Tuesday 31 October 2017

END OF OCTOBER MISCELLANY

Where has the month gone?  It's Hallowe'en.  As I await the Little People coming to the door this e'en I am going to gather a collection of outstanding events from this month.

In readiness for the Trick or Treaters:

Hunka Munka (IKEA many years ago) on our front door ballustrate awaits the little visitors.

 I made chocolate cupcakes - there is no call for any other type - with 'cobweb' decoration.  I must remember not to let the chocolate icing harden before piping the white 'web'.
Ellie as Snow White and wearing her 'must have' tiara.  She made us laugh recently.  As we came in from the park behind our house she noticed the moon in the evening sky.  "It's broken!" she says.  Yes... it was on the wane with part of it missing!

This is Ishbel this morning. I had prepared the scone dough; she cut them and placed them on the baking sheet.  We have had a few baking session this month in readiness for visitors (Alastair and Co) coming at Christmastime.  We have plans to make a Yule Log.  Often we muck up the recipe but half the Learning to Bake exercise is about resurrecting 'near' disasters. We create a new dish and give it a fancy name.  (Ish loves doing that.  She is a great wordsmith; loves rhymes and puns.)

Fifty years ago Alice gave me a Phillips hand mixer as a wedding present. Like the man who had the 'same' axe all his life, i.e. with three new handles and 2 new heads, this one has now been replaced for the fourth time.  I think of Alice every time I pull it out to use.

I have a problem and if I don't get this sorted my cover is going to be blown. I discovered that good ol' Marks and Spencer sell frozen chocolate chip cookie dough.  It is much better than I make, is quick and easy and worth all £2.45 or whatever it cost.


It is no longer stocked!  E-a-ghghgh!  The photo above is me trying to replicate what they do, namely, make the dough and chop or cut it in slices for freezing.  It really has not been a success.  No taste and runs all over the cookie sheet.

Alastair had his 41st birthday this month.  He wanted a Porche.  Uh???!!!  This is it: a Lego set which came in 4 boxes and a manual an inch think!


Iain and I spent last weekend at Crieff Hydro. The event was a celebration of Canada's 150 centennary with the Canadian Ladies Club.  We had a really nice time.  This big hotel in Perthshire would not normally be my first choice but we had a lovely 'Executive Suite' where we gathered for pre-dinner drinks and got to meet some of the husbands who came along with their wives.

Canadian flages on the dinner table.  The women are mostly like myself, i.e. married Scots and now live here.  A few are Scottish born but were taken to live in Canada as a small child, have Canadian citizenship but have now returned to live in Scotland either on their own or have married and settled back in Scotland.
Iain has been busy writing a paper about engineering but it is more about how to tackle problem solving, i.e. using engineer's way of thinking to solve complex problems. 

This is a silhouette of him ... my take on 'The Thinker'.



  


Sunday 22 October 2017

CANADA VISIT - BOOTH FAMILY PLOT IN MT IDA CEMETERY

While in Salmon Arm Don and I visited Mary in her new home.  The 3 of us joined Pat for lunch where we chatted and Don bumped into folk from town that he knew.  Here he is in the entrance foyer.


Don drove me in his white half ton truck to visit the family grave site out at Mt Ida Cemetery on the west side of Salmon Arm, B.C.


The plot is on the western end of the cemetery not far from the car park.  Some years ago on this blog I have described it ... more when I find it.*


This is the plot.  There are various family members in it some of whose headstones I show below.


Our parents: Margaret and Allen Booth


My paternal grandfather, John Cousins Booth of Downiehills, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.  He married Gladys Bessie James who was from Corbridge, Northumberland.


My paternal grandmother's mother Elisabeth O Jameson, i.e. mother of Gladys Bessie Jameson.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

* So far I have only found  this:  END OF THE APPLE BOXES

and this is the blog reference

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6138499928168461673#editor/target=post;postID=6996515487181265890;onPublishedMenu=template;onClosedMenu=template;postNum=3;src=postname




Saturday 21 October 2017

CANADA VISIT - HARRISON LAKE 50th CLASS REUNION UBC NURSING 1967

Out of our class of 23 who graduated from UBC School of Nursing, Vancouver, B.C., Canada in 1967 there were 17 of us who gathered at Harrison Lakes Hot Spring for a 50th reunion. 


After 50 years I wish to state we are all wearing very well!  Group photo is on Facebook  here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1460375480707228/?fref=nf


If that doesn't work go on Facebook.com [not .uk] and search   'UBC nursing 67'



Our group would make a very interesting study: all were born in 1943 or 1944 and finished high school in or around 1962 at the age of 18 years.  Most of us grew up in British Columbia and therefore we were part of basically an immigrant culture, i.e. everyone came from somewhere else.
This had implications for education, particularly of women. Parents, schools strongly encouraged 'education'.  The word 'drop out', common in my youth but not known in the UK, meant that the default position for education was IN, i.e. you stayed and finished Grade 12.  And, indeed, looking back, if anyone at school 'dropped out' it was something really serious like the girl got pregnant.

And that brings me to another observation.  It was so interesting to hear everyone's stories about their life, i.e. being a teenager in the late 50s and early 60s with all the social sanctions of Victorian or Edwardian society that operated at that time especially for girls!  For example, as one person pointed out one got married in order to have sexual relations with one's boyfriend.  Quite true.


Then in the early 60s when we were turning 20 oral contraception was available.  'The pill' changed everything for women.  We were the generation that were on the cusp of the end of the old social mores and the beginning of the new liberating ones.


So 3 days of chat with a great group of women who, 50 years ago, spent a lot of time together in a very tough course was very uplifting.  It validated some of my experiences e.g. I thought some of the lecturers were very unfair in handling some of their situations... I wasn't the only one as it turns out!

Also pooling memories of events proved illuminating: things I do not recall were vivid for others perhaps because they were more directly affected ... and vice-versa.


For example: Thursdays had an extended lunch hour. We joined with the engineers (as we were in the same faculty, i.e. Faculty of Applied Science) for their annual football game.  The idea was to grab the ball, stuff it up your jumper and run with it.  This photo is of Alice in the foreground.

Other memories: I recall having to hold a patient while Electroconvulsive Therapy was being applied; one of the lecturers was married and carried on lecturing while expecting her first baby - unheard of both counts!... I remember living in the Nurses Residence at St Paul's and not getting a message that a VOC fellow came and called for me on his scooter.  I was furious about this and not long afterward I moved out to live with Alice and Jean on 4th Avenue. And the rest is history!

The view of Vancouver Harbour from the house where we 3 girls lived on 4th Avenue (Point Grey near the university).
 UBC Blazer badge





Wednesday 18 October 2017

CANADA VISIT - SALMON ARM APPLES

Mary and Pat took me out to Peterson's orchard where we spent an hour buying some apples and reminiscing about the days when we had a similar orchard.

 
These photos say it all: our back yard had the same stack of Mac apples piled up in exactly the same apple boxes.










In the shed some of the the box end brand labels were arranged on the wall.



And, of course, the ladders.  My father was very tidy in the yard: "a place for everything and everything in its place".  Large ladders stacked together; medium ladders next them; short step ladders last in the line. I recall that picking bags were hung up high from hooks. Buckets?  Used but were for the cherries.

 * * * * * * *

Mary's new residence is in Andover Seniors Residence on Lakeshore Road.  Having booked myself into an AirBnB next to the hospital I simply went down to the CPR railway crossing and walked the lakeshore trail along to her place.  

As well as finding the excellent AirBnB I discovered that there is now a bus service which does several circular routes in and around town.




* * * * * * *


Mary and her friend Mary M's thrown pots!


Andover Seniors Residence - very nice!  It's large and spacious and very new.  Mary has a small garden area adjacent to the kitchen in her little apartment.

Sunday 15 October 2017

ORKNEY VISIT SEPTEMBER 2017

We love Orkney! We were there in September enjoying their week long Science Festival based in Kirkwall organized by Howie Firth.  Iain gave a talk on 'Bridges'.  Lots of (other!) interesting speakers and mostly retired people who made up the audience.


The final event was topped off by this chap, Peter Higgs (of Higgs-Bosun particles), who was interviewed on the stage by Dennis Canavan, one of his old physics students*. A legend in his own lifetime.  Photo: CERN.


We stay in a cottage on a farm (Tenston Farm) on Mainland Orkney, near the Stones of Stenness.  Extensive new archaeological work going on there this summer.

These photos show the landscape... fertile soil, healthy animals, not many trees. Fields of barley were being cropped that week.





Eynhallow Sound on the east side of Mainland Orkney.  In the past we sailed through this narrow stretch of water between two islands.  Or rather we didn't sail but 'stood still' while caught in the 5 knot tide going against us. The engine showed us going nowhere fast at 5 knots!  Finally after about 40 minutes the tide turned and we were able to make out way forward!
On the west side of Mainland Orkney at Yesnaby it is possible to study the geology. When quarried the rock slabs can be: laid on the horizontal for roads and pavements, paths, stone walls, burial chambers; sloped as roof tiles; lastly, upright as 'fences', gate 'posts' and, of course, stone circles or monoliths.




⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌ ⇌

* Prof. Higgs shared the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics after the discovery of the particle he predicted mathematically. Dennis Canavan [Scottish politcal figure], graduated in mathematical physics from Edinburgh University in 1967.








Friday 13 October 2017

AUTUMN CLEAN UP

Lots of leaves these days...
A good way to keep Harriet and Ellie amused is to get out the broom, deck brush from the boat and the buckets.  They both love to be busy, busy, busy.

Iain built a woodshed which is just the business.  He chopped the various bits of wood we get from people felling trees.  He seasons it first; now it is stacked for the winter.  Happiness for me is a neatly stacked woodpile!

One pathetic sunflower! My Canada Goose wind-sock looks equally bedraggled.

An example of Scottish sunflowers.  The French must laugh their heads off at this... they who enjoy fields of waving yellow heads!

Table flowers from the James Watt Annual Dinner which are managing to stay upright on our front door entry area.



Tuesday 10 October 2017

FAMILY PHOTO UPDATE OCTOBER 2017

Catch up time! 

We enjoy having visitors and no more so when former students of Iain's turn up.  What started out to be a Sunday dinner this week with one gentleman from Syria joining us ended up being a table full of folk from all the airts and pairts. 

We enjoyed seeing Nabil again and hearing about his life in Aleppo. He now has a grown up family. It was good to talk about his time in Glasgow 30 years ago.



John and Debbie from Calgary are visiting Scotland just now so it was good to have them join everyone for dinner.  John has taken many photos of us or our family over the years. (More of this in future posts.)  Here is one he took on Sunday.   I have just been pulled out of the kitchen so am appearing a bit florid!


John took this photo of Mairi and the gang.  Over the years John and Debbie have often hosted us, or Mairi, when we pass through Calgary. (Ellie, 2; Ishie, 10; Me, Harriet, 4; Mairi; Alastair, 8.

Rogue's Gallery Update: 
Ishbel and Alastair come to us early every Tuesday before school.  We are now into a routine: Ishbel cooks bacon, Alastair times the boiled eggs ... Yes, Typical Boy... here is he timing the eggs!

This is Ishbel's last year in primary school.  She starts secondary school next year. As Alastair goes into his last year at the primary school Harriet will start.

 Ellie, otherwise known as Miss Personality Plus.

Harriet.  John took this photo ... if you can catch her when she is not looking at the camera she is a great subject.  A natural beauty!


This is Indy (6) about a week ago on a California beach.   He has started school and Alastair (to whom we speak on Skype every week) says he has a very good teacher; he is coming on well!  They now live in Los Angeles.