insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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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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A year of blunders
The UK has made so many mistakes during the pandemic. We started by following the flu pandemic playbook which meant our goal initially was to slow the spread but not eliminate the virus. Something which is too late to do now and perhaps unfeasible anyway. I also realise that no one expected vaccines to become…
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Shopping by bike and cat photos
Last weekend I cycled to Nature’s Larder to get some supplies. It’s a wonderful whole foods shop on Holburn Street. What I love about cycling is I can park right outside just a couple of metres from the door. You can’t do this with a car as there’s no on-street parking in this part of…
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A dream come true
Today was a good day. It has long been a dream of mine to ice skate outside in a natural environment and today I ticked that off my list. Aberdeen has had several days of sub-zero temperatures, freezing the water in lakes and ponds. We found what is really just a puddle of water on…
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Yoga cat
Sleeping position today.
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Stormtrooper
We just finished watching The Mandalorian with the kids and loved it. Who’d have thought a baby version of Yoda could be so cute. It reminded me of the time Daniel had his photo taken with a Stormtrooper in York back in 2013. I went looking for the photos on my blog but couldn’t find…
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Never was there such slaughter in our islands
I’ve finished reading The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwall. There are 13 books in the series and while they are works of fiction they follow the history of how England came to be, as far as we understand it today. The books start with Alfred the Great and end with his grandson, King Æthelstan,…
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Don’t be an idler competiton
As many of my readers know a pet hate of mine is when motorists sit in their cars with their engines running poisoning us all with their fumes. Last year I contacted the council about the problem to see whether they could help. After all, it is illegal in Scotland to leave your engine idling.…
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