Bulbs, boa, beach, birthday and ... bellows? 
[Updated with a couple more photos and the usual insightful comments. Thursday 11 Feb, 2016.]

It snowed here in the city: you can see what's left on the cars in the background. Alice usually tries to leave them out, or make them fuzzy, as they spoil the important bits of the picture - that's the window boxes and us. This time though, we wanted to emphasise the cold weather.

But the bulbs are coming up all the same. Good on them.

This shows their progress about two weeks later.

It was very chilly and we still needed our winter extras on. Ba's ears are particularly sensitive. She's impatient to have our own little bit of "Proper Nature" nearby. But see: that hyacinth is pushing its way even further up. Isn't nature wonderful?

And now for something completely different. Alice went to a funeral: she did sort-of know the deceased person, but not terribly well, more by repute from a mutual friend of theirs, than in person.

She went along mainly because she knew one of the people who'd be travelling up from England for the event ("Up". Oh dear, there we go again!) and several others who lived much closer, so it was a good chance to catch up with them all.

She got out her special funeral hat for the occasion. This is a very old photo, from her dear Godmother's funeral in 2005. Her face is all blanked out as Alice doesn't want to appear in what is really my blog. We ended up going on a day trip just because of this hat. See below.

I hid in her rucksack during the service, so as not to seem disrespectful in the crematorium chapel. Still, one piece of music played was Yellow Submarine during which most of those gathered joined in with gusto, Alice included.

I got to come out for the "Wake". Technically the term is properly used for the period between the death and the funeral, see Wikipedia. But some people believe it refers to the practice of friends and relatives visiting and sitting beside the body. Sometimes it was even to make sure the "dead" person didn't wake up.

This event was a sort of post-funeral party with food and drink and lots of chat. See this interesting article on changing customs around death today. Everyone had been asked to "dress up", so Alice wore her posh waistcoat, and I had my red feather boa on. No-one really took much notice of me though, so when we got home, we did a mockup of how I should have been posed.

Click on the photo (and any of the others) to see larger versions.

Silly old Alice had managed to lose her special funeral hat, so  a day or two later we went back to the pub to see if they had it. Captain Hook, posted outside the Dalriada, was less scarey in daylight and even Ba was happy to sit on the hilt of his broken-off sword with me. I had to insist that Alice resist the temptation to spend hours and hours digitally "repairing" him... What is she like!

They didn't have the hat, but it had taken an extremely long bus journey to get there, so went out to the beach for some (very) fresh air.

[Later: the hat has apparently been rescued, but hasn't yet found it's way back to Alice.]

It was quite nice to stroll along Portobello prom, but when we tried to sit and admire the view accross the Forth Estuary, we nearly got blown right off our perch! Holding on tight, however, we could admire the sight of snow on the Lomond Hills in Fife. Do click on this one!

The island is Inchkeith. There is some fascinating information about it on Wikipedia and some photos taken on the island at a website intriguingly called Abandoned Scotland. See below for  the guide to the view.

We ventured out onto the beach itself briefly.

There were paw prints as well as those from human shoes beside us. It's a popular spot for taking dogs for walks, whatever the wind and waves are doing.

Although the sea was quite a long way out, the reflections of the sky on the wet sand were very pretty indeed.

[How often do I need to remind you to click on Alice's carefully edited photos? Go on, just do it!]

While Ba was looking for shells in the sand, I sat on the breakwater (well tucked in against the wind) and caught sight of this lovely rainbow.

It was so clear at the time, but it doesn't look quite the same in a photo, I'm afraid.

Ba actually found some really super shells, but they were very sandy and unpleasantly smelly, so had to be washed at home before they and Ba were posed and photogaphed.

Alice so loves doing these photoshoots, and spends just ages "Getting it right." It can become rather tedious for us. She tells me her father was just the same, so she sometimes got fed up herself, back then. Not that her experience seems to have made her any different!

Of course there wasn't all the digital wizardry we have nowadays, just hours in the blacked out bathroom-darkroom.

Look closer. Isn't that big shell gorgeous!
This is the next-best background we could find that was the appropriate beachy colour.

And yes, there has been another birthday in our household. Alice is the only one of us who has a proper one. I think we should invent ones for us two. Choose your own horoscope, as it were.

It's a nice little collection of cards, isn't it? I especially like the colourful stamps on the one from her distant cousin in America. We had to get Alice to buy us the BB8 card, so we could give it to her on her birthday. She's pretty crazy about that new Star Wars droid. Hence all the links in the previous two blogs and this one.

A good friend of Alice's took us to her favourite restaurant: La Tasca, for a special Birthday treat.  

Rapido looked like the best part of the menu - and of course we had an icecream dessert as well!

She also gave her these lovely red tulips, which cheered up Ba no end. 

 She's been very depressed by the dark, cold, wet winter, poor thing. And staying indooors so much doesn't suit her at all.

The flowers are so bright, you might think they're a cheat made of plastic - but I assure you, they really are that super shiny colour. We're looking straight down on them, if you're at all confused by the angle.

Alice took a special photo of just one tulip blossom, looking right into it.

Click on it. Wow!

She played about in her editing programme to create one that was blue with splashes of green, but Ba was so agitated by the un-natural sight, I had to veto it. Alice was rather miffed, as she likes to show off her nifty abilities, but compassion for our suffering friend won through.

"What about the bellows?" you may ask. Aah haa. 

Looks a bit like some big bellows, doesn't it?
Bet you'll never guess where I am.

You'll have to wait for the next post (which could be simply ages yet!) when we'll put you out of your misery and reveal just what and where it really is.

Getting refreshed, and being entertained 

Alice had been catching up on washing clothes and dishes, so she decided the two of us could do with a spot of freshening up as well.

Ba was very nervous indeed, despite the promise of nappy-wearing Fairy magic, because of course she can't swim. Well, neither can I, for that matter. Immersion in any liquid at all is a very weighty matter indeed. Weighty: get it? But Alice reassured us she wouldn't actually put us in the water.

So we were Bold: afterwards soggy, but still in one piece. The rubber-gloved washing lady had been extremely careful. Whew!

Sorry about the dodgey detergent links above, but once found, I simply couldn't resist...

We've put up mainly small photos for this post, as the story is all in the images, and you'll get a better picture (hee, hee!) if you click on them for the larger versions. But we're in them!!

Alice dampened the soft brush you can see here, and rubbed it all over each of us. It was actually intended for scrubbing earth off  vegetables. That felt rather insulting, but she said it was too soft for that job, yet ideal for us. It tickled and made me wriggle all over the place.

She set us to dry off on a towel over the "Do not cover" oil-filled portable radiator in the bathroom. Tut, tut.

I didn't like staring up at the ceiling as there had been nasty leaks from above in the past. But I have no choice but to keep smiling. Sigh. I was much happier the other way up.

This is the the one room in the flat with reds and pinks in it by the way - very soothing. Alice doesn't allow her feminine touch to appear often enough, I said. She just hrrumphed. But she did comment that we smelled really sweet now. Aaah.

You might think this is all a bit trivial and wonder why we haven't been seeing more intellectual, beautiful, challenging, exciting or fun movies recently. Well, we have done, but have been altogether too busy going to the cinema (plus keeping up with the boring stuff of everyday life) to write about them here.

But look at the Film Diary of her close friend "joy-pix". We go to many of the same ones (but not with Ba who finds it all too much). She writes reviews too. Check her out.

We've already recorded in the previous post how very much we loved the latest Star Wars. I do so want us to get our own BB8, but I'm told the amazing, all rolling, remote-controlled one is far too expensive. There's a nice video of her (she's a she) on Amazon, but it's better quality on YouTube, as you can get HD full screen.

So - the quiet little one is now on our Amazon wish list. And it is Alice's birthday quite soon.

Two very interesting recent films were The Danish Girl and Tangerine. [Warning: definitely very adult content at this last link - you have been warned.] Both had transgendered women as the main character/s, but there the similarity ends.

The first is a mainstream production of a serious, sumptuous-looking drama, based on the life of a historical figure, Lili Elbe, with the well known Eddie Redmayne as the lead.

The second was a small budget outrageous romp of a film, shot on modifed iPhones, in the sex-workers' district of L.A., with the brilliant (and beautiful) newcomer Mya Taylor, a transgendered actress.

The first one had Alice in tears in places, the seond eventually had her laughing. She says I'm being overly simplistic, so just look them up - or better still, see them for yourself.

Happy New Year!  

Here's wishing you all the best for 2016, whatever you end up doing...

A bit later than I expect most people do (I won't let on just how much later) we finally got all the decorations on our trees. The bigger tree is decorated only with silver and gold, and Ba's little one with red: very tasteful, don't you think?

I know I keep saying this, but do please click on the photos, to see them in their full glory. That brings up all the ones in any particular post, but only at a size that will fit the window. If you middle click, (or right click & select Open in New Tab) you might get it even bigger still, but just one at a time. We mostly post them as small to leave room for our usual witty banter. OK, OK, our sometimes witty banter. . .

We sat and posed for simply ages, while Alice kept adjusting the flash or the lamp, so it wouldn't look too much like full sunshine: it would be nice to have our joint efforts appreciated!

Quite a few pressies, aren't there? They're to go to the grandchildren and their parents. It'll be fun to see them getting opened when we pay our belated Xmas visit.


We stayed in for that special midnight moment on the 31st, and watched the fireworks on TV. They gave us London's BigBen, of course, but we could hear the Edinburgh fireworks going off from our flat! They showed those a few minutes later, too. There's a video of them on YouTube. We didn't have any traditional whiskey to raise in our glass, but Alice said Cointreau would do just as well.

She wouldn't tell me what her New Year Resolutions were - to avoid me telling her off if she doesn't keep them. Did you make any?

The BBC News did a nice compliation with lots of different firework displays from all round the world. Try this one as well. I say thank goodness there can be enjoyable and decorative explosions for celebrations, rather than the truely horrible ones the world is suffering so much nowadays. Alice often wants to cry at the News, and sometimes she does. That's healthy, I tell her: better than being stoic and all locked in.

We've not kept up to date with all our recent doings, I know. Sorry. Maybe later?

We can't sign off, however, without mentioning that we are not ashamed to be counted among those many who loved the new Star Wars film. In fact, we're going to see it again. Hooray! It's not just the esoteric stuff Alice goes to. Our favourite character is BB-8. He (she / it?) is simply wonderful.

You can now get a fully working, remote controlled miniature BB-8. We so want one!! 

But, of course, it's very expensive. Click on More Info for some prices...
Two different makes are reviewed on YouTube by Timmy's Toy Box.

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!