insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Is breastfeeding offensive?
I’ve written a bit recently about how sometimes I just want to tell someone to “get over it” when they claim to be offended by something. Breastfeeding is a great example of this. Apparently a flashy London hotel has asked a breastfeeding mother to put a napkin over her baby’s head while breastfeeding. This has sparked…
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A deliberate deception
I have a confession to make. It was the school fair recently and we were asked to contribute some home baking to sell. I bought a lemon cake from Marks & Spencer, took it out of its packaging and then wrapped it up in cling film to make it look like I’d made it. Then…
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NatWest: tearing marriages apart
Ok, I’m not being serious with my title. I just want to make this clear that I’m exaggerating slightly here. Quite a bit actually. But I am pissed off with Natwest and so this is going to be a bit of a rant. A little while ago I wrote about the problem I had trying…
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When is it ok to take offence?
People seem to get offended by all sorts of things. As I was cycling to school today an old man shouted at me from a beat-up old van to get off the pavement. Then he stopped to take my photo. I’m not really sure what he plans to do with my photo. Perhaps he’ll write…
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Snow!
No, it isn’t snowing in Aberdeen. Not yet anyway but hopefully it will soon. However it is snowing on my blog because I’ve just switched on the snow effect which is available for all WordPress.com blogs over the Christmas period. Go to Settings > General in your Dashboard and scroll down to Snow if you…
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Testing mistake again
Sorry, I was just testing the reblog feature in the WordPress app and the post went to this site instead of my test site. So please ignore the last email notification if you got one.
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The beach, Aberdeen
I had to take my Thunderbolt monitor to the Apple store this morning because the camera is blurry and I can’t fix it. It’s still under warranty so they’re going to replace the camera for me which is great. But are you wondering how I got a huge and heavy Thunderbolt to the Apple store…
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Scottish schooling
Perhaps it’s too soon to give my impressions of Scottish schooling as the kids have only been at school for about a month but I’m going to do it anyway. My first impressions are wonderful. I can’t fault anything about education Scotland. Daniel has joined a composite year 4/5 class which worried us a little…
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Who appears in Christmas parades in Aberdeen?
Santa in a kilt with a Storm Trooper, of course. Who else? It was the Turning on the Lights Christmas parade in Aberdeen last Sunday. There was a parade; they marched; lights went on. It was really good! I think everyone in Aberdeen was there as Union Street was packed. Christmas always feels more Christmassy in…
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Ode to a Vegetarian Haggis
Fossilcycle posted this wonderful poem to the comments on my post about vegetarian haggis. It’s a re-writing of a Robert Burns poem and I liked it so much I thought it deserved its own post. Ode To A Vegetarian Haggis Tim Dalling January 1993 Oh vegetarian haggis whit a view Thou glorious, steaming bag of…
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Vegetarian haggis: Take 2
Another week, another vegetarian haggis to sample. This one is made by Macsween and was bought from Sainsburys. I liked this one even more than the last one. It was delicious. Not too dry, not mushy, just perfect and with a lovely texture and flavour. It was also very filling. I got the ingredients off…
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Newtown Grafitti
My father-in-law, Mike, died earlier this year but before his death plans were in progress to take some of his 29,913 photographs of Sydney and exhibit them. A documentary is being made about Mike by the very creative Rachel Jordan and she also wants to make these exhibition plans a reality. You can read more…
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Guy Fawkes night
We went to a terrific Guy Fawkes night celebration recently. It was organised by our local community who used it as an opportunity to fundraise for a community garden in the area. They took donations and sold mulled wine and glow sticks and put on a fantastic fireworks display and bonfire. The atmosphere was wonderful…
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Red lentil and tomato soup
We had a really yummy red lentil and tomato soup at the cafe at Newton Dee on Saturday and even Daniel expressed his approval so I thought I’d trying making one for lunch today. Lentils are a great source of protein and iron, and they’re also very cheap. My soup was yummy and it passed the Daniel…
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Newton Dee
There aren’t very many off-road cycle paths in Aberdeen but there is one very good one: Deeside Way. It runs along an old train line from Duthie Park all the way out to Ballater, a total distance of 41 miles. Unfortunately the line is no longer used by trains; it was closed in 1966. But once…
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If there’s a car in the fridge …
I’ve never understood how someone could have a box of chocolates in their fridge for more than a few days. How do they do it? Give me a box of chocolates and the whole lot is gone in about 24 hours. Then what usually happens is I get a headache and feel sick and swear…
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Vegetarian haggis
I do all my grocery shopping online and I’ll sometimes search for “vegetarian” or “vegan” just to see what comes up. This week I discovered vegetarian haggis. Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made from sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs and the whole lot is encased in the sheep’s stomach. Then it is cooked and eaten.…
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A gaudy shirt and feminism
Ok, I promise not to write about this topic again after this post but I have to get this off my chest one more time. I got some thought-provoking comments on my last post about the gaudy shirt worn by scientist Matt Taylor on international television. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments. I even changed…
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The Rosetta shirt
I can’t resist writing a post about “shirtstorm”, the drama about the Rosetta guy and his shirt with cartoons of scantily-clad women. Humans have just landed a robot on a comet! This is an incredible achievement and yet everyone is so obsessed with someone’s choice of clothing that we have failed to appreciate the significance of what has just happened. So…
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