Season's Greetings to you all (at last)
[Update completed circa midnight. ]

 

I really had to pester Alice to get this done before the New Year!

But better late than never, as they say.

Ba was thrilled to bits to have her name as the first on this - but since she's at the left, it seemed just logical to me. She really liked the little Nativity scene, and I liked the clear glass bauble, so we were both happy with the rather hastily contrived photo shoot.  

Update 

Ba seemed upset that you can't really see the tiny Nativity scene properly on the card above, especially so as we took ages to choose it, with much deliberation, from several similar ones at the Christmas outdoor market, several weeks ago.

So Alice created another image for you to look at the detail. Click on it to get the bigger version. [Same goes for all the photos here.] It's even smaller than you might think, its base is just the green bit, but we set it on top of an artisitic slice of branch - elm, I think. And that's too long a story for today . . .

I told Alice she's not to take any photos of us sitting in front of a newly cooked Christmas dinner. We did that to death an earlier year.

So here's a before one instead. There's stuffed chicken breasts (insides revealed in due course - pun!) lots of veg to roast (I like the golden beetroot and the parsnip best) bacon rolls with stuffing, venison sausages (posh!) and pork chipolatas (traditional). There's green veg (healthy) to put on later. You can just see the onion and mushroom gravy in the red pan. Should the full stops come inside or outside of the brackets?? Oh dear, never mind.

Does Ba's precarious perch on the handle remind you of anyone? That's a literary poser (pun again, hee hee!) from our favourite author (hint). Answer further down.

And here's the after one: deliberately cooked extras as "left-overs" for Boxing Day. Now you can see, if you click again, the chicken breasts were stuffed with fresh herbs, a slice of onion, and a slice of orange. Pretty, as well as extremely tasty. You should try it.

Why Boxing Day? It's nothing to do with that nasty pugilistic sport. Traditionally, the 26th December was given to servants as a day off, because they had to work on Christmas Day. As they left the house their employers would give them a box of goodies, which they would then share with their families. See Wikipedia.

We watched rather more TV than usual, not only the Doctor Who special (that Peter Capaldi is quite sprightly, despite the wrinkles, isn't he?) and the sad end of Downton Abbey (sad it's ended that is, not all of the content) with our wonderful Maggie Smith, but also a new Shaun the Sheep movie.

Alice said we were obliged to see it as he's a relative of Ba's. Actually she really loves these all these Aardman stop-motion productions and wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Here's the final stage of the feasting: some yummy special cheeses with a small glass of Late Bottled Vintage Port, and a couple of those heavenly M&S Cherry Liqueur dark chocolates.

Answer to the question above? In Through the Looking Glass, Alice takes hold of the end of the White King's pencil and places the words "The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He balances very badly" in his memorandum book. As she is invisible to him at this point, he is most alarmed, and tells his Queen, I really must get a thinner pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit; it writes all manner of things that I don’t intend!

See the whole chapter on Lenny's wonderful site about all things relating to the Alice books.

We'll update you with even more as soon as we can - promise.

Catching up a bit, and introducing Ba 

At last, I've persuaded Alice to stop imagining we're ever going to catch up with everything we've missed out since June or so. So here's a few photos to give you the idea. To fit several of them in, and not have to dictate screeds of information to fit in the spaces, I've insisted we keep the images small here, but if you click on them, you can admire them in a larger size!

Ba and I have done quite a bit of travelling around with Alice now - but I never got round to introducing my new friend properly in the right context!

It all started when Alice went to Yorkshire, and met up with a friend to Do Art - again. The  hotel in Wakefield was ever so nice, and I got my very own toothbrush! Alice said it wasn't really for me, but just because she'd forgotten hers... Spoilsport!

We went first to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It's just huge, and took all day to go round. Ba would have loved it, I'm sure, being mostly out of doors, but we hadn't met her yet...

I think this was my favourite piece. Sitting is simply gigantic, one of  Sophie Ryder's versions of her mythic "Lady Hare". Its body is modelled on her own.

We saw loads of Barbara Hepworth stuff at the Hepworth Wakefield. She's the one that makes sculptures with holes in, like this. You want to stroke them - they're so sensual, aren't they? - but they don't let you.

I was taken with the heron outside. It's one of the Faceless Arts performance pieces. There's a real heron that can often be seen in the river nearby, and we did!

After the friend went home, we visited the cathedral, where I was overwhelmed by the maze and admired one of the misericords in the 15th-century choir stalls. Was it a misery to stand for the long services?

Then we took a side-trip to Bradford, to visit theNational Media Museum. Alice had to wear her trendy NeverEnding Film Title T-shirt, being the show-off she is. She got it via Letterboxd, where a friend writes jolly good reviews. [Those in the know will understand why I need to be so extremely complimentary. Don't ask, it's complicated . . . ]

Here it was we rescued Ba, from a REDUCED box in the shop. Although she can only say Baaa, she's most expressive with it. Think Hodor - go on, check him out this time! We've already told you this bit in July's post.

Ba was rather anxious about sitting on a Dalek for the photo as Dr Who, in all his guises, has had trouble with them ever since 1963. So I reassured her he'd fully deactivated this one for good.

After that, Ba came with us on Alice's Arvon Foundation Writers' Retreat at Lumb Bank.

We went on lots of absolutely beautiful long country walks.

 Well, Alice did do the actual walking.

We were near the little village of Heptonstall, so we paid a visit to Sylvia Plath's grave. What a talented poet, but what a sad ending to her life. See this New York Times review of two biographies.

Yes, in case you're asking, Alice did write some poems herself when she was on the retreat. She thinks all that walking helped arouse the inspiration from its slumber in her subconscious.
Search me. I wouldn't know.

Then we had to head home again via the sprawling station in Leeds.

Luckily we had time to pause, have lunch and find the right platform.

That's all for now, folks. I hope we don't have to wait so long for Alice to find time to write the next post and bring you a bit more up to date.

And don't forget to click on the photos, will you!

We are still here! 

 And just to prove it, here we are with a newly re-planted window box - viola and chrysanthemums. Alice carefully collected the Nasturtium seeds from the previous lot, and we hope they'll germinate for next year. Ba says we don't do enough being "In Nature" and sitting in a window box for a photo shoot just isn't the same.

She much preferred it when we went to the Botanic Gardens recently, though she found John Chamberlain's sculptures ridiculous and boring. Alice and I loved them. But there's more on that still to come under the heading of Edinburgh Festival: the Botanic Gardens. Watch this space. Patiently.

So we will be back again in due course, with more about the Festival. It would have been sooner, but Alice took so very many photos, and hasn't quite finished editing all of them yet (let alone the promised ones from Yorkshire) plus she's been as busy as ever with her usual life occupations.

One of those I like joining in with is watching interesting and unusual films. Mind you, we're not too highbrow to miss a good block-buster like Mad Max: Fury Road (Alice enjoyed it so much, we saw it twice) and we're looking forward to the new James Bond, Spectre, especially after watching the trailer on YouTube. Then she's just acquired a video of Jodorowski's latest offering, The Dance of Reality, to add to the waiting heap. AND she still goes to her various U3A groups and Five Rhythms dancing. So of course the dusting comes last on any list.

Guess what, recently she began learning Flamenco too! Yeh, really. She's always admired its energy and bravura, and saw some in the Festival, like the one to the right. The best, she reckons, was Israel Galván's Lo Real. It wasn't very traditional and some critics didn't like it, but Alice was in raptures. "He kept those wonderful rhythms," she protested. The BBC has an excellent video with excerpts and an interview, so decide for yourself.

There's life in the old girl yet . . .

Updates, Headlines (well, one anyway) and Trailers (at last?)

Update #1 - Smartphone

Yes, we've finally got one of those Smartphones. I say At last, 'cause Alice has been holding off for just ages.

Firstly, she was anxious about the expense. Gosh, we have been spending like crazy lately. I say, You only live once, enjoy it while you can! She's anxious about potential disasters that might need her to dip into her tiny and diminishing pot of savings - like the pending (for years now) roof repair. But since she's no longer Underground, she might even try and sort that out herself. I bet she will, too: she can be exceedingly efficient when she gets stuck in, you know. [Blushes from Alice here, though she is still typing it in... ]

And, then of course, her poor overworked Credit Card had already been loaded with the cost of tickets for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the upcoming Book Festival, and the Fringe too. Summerhall had cunningly sent her an email and when she looked at their site, several shows appealed. Dance Base too. But, I said, That's even more fun to look forward to in August! Not to mention the wonderful special screenings at the good old Cameo, like the Gala of Amy (with all the Q & A afterwards) an RSC production of Othello with a black Iago in September, and good old Cumberbatch as Hamlet in October. I know, that's a lot of links we've given you here: but do look at some of them, please. And watch this space. . .

Secondly, she wasn't sure how she'd manage to learn a whole new bunch of skills, like tapping, pressing, and swiping plus trying to type on a virtual keboard. And what on earth is  the difference between "Aps" and "Widgets"? [Where do you humans come up with these fanciful names!] She's still finding it quite frustrating trying to negotiate websites without being able to SEE all her open tabs by name. And so on.  

Hacker's Keyboard logo

Well, we'd only had the thing three days or so, and she was on it almost non-stop: there was quite a lot of swearing and Where's it gone! Yet she'd soon downloaded an alternative keyboard called Hacker's (but really nothing to do with hacking, unless, I suppose, you are a clandestine hacker) which has  V   <  and  >  keys to move the cursor to get to the inevitable mistakes that need correcting. Much better than the generic Android keyboard with that horrible little green line+blob thingy which never moved where she wanted it to and only had an <x> which just deletes the last character put it. So now she's happier about that bit, anyway. Me, I just watch it all in amazement.

As you can see in the first photo above, she sent for a "universal" (Hhh!) "sock", but it was too small, so Ba appropriated it for a cozy sleeping bag. Then Alice took it over as a protective cover for her beloved iPod, and made a stripey one for the phone, out of - a sock! That's true Alice ingenuity, just like her namesake.

Update #2 - Preparing for the Festival
 

Alice was off to the Fringe Office yesterday, to collect a few more tickets. The High Street is already full of buskers and performers and stalls. So of course, she had to stop and look.

This talented young woman was applying henna patterns.  Alice succumbed. It takes about half an hour to dry into the skin, before the paste can be removed. Then it's tarra, tarraah.

So we spent the time in the upstairs of one of those Coffee Chains, reading over the Fringe Program and making our final decisions.

[Click on these tiny little pix to see the details.]

Headline #1 - Film Festival
We'll never arrive at the Trailers if we spend too long on the wonderful Film Festival, so here's a few snippets instead.

Desert Dancer
Alice's favourite was Desert Dancer, which she saw on the second night of the UK premiere. The film was a drama about the dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who defied the Iranian authorities by setting up an underground dance company, was imprisoned, and later escaped to Paris. Another audience member wrote a very good review on her blog. 

The photo is from Richard Raymond's delighted Tweet. "The last #DesertDancer screening & the audience breaks into V for victory Words can not express thanku." It was actually great fun to do, as well as very moving. Alice has (somewhat childishly, I think) indicated herself with an arrow. [Click to see larger, as usual.]

Under Milk Wood  

The 2015 version of Under Milk Wood is an amazingly creative and imaginative reworking of Dylan Thomas' work. It's visually completely stunning: incredible cimematography and editing. Acting, costumes and singing all top notch. Wow all round.

It's also hilariously amusing, I must point out, before Alice swoons away altogether. In fact she went up afterwards and spoke to the cinematographer, Andy Hollis, and effusively voiced her appreciation. When she said the opening tracking shot was "very Tarkovsky", he told her he'd filmed it with a miniature camera attched to a remote contolled model helicopter!

On YouTube Rhys Ifans describes it as A beautiful, visual, sonic banquet of a film. The clip is as good as a trailer: take a look. General release isn't due til November, so put it on your watchlist. Get one for yourself on Letterboxd.

Last Days in the Desert
Alice had managed to buy a ticket to hear Ewan McGregor give a very relaxed, spontaneous and lively interview about his life in acting and film. See an excellent account on wandywatson's blog. He also touched on how he came to take his role/s in Last Days in the Desert, where he plays both Jesus and the Devil. Get more details in his  interesting press interview, posted by EIFF on YouTube.

Later we saw the actual film: slow, meditative, hardly any background music (or maybe even none at all) unusual and intriguing. This is a film about the biblical Jesus that treats him as a believably real individual, albeit one who has issues with his father / Father.

Haskell Wexler

Alice especially enjoys listening to (and seeing) directors, cinematographers and actors talk about film in general, or their experience and work on a particluar film. For a few festivals in the past this element disappeared from the EIFF programme, because of losing out on some grants - so it was great to see it come back. Even famous workers in cinema love to recieve appreciation, as well as curiosity about their films.

Haskell Wexler, at 93, was one hell of a phenomenon all to himself. Have a look at the EIFF Clip Reel of his films. It became clear what a passionate, politically committed individual he is. You can also see clips from his film Who Needs Sleep, edited by EIFF with excerpts from the following Q&A. We were there! Alice has pre-ordered a copy of his Medium Cool movie - which appeals to her especially since she remembers all the political upheavals of the 60's.

This catching-up lark has taken us into the wee small hours again - so the promised Trailers will have to wait a few more days. Sorry, folks, but sleep calls.

News Bites and Trailers   

Orion

We're still here!  

In case you've been wondering why we haven't written a post on here for simpy ages and ages, and might even have worried that Alice had plunged back Underground: do not fear! We've just been so frightfully busy (as you'll learn) that we haven't had time to get down to composing anything at all - though we've got zillions of photos waiting to be edited. 

Do remember to click on any of the images to see them larger, won't you: open in a new tab for full size. And please check out the links. Dear Alice spends hours finding the best ones she can.

An aside

When Alice was still young enough to live with her parents, and her mother wanted her to tidy her room or make her bed (all that boring stuff that mothers frequently want done, when there are far more interesting activies, like finding the constellation of Orion, or going on a bike ride over The Downs) she'd get exasperated and shout, I haven't had time! Then her mother would reply, I'll get that engraved on your tombstone, you say it so often. 

Which of course would depend on her mother outliving her. Which she didn't. Alice thinks it would actually be a wonderful epitaph: it would mean she had always liked doing loads of different things and was never bored. That's a life well worth living, I say!

Headlines etc

So, for the time being we're going to leave you with a few headlines and some so-called "bites" (what silly terminology - but that's humans for you) about recent events, and then some trailers of what's to come later on. Like in the cinema.
 
Window Boxes 
You know we like to keep a watch on the flowers braving the elements (and Alice's periods of neglect) and, as you can see, we've got Marigolds, blue trailing Lobelia and now, Taraar! the Nasturtiums are blooming too. Aaaah.
A New Friend
We've been on holiday, in Yorkshire (lots to tell you about that) and in the National Media Museum (that as well) we encountered a poor soul languishing in a box marked REDUCED. So I pleaded until Alice relented, and Ba has joined our little household.

Ba likes flowers too, but prefers them in the wild. She loves being out of doors, but doesn't seem to be keen on Doing Art like us, or going to the movies either. In fact, she can't talk at all, apart from to say Baaa. But she's most expressive with it. Think Hodor. Who's he? Check him out. 

Press Gang      

After getting to the end of all of Shakespeare's plays (Alice went out in a blaze of glory, playing Prospero - like Helen Mirren did) she joined a new U3A group, where folk bring along newspaper cuttings that have interested them, and they discuss the content together. Suits her no end as she loves a good argy-bargy, and it means she reads the papers more often.

The flat is now littered with heaps of the Metro, the Radio Times, the i and the pro Scottish Independence paper, The National - all waiting to be recycled, of course. Guess what else this group does? Like all the others do. 
Click on the photo: your answer's there.

Tea and scones 

"Arthur R Wallace" in the Botanic Gardens

Talking of which (or not) we've seen our eccentric friend from Harvieston (the one who likes to imagine he's a re-incarnation of Alfred Russel Wallace) a couple of times recently. He invited us to a Sunday afternoon Salon, with scones, cream and jam; cups of tea, and promised intelligent conversation with his other guests. 

Alice is convinced that wheat disagrees with her, so she decided to make her own scones. Aah now, she wasn't sure how much baking powder to add (it didn't say on the container) and probably put in too little, while clearly rolling out the dough much too thin. 

They might have made fairly palatable biscuits, I thought. She reminded me she'd added some spices and mixed raisins, declaring them a very tasty first experiment, but nevertheless proceeded to lather on the clotted cream and blackcurrant jam pretty thick. No-one else turned up. It was the first such event our friend had offered. Anyway we enjoyed the trip there and back; being away from the city, and the convivial chat for two. We'll let you know how the scones turn out next time round. That's next week. 

New Art Gallery  

Looking through the window

While shopping in the town, we encountered what appeared to be a new art gallery. Alice, being a right nosey so-and-so (she says she has "a livley curiosity") went in and started asking questions. It was being run by a bunch of ex art students, who told her they'd leased a disused shop for a year, and invited us to come to the opening.

Detail of the item to the left

So we did. Very bizarre it was. We have got quite a few photos, but I suspect we won't get round to writing about it at length, not with all the Yorkshire stuff and other events still lined up. So's here a little group of images for you to browse.

Our favourite exhibit, which included some taxidermy

Detail of the wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie. Aaah

I couldn't see anything at all!

 [ See Faith Eliott's blog for more of her work. She's on Facebook as well. ]

Alice is getting somewhat tired and muttering about too many parentheses, so we reluctantly went to bed here before getting to The Trailers. Sigh.

[ To be resumed. . . . ] 

Summertime and a Winter warning 

The trouble with delayed shutter release is that Alice couldn't see exactly how I was positioned. Winter is Coming is good and clear though.  [Click the images.]





 Why this particular hoodie? Oh dear. Alice is such a fan of Game of Thrones that when she saw the lurid garment in a local shop (not HBO!) she just had to buy it. Tastes do differ, sometimes considerably so.

This is a somewhat better position for me, I think. On the subject of Winter in Westeros, see this article and another one here too.

Yesterday we experienced our first really summery day this year, with blossoms on the trees everywhere.

We were on the green green Meadows, where folk were enjoying the sunshine, eating sandwiches, using their smart phones (they just can't leave them alone, it seems) reading, playing ball games and all that usual human outdoor activity.

So we had a picnic on the grass.

Oh, those little Pepperami are so scrumptious! And yoghurt coated raisins are simply to die for!

Like that other Alice, we were considering whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies.

But sadly no White Rabbit passed us by.

So I had some more crisps, and a drink of Peach, Camomile & Green Tea (it's really most refreshing) before we admired the blossoms once more.

Then we sinfully went to the cinema (on a sunny day!) to see The Salvation.  Wow!

We're off on our little jaunt to Yorkshire soon. Watch this space. . . .