Ghost World

With great joy comes great heartache, so my great-grandmother always said. One of the hardest things about being an expat is that I am far away from people who matter very, very much. My dearest and best friend and her boyfriend visited us last week. I was overjoyed to see them arrive and I was unsurprisingly miserable when they left again. But we did have a lovely week together.

Highlights included watching the ever-changing skies over Loch Lomond (pictured left), having an afternoon pint of local brew in The Falls of Dochart Inn (out of tourist season significantly less Brigadoon than I suspect it'll be in high season), doing the obvious Monty Python jokes at Doune Castle, buying yarn at New Lanark, playing Munchkin in the evenings, having a tremendous dinner at Fanny Trollope's and .. just hanging out with some of the best people I know.

Of course I was also working my usual hours and trying to deal with paperwork, so things were slightly less relaxing than it could have been. I also miss our guests in a raw, unsettled way. Still, I feel nourished and ready to tackle what is ahead.

What is ahead? I am heading to London for work next week, so I need to prepare myself for that. I also have a couple of patterns to write and a lot of things to finish. Somehow I have also talked myself into a rather big homemade Christmas present that needs to be finished by early December.

Ulp.

Finally, and wholly unrelated, I went down to Occupy Glasgow's camp yesterday and I had to laugh out loud when I saw a sign saying "Daily Mail, We Don't Respect You Either". How marvellous.

Survival of the Knitter

We went on a much-needed mini-break this week. (And by 'much-needed' I really mean 'if I don't get out of this place for more than one day, I will start shouting at strangers on the street and actually bitchslap them if they keep stopping right in front of me.' Have I ever mention that I am a city girl who's not a huge fan of crowds or human beings?)

Anyway. Mini-break.

I brought some knitting and made headway into a project I shouldn't really have cast on (I have too much work knitting to do, but these past few days were me-time). D. brought some books and finished two. I only checked mail twice (good girl) and I lived on a carefully balanced diet of cheese, wine, coffee, and cheesecake. It was lovely.

One afternoon we walked from one small finishing fishing village to another. A scrambling, rambling walk of some 6 miles. Fresh air, plenty of wildlife, and beautiful scenery. Another night we had dinner at Lairhillock Inn which was spectacularly charming: it is a 200-year-old coaching inn set in the countryside about 15 minutes from Aberdeen by car. The inn had a lovely, cosy feel with its dark wooden beams and log fires - and the food was surprisingly excellent in the gastro-pub vein. Locally sourced and freshly prepared food, yum. I succumbed to slow-cooked lamb shank with rosemary mash while my serving of cranachan was so generous, I had to leave half of it.

Do I feel refreshed and ready for another stab at Glasgow life? Uhmm.. er.. we have some very important visitors heading our way next week so hopefully that'll register on the internal energy & joy metre. I just wish I could have enjoyed this view a bit longer this week -->

While I have been away, the Man Booker Prize was announced which went to that jolly good egg known as Julian Barnes (also known as the man who wrote one of the most awful books I have ever read). I have not read his book but I suspect it was the least objectionable and most save-our-face book on the shortlist. I look forward to the Man Booker 2012 long list already. To celebrate I have begun re-reading the 1990 Booker winner. It'll be my .. seventh? .. time reading AS Byatt's Possession: A Romance and like all (good) books it is able to change and grow just as I am changing and growing.

Between Byatt, visitors, cranachan and The Daily Puppy, I may just yet survive.

The End of an Era

It is no secret that I love hanging out at Auntie M's Cake Lounge. Sadly it is the end of an era for a place that quickly became a West End classic with its effortless style, delicious homebaked goods and witty banter. However, as befits its spirit, Auntie M is closing with a cake buffet and a week-long vintage craft supplies sale.

Pictured: lemon layer cake, chocolate pound cake, peanut butter & chocolate cake, spice cake, banana cake, bakewell tarts, victoria sponge cupcakes, maltesers cake, coconut cake, orange cupcakes, coffee & caramel cupcake, mint meringues, lemon meringue cupcakes, chocolate cherry cupcakes and more.

Other Half managed five slices of cake plus 3 cupcakes. Sadly I wasn't far behind.

The vintage craft supplies sale is running for an entire week. If you are in Glasgow, I really urge you to go have a look.

This is the fabric table full of vintage fabrics (remnants were underneath the table). Other tables had cross-stitch kits, trimmings, zips, notions, knitting patterns, buttons etc. You could even pick up a bargain sewing machine if you were so inclined.

I bought a metre of really cute robin's egg-blue cotton with dancing mice - not my usual style, but rather fabulous all the same. I can see this working as a very cool quilt back.

And I bought some fantastic vintage knitting patterns. 75p each!

From the left: a very pretty 3ply jumper with a very intricate lace pattern and unusual crochet edgings; a 3ply cardigan with a lovely lace & bobble stitch pattern; and finally a spectacular cardigan with colourwork panels and reindeer intarsia panels. I fell in love immediately. The instructions are horrific though, as the reindeers are not charted but are written out stitch-by-stitch. I was chanting in my head: I love charts, I love charts, I love charts..

I shall miss Auntie M's a huge amount. It became a home-away-from-home of sorts and I shall especially miss the sparkling banter (and the lemon drizzle cake). On the other hand, my waistline is rather thankful that you are closing.

Thank you for everything, Michelle and Sam. It has been an absolute blast.

Of Petals and Parcelforce

I spent the evening sewing again. I'm making a much needed lined corduroy skirt and I had this idea in my head. I am using remnants of Liberty fabric swatches for the embellishment. Let's see how my idea looks when the skirt is properly assembled, though. The pattern is from a Danish sewing magazine my mum sent me earlier this year. I love receiving parcels from my family. Tiny presents and unexpected treats. My partner gets his beloved Danish marzipan, I get craft magazines and licorice. Win-win .. except when Parcelforce messes up and they do mess up quite frequently.

Add another Parcelforce failure to my bunch of stories - this time my story guest-stars my gran who sent me a lovely surprise parcel in July. Of course the parcel just happened to be picked up by a driver who 'forgets' about collection cards and just dumps parcels in the local post office rather than try to deliver them. And of course the post office gets tired of undelivered parcels taking up space and returns them to the Parcelforce depot where they disappear.

I have never lied this much to Gran over so short a timespan. Of course I knew where the parcel was! Unfortunately the post office was closed just as I made it there. Oh, I am just waiting for the delivery man to confirm when he's going to pop by.. If you have ever had a gran whose worried silence speaks volumes, you will know how I have felt these past two days.

Thankfully, Parcelforce does have nice people working for them. Steve found my parcel tonight after trawling the depot. And he is going to make sure that the parcel is being delivered tomorrow.

It better be. I cannot deal with Day Three of Gran being worried.

In other news, I was rather underwhelmed by BBC4's Elegance & Decadence: The Age of Regency. The subject matter is so interesting - the early parts of the 19th century were filled with radical ideas, grand geopolitical events, and amazing cultural upheaval - but despite an enthusiastic presenter, the while thing got mired down in cumbersome details about marble tables and gilded tableware. At least Beau Brummell was briefly mentioned (to my great geeky delight) but why he was to be singled out among the rarified set was never really fully explained beyond a brief dressing-up session. I shall keep watching but my hopes are slightly dampened.

Off to read some Russian literature. As you do.

West End Walk

Hey babe, take a walk in the West End..

Open the gate..

What will you find?

A chance encounter with beauty..

..or something else inside?

Maybe just a place to rest for a while.

Then close the door and whisper 'bye, bye'.

Knitting In Public No More

As a blogger and a social media type, I think frequently about privacy issues. It matters to me even if my face is plastered across Ravelry and my full name is easily uncovered. Yesterday I joked I was going to sue if my little private gathering of knitters were declared 'the next cool thing' in Scottish newspapers. Well, we just ended up having our photo tweeted by some UK television personalities. I might have thought it a fun little interlude (just like when we appeared on TV) if they had actually asked our permission before taking the photo. They had not and I am not amused. I respected their privacy; it would have been nice if they had afforded me the same courtesy.

(ETA Wednesday lunchtime: They have pulled the photo with an apology. I really appreciate that. Thanks.)

And then tonight I was knitting on the bus home. A rather thuggish group of ladies congregated around me and stared as though I were juggling sharp knives. That was a very long bus ride.

I think it is time to retire my knitting in public, at least for a little while. I'm tired of being a circus performer for other people's blooming amusement.