insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
-
Proving theorems
It was school holidays last week while I was in Utah and Ben had to juggle looking after the kids with work. One day he took them into the department and took this photo of Elizabeth drawing on the blackboard. It’s so great. I love how she’s this tiny head at the bottom and she’s drawing…
-
Thoughts from a Grand Meetup
I arrived back in Aberdeen this afternoon and must say it was nice flying in over the green patchwork landscape of Scotland and seeing the rugged cliffs along the coast. I think I even saw Dunnottar Castle. I felt like I was coming home. I was pretty shattered and promptly fell asleep for several hours. I had…
-
Mountain views
I went for a morning walk up the hill this morning and managed to take some good photos despite my hopeless photography skills. The colours are just amazing and the views were splendid. These were all taken on my iPhone 4s and have not been edited. I never edit any of my photos.
-
Beards
Last night I found myself seated at a table with five bearded men. There’s assigned seating each night in a different restaurant here so I sit with different people for each meal. It has been really fun and how lucky was I to be the only woman at a table with five bearded men. The topic of…
-
Park City
I am in Utah for work and have been so busy I haven’t had the chance to write any posts or read any blogs. It’s a good busy though as I’m getting to meet so many of the talented people I work with. Even going to the toilet can be a challenge because I see…
-
If it’s good enough for a princess
I recently spotted this pic of Princess Mary of Denmark, who also happens to be Australian, cycling her kids around in a cargo bike: This image comes from a Daily Mail article but if you Google “Princess Mary cargo bike” you’ll see there are lots of images just like this. This is obviously something she…
-
My cooking isn’t so bad after all
My sister flew back to London early this morning. Last night I made lentil soup for us all for dinner. When I said this is what we’d be having my sister looked at me as though I’d announced we’d be eating monkey’s brains then she added, “I’ll just have left-overs”. But once I started cooking she was encouraged by…
-
Slains Castle
We took my sister to Slains Castle today. It’s a castle ruin about 25 miles north along the coast from Aberdeen. It was a scenic drive along the coast through undulating fields of farmland overlooking the vast expanse of the North Sea. Slains Castle’s claim to fame is that it supposedly inspired Bram Stoker to…
-
When pleasing the neighbour becomes impossible
Our neighbour returned yesterday after a two-week holiday in Crete. We specifically organised all the ceiling repairs to her flat for while she was away so that she didn’t have to be here for any of it. This is what she wanted. So naturally we thought she’d be really thrilled to see it all done…
-
Spiders on a plane
It’s less than two weeks until the GM!! What’s the GM? It’s the annual Grand Meetup for the company I work for. We’re a distributed workforce and so once a year the entire company gets together for a week-long bonding session. In less than two weeks I’ll be flying to Utah, USA. I hate flying. I’m…
-
Exposed pipes
The ceiling has been repaired in the downstairs flat. Here are some pics of the damage. The first image is after leak number one, the second image is after leak number two, and the third image is our kitchen floor. It’s quite astonishing how many layers there are between our home and the home below.…
-
Thin Ice
A little while ago I donated to the Kickstarter campaign to bring the Thin Ice climate change documentary to US television. My name is even listed on this page. WooHoo! I haven’t heard anything about it for some time and so went looking to see what stage they’re at. It turns out the documentary began…
-
Edinburgh – day 2
Today we went to the MC Escher exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two. It was brilliant. There was quite a long queue but they’ve installed a timber maze on the front lawn so I waited in line while the kids and Ben ran wild in the maze. It was well worth…
-
Edinburgh
We’ve had a great day in Edinburgh today. First stop this morning was Laid Back Bikes where I got to try out an Urban Arrow. This is one slick bike. It weighs and handles similarly to the bakfiets but has electric assist and so is easy peasy to pedal. I’m in two minds about having…
-
It’s only money
I keep pinching myself to make sure I’m not currently starring in a Monty Python skit because that’s how the last few weeks have felt. I only wish I was. According to BT someone was supposed to be moving into our house today but no-one ever did; surprise, surprise. I was a bit disappointed in…
-
A hole in the copper water pipe
The leak was finally fixed fairly late last night. Here it is: There’s a nail hole in the copper pipe which supplies hot water to our kitchen sink and dishwasher. The plumbers never showed up yesterday morning; only the gas engineer who fixed the problem the first time but as you can see, he didn’t…
-
The leak returns
I’m sure everyone is sick of hearing about my domestic problems but there are more and writing about it seems to make me feel better. So here’s the next chapter. The new ceiling went up in the downstairs flat today and while the workmen were plastering over it water started dripping again. They alerted me…
-
Problem solved
I think my BT woes are finally resolved. I changed my strategy when I rang them this morning and instead asked how I find out who my provider is since they say it isn’t BT because I’d like to report this third-party company to Ofcom. After being transferred to three different people and waiting on hold for longer than…
-
Problems with BT and autism
We’re still having problems with BT and I’d by lying if I said it wasn’t stressful. I feel powerless and have no idea how to resolve the problem. Fortunately we haven’t lost internet or phone so far but I received another automated email from BT on the weekend, same as the one from a couple…
rachel.blog 