A Domino Effect

One unintended consequence of just how fast this year is going is that I hadn’t taken a trip home to visit my family since the Christmas holidays.  So this weekend, with it being Easter and all, I packed a train picnic, a stack of library books and some thermals to wear at Aberdeen train station (the coldest place on earth, in my opinion)…

My family lives in a tiny village on Scotland’s north-east coast.  We moved there when I was 10.  At the time, I was devasted and it took me months to accept that my parents weren’t upping sticks from our previous life just to make mine difficult (they really weren’t!).  Over the years, however, I’ve come to appreciate growing up in a small town miles from “anywhere” as one of the biggest blessings in my life.  My friends and I had boundless freedom compared to some kids growing up in the city, and because we couldn’t just hop on a bus and go to the cinema without serious advance planning, we had to fashion our own entertainment from what was available to us.  So we rode our bikes, we played tennis, we camped in each others’ back gardens and we built huts out of twigs.  These days, when I visit, I can’t swing my overnight bag without a wave of childhood memories flooding my field of vision.  And while 2012 finds me a bona fide city girl, there’s definitely still a lot of small town love in my heart.

But that’s enough of a ramble down memory lane for a Monday morning!  Here’s some of what I got up to this weekend:

• Baking an “oh my but that’s sweet” mint aero traybake with my sister on Friday.  After seeing Zoe’s recipe the other day the thought of white chocolate slathered upon minty green fondant filling layered upon chunky, biscuity base just would not leave my head.  The result?  There’s none left for me to photograph.  My Dad took to calling it Death by Chocolate, which I would say is pretty accurate.  Cut into very, very small squares unless you’re up for an impromptu trip to the moon.
• Playing with four of the tiniest kittens I’ve ever seen (and consequently pondering getting a cat of my own, only to quickly conclude that I’m in no way responsible enough).  But seriously, these little guys were adorable.  They had tiny fluffy heads and the cutest splashes of black, white and ginger marking.  I could have cooed over them all day.
• Reading Wuthering Heights on two long train journeys.  I’ve tried to think of a reasonably eloquent way to describe this book but I can’t.  All I will say is that THIS is how love should be written.  Authors of trashy chick lit should please take note.
• Walking along the beach (above) in the wind and the rain.  The beach at home is one of my favourite places in the world, and it’s particularly special when the weather is bleak and there’s no one else around.  It kind of feels like it’s all mine then.
• Crocheting like a crazy M-F-er.  Remember the wool I wrote about here?  I’ve almost completed its transformation into a blanket.  I had so many wide open windows of time to make it grow over the weekend and my but it’s satisfying to see your own handiwork expand before your very eyes!  My Mum is a die-hard crochet fan these days as well, and we sat for hours this weekend “projecting” together.  Lots of fun.
• Mountain biking around some cliffs with my Dad and brother.  I thought my thirst for cycling was already unquenchable.  It seems not.  This was the most exhilirating fun I’ve had perhaps even since I did this (which I still feel sick looking back at).

What have you been doing this Easter?

Images of Cullen above from Flickr – here and here.

Outside of work, I spend at least some small part of each day on the internet.  Sometimes it’s to read, sometimes it’s to write, sometimes it’s simply to check my bank balance, my eBay and the news headlines.  Whatever I’m doing, however, I’m always online to do it.  And while I don’t happen to think that the internet is quite the vortex of eternal time wasting that lots of people see it as (it’s all in the tab management, people), I do sometimes wonder just how much I would get done if, instead of flipping open my laptop in my spare seconds, I ploughed my energies into my projects, or my books or even, heaven forbid, my household chores.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I decided, in packing for caravanning at the weekend, to leave my laptop at home and do just that: other stuff.

As a result, I went through two balls of wool on my latest crochet project (crochet ladies back me up please – that takes a while!), I read upwards of 100 pages to finish one book, and I also got stuck into another.  I found time to drink gallons of coffee in front of the caravan fire, to walk, to eat chilli and ice lollies, to watch Avatar and to take a rather cursory paddle in the (blimmin’ freezing) sea.  I’m not saying that I would have achieved none of this stuff if I’d also been blogging, or thinking about blogging, or reading other peoples’ blogs, but I certainly wouldn’t have done it all.  And it was nice to do it all.  It felt productive, satisfying, like a real achievement.  Someone asked me this morning what I did with my weekend, and for once I didn’t feel flummoxed by the number of hours that had escaped through my finger tips and straight into my Google Reader.  I think the internet is an awesome, adventurous, inspiring place, full of interesting people, great writing and thought-provoking ideas.  Just once in every while, however, I want to make a conscious effort to remind myself 0f just how much life exists in the vast swathes of space outside of the four corners of my screen.

What about you?  Do you ever force yourself to take time offline?

Image above from here.

A list of things I love you say?  Well OK then, but only because it’s Thursday…

Edinburgh sunsets. Tonight’s was a bluey pinky haze that set off all those church spires to perfection.  When Edinburgh looks like this there really is nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.  Of course when it looks like this there are plenty of places I’d rather be.  Swings and roundabouts, chaps, swings and roundabouts.

Swimming. After what feels like an eternity, the Royal Commonwealth Pool is back in business.  When browsing the opening times earlier in the week I came across this page.  It’s a timeline of peoples’ memories about the pool, going right back to the 60s when it opened.  It’s actually quite touching reading about peoples’ memories of school holidays and “chips on the way home”.  I had only been to the pool once prior to it closing for its mammoth refurbishment, as part of a school trip when I was 11.  I went back this evening and was mightily impressed all round, especially with the lane spacing (what? it matters!).  Wide enough to allow me to pass another swimmer without accidentally punching them in the face, not so wide that the lane divider was so far out of my reach that I should worry about drowning.  Such is the standard by which ALL swimming pool lanes should be measured, I think.

The return of The Apprentice. And here I was wondering what would fill the void left by Masterchef.  Disgustingly compelling viewing.

Kit Kat Chunky. Belgian Waffle was talking about these recently, and as soon as the idea had lodged itself in my mind I was all but powerless to say no.  I’m glad I didn’t: these things are lip smackingly delicious.  I think it’s the thickness of the chocolate: a good 5mm either side of the crunchy wafery bit.  No messing around.

Storytime. This week has been all about getting to bed by 10pm and opening up a book.  I’m currently reading A Week in December, and have plans to move onto Shalimar The Clown followed by Wuthering Heights (I’ve bored you all before with tales of my apathy towards “the classics” but given my undying love for Jane Eyre I’m considering making a standing exception for the Brontë sisters.  Considering).

Manning up.  It’s no secret that I hate using the phone.  I wish I loved it, but I don’t.  I wish I could pick up the receiver with abandon, be awesome at the small talk and instinctively just know how to fill all those awkward pauses where neither participant in the conversation actually knows what’s going on.  But I can’t.  Sometimes in life, however, we don’t get the luxury of a choice.  So today, faced with an absolutely unavoidable phone call I decided that I could either freak the eff out or man the eff up.  In the end I managed it, albeit with a small measure of internal bribery (you’re not drinking a SINGLE DROP of coffee until you pick up that piece of plastic and DO THIS THING.  This turned out to be a winning strategy: my feeble phone phobia is small fry compared to my wanton caffeine addiction).  I might have run to the bathroom and fist-pumped the air afterwards.  Might have.

Anyway, more than enough about me.  What’s happening in your world today?

Image above from here.

This weekend has been brilliantly quiet and relaxing.  I wasn’t in any particular need of such a peaceful window of time, but it’s never not nice to enjoy a couple of obligation-free days of reading, walks and cycling in the sunshine, eating pizza and cake, drinking wine and coffee and watching the usual quota of films and TV.  The weather over the past couple of days has been truly Spring-like.  Still nippy enough to warrant a jacket, but dazzlingly sunny nonetheless.  After months of cold, dreary Winter (when we didn’t even get any snow!) it feels so good to finally have the sun on my face again, to look at daffodils, to feel the afternoon light stretch into the evening.  My boyfriend and I cycled along the Union Canal towpath last night, just as the sun was beginning to slink its way down beneath the Pentlands.  The atmosphere down on the canal was almost carnival like in its bustle: dogs, runners, walkers and cyclists, all out to enjoy the first proper day of Spring and to bid a firm goodbye to the shackles of Winter.

The upcoming week holds holiday planning, swimming (I’m excited to visit the newly refurbished Royal Commonwealth Pool here in Edinburgh, which seems to have been closed forever) and -- wait for it -- the start of the 2012 caravan season!  On the blogging front, I’m due to guest post here at some point during the next couple of days.  Congratulations to Paul on his reaching 500 paragraph film reviews (500!).  Keep your eyes peeled blog buds.  In the meantime, enjoy a mash-up (or three) on me.  Found yesterday when I was researching my post on music -- Grease vs Snoop Dogg is my favourite.

I used to come over all paranoid when people asked me what kind of music I liked.  For some bizarre reason I regarded it as one of the most loaded questions there was; one that required an answer worthy of grave head nodding and deep throated ‘mmm-hmm’-ing.  Needless to say, I could never give one.  I always ended up mumbling something about “liking a bit of everything” before retreating into a corner and berating myself for not being very cool.

At one point I actually asked myself whether I was into music at all, so unrefined were my responses to this kind of question.

As I’ve grown up, however, I’ve come to appreciate my taste in music for what it is.  That liking The Four Tops, Rhianna and the Manic Street Preachers in equal measure doesn’t mean I’m not into music, all it means is that I don’t have a particularly niche taste, or a ‘go-to’ genre.  Some days I listen to this and think melancholic thoughts, while other days I listen to this and jump up and down on my bed.  Some days I play Bowie on repeat, other days I watch dance videos from the 90s on YouTube for three hours straight, pining for the lost days of glow sticks and Smirnoff Ice.  My musical proclivities aren’t a reflection of the brains in my head, the people I associate with or the job I do.  They don’t inform my political views, they don’t (usually) inspire my writing and they rarely help me out at pub quizzes, because the chances are high that I’ll nothing about a song apart from the fact that “I LOVE THIS!”..

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  All anyone’s taste in music comes down to is a bunch of songs and artists that we like to listen to because it makes us feel something when we do.  It’s about happiness, expression and creativity, and anyone who tries to make it into an exercise in pretentious oneupmanship is, if I may be so bold, fundamentally missing the point.

So here’s to us, non-niche music lovers!  Now where did I put that Faithless vs Eurythmics mash up…

What’s your taste in music like?