rachel.blog

Category: Journal

  • Creeper family

    Elizabeth drew this picture of Creeper’s family (I especially love “bruver”. She still pronounces “th” like a “v”): I’ve eaten too much chocolate this past week. I’m never eating any chocolate ever again. I just have to finish my Easter Eggs first, though 🙂 Ben has a tradition of hiding Easter Eggs around the house…

  • Litter bugs and pissing in the street

    Ever since I read Gemma’s post about her Bishop’s Meadow litter pick, I have been thinking I should do the same. There are some lovely rose gardens and a small field of daffodils very close to our home and both seem to be permanently spoilt with litter. One afternoon this week as I was cycling…

  • Hunter or bully?

    I saw this photo of Donald Trump’s son this week and want to write about it: There’s nothing more attractive in a man, in my view anyway, than kindness and cleverness. Any man with these traits will send women weak at the knees. Ok, so if men want something more than weak knees they may also need…

  • Easter, ethics, and Debussy

    As usual I fell for all the April Fools’ Day jokes yesterday including the one about Jeremy Clarkson joining the fossil fuel divestment movement. I guess I was just feeling hopeful 🙂 The kids have been asking me lots of questions about Easter that I’m having problems answering like “How does the Easter Bunny travel?” and…

  • Job losses at the University of Aberdeen

    Aberdeen University are calling for voluntary redundancies in a bid to save money. At this stage it is just voluntary but typically in these situations, if enough people don’t volunteer, they progress to forced redundancies. The physical sciences and mathematics are usually fairly safe so I think the chances of Ben losing his job are quite small,…

  • Platonic solids

    Last night, just as I was about to hop into bed, I was forced to endure a lesson on platonic solids. And no, unfortunately platonic solids have nothing to do with sex or lack of. They’re far less exciting. This is one of the side-effects of being married to a mathematician: I get lessons. He’s…

  • Running in the rain, bras, husbands, and apocalyptic sex

    I’m just back from a run in the rain and sleet and it was glorious; the best run I’ve had for ages. I felt wonderfully alive. It’s good to suffer a little bit every now and again. Although someone living in a rich country with a warm home, running for half an hour in the…

  • Explaining charity to kids

    The schools here have regular fundraising for various different charities. I quite like this as I think it’s good for children to learn about donating to those in need. This week they’ve been asked to donate a pound to a charity in Africa but Daniel questioned this. “I don’t want to give them something if…

  • Celebrating small boobs

    I recently watched a couple of BBC documentaries: My Small Boobs and I and My Big Breasts and Me. Both were good but the small boobs one was quite sad. It followed three beautiful young women who were deeply unhappy with their appearance. As a small breasted woman myself I thought I would write about how…

  • Aberdeen Jazz Festival

    We spent a couple of hours at the Aberdeen Jazz Festival this afternoon. It was terrific. I love jazz. Especially live jazz. We used to go to the Christchurch Jazz Festival every year which was at a similar time of year; April I think. I wonder whether it still runs? The Aberdeen Festival was just…

  • The solar eclipse and a space diary

    There was a solar eclipse this morning and just as it went noticeably darker I glanced out my window and inadvertently looked right at the sun. How bad is my luck? All week I’ve been desperately hoping to see the aurora borealis only to be disappointed by cloud and fog. The minute there’s a solar…

  • It is people! It is people! It is people!

    I’ve just come home from collecting my kids from school to a lovely surprise that I want to share. I’m ashamed to say that I never learnt very much about about Māori culture when I lived in New Zealand, but aside from knowing only a couple of cool words (like puku and whanau) I do quite like this proverb:…

  • The dentist and playing dress-ups

    I took Elizabeth to the dentist this morning and everything is fine which is a big relief after the shock we had last year. We’ve found a terrific dentist here. He told me that what Elizabeth had done, with the stainless steel crowns on her back molars, is the best treatment she could possibly have…

  • Pine martens, red squirrels, and aurora borealis

    The Northern Lights were on display across British skies last night but I didn’t see them. I looked out many times before bed, I woke at 3am to have another look, and then again at 5:30am but there was nothing. Only clouds 😦 Here’s what I might have seen: Stunning Northern Lights displays lit up…

  • Tree Change Dolls

    An Australian woman has gone viral for her doll makeovers, although in this case, they are makeunders rather than makeovers. She finds second-hand Bratz dolls, removes their face paint, paints on a new face, and her mum knits the new clothes. The transformation is quite remarkable. It’s hard to even believe they are the same dolls.…

  • We’ve joined a car club

    We don’t own a car and we have no intention of buying one. It’s very easy to live in Aberdeen without a car as we can walk and cycle everywhere. This is our car (photo was taken a couple of months ago when there was snow and ice on the ground and I think Ben…

  • Dressups, hair removal, and pine martens

    The kids had to dress up as a character from a story at school today. They both chose to wear hats I had crocheted for them. Isn’t that sweet? I didn’t threaten them, I promise. At what age do kids start to hate the things their mother makes for them? Elizabeth is the big bad…

  • A pic and should healthcare be free?

    I took this photo of a church on Union St this morning because I found the colours really striking. The blue-grey of the sky and the gentle sunlight shining on the church spire made me want to whip out my camera and capture it as I raced to a 9am appointment. I went to the…

  • Be careful what you say

    A couple of times recently I’ve replied to a Twitter direct message on my iPhone expecting my reply to also be a direct message only to be horrified to see my message become a Tweet on my public profile. At first I thought maybe I had done something wrong so I tested it out today. A friend sent me…

  • Voting, blogging, times tables, and Aberdeen

    Apparently we can vote here. Amazing. I was under the impression that we couldn’t vote since we don’t have permanent residency but it seems I was wrong. When I arrived back from Barcelona in early January, I caught a taxi home from the airport and the taxi driver was talking to me about voting. I told him…