insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Ben got his vaccine appointment letter
Ben got his vaccination letter today! It’s for the end of next week. The appointment day and time is sent out to each person and you don’t have to do anything other than attend on the day. It’s very organised and methodical. They’ve been going from oldest to youngest and Ben’s group is the 50…
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A new crochet jumper
I made myself a jumper. The diagonal lines are deliberate; it wasn’t me stuffing up 🙂 I got the pattern on Etsy and it’s quite an easy one to follow and a relatively quick project. The daffodils are starting to flower here. Apparently Aberdeen has 11 million daffodils and I can believe it. They’re everywhere.…
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Pancake Sunday
It’s still lockdown here. We’ve been in lockdown since Christmas. I was sure back then that restrictions would be relaxed in January. How wrong was I? We have had to cancel our April holiday. This is the same April holiday we cancelled last year in April – we moved it to this April. Now we’ve…
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But when will they all get electric cars?
I never thought I’d say this but I do feel a bit sorry for the Royal Family this week. I haven’t watched the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry and probably won’t. I think it’s inappropriate to share family disputes with an international audience and am puzzled why anyone would want to make already strained…
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How to hide chocolate from the kids
The kids have discovered our chocolate stash. We decided to find a new hiding spot but as we walked home from the shop with renewed supplies of said chocolate Ben wondered what we would say if the kids asked, “Do we have any chocolate?” Neither of us wanted to lie but we also didn’t want…
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The velvet dress and a tummy bug
When we visited Falkland in 2019 I found the loveliest vintage clothing store. In it was a 1930s silk velvet dress that I intantly fell in love with; however, it was quite expensive and when I tried it on I couldn’t quite zip it up. It seemed like an irrational decision to pay a lot…
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A week of public disagreements: Salmond versus Sturgeon and the Sussexes versus Windsor
I’m not really sure what to make of the Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon drama this week. From what I understand Alex Salmond was accused of sexual misconduct which occured when he was leader of the SNP (the party Nicola Sturgeon now leads). The Scottish government under Nicola Sturgeon led an investigation into the complaints but…
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The milkman returns!
When I was a child we had milk delivered in glass bottles to our front door. The milkman would come each morning, collect the empty bottles we left out, and deliver new full bottles of milk. It was a wonderful system that sadly became unpopular when I was still little. Today, for the first time…
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I’m next for the jab, AstraZeneca vaccine cuts hospitalisation risk by 94%, and the South African variant
People aged 40-49 are to be prioritised for the vaccine in the next phase which means I could be offered my jab anytime from mid-April onwards. This is great news and much earlier than I was expecting. The UK has now given 27% of the population at least one dose. The UK has made a…
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Ten years on from Christchurch – February 22nd 2011
It’s the tenth anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake today. 185 people died. I have written about my experience of the earthquake on this blog and so to avoid repeating myself I will simply link to that old post – my experience of the Christchurch 2011 earthquake. It changed our lives in so many ways. The…
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Moscow-on-Don
The Zoology building at the University of Aberdeen is being used as a film location for the film Tetris which is set in the cold-war era Soviet Union. They’ve been filming all weekend and closed off part of Tillydrone Avenue so we went to check it out. This is the Zoology building at the University…
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Vaccinate me, please!
Nearly a quarter of the population of the UK has now received at least one dose of the vaccine. This is great news and something we can all feel pleased about. Uptake of the vaccine has been very high at over 90% so far. This compares with a typical vaccination program in the UK which…
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Protecting birds from the cat
The cold-blooded killer brought a bird inside last week. I managed to rescue the bird and it flew away, seemingly unscathed, but it left behind a pile of feathers which it surely needed in the cold spell we had. I felt very guilty and bought some bird food which I put outside on a high…
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Ice-skating at Duthie Park
Yesterday was skiing on Deeside Way and today was ice-skating at Duthie Park. I feel like I’m living at an alpine sports village. It was -8C last night and the model boating pond at Duthie Park froze. Daniel, Scott, and I went down for a skate at lunch. A photographer from the Press & Journal…
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Cross-country skiing on Deeside Way
It snowed a bit more overnight last night and Aberdeen put on a brilliantly crisp and sunny day for us. Rather than going for my usual run around the park I decided to try some cross-country skiing on Deeside Way. A few years ago we all got some cross-country skiing gear from the second-hand sale…
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New tourist attraction at Duthie Park: carnivorous snowmen
It has been snowing all day today and there’s more to come tonight. I feel like I’m living in an alpine ski resort. Elizabeth and I went sledging again during a break today. It’s good having kids because that gives me an excuse to sledge. I don’t think I could go as an adult alone,…
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Sunshine and blizzards
Aberdeen put on a beautiful day today with bursts of sunshine mixed in with intermittent snow blizzards. It was a perfect day. There’s more snow on the ground than I think I’ve ever seen in Aberdeen in the almost 7 years we’ve lived here. It’s lovely soft stuff that makes brilliant snowmen. We all had…
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Wild and windy February day at Torry battery
Everywhere in Scotland has been getting massive amounts of snow except for Aberdeen. One family in Moray couldn’t even get out their front door there was so much snow. All Scottish ski fields have more snow than they’e had for years, probably decades, and yet they’re all shut because of covid and we can’t leave…
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Bed for today
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Burns supper 2021
It was Robert Burns’ birthday on January 25th and Scots celebrate it with a Burns supper. This is fast becoming one of my favourite annual events, perhaps because it doesn’t have the same heavy expectations that come with Christmas. We celebrated it a bit late because the 25th fell on Monday this year and we’re…
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