insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Jumping and shaking
We cycled to Newton Dee again yesterday and I got this jumping shot for my friend, Stew. Stew is going to give me a cameo in one of his films one day 🙂 This week is my company’s annual grand meetup but I’m not going because it’s in Whistler. I know what you’re thinking: Whistler!!…
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Castle Fraser
My aunt and uncle have left now – I thoroughly enjoyed having them here. We went to Castle Fraser on Thursday and I’m only just getting around to posting the pics. I haven’t been there for over a year and it was wonderful. The walled garden is one of the best I’ve seen with a very…
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But what do they do?
We watched Mr Bean’s The Ultimate Disaster Movie with the kids recently. They’ve seen it several times and love it. I find it painful to watch but entertaining nonetheless. There’s a scene in a men’s bathroom with urinals and Elizabeth, who has never seen urinals before, said, Are they those things you use to wash…
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The beach in Aberdeen
We went to the beach today and I took some photos. Can you see all the ships on the horizon? The next photo is a building at Castlegate in Aberdeen. It’s quite striking and is, I think, what is called an example of Scottish baronial architecture. It looks very Aberdonian to me and contains nothing exciting at all…
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Crathes Castle
My aunt and uncle are visiting this weekend and we so enjoyed our trip to Crathes Castle last weekend that we decided to do it again. Much to my amazement we were told we could take photos inside provided we didn’t use the flash. The National Trust never let you take photos and so I’ve never…
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A mathematician’s clock
Our new clock arrived to replace the one I broke. I really like it. I love that every number is a three. Three is a prime number too and primes are the best.
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Growing your own potatoes
In March this year a few of us spent a bit of time in the school garden, weeding and planting new plants. My friend put a few potatoes in a sack of dirt and left it. No-one at the school was remotely interested and I don’t think they even showed or discussed it with the…
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Go Ape at Crathes Castle
We took Susie to Crathes Castle today and I forgot how terrific it is. I love Crathes Castle! The castle is awesome, the gardens are probably the best castle gardens I’ve seen, the cafe is excellent and has an adjoining children’s playground, and Go Ape have a presence there. We have never played at Go…
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How to have your photo taken
My sister, Susie, is here for the weekend and I took her out for lunch to the Foodstory café on Thursday (best café in Aberdeen) but she refused to let me take a photo of her. Why don’t people like having their photos taken? I love having my photo taken and I’m so good at it,…
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The Burkini ban
I find it quite extraordinary that French police are demanding women remove clothing when lying on the beach. Have they gone completely mad? It seems like half the world wants women to cover their flesh and the other half wants them to expose it. Can we just let women wear whatever they want? As an Australian…
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A mathematician’s clock
I accidentally broke Ben’s clock. I knocked it off the wall, thinking I was reaching for the light switch, and it fell on the floor and broke. We love Ben’s clock. It was a gift from his sister and always entertains visitors to our house. Ben and I spent a bit of time yesterday afternoon finding…
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The Imitation Game
I just watched this movie for the second time and it was just as fantastic as the first. We watched it with Daniel and he really enjoyed it and indeed I think it’s a good movie to get kids interested in mathematics. Alan Turing was a mathematician and a war hero. He broke Enigma, the German cryptography machine, and…
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The anti-helmet goddess
Yesterday when I was cycling home I was a fitness goddess. Today I had steam coming out of my ears because as I was cycling uphill and at little more than walking pace, a woman called out to tell me I should be wearing a helmet. Aside from the fact that I was wearing a helmet, it’s really…
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Fitness goddess
I was cycling the kids home from school this afternoon and just made it to the top of a hill when a young man shouted out in a very exuberant and “look, there’s a flying pig!” kind of way, OH MY GOD! YOU MUST BE SO FIT! JESUS! I’m really not that fit but this put a smile…
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Haddo House
We’re starting to run out of castles to see for the first time and so today we visited a stately home instead. Haddo House was built in the 18th Century and sits in a huge country estate with lakes, woodland, and a deer park. We were completely blown away and didn’t even go inside the house. They have…
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream
We took the kids to open air theatre at Drum castle last night. We saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and performed by Illyria. It was wonderful and Illyria are fantastic! We thought the kids might get bored and find it hard to stay up so late but that was not the case at all. It was very…
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This Beautiful Creature Must die
We’re all addicted to the new 80s-themed Peta computer game to which The Smiths have lent their 1980s song, Meat is Murder. It’s quite retro with 8-bit audio and pixelated graphics and it’s also very addictive. The song grates on your nerves after a while though. Daniel is the reigning champion with a score of…
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Is Pokémon Go immoral?
Ben brought back an English newspaper from Russia. He thought I might be interested because there’s an article about Pokémon Go in it. Here’s an excerpt: Nintendo refuses to reveal when the game will be released in Russia. But Russia’s traditional values crusaders are already worried nonetheless. “It feels like the devil arrived through [Pokémon] and…
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Peter Singer discusses religion, the bible, abortion, and same sex marriage in 4 minutes
Peter Singer talks about abortion and same sex marriage in this video and specifically how Christians often focus more on these two issues than on poverty. He finds this strange because abortion is not mentioned in the gospels at all, while homosexuality is mentioned very little and mostly in the old testament; not so much in the…
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A poppy dress
Several of my sunflowers have opened up now. One of the plants has sprouted lots of little buds that are threatening to reveal themselves also. I thought each plant produced just one flower? Do you remember the dream I had about a dress which, when I woke up, I had to have but the shop…
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