Lord of the Rings

It was a bit of a shock to be hauling out the old windshield scraper this morning and removing a good thick layer of frost from the car. The weather has turned again and we're definitely regretting putting some herbs and flowers in the garden on the weekend. On the other hand, it makes our up coming vacation look even more appealing.

We threw together a quick dinner tonight because we had tickets to a show tonight. When I was going through the listings back in December I just couldn't let it pass by, even though it wasn't quite the same as our other ticket purchases. But when a One Man Lord of the Rings comes to town, you just have to get down the the Music Hall, pick a seat next to all the other nerds and enjoy yourself. It was incredibly entertaining. The Canadian that put it on hit all the right notes, did some great impersonations & sound effects and squeezed the high points from all three DVDs into and hour and ten minutes. He also does a One Man Star Wars Trilogy. If he ever comes back doing that I think we'll be in the audience for that too.

Friday night - the way it should be

We've been spending too many Friday nights recently doing chores around the house, doing groceries or generally wasting away prime recreational timeslots in front of the TV watching forgettable programs about nothing in particular.

Not this week.

Fiona took it upon herself to organize a night out - and my favourite kind of night out to boot, dinner and a movie.

The day had been kind of dreary with the fog from the day before transforming itself into showers and a general gray-ness that threatened to put a real damper on the weekend. Fiona and Casey picked me up from work as we had to stop by the garage to pick up the Jazz - it had been in for its yearly MOT inspection. So it was a good start to the weekend to be greeted by a couple of smiling faces and a wagging tail (not Fiona's) instead of tackling the long lines of traffic queuing at the Haudagain roundabout all by my lonesome.

When we got back we took Casey for a nice long walk, past Queen's Gardens and onto Rubislaw Den South. It's one of our favourite activities to walk past the large manor houses which take up the north side of the street and imagine what we could do with a piece of property like that. The dreams always have to start with our lotto numbers coming up, and, I guess more importantly, us playing the lotto.

Dinner was at the Sanddollar Cafe. Words like Sanddollar always get me into a spelling conundrum - is it two consecutive d's? Or does one d do the work for both Sand and Dollar?

Anyway, the cafe is situated on the boulevard above Aberdeen beach and was quite cozy. The food was great. Fiona had lamb wrapped in Parma ham and cabbage with scalloped potatos that was amazing.

Fiona had let me choose the movie, compensation for the last few months where we had made several attempts to go to the movies but not gone at the last minute. It's a lot of pressure to put on a guy. I want to choose something that I would like to see, but if it doesn't pass muster with Fiona then I owe her a choice and that can lead to chick flicks. I threw caution to the wind and went with "Kick-Ass" a comic book movie about a teen who decides to become a super-hero. It's kind of a dark action-comedy and definitely not for everyone - or I would venture to say, most people. I'd equate it to a cross between Superbad and the Kill Bill movies, so if you objected to cartoonish violence and loads of bad language, you should probably stay away. I can't help myself, I loved it. I rank it as perhaps one of the best comic book movies ever made. And it came out here a couple of weeks before the it did in the US as an added bonus.

Post movie we wandered along the seafront, watching huge waves pound the beach into submission. The night was calm and the weather was otherwise quite nice so the pounding surf was an odd juxtaposition.

And to top it all off, we woke up this morning to glorious sunshine. So with everything going sunshine and lollipops for us, I think we should pass on the good fortune. Posted is a picture of Fiona's latest masterpiece. It really is amazing, you can really see the effort that she has put in and that she is continuing to improve her painting skills. You saw it here first. You can see it in the Guggenheim later.

(Actually, faithful readers probably remember the exact date and location of the picture that inspired the painting. It's in the blog archives somewhere ....)

Fog

The whole city has been blanketed in a thick, pea-soup fog. It was really weird because usually when we get a good sea-fog it kind of rolls in towards the end of the day, but it's been with us all day today. It kind of takes the edge off the start of spring, which we were sure was just around the corner on Monday. The daffodils were up and the yellow buds were ready to burst open, but I think they've decided to wait a few more days now. I'm really looking forward to the first big daffodil bloom - there is something about that particular colour of yellow that just forces you to be cheerful.

I had a long day yesterday, getting up ultra-early for a day trip to London. I used to really enjoy the prospect of these business trips, but now it's just work. I did get a chance to get a little further into my book and I'll take that as a positive.

It is starting to feel like our big vacation is right around the corner. We're going to spend the weekend getting things ready and preparing. We are tremendously excited.

A wee bit o' golf and a fair bit of hiking

Our run of great weather has continued through the weekend, a phenomenon that has become increasingly rare. I know it just sounds like Murphy's Law that it always rains on the weekend, but it has felt like a truism the last few months. But this weekend was different. Warm temperatures in the mid teens, with blue sky and lots of sunshine. If you stay at home with weather like this, than you should probably consider moving away - Scotland's not for you.

Saturday we piled the car full of golf clubs and caddies and struck out for Inchmarlo, one of the local courses with both an 18 hole and 9 hole layout. We just walked on to the 9 hole course, which was in decent condition, having been dried out by the windy conditions. We did have to hit off of temporary tee boxes, but I'm not sure that it didn't help my game, so I'm not complaining. Actually, there shouldn't have been a lot of complaining as we all played quite well - definitely more good shots than bad, which is the type of things that keeps you playing. If my putter had been as good as my 5 wood, I think I would have set a new standard for myself. Fiona was in pretty good shape as well, but it was hard to tell if she was more pleased with her solid play or the new pink, argyll sweater she had found (and purchased) in the pro shop.

We had lunch in the clubhouse, which turned out quite nicely. We are starting to rank all our food related outings. I think that Ciao Napoli still holds first position. They would all have taken a backseat to our Saturday dinner, Fiona's world-famous bourbon BBQ ribs, which went over like they always do, people tripping over each other for seconds and all the rib bones licked clean.

We were out of the house in a timely fashion this morning because we had planned a fairly lengthy hike around Loch Muick - pronounced "Mick" for those having as much difficulty as I am with the Scottish tradition of random silent letters. This particular hike had been recommended by my driving instructor and, just like his advice to lay off the clutch and check my mirrors, he turned out to be right on the money again. The parking lot was busy as there are several hikes that leave from the same place, including the one to Lochnagar, which we'll be attempting soon in our efforts to train up for the assault on Ben Nevis. The trail around the glen ran close to the loch and was sufficiently difficult to not be a Sunday stroll but not so hard that we were unable to continue. We saw quite a bit of wildlife - a great herd of red deer, a wonderful but somewhat lonely lapwing (look him up in your bird book, he's quite a looker), a red squirrel and strange Labrador Retriever belonging to the ladies in front of us at our chosen lunch stop. It would dash into the loch, stick its head completely under water and come up with a large stone in its mouth, which it would promptly return to the shore.

We had a nice picnic lunch on perhaps the coldest part of the loch shore and quickly moved on to the return leg. We passed by Glen alt-Shiel, a house built by Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert. It was the only sign of civilisation on the loch, you can tell that his death must have hit her hard, to cause such a desire for isolation. There was a wonderful Pinetum attached to the house, which is like a pine tree garden, where all the shrubs and deciduous trees have been removed and the pine trees allowed to grow (or in some of the fancier cases, were introduced. The pinetum at Glamis had Douglas Firs and Sequoias and Redwoods). We eventually made it back to the car, led by our faithful scout and pack leader - Casey.

We're back at home now. Our bellies are full of take-away curry, which is a nice feeling. One of the great things about having visitors is their effect on your perceptions and routines. Since we arrived in Aberdeen, whenever we had curry take-away, we always ordered the same items. I guess we convinced ourselves that they were enough. We ordered some new items today including a lamb curry and chicken pasanda, which will join in future orders.

Roger and Cathy are printing airline tickets and will soon be packing bags to prepare for their return journey. It has been great having them here and we're looking forward to having them back soon.

After all the drama - three minors!

I passed my driver's test this afternoon. It was a beautiful day, 15C and sunshine, so no chance of being snowed out again this time. I had been practicing my maneouvers - parallel park, three point turn, reverse around a corner and bay parking - I was ready. The nerves were acting up because I really didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of doing the test again. In the practice session with the instructor before the test things were kind of hit and miss. A perfect parallel park, followed by a totally rubbish roundabout.

I thought the gods were against me when, after only about a minute or so, the test supervisor asked me to head back into the testing facility. Apparently my e-brake was not of the type allowed. I protested however and demonstrated that my car could roll down the hill just like any other and eventually we went back out onto the road to complete the test. In the end I received only three minor faults. But as one was for driving too fast and another was for driving too slow, I figure that they cancel each other out and I had one minor fault.

As I receive one set of legal documents, a big congratulations goes out to my mother-in-law, who just received her American citizenship. She worked hard to pass the requisite tests, please forward any American history questions to her in the future.

Fiona, Roger and Cathy went up Benachie the other day, or at least as far as the snow pack allowed. They continue to do a lot of walking while I sit idle at work. I feel I won't be able to keep up with them this weekend.

A side benefit of their hikes and outings, besides the great pictures, is that I come home every evening to a dead tired dog. We feel a little guilty sometimes that we don't walk Casey enough, but this past week we've been guilt free. I think she doesn't mind when we leave the house in the evening for a dinner out, so she can sleep in peace.

We took a rocket cab back from our dinner tonight. Union Street to home in just over 60 seconds. Total cost, 80 pence. It was either amazing or frightening, or maybe a little bit of both. While there have definitely been times while I was sitting in other cabs that I wished they shared a little more in common with the Rocket Cab, I don't think a constant dosage of Rocket Cabs would be good for my stress level.

Dateline: March 18, 2000

I'm sitting on the couch in the living room I share with Rich. The place is somewhat tidier than usual, we've been given advance warning that visitors are on the way and being the conscientious guys that we are we managed to straighten some cushions and scrape the rings off the table. It was Kathleen's birthday and we were going out, I had been forewarned to "wear something nice". Being oblivious to the way things work, I didn't decipher the code that it meant I was to be introduced to someone. I did put on a clean shirt and shampooed the stubble on my head before slipping on my trusty ball cap.

I was totally engrossed in an NCAA basketball game. I think Kentucky was playing. I don't usually follow it, but its the playoffs and I'll watch the playoffs of any sport. I'm not sure I heard the ring at the door, but I do remember watching Fiona float across the room to deposit her drinks on the kitchen table.

I snapped to and realized this would be an appropriate time to turn off the game. We ended up playing some video games, a great driving game called Gran Turismo in particular. I definitely remember some good-natured ribbing and healthy competition as we raced each other around the track. I also remember Fiona laughing at me as I took a corner to fast and hit the wall. She barely had the last of her three "ha's" out when she plowed into the wall herself.

We left the apartment once everyone had arrived and headed towards Whyte Ave. We took the train. I sat next to her.

We got to the bar. I bought her a drink - a China White. And perhaps one more. Eventually everyone decided it was time to move on and we left the bar, walking down Whyte back towards the University. We were walking ahead of everyone else and so engrossed in our conversation that we didn't notice everyone else stealthily step into a cab and leave us on our own. When we got to the frat house we realized we had been judiciously ditched.

Fiona also realized that she had lost her cell phone. I had a pretty good feeling about how things were going when she didn't seem all that worried about losing a brand new phone. We eventually caught back up with everyone else, but it didn't seem to matter, from that point on there was really only us.

We later on found out it was a little weird that we hadn't met sooner, seeing as I had been friends with her cousin since junior high school. But we did meet. And I have been in love with her since then. They have been the greatest 10 years of my life. She gives me wings. My world is better with her in it. I look forward to the next 10, and several more decades after that.

I don't know who won the basketball game.

Beaches

We've had an incredible spell of decent weather here in Aberdeen. A couple of weeks of relatively dry, sunny weather with nice blue skies. Fiona, Cathy and Roger took advantage today by taking a little drive out to Cruden Bay, just north of the city on the North Sea coast.

Any drive with us up that coast will include a stop at the Cock and Bull for lunch or dinner, in this case lunch. Casey enjoyed the sunshine on the patio and lunch was tasty. A short jaunt later, they were all walking the pristine beaches of Cruden Bay, around the old WWII fortifications and interesting geological formations. New spring lambs were seen in the surrounding fields - which means lambs before daffodils this year, if anyone is keeping score.

We've just come back from a dinner at Ciao Napoli, a favourite of ours. The dog is dead tired, the result of her usual insane beachfront behaviour. We're full of profiteroles, tiramisu and pasta. It's hard to come up with active plans for the next few days under such conditions, but we're feeling the pressure to keep the blog readers entertained ...

Happy St. Patty's Day to everyone out there. I hope the green beer is tasty and that the "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" t-shirt is working for you. I got to see another side of the usually jovial Irish when I arrived home today, a good, hard pinch for not wearing green!

Before signing off, a movie recommendation: Bottle Shock. It's a cool little movie about the rise of California wines in the 1970's. It has a good cast, with Captain Kirk (the new one) and Alan Rickman, who chews little less scenery than usual. He doesn't give it up entirely, mind you, but he gets all he can out of a part that requires him to speak a lot of French.

The Glamour of Glamis Castle

We've been blessed with some more visitors this week. Although they had some trouble with connections in Heathrow, Roger and Cathy finally made it into sunny Aberdeen on Saturday afternoon. After a good night's sleep to get over the jet lag, we headed out for some Scottish history.

We chose to head south to Glamis Castle, the historical home of the Bowes-Lyon family, whose most famous member was the Queen Mother. The castle is in great shape and is surrounded with acres of beautiful grounds for walking. Its only real problem is the fact that everyone mispronounces its name. Apparently the "i" is silent and you're supposed to say "Glams". OK. Whatever. I guess if you're powerful enough to have and hold a family estate for multiple centuries, nobody says anything when you decide to modify the commonly held rules of the English language.

The entrance is awe-inspiring, a half-mile long tree lined avenue with two 7 foot lead (yes, lead) statues at the end. We arrived just in time for one of the guided tours, which was informative and enjoyable. The guide managed to find a ghost story for just about every room in the house, although none of them involved the angry spirits of the thousands of deceased deer hanging from the walls. Or the grizzly bear cub who sat stuffed in Duncan's Hall. He was a family pet that the Bowes-Lyons' used keep around the house, playing with the children. Apparently the only one with a little bit of sense was one of the Highland cows out on the farm, who took family safety a little more seriously and killed the bear. We were also treated to an impromptu piano concert in the drawing room, where the guide would allow anyone to play the family piano as long as they did it with more than one finger and didn't play "Chopsticks".

After the castle tour we headed out onto the grounds. The snowdrops were out and adding a little bit of colour to the rather dreary brown background. We were fairly excited when we spotted our first pheasant strutting around the grounds. We stalked him for quite a while looking for the optimal picture. That turned out to be a wasted effort as the grounds were infested with them. I would imagine pheasant under glass was or still is a pretty popular dish at Glamis.

The only thing that took a little of the shine off the castle for me was the name of the current Earl. After Duncan's and Ferguses and all sorts of other good, regal Scottish names they now have a Michael. And a Toby is also in line somewhere. I think if you're an Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne your name should carry more weight than Toby.

Spread 'em

We were off to the grocery store tonight to stock up on supplies for our forthcoming visitors. The grocery store is always good for few laughs, which makes it a little less sad to be spending a Friday night buying foodstuffs. It's always a reminder that no matter how similar the life in the UK seems to the States or Canada, it is ... different.

Being Dutch, I'm all for bread and the various things you can put on it, but this is a little ridiculous. I would love to have been in the meeting when someone first pitched the idea of Sardine and Tomato Paste spread. Why did no one in the room choose that moment to kill this idea? And who bit into a thick layer of beef spread on their morning toast and thought, "You know what, this could use some chicken"?

We carefully examined the Mushroom and Bacon toast toppers. Second ingredient was actually mushroom, which makes me wonder why they don't include the label "All Natural" on the top.

His name is George

We got an up close look at our freeloading houseguest today. He decided to go stretch his legs out in the bright Aberdeen sunshine and didn't seem to have any fear of us. Hardly surprising as he's had some time to get used to our presence. It's going to be harder to get rid of him now that we know he's this cute and has a name. We do have 5 bedrooms, maybe we can give him one?

I'm also taking this opportunity to honour a request made through the comments section of the blog. A good sign for others that all reasonable requests will be accomodated.

Anyway, also uploaded are then a couple of my wife's recent paintings. I'm intensely proud of her. She's a fantastic artist. She's working on translating one of my favourite Scottish landscapes onto the canvas. I'm very much looking forward to the result and will post it as soon as it is ready.

Mouse House

It appears that our attempts to extend some generosity to the wildlife in our back garden has somewhat backfired. We've picked up some new tenants of the mouse-like variety, although since we have yet to see a rent cheque from them I guess that they better classified as squatters.

When we used to yearn for the pitter-patter of little feet, I don't think we imagined them coming from inside the walls. We've got no one to blame but ourselves, though. A few weeks ago we bought some birdseed and a feeder to hang in the yard, hoping to attract some of the little songbirds that live in our area. We are especially big fans of the fat and sassy little European robins. So much attitude for such a little bird. Alas, the only wildlife our birdseed attracted was Mr. and (presumably) Mrs. Mouse, who found the Costco-sized bag of seed hidden in our pantry. A couple of days ago we cleaned up the seed, removed the easy pickings and hoped that the ever warming weather (8C today) would coax the mice back outside. But we must have Livingstone and Stanley of mice, as they've since been exploring the rest of our home, running through the walls hoping we were stupid enough to leave another 10 kilo bag of mouse food just lying around unguarded. I'll give them another few days to figure out that the gravy train has pulled out of the station before resorting to more primitive and slightly less neighbourly ways of telling them they are no longer welcome.

On a positive wildlife note, some magpies are building a nest in the large tree outside our house. Interesting to see the missus in the half-formed nest squawking at her man as he attempts to put his assortment of little sticks in just the right place. I don't think he ever gets it right on the first try. It's nice to have a sign of home so close by ... magpies will always remind me of dear old Edmonton. Such a good, working-class bird. I'm also hoping that magpies guarding some young 'uns in a nest will keep the seagulls away from our house over the summer, allowing us to let the cool night breezes in the window without the awful accompaniment of squawks.

Finished my jigsaw over the weekend. Not before it managed to take another year or so off of my life, however. Imagine this, laying out 1499 of 1500 pieces all in the correct place, training your eye to distinguish between 50 kinds of blue, and as it comes time to put that last piece on the edge of the peaceful, glacial Moraine Lake, finding it doesn't fit. My brain just blanked. I can comprehend the second piece not fitting, or any of the 1400+ other pieces not fitting, but how can you end up with a perfectly made puzzle and have the last piece not fit? I came within seconds of just tearing the whole thing up (and not to start again, although thanks to all of you who do me the credit of thinking that was what I was going to do). But I reminded myself that this puzzle had the annoying added bonus of being one of those jigsaws that would sometimes trick you into thinking that tab C fit into slot B, when everyone knows tab A fits into slot B. So, in a true testament to my methodical character (or stubborn-ness) I spent another half hour scanning the entire puzzle for that one piece that was placed incorrectly. I eventually found it and finished the puzzle and my blood pressure has returned to its (still slightly elevated) normal rate.

Untitled

I don't often start a blog posting without a title, but I haven't yet put a label on this one. I'm not quite sure what the over-arching theme is. Maybe it is just going to be a series of unconnected, semi-random ramblings. Then I have to pick one over all the others to be important enough to warrant the title, and that's entirely too much pressure to put on my shoulders after a long hard day at work.

The weekend did not start out right. I spent Friday afternoon working myself into a tizzy about crabcakes. I could all but taste them by the time I left work. All I had to do was stop by Sainsbury's and pick up a couple of ingredients. Limes and peppers, no problem, even in the dead of winter in northeast Scotland. Crab, in seaside Aberdeen, somehow, was a little too much to ask on the other hand.

Extremely annoying, considering the mental build-up, but I managed to pull it together and come up with a back-up plan. I bought some blue cheese and mince and decided I would BBQ some gourmet burgers. They looked good, but unfortunately tasted like they had been made weeks before.

Things did start looking up after dinner, though. That movie I had been hoping for earlier in the week showed up in the form of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". The campy zaniness proved to be the perfect medicine for the bad blue cheese burger blues. They really, really don't make movies like that anymore.

Saturday we got in the car and went down to Kirkton of Oyne to visit an arts and crafts market and have a milkshake. Perhaps not in that order. The adjoining restaurant serves genuine American style milkshakes - thick and creamy. The kind that make you pop a sinus as you try and pull it up a bendy straw. They also provoke good conversation, like exactly how far would you drive for a good milkshake? Answer: more than 45 minutes but less than an hour. The arts shop had a great assortment of stuff, we ended up buying some ceramic wall art. Actually Fiona bought it for me as part of an anniversary gift. March 18 will mark the 10 year anniversary of the day we met.

Fiona's present was a Kindle e-book reader. Since she goes through books like a house on fire, it makes sense to save some trees and invest in a new gadget. She'll let you know her review of how well it works when it comes in next week.

We just got back from an evening out at His Majesty's Theatre to see the ballet Giselle. It was put on by the Russian State Ballet of Siberia. The long, cold winters must leave them with lots of time to practice because the performance was flawless. Not a particularly strong ballet for male characters, too much walking around and miming, but the female lead had lots of opportunity to show off. We would definitely like to see the whole troupe back in something where the choreography is a little more lively for everyone. Ice cream at intermission was terrific as usual.

Movie Night

It's been a good day today, and a nice end to the week. The BP people have every second Friday off and although there is not real change to our work schedule, the day is just somehow different and more relaxed. If the traffic isn't too bad I should arrive home in a pretty good mood.

Fiona's mahjongg get-together went well, she even won a game. Casey behaved herself, which is not always the case when large groups of people invade the home. Apparently we now have our pick of dog-sitters. I've got to hand it to her, that dog has charm. She could convert a cat person.

I'm making a stop on the way home, hoping to pick us the necessary ingredients for my mildly famous crab cakes. Combine those with a couple of frosty brews currently chilling in the back garden and my evening is set.

It's setting itself up for a couch and movie night. We have a few things on the DVR, including Doubt. As much as I think Meryl and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman would do a bang up job, it seems a tad depressing for the end of a good day. Maybe we could save that one for a rainy Sunday. Problem is, there is not a lot good out there right now. We could head out and see some of the Oscar contenders - it's been a bad year for us, we've only seen Up and Avatar - or try and wrap our heads around the new Alice in Wonderland 3D extravaganza, but the popcorn is better at home. Why I am I the only one in this country that thinks sweet popcorn at the movies is morally, ethically and fundamentally wrong?

We have been catching up on some good stuff that we missed or passed over. We caught two Josh Brolin movies in one week last month that were both fantastic. One was highly critically acclaimed ("No Country for Old Men"), and you could see why, but I think we both enjoyed "W" more. "the Reader" had us both yelling at the screen and is well worth seeing, in a "Schindler's List" kind of way. "the Spirit" was visually stimulating, but you get the same effect with a better story in "Sin City".

Perhaps the satellites will shine brightly over our house tonight and bless us with a mindless comdey-action-adventure. You can never see Die Hard too many times...

A little bit of (Canadian) winter ...

I'm staring out the window at some nice blue sky and enjoying the rare site of a strange, yellow ball hanging in the middle of it. The forecasters have said that it won't last, which is hardly news in Scotland. Whatever the weather is, it never lasts which means that the forecasters are always wrong. From me, that illicits pity; from others, outrage. People are apparently specifically outraged at the fact that the Met Office has paid £12 Million in bonuses to their employees. I understand that the term "bonus" has become somewhat of a touchy subject due to the Nero-like excesses in the banking industry, but I scanned past the headline and found that the amount had been paid out over the last 5(!) years, resulting in an average yearly bonus of about £1,500 per employee. Must be a slow news day when that makes the front page, even if someone ruined your summer vacation by forecasting in February that we would have "BBQ summer" and when you got to the Lake District in July it rained for the whole week.

But I digress ...

What we have right now is rare for Scotland and very much reminds me of home, where you could look out your window at a clear blue sky and blazing sun yet have your jeans freeze solid by the time you got to your car. It's not quite that bad, but several straight days with -7 C in the morning (that's in downtown Aberdeen, not the highlands) and no need to scrape the windshield is quite unheard of. If it is going to be cold, dry cold is the best.

We're supposed to get some rain again this afternoon, possibly turning into snow at the end of the day. People are really starting to grumble at how long winter seems to be taking. Our cabbie coming back from the Italian restaurant yesterday claimed it's been the longest, coldest winter since '62. Glass-half-full people are chirping about how wonderful it will be when the spring and summer flowers are all in bloom together. Glass-half-empty people are disappearing into their houses, filling the other half of their glass with an alcoholic beverage and belly-aching about how terrible it is to have to listen to those glass-half-full people. We waffle between glass-half-full and glass-half-empty. We made a vow never to let the weather stop us from getting out and doing stuff, but it is a heck of a lot easier to be optimistic with a blue sky overhead.

That being said, we'll be stuck in the house tonight, making sure it is presentable for Fiona's mahjongg group tomorrow. We've both been a little under the weather this week, so the housework has been left for the dog to do. She does an OK job, but tends to ignore the nooks and crannies. I've also got a jigsaw puzzle that is begging for the last few hundred pieces to be sorted and a good book - the first of a two part-er on the planning and building of the first trans-Canadian railroad. I'm aiming to finish it off by the end of the month so I can take something new on our travels through southern France. T minus 27 days and counting ...

We concluded a long running research project yesterday by concluding that Ciao Napoli is indeed the best Italian restaurant in Aberdeen. Although the evidence had been pointing in that direction for some time, we made it official by returning to our old favorite for a final comparison. They were weighed and measured, and came up wanting.

Back to bloggin'!

It has been a really long time since we last updated the blog. I was wondering why we hadn't been maintaining it as well as we once had and came up with the following possibilities:

• that's just the nature of blogging
• we're too busy
• we're too lazy
• we've don't have anything interesting to say

I think I can break these down a little further.

1. That's just the nature of blogging

Blogging is like piano lessons. You see someone who does it well and say - "Wow, I wish I could do that!" - and then you think of all the cool benefits of doing it and convince yourself that it's important and worthwhile and that you'll be a maestro in no time. You start out enthusiastic, practicing twice a day, doing extra homework, but within a matter of months you realize that you will never get past "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow" and you would rather spend time riding your bike with your friends. The piano becomes a slightly oversized side table (sorry, Mom). I bet if someone commissioned a study of all internet blogs, the vast majority would show the same sort of exponential decrease in blog maintenance versus time. I truly believe that after a year or so all blogs settle in to one of two camps: all-star blogs that have wide followings and tonnes of material and others that post only when something interesting has happened. Or maybe I've just convinced myself of that so I don't feel so guilty. Anyway, again, just like piano lessons, eventually you get older and wiser and think to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had stuck with those piano lessons." Most people just leave it at that wistful thought and walk away, others grab their Sharpie, write the names of the keys back on the piano and start practicing their "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow". I'm hoping to be in the latter group.

2. We were too busy

This is entirely possible as well. I know what you're thinking - any clever person would quickly point out that if were so busy we must have been doing some cool stuff; the kind of stuff we always used to blog about. I would the offer back that it is possible to be busy doing stuff that is so boring that no one cares to hear about it. I know your response to that will be - how sad for us. In order to maintain some dignity, I now propose that we were busy doing semi-cool stuff that was interesting to us but perhaps not to a wider and much more worldy audience.

• driving lessons and driving tests - in order to get our British licenses we need to pass both the theory and practical driving tests. Theory was no problem - easy-peasy. We then signed on with a driving instructor for what we thought would be a quick couple of hours as a tutorial for the practical test. Our tutorial turned in to two hours every Saturday for a month. It paid off for Fiona, who passed with flying colors. My test was delayed by inclement weather - it's now scheduled for the 19th. Our test facility has a 55% pass rating, so chances are good that I will fail. I actually have serious problems with a system that will allow me drive for a year without a test and then forces me to all of the sudden to correct 16 years of bad driving habits (mirrors? what mirrors?) so that I can continue to do something that I was already judged good enough to do for the past year. I am preparing my list of excuses for my imminent failure ... if you have any good/creative ones, let me know.
• Olympics - we picked up a pretty good tan from sitting in front of the television the last two weeks. Thoroughly enjoyed all the sports and the unique Eurosport coverage of them. When they show biathalon, they show ... all of the biathalon - start to finish, no commercials, no cutaways to "get-to-know-the-athlete" montages. Really cool. Despite the brutal 8 hour time difference we managed to watch a little bit of just about everything, with the consequence that the next day we were too wiped out to do anything but ... watch more Olympics. It was also good to get all fired up and patriotic about how well Canada did. It has been quite a while since Canada was "home" for us, but we definitely felt that way for the last two weeks. Too bad that for most Britons the Games played second fiddle to Europa league football matches.
• painting - Fiona's been going to her painting class and producing some small works. She is so good at it. I steal most works to hang in my office. She has to fight her perfectionist nature most of the time, but she has a really deft touch and a good eye.

3. We're too lazy

Um ... yeah, OK. But you sit around after a day of work somewhere where the sun only shines through the rain and the cold, miserable dampness seeps every ounce of vigour from your bones and then try to do anything but creep under the covers and stay there. Have I mentioned we've had a crap winter?

4. We've got nothing to say

Slightly ironic that I'd have something to say about having nothing to say, but there's a lot of small stuff that we don't quite think warrants a blog post, especially now that we're into year two of the Scottish Trip. For instance, our front yard is slowly developing into a carpet of crocuses (croci??). We took a wonderful sunny walk down by the River Don. We found out Wii bowling doesn't help you get better at actual bowling. We went on the hunt for an antique ottoman and found nothing but the realization that I should not be allowed unsupervised in an antique bookshop. Hot stone massages rock. Casey has convinced herself she is people. The amaryllis we bought were a month late in blooming, but were absolutely worth the wait.

Maybe we'll start finding a way to present the everyday and mundane as something worth writing, and more importantly, something worth reading!