Tag: Aberdeen
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Spectra 2024 and a walk in the woods
It has been a dreich weekend but while others may complain I’ve rather liked it. The soft, gentle lighting is kinder to my eyes and it also meant the queue for Spectra (Aberdeen’s annual light festival) was shorter than last year so we actually got into it this time. Last year the queue was too…
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Aberdeen Town House and other photos
This week I had the pleasure of going into Aberdeen’s Town House, a civic building built in 1868-74 by architects Peddie and Kinnear. It is built in Scottish Baronial style which means it has a neo-gothic appearance and a roofline that resembles a castle more than a city town hall. The inside of the building…
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Snow day
If it’s going to be cold then there should be snow and snow we had in abundance today. What fun it is and so pretty. And we had such fun sledging down the hill at Duthie Park. We had the whole slope to ourselves too.
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“I love studying for maths”
Said no teenage boy ever except Daniel. After spending two hours on Saturday night studying he said exactly this followed by, “Two hours of doing practice exam questions is so nice.” I guess it’s a bit like solving puzzles which can be fun when you know how to tackle them. I can’t say I ever…
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Photos of Aberdeen
I took this photo of a man in a kilt washing windows a couple of weeks ago when walking into town with Elizabeth. Only in Scotland! Last night we went to a Christmas party at Ben’s work. We’ve had several frosty days and it took us around 10 minutes to scrape all the ice off…
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Replacing and insulating our bedroom wall
About a month ago I started removing the wallpaper from a wall in our bedroom with the idea to cover it with 10mm of cork for insulation. I thought this would be an inexpensive way of keeping our bedroom warm in winter and lowering our energy bills. This wall is an external wall that faces…
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I knitted a dress
I’ve been slack at writing lately because all my spare time has been spent knitting. I need one of those stickers for the car window that says, “I’d rather be knitting”. I just completed my first dress and it has turned out rather well. It was knit in the round from the top down. Last…
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A beautiful wedding
We went to a friend’s wedding yesterday and it was marvellous. Weddings are wonderful things. What’s not to like about food, wine, dancing, and funny speeches? But weddings in Scotland are even better because they have ceilidhs. The ceremony was in the winter gardens at Duthie Park which was perfect. Aberdeen put on a beautiful…
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Aurora in Aberdeen finally and World Athletics bans
We saw our very first aurora last night and in Aberdeen too. Cities aren’t usually good places to see it because of the light pollution. My photo of it is a bit pathetic but I was still pretty chuffed to finally get to see it. I dragged everyone out of the house at 9:30pm and…
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Snow day
It’s a winter wonderland in Aberdeen today. School was cancelled so the kids made excellent use of their free time and created a snowman.
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Spectra 2023
We tried to go to Spectra last night, a light festival in central Aberdeen, but the queue was so long we had to console ourselves with a view from Union Terrace only. It looked fantastic. This is our first year ever going to Spectra and it’s also the first year they’ve been held in the…
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Fleeing the Terminator
Jon and I both made the press today following our deputations on Wednesday to Aberdeen City Council. Jon is from Grampian Cycle Partnership and I was speaking on behalf of Aberdeen Cycle Forum. The Evening Express ran it as the main story on their front page. It’s terrific! Here’s a photo: The Terminator 2 reference…
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Duthie Park in the snow
Duthie Park was looking quite lovely yesterday. I took these photos on my run.
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Snow and council deputation
The first snow of the winter fell last week and there was quite a lot of it. I’ve been keeping the bird feeders topped up as the birds are very hungry right now. All the snow has melted now as it rained this weekend but there’s more forecast for next week and not far inland…
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Aberdeen’s critical mass
Last night I participated in Aberdeen’s second ever critical mass bike ride. Technically I believe it’s not quite accurate to say it was the second as I’ve heard from members of the cycling community that it was previously done in the late 1990s. This was therefore the second in a recent resurrection after more than…
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I am a British citizen
Today I took my affirmation of allegiance to King Charles III at Aberdeen’s Marischal College and in return I received my certificate of British citizenship. They didn’t reject me for my convict ancestry or my endless campaigning for cycle paths and so I’m very proud to say that I’m now a fully fledged British citizen.…
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The book of Deer at Aberdeen Art Gallery
We went to Aberdeen Art Gallery today to see the Book of Deer which is a 10th century manuscript thought to be of Scottish origin and which references the monastery of Deer in Aberdeenshire. It’s currently on loan from the University of Cambridge where it has lived since 1715. The book is written in Latin…
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Henry, Humphrey and Hubert
We released three more hedgehogs into our backyard yesterday. We had four homes, all vacant, and Horace and Hortensia have integrated into the wider neighbourhood so we adopted Henry, Humphrey, and Hubert. These boys are a bit smaller and younger so they didn’t roam as much and hung round our backyard more than the original…
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The Umbrella Project
Elizabeth got to dance in town today and yesterday for the launch of the Umbrella Project in Aberdeen which is a nationwide campaign to celebrate neurodiversity or different ways of thinking. One in five of us have a condition like ADHD, Autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, Dyspraxia, and Dyscalculia and the umbrella project seeks to raise awareness…
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Fantastic Mr Fox
We were all very excited to see a fox in our backyard today. We sometimes see foxes in the neighbourhood but this is the first time we’ve seen one in our yard. He was eating the peanuts from a bird feeder that had fallen to the ground. At first I thought it was a dog…
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