insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Chains for shoes and Trotify
A shop in Aviemore was selling chains for shoes to increase the friction on icy pavements. We bought a couple of pairs and they’re fantastic. Why doesn’t everyone have these? They slip onto the soles of your shoes and make a huge difference. No more slipping over for me. Here’s another must-have product: Trotify. I’m going…
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Cairngorm Mountain, Aviemore
We awoke today to the loveliest day I’ve ever seen. It snowed overnight, so there was a fresh coating of the powdery stuff everywhere, and then the sun came out and the whole world seemed to sparkle. We managed to get up to Cairngorm Mountain but only just as they didn’t open the road until…
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Aviemore, Scotland
Snows transforms the outside into one giant playground. Every hill becomes a slippery slide, every twig a potential arm for a snowman, and every flake of snow a potential snowball for tossing at loved ones. Kids love it, I love it. My long suffering husband doesn’t love it quite so much. Walking around is like…
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The train to Aviemore
We’re spending the weekend in Aviemore in the Cairngorms and I’m writing this from the train. Oh, how I love trains, even all the bad things like when the people sitting nearby seem to fart the whole way or when a group of rowdy youths gets on stinking of cigarettes or when you go to the…
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Winchester “hit” by earthquake
I wonder whether Vinny reads my blog? Vinny, if you’re reading this, I’m about to mock the Guardian for an article they’ve published. Feel free to wade in 🙂 An article in the Guardian today has the headline, Winchester hit by earthquake of 2.9 magnitude. My heart goes out to the people of Hampshire. It…
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Sometimes our kids surprise us
Daniel is an unusual child. When he was little he was terrified of small children even, on occasion, to the point of screaming whenever they were around. This made life rather lonely for me at times since most of my friends also had small children. I used to draw story boards of the activities we…
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A new word: Reducetarian
I just watched an interesting TedX talk about the negative connotations behind the words vegan and vegetarian. Tell a stranger you’re a vegan and they make all sorts of negative assumptions about you. This is why I prefer to call myself a plant-eater. A friend of mine once told me that when they first found…
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Keeping abreast of page 3
I’ve been so busy recently that I don’t get to read the news very often and I’ve missed all the media discussion about The Sun and page 3. I’m always keen to talk about breasts, as my readers probably know, so naturally I thought I should add my two cents. To be honest, I don’t…
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Exercise makes you smarter and Robert Burns
I wasn’t thinking very clearly last week and I did a lot of dumb things. I blame a lack of physical activity. Busby was out of action for a few days due to frozen brakes and when I did go out for a bike ride I had to cycle very slowly because of the ice.…
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A guest post from Busby the bike
I’m Busby the Bakfiets, Rachel’s bicycle. It was very cold last night and everything froze, including me: My mistress tried to ride me this morning but couldn’t. First she tried to open the cover to let the two wriggly creatures inside but the cover was frozen shut. Eventually she got it open but the lock was…
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More snow!
It snowed a bit again last night and I was very excited when I saw it this morning: Ben was even more excited about it than last time: It was beautiful!
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Snow and ice
It snowed a bit late last night and then today the temperature didn’t go above 1°C so the snow froze on the roads and pavements creating a a bit of an ice-skating rink. I wasn’t sure whether to cycle the kids to school but I did and it was absolutely fine. In fact, I think…
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How whales change climate
This is a wonderful 5 minute video about the many wonderful things whales do for our planet.
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Leaf insects and other things
Ben is outraged that I’ve taken possession of two and a half chests of drawers for my clothes and left him with only half a chest of drawers. On the surface of it this might seem unfair but Ben wears the same outfit everyday so he really doesn’t need more than half a chest of…
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The piano and I
I played the piano today for the first time since before the Christchurch earthquakes. After February 22nd 2011, we sold our piano because it was an earthquake hazard and Elizabeth was only 18 months at the time and easily squashed and killed by heavy items of furniture toppling over during aftershocks. We haven’t had one…
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What to buy a mathematician for Christmas
Men are hard to buy presents for. Mathematicians are even harder. All they really need is a pencil and some paper … and maybe a rubbish bin (unlike economists who don’t use the rubbish bin). Which reminds me of a joke: What do mathematicians do when they’re constipated? They work it out with a pencil. I…
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“Daddy can’t do anything”
My family was pleased to see me when I arrived back home from Barcelona, but they weren’t ecstatic or anything and they seemed to have managed just fine without me. In fact, I was disappointed to see that Ben wasn’t looking more dishevelled and stressed out after almost a week as a single parent. And…
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An Automattic family
My work trip to Barcelona has come to an end and yes, there were some dramas and yes, Barcelona is a really cool city, but the best part of the trip was the people. And I’m not referring to the people of Barcelona – although they were, without exception, very friendly and welcoming – I’m…
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Park Güell
I’ve had a headache for the past 24 hours which pain killers are not killing and so there was only one thing to do: go for a run. It sounds counter-intuitive but running often alleviates headache pain for me. So this afternoon I ran up to Park Güell, a lovely park with some architectural features…
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