Archive for November, 2008
So, this is the one to read first, if you’ve had our Christmas email and are coming for a quick update.
Cunningly, this is a partial news update, from mid-September up to end of November. If you want April - Sept, click ‘general overviews’ in the right hand column, and you can get that chunk there. For anything earlier than that, if you’re still game for a look, have a browse on some of the individual posts.
September is always busy for me at work, and end of September saw me having a second go at arranging a stand for the Scottish Learning Festival. It’s the big education exhibition of the year in Scotland, and I coordinated the people and materials for the two days worth of visitors. Meanwhile, we tried to get on with putting more things back after carpet fitting at the start of the month - pictures up, bookcases back in place etc.
September also brought new work colleagues for Dan, and the opportunity to put some new systems in place for building websites. So far, the response from potential customers has been positive, and hopefully this will continue.
October had lots of time with people. We went to a friend’s wedding in picturesque Aberlady, followed by reception and ceilidh in the village hall, which had a nice log fire to keep the autumn chill at bay. We managed to see some friends at various points, and visited my brother and his fiancee in their first home together, in Otley, near to Leeds. This included a quick look at the school where they both work, and a drive to Ilkley, home to one of the braches of Betty’s, the upmarket tea rooms in three different Yorkshire towns.
October also saw a big step forward - I started refresher driving lessons, after 15 years of cheerfully cadging lifts and avoiding the issue of driving in a big city. Still lots to learn, but lots of improvement, and the prospect of further practice to come, as Mum and Dad are passing on a car to us.
The initial terror of getting behind the wheel has been replaced by the next terror of having to drive solo, without the instructor and a spare set of pedals…Thankfully, people have been very encouraging about the time it took them to be confident in a car, so I hope that I can improve little by little, and also do some of the things we’d like to do more easily, such as visit friends who live outside Edinburgh.
Dan’s birthday came by, and with it a James Bond premiere…It was kind of them to arrange it the same night, we thought. One friend asked if we were dressing up for going to the opening - we said no, but then saw quite a few guys in full tux, at the end of the film, and one woman in a ballgown, so perhaps we’ll have to make more of an effort next time.
We did manage to squeeze lots of people into our flat the same weekend, so Dan could have a ‘bread and soup plus cake’ birthday party (tested as an option back in January, when a friend and I had a joint party).
I had a quick work trip to Paris in early November, followed by us heading on to our friends in Italy for a week’s holiday. My arrival was a bit delayed, on account of not being able to book a night train after the work meeting, and having to stay a night extra in Paris at short notice. However, the train route was nicer for being able to take it in in the daylight, at least for part of it, and being met at Milan Central by Dan and David.
We had a good week reacquainting ourselves with Rachel and David and their four kids - as well as where the contents of the family bookcases were up to, a year on. And on return, trying to do a bit of garden tidy up, my garden helpers of earlier in the year reappeared, and seemed perfectly happy to sweep leaves and cut down stems of plants that had tied back. Clearly they don’t make Barbies that interesting any more…
2008 has brought lots of new arrivals among friends, and it’s been great to see pictures via the wonder that is Facebook. As university classmates become ever more farflung, and life remains busy for everyone, it’s nice to catch up a little this way. And yes, we might even manage to put some of our own photos on there for people to see - sooner or later.
2008-9 is a special run of birthdays and anniversaries in the Frydman and Mackenzie households, so there’s plenty to look forward to over the coming months, including my brother’s wedding in April. But we equally look forward to hearing from you, finding out how you are getting on - drop us a line or email, and let us know.
Wishing you a peaceful Christmas and a happy New Year,
Love from
Dan and Alison
November 30th, 2008
When it’s a Friday night, when you want some uncomplicated entertainment, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Dan discovered that three out of four of them at work were very keen on the film, and suggested watching it again last night. Feeble protest from me. More, “I’ll get the film ready, then.”
Ghostbusters was probably my first real recollection of a film phenomenon. Now, with monthly passes for cinemas, or renting recent releases through the telly, it’s harder to get a sense of a big film even, for all of the efforts of bus advertising to make you think so. My upbringing was one of cinema being a treat, so when you went, you wanted it to be GOOD.
So, what of Ghostbusters? The first time we tried to see it, we queued round three sides of the block to get in to the cinema - and were turned away, with only 10 people in front of us, because the cinema was full. That makes it an Event. Thankfully we persevered and came back another time, without quite such a queue, and were able to get in. And yes, it was well worth it.
It’s also an early awareness of a film soundtrack being significant. Part of the continuing to enjoy the film, for me, was listening to the soundtrack again…and again…I even bought it on record, which shows that life and technology has moved on just a tad. But there’s so much humour and enjoyment in the soundtrack, as well as atmosphere - it does what you want it to, in underpinning and enhancing the story.
Despite 80s fashion reappearing (neon socks anyone? Seemingly very fashionable again), and 80s music being played in shops, watching an 80s film does show you that time does move on. The amount of casual smoking is a bit of a surprise. The haircuts are always good for a giggle. And in a film like Ghostbusters, where a certain amount of ‘kit’ is required for the story, carrying a tape recorder on a strap doesn’t really look like big science any more.
So why watch it? Because the humour is still good. It’s fun to be reminded of just how sharp the timing between Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd is. The effects are there to make you laugh, the slapstick is there too, but the verbal humour still sings, and not many films even bother with that now.
I rest my case. And my photon accelerator.
November 29th, 2008
We don’t go passing round the wafers, if that’s what you are thinking. But in terms of a Sabbath, as a day of rest, our main shot at resting does seem to coincide with Saturday mornings. Time to sit with Dan and chat, drink a coffee, unpack the week, hold out a little longer, drink another coffee…
For those with kids, where days of the week start at pretty much the same time every day, I don’t mind if you feel you need to turn away. It is a bit indulgent still to have this space. And it’s not so much about not doing as the chance to talk, and say where our thoughts and feelings have been going over the previous few days.
Resting is all about recharging, if you get a shot at it. Similar to a post about learning to relax, that I wrote a month or two back, it’s about things that are consistently good in enabling you to unwind, and feel better afterwards. Or be ready to tackle a bit of life again.
Part of the treat, for me at least, is also having some time where there’s nothing written against it, in a real or mental diary. I need some headspace to explore, to pick things up and put them down again. These things may not form part of a ‘to do’ list, but that’s their very appeal.
Was remembering about The Idler - can’t quite tell whether it’s now a book, or a blog, or multiples of all of that. http://idler.co.uk/ - see what you make of it. But part of what they are talking about is giving yourself time to think, rather than just doing.
For someone like me, who can be fairly said to be a Protestant with a work ethic, it’s invaluable to be reminded to find this space. I enjoy doing, of various kinds, and I’d never claim we can get through life without doing, but I am certainly thinking more and more that just being is a pretty good pursuit.
When we think back to treasured memories, holidays, that kind of thing, often what we’re remembering is the space to be; to idle; not just to let our mind work out what is really going on, but to allow our heart to be part of that too.
Too much gobbledy-gook? Well, I’m good at that too. But along that path, sooner or later, some wisdom comes out, something to help me be happy in my own skin and at peace with God. I’ll raise a mug of coffee to that.
November 29th, 2008
It’s a gardening term, isn’t it? You dig a trench, and move the soil back into it. In this case, with Christmas around the virtual furrow, it’s time to back fill some more stories onto the blog, so that there’s something there for people to read when you eventually send them their Yuletide email.
Last year, after getting the laptop, I spent quite a chunk of time filling in the blanks of previous months’ activities, for that very purpose. This time, I’m filling in the Spring-Summer Hiatus (ooh, there’s some sun out there…somewhere…I’ll not turn the computer on), which isn’t so daunting. You never know, I might even get Dan to remind me how to add pictures again.
One of the features of this year is not so much back fill as tum fill. We have started having weekend breakfast options, things to help you feel like you are actually resting, and that take longer to make and eat than you might make time for on a week day. It feels very peaceful, anyway, building family traditions, that kind of thing.
I should probably add that various of the options have come out of Nigella Express. But I would add that for some reason, reading about breakfast or brunch options in cookbooks is particularly restful. One of my early memories of cookbooks for pleasure was managing to borrow an American one from somewhere, where it devoted large sections to the value of breakfast or brunch as a way to do relaxed entertaining. It even had quotes about food items for breakfast, which your then very literary writer was particularly pleased about.
Summer has brought in the partially frozen banana smoothie - an alternative to filling my freezer with bananas that have gone beyond eating point, without as much effort ask making a banana cake. Now we’re back to central heating days, the main options are porridge or pancakes - Scotch pancakes, drop scones, you know the ones.
The porridge making started on our Easter holiday, staying in a cottage that had not been visited for a few months. We needed to be warm AND we needed options for not consuming milk too quickly, being on an island. Porridge fitted the bill very nicely, particularly with the discovery of adding brown sugar to the top. Crunch vs smoothness. Even for a child brought up to believe that syrup was the real way ahead with porridge, this was a definite discovery.
We have also happily discovered that two people can indeed eat their way through a whole batch of pancakes for brunch, although if they have a guest staying, they will be polite enough to share. We’ve even invested in a large silicon pancake flipper, when I realised the spatula I’d been using was threatening to become another flavour on the pancake.
Our particular tip is slightly acidic jams to offset the thicker pancake - apricot was particularly good, blackberry also worth considering. Marmalade can be good, but not as good. At least with a batch, you have plenty of opportunity to experiment on which toppings work.
So, send in your brunch options, and we’ll even fork through a few, if they’re good. Avoid overly eggy suggestions, or pass them straight to Dan, who has a better stomach for eggs than me.
But more importantly, start a few food traditions of your own at the weekend, if you haven’t already. Particularly ones that cause you to linger, and admire the day outside, the person sitting next to you, or simply the notion of slower food as a regular household blessing.
November 24th, 2008
Sometimes, a title comes to me, and I know I have to use it. I’ll bung it down in the notebook, waiting for a point at which I can write about it. And following a holiday to a house whose inhabitants love books just as much as Dan and I, it seems a suitable time.
A reading rat - Leseratte - is the German equivalent to a bookworm. It was featured on a set of postcards from the Goethe Institut - they know how to do their advertising, I have to say. I sent it over to David, who is interested in German at the moment, and rediscovered it in a book, while we were over.
Shame in a way to choose rats and worms for such things - here are these wonderful things, books, and our way to talk about people who like them is to relate them to animals which are often the source of fear or disgust. My guess is that there’s probably some implied reference to devouring anything, which probably is true of serious book dependency after a while.
An alternative might be to talk about book fever - the illness that besets one when discovering just how addictive books are. I’m not just talking ‘can’t put them down’ thrillers. Even Enid Blyton can hit that craving button, when you are six or seven, and there just aren’t enough hours in the night to read. Talk about reading yourself into an early pair of glasses, as I did.
They warn you about sweet shops, and fast food stores, but libraries are pushers too. Want one? Why not take six? In fact, read three in the first day, take them back, and take out another six in addition to the ones you’ve not started yet.
This visit to Italy, both the older girls were getting stuck into books. The younger of the two is into Geronimo Stilton, mouse detective, whom I can only hope will get translated into English at some point. The cartoons that go with it are certainly fun. And I remember my discovery of Asterix at a previous age. The one thing better than a really good read is the discovery that you’ve only just started the series, and that they are still writing more…
These days, it’s getting harder to let animal instinct take over when it comes to reading. Time is shorter, and I find that I read several shorter things, rather than start a longer one and have to stop.
I quite fancy the idea of being some kind of reading polar bear - take on enough books to see you through the winter, in the way that they take on enough food supplies to keep going, and then dig yourself into a nice snowdrift (or equivalent) for a few months. If only they’d let you stay in bed to read during the winter, rather than going to work, I’m sure we could all achieve fuel efficiency too, because we’d still be warm enough.
If there’s any readers who can comment on what imagery is used for voracious book reading in other languages, would be interested to know. Next week, magazine locusts…
November 24th, 2008
I’m going to lay my cards on the table straight out - as well as beginning the gaming metaphors - and confirm that I was a bad loser at board games as a child. And so I stopped. Unattracted as I was, equally, to other people being openly competitive, there wasn’t much reason to start again. Except this year, for some reason I have wanted to play board games.
I still don’t know why it should be. Perhaps it helps that some of the board games available now are more interesting than the ones I played as a child. (I still hold a torch for Mine-A-Million, which allowed you to build up oil reserves, and ship them to the other side of the world. But what with global warming, and pirates taking over oil tankers, I don’t think that one’s going to come back into fasion.)
I’m talking about games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan. And I rather like Ticket to Ride, particularly the European version where I can distract others from my losing by being smug and saying “been there!” on some of the more obscure routes. Games which are different every time, in terms of how you make up the board, keep me interested - and take the sting out of losing, or at least of not winning.
Our friends Jan and Paul are good on the board game front, and introduced us to both Settlers and Mah Jong, though we clearly need to build up more practice on games in between visits. But the real shift was going on holiday with friends in June, and playing board games most nights. And liking it.
When you are a child, winning and losing is a much bigger deal, and having siblings to taunt you, or parents to point out that you are a bad loser, tends to distract you from even trying to put a brave face on it. A couple of decades down the line, and you’ve realised that there are many ways to win and lose in daily life, and so a brief stint at a board game is perhaps easier to take on.
In the case of our trip in June, it perhaps helped to be there with a very competitive friend, who you knew would win (almost) all the games anyway. This took the actually trying to win part out of the equation, leaving you focus on banter, admiration of nice design of board game, an additional glass of wine, and so on. (Obviously, if wine had been in the equation as a child, who know how many people would have stopped being bad losers much earlier?)
But I think the real reason for it is a desire to be with people. To do something together that you can remember, but that isn’t that big and important either, so you can focus on the people too. Perhaps the addition of a nice fire, or bad weather, or large amounts of chocolate etc, add to the picture of it being a very positive thing to stay indoors and be with people you like.
And for that, I can even risk the possibility that some competition might come into the equation.
November 23rd, 2008
Social ill is a bit harsh. But it’s interesting going out for a meal in another country - particularly a European country, given the ongoing belief in the UK that we still eat worse than our European counterparts - and think you could have done better at home.
Targets on the list? France is rather good at pre-dressed salad, as was Germany, back in the spring, and both were overly salty. Top marks back to Italy, where you can generally dress your own salad at the table, although there’s still more of a tendency to add salt.
I still find salting a salad vegetable a bit strange, particularly when you could choose a tangier lettuce if you wanted more of a taste hit, but it still sits easier with me than adding cream to lettuce (my former flatmate in Poland. It was just cream. I like a cream-y sauce on a salad from time to time, but not quite in this form).
Morning coffee in Italian hotels can be a bit of a disappointment - and this in a country which is really rather rated for its coffee. Best trick is probably to forgo a hotel breakfast and get a quick breakfast in a nearby bar - which clearly works very well for the commuting population too, in many places.
We’re used to ’serving suggestions’ on packaging, those kind of pictures that help you understand what to have on a plate with mayonnaise, for example. France goes a step further, and suggests on its packets that you should actively have chocolate at breakfast time.
I know that many people need no encouragement in this area, but normally chocolate gets brought out later in the day…once something’s gone wrong…or you’re flagging at work? Maybe we have completely the wrong attitude to chocolate - maybe our days would go much better if we had chocolate at breakfast time, and mustered the will to strike much earlier in the day.
I had an unexpected stop in a French hotel recently, and they offered the usual buffet breakfast option. What was interesting was the paper serving mats on the table - like you get in fast food places here - only in France, it told you what elements you should be having to start the day.
There were 4 of them, and as far as I remember, you should have some protein, some carbohydrate, some fruit and something to drink to rehydrate you. I’m sure chocolate was included in at least one of the categories as a serving suggestion…
Does this mean that the French are constantly thinking about how to balance their diets? Is the placemat for visiting foreigners who need to shape up in this area - but need to be able to read French to do so? Or is it a sign of a country also worried about its children going the way of the fast food chains?
Final food note: restaurants in Germany put rice in pots of table salt - I think this is to absorb any liquid which might get in, and cause the salt to dissolve, or clump, or something of that kind. It makes lots of practical sense - but it doesn’t look quite as nice to look at.
Aesthetics eh? You get them where you can.
November 23rd, 2008
I grew up in the school of “if it’s a good joke, it’s worth repeating”. I suspect that, separate from this, I am genetically predisposed to like puns, which are a form of repetition in a way, causing you to think about what you’re already familiar with. But the upshot is, I’m all too good at telling people something again…or yet again…because I think it’s worth a mention.
So here’s today’s moment: managed to leave work early, and include a quick visit to RealFoods. I’m about to go in, and smell the familiar health food shop smell…and think, ah that reminds me of the health food shop I briefly worked in…and then remember that I’ve already written about it…
Now admittedly, I’m not visiting the shop all the time, having that scent-memory, boring you with the recollection etc, on a regular basis. But I do forget what I’ve said to whom, or what I’ve written. And the more I think it’s worth passing on, probably all the more likely I am to keep telling the story.
Catching myself at it again tonight, I felt a bit like the goldfish with the 10 second memory. I don’t want to write a string of blog posts that add up to “Nice bowl! Nice bowl! Nice…” And I also know that I get to see plenty of new things, because my brain takes in the fact that they’re new.
Every year I deal with applications from people who have hobbies I’ve never heard of before (underwater hockey, anyone?), health conditions I’ve never come across. And they go off abroad and email with situations I’ve never had to come up with a solution to before. That’s all before I spot things on buses, or open the paper to find out about the latest whatnot we’re all supposed to be interested in.
Blogs are partly about novelty, I guess. You don’t expect to see the same story cut and pasted in, day after day. Perhaps what I’m aspiring to is columnist status, where you can actively get away with repeating yourself, or mentioning particular people, because your readership has got to know them too, through you, and wants the latest installment.
Probably one of the main reasons I write a blog is because I love ideas, I love the variety in the world, I love seeing whether someone else has come across the same, and what they think about it. And some of you even tell me, too…
Some of the nicest thoughts are like the first strawberry of the year. (Yes, I have a conscious awareness of the first strawberry of the year, and a first mince pie too, bracketing the year.) You’d never claim that it was the first ever. But the ‘first for a while…and good!’ is worth a shout about, don’t you think?
November 21st, 2008
It’s a serious question when you’re eight, going on nine. Things are not just out there. You need to know whether you like them or not.
Rachel and David’s eldest is keen on space. She and Dan had fun setting up her telescope while we were there, and while you or I may be struggling to think what to wear tomorrow, she is looking ahead to 2020 and the next manned mission to the Moon.
At one point, she mentioned that she liked Neptune best as a planet. “Why?” “Just do.” (This is also important when you’re eight. And twenty eight or more. Sometimes we just do.) I think it helped that it was also blue.
What was interesting was that then the adults started saying which planet they like. I liked Jupiter, because it was the biggest. Her dad liked Saturn, because of the rings. Dan liked Pluto, because it was also the name of a dog.
It was a great reminder that we too had our preferences, even though we might have long forgotten some of them. Life gets a lot more complicated when we have to justify why we like something (or more often as an adult, why we are still doing something when in fact we don’t want to).
Perhaps it’s a good incentive to have a more immediate response to things. Meanwhile, I’m off to practise a learned response - a cup of tea.
November 20th, 2008
Friends that is. Big and small. We’re just back from visiting Rachel and David, and their four wee ones (some not so wee now), in Italy. As well as restocking the supplies of risotto rice, grana, and a certain small pasta that goes well in sausage casserole.
It’s now nearly 8 years since R and D decided to head to Italy, and interesting to see how friendships develop when you see people less often. For a while, we managed to see each other nearly every 6 months. Rising numbers of children on their side, and work commitments on ours, now stretch it to a yearly catch up. But it’s still well worth it.
One of the features of going over less often is that we end up with a snapshot of life there that may only last a week. Especially with the youngest at a year and a bit, change is a very rapid thing among children. We pick up their catch phrases, identify their favourite books at that time, and see other ‘big’ changes that in fact came in over time: both older girls now reading independently in both English and Italian, for example.
Even being around for just a week, it’s terribly gratifying for you to hear one of the children saying “I want my Alison”, or for another to call you auntie by mistake. Even the littlest went from hiding from us earlier in the week to accepting being fed by us, as well as a few games together, such as repeated shaking your head while holding a naughty grin at the same time. (She started it, not me.)
Time also shows what has lasted since a previous visit - the eldest remembering how to play ”Sausages and chips”, where you try to make the other person laugh by asking them silly questions. She will also set up photo opportunities for their Flat Eric, as we tend to do with ours, having seen our pictures in the past.
Other elements that we completely forgot - interim books that went into a parcel at some time, colouring in stencils on windows - are still part of life there. I remember hearing Rachel’s grandmother saying to me one time, with some pride, an estimate of how many English books she had sent over to Italy while Rachel and her siblings were growing up there, and I started to feel that we might be continuing a little of that trend.
Apart from the food products, there’s always things we bring back. A growing interest in the Veggie Tales’ “Silly Songs with Larry”, which was principal CD in the car while we were there. Photos of another year. An even greater appreciation of R and D’s skills as parents. A couple more pictures to go on our fridge.
Some people go on holiday for a change. I do that too, but it’s sometimes even better to go on holiday for more of the same.
November 20th, 2008
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