insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Aurora, BioCafe, and wildlife photography
I hopped into bed just after 10pm last night and began scrolling social media where I discovered we were in the midst of a red alert aurora. I looked out the bedroom window and took this photo. Not bad for the middle of a city and quite a lot of cloud cover as you can…
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St Machar Cathedral and the University of Aberdeen
We took Ben’s mother and her partner to some sights in Aberdeen today including St Machar Cathedral which was built between 1380 and 1520 on the site of a 6th century Christian church. The cathedral has a particularly lovely timber ceiling, recognised internationally and possibly the earliest flat ceiling in a British public building. It’s…
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Elizabeth the performer
Elizabeth has had a hugely busy couple of weeks. Last week she performed in the Leading Lights production of Sister Act at the Arts Centre. She auditioned earlier in the year and although she didn’t get a main part she still had an important role in the chorus as one of the nuns. She loved…
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Early autumn at Crathes Castle and Gran is here!
Ben’s mother is visiting us and we spent a lovely morning wandering about the grounds of Crathes Castle. The weather was very changeable with wet and windy one moment followed by warm and sunny the next. The gardens are still in full bloom and looked beautiful but there are clear signs that autumn is upon…
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49: the perfect square
Today I am the perfect square and will be for the next 365 days. It’s my birthday and I’m 49; 1 year before I’m half a century. This is me at my 1st birthday with most of the birthday cake on my face. Elizabeth is performing in her first musical theatre production this week: Sister…
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In praise of castration
Women of the world are collectively enraged by the Giséle Pélicot case and our anger is growing. Giséle was drugged and raped by her husband and others repeatedly over a 10 year period. We try to make ourselves feel better by saying, “not all men”. Not all men but her husband and her neighbour and…
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Design mastering Elizabeth’s room
I finished decorating Elizabeth’s bedroom today. She has been wanting me to “Design Master” her room for a little while and wanted an insect theme. I did the wallpaper a couple of weeks ago and we were both very happy with the result but I wasn’t quite finished. I still had some painting to do…
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Mammary tumours in hamsters
I can’t believe I’m writing another post about a sick hamster but unfortunately that is the case. We adopted Lucille just over a month ago from a hamster rescue in Fife. Unlike our previous rescue hamster, Lucille was young and we were hoping to have at least a year of healthy hamster with her. Lucille…
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Wallpapering, knitting, birds of prey and plums
I spent much of my weekend redecorating Elizabeth’s bedroom. Never, ever put children’s wallpaper up in a child’s bedroom because the child will grow up very quickly and want something else. Five years ago we covered Elizabeth’s bedroom in flamingo wallpaper. It looked cool at the time but she’s 14 now and her interests have…
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Knitted summer top
I finished knitting a summer top last night and I’m very happy with the result. I only used one skein of yarn because that’s all I had of this colour but it was just enough. It was quick to do on 6mm needles using Sealy MacWheely yarn that I bought when we were in Fife.…
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Animal friends and summer days
About a month ago our hamster Ruby died. She was slowing down and starting to struggle to walk. It was extra sad because we hadn’t had her for very long. I think she must have been quite old already when we adopted her from the SPCA. I guess this is one of the downsides of…
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Home-grown meal
It has been several weeks since I’ve been to the allotment and I knew it would be overgrown with weeds so yesterday I enlisted some helpers called Ben, Daniel, and Elizabeth. We managed to get a lot done in a short period and I think the kids even enjoyed aspects of it like harvesting potatoes…
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Falkland and the Pillars of Hercules bothy
We’re back in Aberdeen again after a lovely week’s break in Falkland staying at the Pillars of Hercules bothy. We’ve stayed here once before, back in 2019 and ever since I’ve been wanting to go back because we all enjoyed it so much. It’s a simple, rustic building on the edge of the forest and…
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Loch Leven nature reserve
We visited the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) nature reserve at Loch Leven today and I was able to learn that the bird of prey we saw yesterday was a male sparrowhawk. The nature reserve at Loch Leven is a fantastic place for a visit and the RSPB centre in particular is…
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All you need is lovage
We saw a bird of prey tussle with another bird today before dispatching it right in front of us. There was a loud screeching then the two birds spilled out onto the path. The victim fell silent and still. We’re not sure what the bird of prey was but likely a buzzard or falcon (update:…
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East Lomond Hill and Maspie Den walk
5 years ago we walked up East Lomond Hill in a blizzard. It was December. It was cold and visibility was very poor. We couldn’t see far beyond the edge of the path and when we reached the top everything was white. I took this photo of Ben and the kids huddled together in front…
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Falkland Palace
Falkland Palace is a splendid 16th century Renaissance building inhabited over the centuries by many Kings and Queens including Mary Queen of Scots. We last visited Falkland in December 2019 but the palace is shut over the winter so we only saw it from the outside. Today we returned and got to go inside. It…
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Lucy Letby: another grave miscarriage of justice
On the 27th January 1591, a woman called Agnes Sampson from East Lothian, Scotland, was garrotted and burnt for the crime of witchcraft. She was accused of raising a storm to sink the ship transporting Princess Anne of Denmark to Scotland to marry King James VI. The ship safely docked in Norway and the King…
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Why we got rid of our electric car
We sold our electric car last week. I have been thinking about it for a while now as we were frustrated with broken charging points, maps pointing to charging stations that are not available to the public, and an inability to travel long distances. The final straw was the council removing the charging stations at…
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A ramble at Crathes Castle
We had a lovely ramble on the Crathes Castle estate today and although we’ve been there many times before we somehow managed to get lost, ending up in someone’s private backyard before rejoining a path we’d never taken before. There was even a private cemetery there. Everything is lush and green here as we’ve had…
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