More Celtic Connections

Last night we went to our final gig of this year’s Celtic Connections festival. And a very fine gig it was too – Le Vent du Nord (‘The North Wind’) whom we also saw last year (supporting La Bottine Souriante) and a Scottish band called Breabach (whose website doesn’t seem to be working at the minute sadly). They did a lot of stuff together in both halves of the show, and we liked them a lot. Definitely worth catching if you can.

As an aside, and nothing to do with anything really, Breabach’s fiddle player Patsy *really* reminded me of Maddie.

Getting in on the act

Seeing as everyone else has been posting their versions of the David Cameron campaign posters, I thought I would post this photo (warning for those who are sensitive about this sort of thing: language) which made me smile.

Hackney’s response. [Thanks to Tim for the link, not that Tim knows this blog exists, but still, credit where it's due]

Moscow’s strays

While I’m on a bit of an article-posting roll, this is a much less depressing article about Moscow’s stray dogs which I found via a tweet from wiblogger World Without End. I was really interested in the observation about how the strays all looked the same, it got me thinking to Romania where I think that’s also true.

Here’s a picture of the stray that attached itself to the little block where I stayed in Sibiu – you could see his cousins all over town, and very very rarely saw stray dogs that looked different:

He barked like mad every time I came back to the flat for about a week, then when he knew I was there to stay he stopped barking and deigned to allow me in. He started again when HD came to stay though! (I bet our neighbours loved us when we arrived in Sibiu in the small hours. He was a great burglar deterrent though, for a little dog he had serious vocal chords!). The little old lady next door who kept staring at me while I had breakfast until I got blinds for the kitchen used to feed him scraps (despite the protests of the downstairs neighbour who didn’t want to encourage him). I used to see him wandering along Str. Balcescu with the tourists and locals, but he always came back to our yard without fail. I think he was a cross between a “guard dog” (his primary trait I think) and “beggars” of the article.

Woe

We had a waterfall outside – which was rather inconveniently starting to appear on our bedroom wall and floor. The plumber just turned the water off, so that’s us till tomorrow morning – lovely.

Sigh.

Writing about this elsewhere, I was reminded of one of this morning’s readings, from Isaiah 43, which talks about God being with us “when you pass through the water”. So much for God’s sense of humour – we are NOT amused!

Icy

Brrrr it’s cold! After a (rather graceful, for me) slide onto my backside earlier in the day – luckily just outside my flat, so I didn’t have too far to go to recover – I dug out my walking boots and headed into town to do a bit of shopping and (most importantly) visit the Celtic Connections box office. There was ice on the river, and I also noticed that Wellington, rather than sporting his usual traffic cone, was today wearing a much more appropriate and suitable scarf and bobble hat.

My WISE gift

Thank you very much to the lovely farli who sent me these lovely wooden tree decorations (plus a stick of rock as a clue, although I already had guessed my secret Santa’s identity from the postmark!). Rather embarrassingly we appear to have lost our Christmas tree (and with it all the previous decorations, including Miss Lisa’s decoration from last year’s WISE and some decorations from birdie as well from a ship secret Santa from a few years ago). It is in storage somewhere, but we couldn’t find it so I’m afraid we did without. However hopefully next year we’ll be more organised (and hopefully will be somewhere bigger where we don’t need the storage unit any more) and will have found the tree, so I’ll be able to show them in situ doing what they were created for.

Thanks again farli, the decorations are beautiful.

Wibmeet by proxy

As I’m not at Greenbelt this weekend, but am doing more mundane things (washing, finishing my book chapter, doing a recce for my interview on Monday, that sort of thing) I thought I would do something to cheer me up and help me get over the fact that I won’t be meeting lots of lovely wibloggers this weekend. And what better way than this (out of the oven half an hour ago – lovely!):

Things that make me smile

As an antidote to the whingeing, here’s a couple of things that have made me smile in the last few days.

First up, lolcats. They get me every time, but this one had me giggling for ages:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Secondly, one for all you grammar pedants out there. The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

Thirdly, for your regular dose of cute, here’s lots of ZooBorns.

And finally, I know Auntie Doris has already seen this as it was posted on facebook by a mutual friend and we’ve both commented already, but this photo is just brilliant. Even more brilliant for me is the fact that I can say “I’ve been there” (check out the lake name, it’s not one you’d easily forget, in a fnarr fnarr kind of way).

Zombies

This made me laugh yesterday. A lot!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Hidden Gardens

This afternoon we had a lovely time meeting up with some friends for a cuppa and a walk round the Hidden Gardens, which is round the back of the Tramway Theatre not far from where we live. It was a lovely day, and great to be able to sit out on the grass and chat and drink, and I even needed my sunglasses! It was also the first day this year that I have gone out wearing sandals and (horrors) exposing my feet to the world. The weather the last few days hasn’t been very good, so I’m happy that it managed to sort itself out for the weekend rather than being gorgeous on a work day when I’m stuck in the office!

This photo is of HD walking through a funny arty gate sculpture thingy – it had coloured flashing lights which must look fantastic when it’s dark. This picture makes me laugh – I think all it needs is some dry ice and HD saying “Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be ….” for this to be straight out of “Stars in their Eyes”!

The garden has a number of different sections, including a herb garden and a random chimney stack (as the name of the theatre might suggest, this used to be a yard for the trams, but has been transformed into a really interesting space, both indoors and outdoors). Photos from the garden might well find their way onto my Glasgow blog later in the week.