Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

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. . . . ]