Morning

Today has been a good morning.  I have been having such a lovely time recently and thoroughly relishing in the delights of summer holidays and being able to do whatever we liked and being as lazy as possible - WONDERFUL!

But after that joy, I have just had a rather efficient morning and as productivity is a rarity for me, it left me in a rather good mood.  Yesterday I made a doctor's appointment for today - something I had been putting off for a year.  Managed to sort a lot of things out there so that was a weight off my mind.  Then dropped off the prescription at Boswells (who knew?), dropped off drying cleaning, picked up prescription, spotted some nice handbags at Boswells potential for cousin's bday, txted ma photos, bought veg for dinner with friend tonight, chatted to ma re present, bought houmous for tea, walking out of covered market and spotted Michel's Creperie that hadn't seen before and despite only being 11.40 couldn't not buy a Mexican savoury crepe - wow - ; bought handbag, bought pita bread from not seen before tesco, then scurry home to eat crepe on bed watching West Wing.

Happy days.

A GPs waiting room poem that appealed to me.

Photos of the year - week 27

Monday 9th August

 On a walk up the hills I realised I was walking up this road.  Ordinarily I might have thought, that's a nice name.  But the day before I had finished reading Rebecca and there is a Happy Valley at Manderley so added excitement for me.

Tuesday 10th August

Joined Mum at her child-minding and these wonderful chicks were created!

Wednesday 11th August

 In need of a photo so I decided on a snap shot of my 'dressing table' (top of my chest of drawers).  Was amazed to realise that as someone who doesn't think they are particularly vain, I have managed to build up quite a collection of things.

 

Thursday 12th August

One of my favourite flowers picked for me.  How special I feel :-)

Friday 13th August

 So how does this geocaching work?

Saturday 14th August

That's one brave/crazy cyclist not put out by the flood.

Sunday 15th August

Brunch at the greatest, Big Bang, with friend who has been inspired to start photo of the day too!!  Love that the joy is spreading :-)

 

Flood - a spectator sport

Who would think you could have such an enjoyable time watching a flood?

19/8 Oh my goodness!  Blog update! I added some photos to a post last night in the usual way and had the usual pang of  'uhh, this is time comsuming, can't I click on several at once?'.  Then this morning I come to add these photos and it's a new system and I added them all at once!!!!  Yay!

Was walking into town with friends on Saturday and we thought the clouds weren't looking great, and then it started to rain and in a matter of moments, absolutely pour!!  We took shelter in the pub vestibule on the opposite side of the road.  Soon there were mini white water rapids going down the road and look at the gushingly over flowing gutters:

 Our dry retreat turned on us as water started leaking through the light fitting above.  It was all slightly hysterical!

Then came the ultimate form of entertainment.   We decided rain had lessened (probs about 20 mins later..) and we ventured out.  Just down the road from us was the bridge under the railway that had totally flooded up and so we started watching and it was addictive!!

 Not so funnly for them, one car hadn't made it through and was stopped at the end of the flood - car on the right.

 It was an amazingly entertaining time of cheering, clapping, gasps (check out the crazy cyclist!),  held breath, community spirit...

 It really made the afternoon!

Geocaching

Time to get going on some posts of little things.

We had a day out to Harcourt Arboretum, which in my ignorant mind was pretty much a wood!  But it was amazing because you could do geocaching for free!  and what a cool think it is!

You have a GPS device and a compass (mainly just to look the part!).  The GPS is programmed with the various spots you have to get to.  So we selected puzzle 1 and then followed the arrow as the number of metres to go decreased.  When we were within 5m we hunted around until we found the box.  We opened the box and found the puzzle/experiment inside.

This was run in conjunction with some physics institute. So the activities inside were physics related.  We learnt why peacock feathers were iridescent, how to test the UV level, why trees grow upwards, how to measure the height of a tree, effects of lightning - we became so knowledgeable!

 

At each box, we wrote our team name (broken umbrella) in the log bog along with date and something related to the activity.  Despite the drizzle it was a wonderful day :-)

RSCDS Summer School 2010

18/8 Had been gradually updating this post, but was disappointed to notice that my last update didn't seem to save :-(

I've decided I would like to write somethings about the week I have just spent in St Andrews.  I did take the diary I had started on the cruise with me, and actually finished it!  But as I didn't write about everything, I feel there are a few things I would still like recorded so they are happening here.

I went to the summer school for Scottish Dancing 5 years ago for the one and only time.  It is run by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and in some ways is quite a formal affair that is mainly attended by people at least a generation older than us.  Although we did hear tails of the olden days, and though it seems like it's been the same for years and years, turns out it was stricter in Miss Milligan's day.

Summer school consisted of two classes in the mornings, Monday - Saturday.  The afternoons were free time, though we did tend to have a walk through at 5pm for the evening dances.  The evening dances varied in intensity but usually quite knackering!

Someone I met during the week posted on Sunday her facebook status as:

Had such a great week dancing - highlights including the chemistry dance, dashing white sergant round a wall, dancing in the sea, excuse me dancing and finally 'under arrest'! ... Basically everything!...Thank- you to everyone involved I hope you had an amazing time too

I agreed with all those and am going to try bullet point the highlights from the week that I'd like to remember:

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  Raffles!  It appears the way that Scottish Dance societies make money (not in a bad way, just try to cover their costs) is to hold raffles on the evening.  The first one we went to was at the St Andrews Branch at the Boy's Brigade Hall (no need to say at all that it was at the Boy's Brigade, I just found the name rather entertaining!) on the Tuesday night.  I bought a strip or two on my way in having bought my ticket as did quite a few of us.  The drawer (I really have no idea if it's drawer or draw?? 25/8 am thinking it's surely draw?)  took place in the interval.  The winning tickets were picked from a tesco (or some other supermarket chain) carrier bag and it was a very slow process as there were  a lot of prizes to choose from and the winners got to pick their own.  Me and the two girls I was sitting next to were commenting on the fact that no seemed at all pleased to have won.  People were just standing up and walking up, but quite honestly they walked with as much excitement as if they were walking out the door to the loo!  We decided we'd woop and cheer if one of us won.  And lo and behold with 3 prizes to go my number came up and totally true to their word they wooped and cheered, startling everyone in the room, and so I had to walk up from the other end of the room to claim my prize - slightly embarrassed but I went with it and the cheers actually made me feel special!  Then there was the tricky decision of what to choose.  Options: large set of lavender candles, a porcelain-type Scottish Dancing doll, or a toilet bag that looked ever so slightly worn... I won't go into the thought processes that went through my head in those 3(?) seconds (you'll be pleased to hear) but I went for the candles.  And then spent time struggling on how to get them home!

  So that was part one of the raffle story! 

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  Warm sand under toes

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  Compliment

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  Mid morning tablet

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  Robert's socks

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  Rebecca

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   Nap time

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   Last night party room

• Carnoustie carnage - this was such a highlight of the week, and happened relatively early on (wednesday night), that it got a fairly full write up in the diary.  So I decided to try scan the diary entry in.  Being originally in the private diary I had used names.  When scanning I thought I would cover with post-it bits, forgetting it wasn't the same as photocopying and the post-it bits would show up!
  
  

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   First night party room.  Firstly it's pretty funny that there's a designated party room, but even more so that there are signposts to it around the uni halls!  We headed there after the first evening's welcome dances.  I was somewhat reluctant not being a party person, but I ended up there and it was pretty special.  There was a man playing the piano in there who turned out to be one of the musician's for the school.  We listened to him for a bit and chatted and then two of our group went to get their instruments: a fiddle and a banjo.  They ended up kinda working together to play for us and we danced (mainly under my orders, the new folks weren't surprised to discover I was a teacher afterwards!) Eightsome Reel and Mairi's Wedding.  One set a piece although Mairi's Wedding was 10 times through 40 bars for our 5 couple set!!  Epic for the musicians but we were very grateful!  During these numbers I looked round and first saw that a drummers had appeared with his snare drum in the band, and then later a lady on the recorder!  It was true...  i don't know the word for it.. but I loved the organic nature of it!

Photo of the year - week 26 - Summer School

Week 26 - half way through the year - wow!

Sunday 1st August

 Enjoying training it up through the Lake District.

Monday 2nd August

View out to the Golf Course and beach from my uni room.

Tuesday 3rd August

 Mid-morning tablet break between classes.

Wednesday 4th August

At Carnoustie in the break.  What a legend of a night!

Thursday 5th August

Afternoon visit to the Cathedral ruins.  A very pleasant relaxing time.

Friday 6th August

Evening dance at the university.

Saturday 7th August

 Atomic orbitals dance in the sand.

Sunday 8th August

Time to leave.

Photo of the year - week 25 - Cruise 2

Sunday 25th July

Sunnier St. Petersburg day 2.  Catherine's Palace behind us and you can see the headsets we have for listening to our Guide, Yuri's, commentary and 'Yuri's group this way!'

Monday 26th July

 At the dock in Tallinn.  Our Jewel of the Seas on the left and Disney cruise ship on the right.

Tuesday 27th July

Post azipod listing in the card room.

Wednesday 28th July

 Day spent reading and sleeping in various points around the ship.  Had finished the Agatha by 4.30pm.

Thursday 29th July

 Nicoleta and Joel, lovely waiters on our last night in Tides dining room.

Friday 30th July

 Final buffet breakfast in the Windjammer.

Saturday 31st July 

Finishing up the holiday diary back at home (having added to my house collection with one from Copenhagen).