Game on

There’s been a shift in the Frydman tectonic plates.  I find myself interested in playing games.

Lest you rush off to warn Dan, not those kind of games, but card games, possibly even the odd board game.

The world is split into various groups, it seems to me (and yes, there’s a board game for that too, which goes on all night).  Those who enjoy board games tend to be on a different continent from those who don’t.  (I think there’s probably a separate large island for jigsaw puzzlers.  I may swim there some day.)

So to cross over into the game zone is really quite a shift in the substratum.  It helps a great deal not to be fazed by losing.  (I don’t think I will enter the ‘taunting other players while winning‘ archipelago, though I must admit to taking a certain amount of satisfaction winning car races on Facebook.)

So why stay away?  Sometimes what others have said, sometimes what I say about myself.  I have long qualified as a ‘bad loser’, a state which it seems best to avoid mention of entirely, and the easiest way to do this seemed to be to avoid games.

Equally, where others flock to be sociable, and to find activities to do with others, I am quite keen on the opportunity to curl up with a good book, and so on.

What’s changed?  Sure, games are still about competition – nothing but, for some people. Again, I  used to avoid having to be around others being hyped up when thinking they’re on a winning streak.

Now I guess I just think that these things matter less.  I am more interested in the game as a way of being with people, possibly learning something new.  (You certainly learn about friends and family in a new way when you see them play games…and what they do to each other in the process.)

So: having graduated to gin rummy playing, while on holiday with Dan, we played some more while in London with Jen.  I lost all but one game, which was a little annoying, but not desperate.  (Beating them at Star Wars Top Trumps on return was rather nice as a comeback, it has to be said.)

I found myself thinking it might be fun to get a book of card games and try out other ones.  Reading “The Solitaire Mystery” and rewatching “Casino Royale” over the holidays does have to be factored into this thinking too, but there’s also a curiosity – 52 cards, meaning so many things to so many groups of people over the years.

Whether for fun, to occupy most lunch breaks (computer solitaire being one of my former colleague’s habits), or just to try something new, it could be interesting to add another game or two to my repertoire.

So, gentle and not at all competitive reader, let me know if you’ve got any good tricks up your sleeve in this regard.  We might even have reason to look for a charity shop tux to go with them.

Of kitchen gods and goddesses

Dan’s creating a curry…and I’m free to tap away, and come up with a new blog post.

To be honest, it’s a chance to sum up a lot of what the holiday has been about.  Food, reading, and a bit of tinkering around the house.

Food…it’s been a nice opportunity to cook.  Admittedly most times of year are good to cook, but staying at home means there’s a bit more time for it.  Managed to feed one couple who have entertained us many times, but also a good friend back in Edinburgh from her home in Bangaldesh.  Hopefully the start of a bit more hospitality at home this year.

Reading…an opportunity to introduce “The Kitchen God’s Wife”, by Amy Tan, which I’m working my way through.  Some books you speed through – this one you don’t.  Reading about the Cultural Revolution is sobering stuff, even if the characters are (probably only somewhat) fictionalised.

On the plus side, you can certainly get caught up in the descriptions of the places, the landscape, the names of cities that slowly I’m learning, through hearing them via colleagues who work on programmes with China.  Given those all-important Olympics this year, probably no bad time to be learning a bit more about China.

And tinkering…some mine, some from Dan’s mum.  A year or so back, we were given his and hers aprons.  Although I like a little light kitchen goddessery, I was slightly taken aback to have a) named aprons and b) ones bearing the terms ‘kitchen god’ and ‘kitchen goddess‘.  Jen kindly aided us to bring the aprons back to a plain state.

So.  New year.  New aprons.  They’re what every respecting god and goddess are wearing.

Use up the old, bring in the new

When it comes to leftover fests, Christmas is the biggie.  I find it very pleasing to have similar meals for days in a row when the leftovers change a little, there is plenty of cheese, and the prospect of finishing up with lots of cups of tea.

In this vein, a few new discoveries for leftovers:

1) The cold roast veg salad.  Now I know that roast veg salads have been done for some time.  But having a few leftover roast potatoes, assorted roast (or boiled) veg, consider adding mayonnaise and then some cucumber pickles, possibly a little of the pickling liquid too.  On both occasions, I attempted to share my stash, but really had most of it myself.

2) Cold chicken, a little avocado, and some cooked beetroot.  Dan’s mum has demonstrated that avocado and beetroot go well together in a salad (even better with the addition of watercress or rocket), but this is a nice respectable option for leftover chicken, though probably turkey would do too.

I’m sure there was a third one, but memory escapes me for now.

However, there’s also space for new year’s (food) resolutions.  I had asked for spending money for Christmas to get some unusual ingredients – the kind of thing I contemplate, or read up about, but am not sure about buying.

Yesterday saw most of the shops shut in Stockbridge – limiting our usual charity shop trawls, but leaving the way open for deli browsing.

Between the twin delights of Peckham’s and Waitrose, I happily parted with most of the cash, and we noted how it was a good idea not to come to Waitrose often.  At all.  Unless you want to part with all your month’s food shop money all in one go…

Anyway, this morning included looking up recipes to use the following: camargue (red) rice, buckwheat flour, quinoa, rosewater…(There are also more familiar favourites such as maple syrup and hot chocolate, to reassure you that it’s not one big health kick.)

Anyone thinking it’s about time we fed you, let me know which ingredients you are interested in, and we’ll see what we can do.

“Pound for your thoughts?”

It’s meant to be a penny, of course.  A single bus ride in Edinburgh costs a pound.  Inflation affects even the imagination these days.

Regular readers will know that buses play a fairly large role in my life, and I’ve just written the last entry all about buses, one way or another.  But I did realise yesterday how much buses help me get ideas for blog entries.

The last couple of days, I’ve been at home for only short periods of time.  I’d been out doing nice things, seeing people I love.  But just sitting at home in the evening, thoughts were not really coming for writing the blog.

There seems to be something about bus travel, about glimpses of things, or perhaps the space to be on your own and reflect, that is conducive to writing it down.  Just sitting at home may not do it.  This is a little concerning for someone who a) wants to write more and b) wants to be at home more.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop me being around home more, but with a few bus rides here and there.  Moderation in everything.  But just as travel broadens the mind, it also broadens the input of information, stimulates you to make connections.

Trains work too, I have to say.  Trains are especially good when they cross spaces where roads don’t run.  Crossing fields, working through forests, seeing a house there, a car there, someone on a bike waiting at the train crossing for you to pass…

All of these immediately suggest stories, worlds to step into, that can being as soon as pen reaches paper, or hands square up on a laptop.

Funny business, writing.  We all do so much, live so much, in our days, that there is plenty to write about.  Yet we live in an age where so many aspects of life are recorded more and more.  There are plenty of others at the same task - security cameras notwithstanding.  Is there a need for us to record?

Blogs suggest there is.  The opportunity to record, but also to get others’ feedback, not just on your experience, but also how you write, is something above and beyond what’s been available before.

They say that both introverts and extroverts go to parties.  But introverts leave earlier.  They need to get away, to process what’s been happening.  While the extrovert recharges their batteries through being with others, after a while, the introvert needs to do this by spending time on their own.

I wrote enthusiastically about yesterday’s party – and the party, the company, the chat, were all good in themselves, not just the food or the leftovers…Today, I am full on people, and ready to fill up on being on my own.  But I do see that, while I long for time at home during busy working weeks, just being at home will not push the imagination.

I have to do a few things in order to write.  Input leads to output.  Writing is not so much of my life that I’m at a point of writer’s block.  But I now understand the point of “digging ditches“, to requote Erica Jong from a recent post, in order to find the words again.

Even given that, words are elusive at times.  Perhaps like being out in a boat, waiting for the fish.  My discipline at the moment is to go out fishing each day, or at least most days.

But sometimes, a shoal of words, of ideas, or memories, comes past.  As this is the third post today, you can guess that I’m keen to keep dragging them into the boat while they’re still around.

A trip down memory lane

So, firstly, I’m on holiday (but I’m not allowed to be smug about it, given that others are still working).  Which secondly means a chance to catch up on things that don’t often happen during ‘term time’ (despite the fact I’m not at school).

One of is the option of meeting up with family.  Had the chance to meet Mum for lunch, look round the shops in Bruntsfield, then head on together to see Granny.  Now I know you think I could be doing this at the weekend too, and that does happen too.  But there’s something particularly nice about doing these things on a week day, as though you had all the time in the world, or at least enough to choose how to spend the day.

One way and another, the combination of buses to get around between these various points in town meant that I was travelling particular routes that I hadn’t done for a while.  When we lived in Inverleith, we would frequently get buses that went up the Mound, so I was able to catch up on what has been happening up and down that route.  I used to walk home that way when I worked in Bruntsfield, and you skirt the university area between the two, so got a glimpse again of that.

Bruntsfield itself is familiar from a couple of years working there, so the chance to go out for lunch in a familiar area, and see what had changed, was good.  Discovered a new children’s book shop, Fidra Press, which both sells their own books – reissuing classic school stories, amongst others – and others.  It has a comfy armchair in the window.  I can only say it’s a good job for my bank account that I am no longer working in Bruntsfield…

Coming back on the bus from Juniper Green, happened to get one which goes through Colinton.  This is the route of my memories as a little girl, visiting my grandparents in Edinburgh, and on occasion, going into town on a double decker bus.

Colinton is a good place for overhanging branches, so if you sit upstairs at the front, they fairly thwack the top of the bus, which is exciting when you’re six, and still quite interesting when you’re thirtysomething…

All these buses pass through Tollcross, where we used to live when we were first married.  Again, with the emergence of both German and Polish master baker shops, it is again helpful for my purse, and my waistline, that we are no longer living there…but worth a thought for a return visit.

Now I could do all this on a regular day, it’s true.  But travelling at this time of year, with thick frost, with mistiness as you come down the hill into Edinburgh and see the lights below, with shop windows lit up and families out and about having pre-Christmas treats at the theatre or cinema…It’s not so different to being six again.  The warmth of the bus, the extended journeys on each route, lull you into a state of observing, watching though drowsy, like a child on a long trip home.

This is my city.  I may not always have lived here.  But I have been here for over a third of my life now, and I love the fact that I have memories of it before that.

I remember Slateford Road before all the new developments were built.  When you could park on a muddy bit of land where the Western approach road now hums between banks and leisure centres in order to visit Princes Street.  When there was still a cafe at the top of Habitat on Shandwick Place.

Yesterday, standing by Tollcross, waiting to change buses, a car swung by, and someone leaned out of the window to shout “Merry Christmas!”  I can still feel the size of my smile about it, writing today.