What a busy year it has been! [Why do people write this twaddle]
The year started, as have the last few, in Northumberland with friends and we celebrated our fortieth birthdays in January with a fantastic party in the Signet Library in Edinburgh. Most of you were there. It was a huge privilege to be able to eat, drink and dance with so many of our friends and family in such a superb setting. It was a highlight not only of this year, but of the last 40.
The first few months of the year saw builders in this house and we are now firmly moved in to (and have messed up) the really quite good space they have created in our attic. The small child has moved up there and, at least for a while, kept many of her toys there. While the project had its bad days (twice flooding our downstairs neighbour who was really pretty stoical throughout; the constant complaints from next door about the noise - a bit much - we didn't once mention theirs when they did it; nights with buckets to catch the drips from the light fittings as the rain poured through the (admittedly) enormous hole in the roof) we quite miss the Bobs as they were christened.
We remain very busy at work although change is afoot. Mrs ON has served notice of retiral from her firm and, while she expects to continue to do some work for them, intends to have more time with the small child at least for the meantime. This gives us the ability to consider a house move and we are currently looking for a new house for 2008, probably in North Northumberland so I will become a commuter. I am strangely relishing the prospect of starting my working day a little earlier on the train and trying to bring some sort of regularity to my evening hours, which this year have been frequently out of control. This all seems like considerable upheaval after 10 years of very stable living, but at the same time life should not stand still and many people cope with far greater, far less self imposed, change. 2008 will therefore be exciting. Work has been its usual mix of company and commercial work, although the opportunity to work with my private client colleagues on a significant (and very last minute) heritage purchase of a house and its furniture collections was a highlight of the working year.
We are not wide travellers these days. We did however have a good Easter week in Belford (hot and sunny) and returned (being the creatures of habit we are) to Sardinia in the summer. We went to London in October to admire our good friends' new baby and hope to see them again next week for New Year.
Away from work we continue to try and spend as many week-ends as possible in Belford. We missed a lot in the early part of the year because of the building works here, but since April we have been a lot. We continue to enjoy the beaches and countryside. I have golfed sporadically and fished a few days on the Kyle of Sutherland rivers, the Ettrick and the Tummel; we continue to garden away; and have added to the already many pictures about the place. I have limited the feeding of my D Y Cameron habit to one etching and, just this week, a really nice drawing - I feel very virtuous at having resisted a fantastic oil of Iona Abbey seen in London in October. Again because of the building works we didn't see many people here in the early part of the year but have, since the summer, eaten and drunk too much with at least some of you and have been fortunate to have been away for week-ends with some of you. We remain involved with a number of organisations away from work including CHAS, Queen Street Gardens, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and the Muir Maxwell Trust.
The small child continues to love school. One of the serious downsides of a move is the need to move her. She has persisted, mostly with enjoyment, with the piano and riding lessons and has many friends, through school, but also more widely through Brownies and ballet. She is on the whole great fun and a general life enhancer.
Christmas sees us as godparents, tomorrow, to my brother's daughter. We will all be there bar my youngest brother who has emigrated to Australia - holiday opportunity there. They arrived a month ago and have settled down quickly. Otherwise our families change some, but not greatly. We will see them over the next fortnight and are looking forward to it.
Roll out the goose and a decent bottle of burgundy. Have a very happy Christmas one and all and all the very best for 2008.
Lots of love
ON"
Pass me a bucket!
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Festive cheer
It is my office party on Friday night. I am not going. My non-attendance is not as a result of being a miserable old curmudgeon, although I am, but as a consequence of being invited in June when Christmas is completely beyond my contemplation. I would happily compromise on venue (indeed I would be happy to revert to the days when it was a drunken standing up affair in the office) not to have to think about it until at least October. It is now a casualty of two too full diaries.
This city (when it is not raining the way it is this evening) looks fantastic at this time of year. The lights in the trees in Princes Street Gardens are understated but beautiful. They somehow enhance, rather than overshadow, the slightly more garish lights of the big wheel and "Winter Wonderland". We wandered through the gardens on Sunday having been to the superb Joan Eardley exhibition at the RSA in busy crowds of people at the German (-ish) Market. It was dry and cold and the sun had set, leaving odd bits of light behind. It was soon enough to contemplate things festive.
This city (when it is not raining the way it is this evening) looks fantastic at this time of year. The lights in the trees in Princes Street Gardens are understated but beautiful. They somehow enhance, rather than overshadow, the slightly more garish lights of the big wheel and "Winter Wonderland". We wandered through the gardens on Sunday having been to the superb Joan Eardley exhibition at the RSA in busy crowds of people at the German (-ish) Market. It was dry and cold and the sun had set, leaving odd bits of light behind. It was soon enough to contemplate things festive.
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