Still here. . .  
and 
A Song of Ice and Fire

We are still here, despite indications to the contrary. Alice has been what she's called "Underground". That's really a euphemism, as you've probably worked out. Now there's a lovely word, isn't it? It even means "sounds nice". Humpty would have paid that one extra, I'm sure. I digress, but you must be used to that by now. In fact she's been overwhelmed by a sea of problems - personal, psychological, and practical - especially plumbing. All of which are "p" words, you'll notice. Odd, isn't it?

And we may as well add political, too. The Scottish Independence Referendum looms ever closer, and Alice has gone from Yes to No, to Yes again, and right now she's just Perplexed - another "p" to add to the mix. She's been anti-nuclear since forever, so it's hard for her to weigh that against all the confusion there seems to be over the financial implications. Sigh. But that's human politics for you. I just think we should all be nice to each-other, but she says I'm being simplistic.

I'm worried that she's been playing an awful lot of Mahjong Titans on her computer, far more than can be good for her. I think she's addicted, but she says it calms her down. Or is it a kind of freezing-over, I ask. It's a Solitaire game of matching, using these Chinese tiles: 144 of them, rather than the mere 52 of a standard card pack. I admit they are very pretty indeed, and the different lay-outs are named after animals. But no Monkey, however, so I just find it boring.  [Click on the images to see a bit bigger...]

The Computer plays a mean game of chess as well, but Alice is not able to think far enough ahead to do anything more than win by chance now and then at the very easiest level. She's always admitted her block, and has even consented to type that bit of information here! And that's despite all the chess characters like the White Knight in her namesake's adventures Through the Looking Glass.

In the book, she pulled him out when he got stuck, but I'm not big enough to do that for her now. She thanks me for  encouraging her to write this: and says it is a kind of pulling out. Fingers crossed, folks.

One of our followers (at least) has been concerned about this lack of blogging. But since we have recently been to an event worth mentioning, I've persuaded her to write a little about it. A friend got Alice a ticket to accompany her to hear George R R Martin at the Edinburgh Book Festival, given as how she loves his Song of Ice and Fire books, and has box sets of all the HBO TV Game of Thrones series. [Beware spoilers on any site about either of these. You have been warned!] As he wrote himself, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one." A Guardian report includes some quotes from the talk.

We did enjoy seeing him live. He talked about his literary forebears, both fantasy and horror, including Tolkien of course. Less obviously (to us at least) he admired Marvel Comics' Stan Lee who created the Fantastic Four superheroes.

His own characters, though, are never 100% villains, or completely good. That's one of the things Alice likes so much about his writing: they are all well rounded, they face moral dilemmas, and are changeable.

GRRM's reality influences included standing on Hadrian's Wall; the Wars of the Roses; plus some of the bloody events in Scottish history, such as the Glencoe Massacre and the Black Dinner  [scroll down this link]. If you don't know what episodes in the books are herein referred to - you have that pleasure still to come.

He started writing what he thought was a trilogy in the 1990's, and it's still unfinished, with five so-called "books" published - actually seven thick wedges of print. No-one at this event asked when he was going to finish it. Just as well, as there's a joke (we hope) online somewhere that whenever he gets asked that, he kills off another of our favourite characters! Alice asked him whether, when he began, he knew how he would end the epic and who would die en route. And had he changed his mind about any of that? The answer was Yes to the first, No the second.

He was amazed at first at all the fan websites with their many speculations and arguments about some deliberate mysteries in the plot, and the unknown ending. Only a few of the guesses were right. No-one in the audience (or the author himself) gave anything away or even suggested any of the answers. Good! In fact, even though he likes to surprise his readers, he won't alter his planned to-be-revealed solutions: he's planted clues saying "the butler did it", so he can't now turn round and say "it was the chambermaid". Our lips are sealed.

His favourite characters are probably Tyrion and Arya: they're Alice's too. Here's an early (so almost no spoilers) introduction to Tyrion on YouTube, and a similar one for the feisty wee lassie.

The photo is of Maisie Williams as Arya with her sword, named Needle. Why? Because she hated sewing but loved having very own weapon.

Sorry...

It seems Alice's trip "Underground", mentioned in our previous post below has turned into something a little longer-lasting, more akin to Persephone's sojourn in Pluto's murky underworld.

The encompassing gloom and the length of it, however, is just about where any similarity ends, as she hasn't eaten a pomegranate, and there's no sign (yet, I keep telling her) of rescue by a Demeter figure (perhaps she's within, I've tried hinting). She complains the season's not strictly correct, either, quoting April is the cruelest month at me. She even gave up on finding a good link to this, so you'll have to search one out yourself if you don't know (hint: it's from T S Eliot). Alice also insists a blog is not the place for diagnosis or prognosis.

Still, I did manage to get her to find a nice image for you lot out there. Of course, she protested she doesn't feel anything like as darkly romantic as Rossetti's painting, and something by Tracey Emin would have been far more appropriate. Sigh.

Just be patient, please.

Mind about the gap?
This is just by way of letting you know, in case you were worried, that we haven't totally given up on our blog: but Alice is in a bit of a psychological Underground just now. 

No, we don't mean the Lewis Carroll one. Or didn't you know that the original title of Dodgson's manuscript was actually Alice's Adventures under Ground? 

You can see his own charming illustrations and careful handwriting at this link to Lenny's wonderful Alice site.

Mind you, our Alice does say she feels (just sometimes) as though she's in a perplexing dream like that and wishes she could wake up.

Which she will, of course, in her own good time. I reckon that just bothering to write this brief apology is a propitious sign of her eventual emergence.

Talking of emergence, here's a cheery Spring-like photo of yours truly with our successfully bloomimg and sweetly smelling indoor hyacinth, plus some daffs from the supermarket, and a sweet little rose-bud we found on the stair. The window boxes are still suffering from the bitter cold, however.

Meanwhile we're secretly hoping you do "Mind the gap" without us.

But is it Art? 

We're so far behind that this is somewhat out of date, but we wanted to fill the gap.

Our afore mentioned visitor was an old (re-discovered) university friend of Alice's, who brought us these super goodies, including some lovely blooming iris. We got through the chocolates pretty fast, but the whiskey lasted just a bit longer.

We met her at the station, and went for a refreshing cup of tea in the Fruitmarket Gallery Cafe, round the corner.

We had a quick look at this exhibition. Louise Bourgeois is (or was, she died in 2010) a prolific, unusual and apparently very influential artist.

We saw some gigantic works on paper, made towards the end of her life: a mixture of writing, drawing and printmaking. The leaflet called them "both haunted and haunting". They were full of bizarre biological images, and statements like I distance my self from myself.

Personally I found them lurid and nightmarish, and not a lot of fun at all. Alice didn't say much, but did mutter she preferred Tracey Emin for that sort of personal stuff - at least she has a sense of humour.

Oh well, it certainly takes all sorts, especially in Art.  Of which there was more the next day.

We took a walk along part of the Water of Leith.

[Click on the images to see larger.]

Pretty berries aren't they?

Then we climbed the back steps up to Gallery of Modern Art. And there were snowdrops out here too! I do love being in Nature.

In the garden was our old friend Henry Moore's Reclining Figure,Two Piece. 

It used to live in the Botanic Gardens, and Alice is often reminiscing how her sons used to climb around it and in it when they were small.

We went to see, wait for it - yes, more of Louise Bourgeois.



But as you can tell from the poster, this was very different indeed. There were lots of intriguing objects made from varying materials. I particulary liked her Couple 1 featured here, despite them having no heads. But I wasn't allowed to climb and swing on it. Boo, hoo.

Check out the Gallery's website on the exhibition, and look at the links to the video and so on.

After a delicious salad in the cafe, we managed to get seats on the little Gallery bus into town, and were treated to an unofficial, but most entertaining guide by the driver.

Alice's friend wanted us to go up Arthur's Seat, but  it was too far for the time of day (not to mention our legs) and is actually a much higher peak than it looks.

We made do with Calton Hill instead.

There are great views of the city, as well as over the Forth on the other side.

Up there a surprise awaited us.

Collective, a contemporary art organisation, is due to open in the old City Observatory on the hill later this year, but meanwhile is putting on events in a portacabin.

The three of us got to be the total audience for a strange theatre piece called Anti-VWAP. There was a pallet of bottles of water, with an actor doing physical exercises, inviting us to join in, and talking about some strange financial scheme I didn't understand at all.

If you want to be further puzzled, there's a review in this is tomorrow.

Sometime after our visitor departed, Alice and I went back to the Fruitmarket Gallery to examine Louise Borgeois' 220 Insomnia Drawings, created during an eight month period of insomnia over the winter of 1994-95, when she was struggling with deep anxieties.

Well, need I say any more? She certainly has our sympathy, but some things are not meant for public display.

The book I'm sitting on, however, had a good image of one of her many giant spider sculptures, an example of  which I really loved in the other exhibition - you could walk right under it. She identified the positive aspects of spiders with her mother, a weaver.

I will embarrass Alice by insisting that we note she had her birthday during our break from blogging.

She didn't really celebrate, as she was rather "in the doldrums" at the time. You look it up, this once.

I won't go so far as to mention the exact date, or her venerable age, but I will reveal that she is an Aquarian and seems to fit the bill.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible 

 Sorry folks for the gap in writing.

Alice has been awfully busy, preparing for and then entertaining a visitor (maybe we'll tell you about that later); getting ready for a new super-fast computer (lots and lots of backing-up); being somewhat poorly for the better part of two weeks (we won't go into the details here);  then trying to set up the new machine (partial success, but she lost one of her  passwords and some programs just won't work!) So you see, you'll have to be patient with us.

Doesn't that image above make the whole page look squint? Weird. It was the best we could find that didn't need any editing - technical difficulties there too. Oh well, bye for now!

Twelfth Day 

We've now had the traditional Twelfth Night of Christmas - or whatever religious feast or pagan festival you actually celebrated. See our post on December 19th for all that stuff. So today is the twelfth day - depending when you start the count, of course. And there's that song, too, which maybe had special hidden meanings!

The twelfth day is supposedly when the three Magi, or wise men, or astrologers, or kings (if they really did exist at all) arrived to see the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. It's also the time when more heathen celebrations took place. See what we said last year about that.

I'm quite sad to be taking down the decorations and cards, they cheer the whole place up, but we can't postpone it much longer or it'll be the thirteenth day and bad luck, or so they say ...

Alice has spent some time today revising her Annual Budget, based on last year's bills. Sounds a rather boring activity to me, but she seems to really enjoy compiling her system for keeping In the Black. She even uses Excel to keep track. I've protested that she's about to splash out an awful lot of £££ on a new super-fast computer, just so she can edit video! Pretensions of fame?

But this will be a deduction from her "Big Money" savings, not the monthly "Little Money", she says.

Little Money? Actually old duodecimal coins.

Pound and ten shilling notes

I even quoted the famous Micawber saying from Dickens:  
    Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.

It's especially pertinent as Alice is old enough to remember the pounds, shillings and pence which didn't get replaced by decimal until 1971. But to no avail.

Instead she got sentimental about the little Farthing coins, worth a quarter of an old penny, one forty-eighth of an old shilling, and 1/960 of a pound. That's roughly 0.1042 new pence. It used to buy a single "chew" in a sweetie shop.

This image is enlarged, it was only 20mm in diameter.
It is pretty though, isn't it?

These attractive coins went out of circulation in 1961. Alice had a collection of them when she was a child, and never forgave her mother for throwing them away! If only she'd known you can sell them on eBay, we might be rich.

Enough procrastination: stop blogging and finish taking down the decorations. Then supper.

Happy New Year! 

Not too late to wish you all the best for 2014, I hope. Exactly how happy you're feeling about it right now might depend somewhat on how much the weather is affecting you. 

Where we are, it's mostly just very wet and windy, and Alice is putting off going to the supermarket until it calms down a bit.

Some people here have had a really terrible time with yet more predicted to come.

Looking for weather information, we found some rather pretty images, even if what they actually mean is trouble...

Click on them to see the real beauty. Better still, open in a new tab for full size. [You can do this with any of our images, as I'm sure most of you realise. However, some newcomers may not be aware of this blog feature.]

The one on the right came from Reigate Grammar School Weather Station website, with lots of other interesting charts. The one on the left came from NOAA. We got it via good old Google, but couldn't find the original. [The link is to Google's 2013 Zeitgeist video. I do so love diversions.]

Noah in the Bible

Russell Crowe in  "Noah"

Despite the current floods, NOAA is nothing to do with Noah in the Bible. It's the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

You can bet we'll be looking out for this Noah in March. Alice admires Darren Aronofsky, plus she's a Russell Crowe fan, and wouldn't miss it for anything.

Tee hee, she's blushing!

But enough on the dire weather situation. It's time to share a few of our Seasonal Celebration highlights. I thoroughly enjoy all the fuss and trimmings that go with Christmas / Yule / Winter Solstice, as you can read in our previous Post - below this.

This is me opening the last door in my Advent Calendar. Yummy chocolate Santas. Alice has a passion for dark chocolate cherry liqueurs. She got through even more than twenty-four, though there's still a few left in the second box.

We did our special meal on the 24th, so we could spend the 25th nibbling the delicious left-overs. Here it is, waiting for roasting. 

Just as the whole enterprise was almost complete, and the green veg were on the hob, Alice had a "John Cleese moment". She re-arranged the baking trays, and - Crash! - one tipped over the back of the shelf onto the gas jets below. There was swearing. Only a quarter of the jets still functioned. A lot more swearing. [Two days later she finally put her head in the oven and managed to poke out the congealed fat.]

When all was on the table at last, we had a feast much like last year's, apart from golden beetroot instead of red: less messy and just as gloriously earthy tasting.

The next day we enjoyed avocado salad, wonderful remains, DIY Buck's Fizz and some Mateus Rosé, while watching Toy Story 3.  That's a fun film, but a touch sad as well.

I think my favourite treat was the cheese board, with a little glass of Late Bottled Vintage port. Alice is a self-confessed cheese addict and is going for a repeat - right now.

We headed off to see Alice's grandchildren just before New Year. They spent some time trying out ice-skating in a special youngsters and parents session.

 The ice-zimmers (as Alice called them) looked great, but I didn't risk having a go.

What if someone had run over me by accident? Doesn't bear thinking about.

To finish, here's my photo taken under the tree with all the carefuly wrapped presents.

The kids didn't let them stay that way for long, of course. Ripping paper is too much fun.

I hope you got what you wanted, too, and had an enjoyable time over the holiday.