Birthday and Visitors

After the really thoughtful and utterly fantastic weekend put together for my birthday, I was feeling the pressure to reciprocate in kind come June 19. I first thought about another European weekend trip, but with the visit to London and Brussels in close succession we were a little tapped out on travel. Next I thought about a nice weekend away in Scotland. Perhaps a boutique hotel near Inverness followed by some dolphin watching. Good idea, but all the hotels had been booked weeks in advance. So I moved on to a day trip in the countryside, Spey-side perhaps, with a romantic champagne picnic. I prepped well, getting the champagne ready, picking up a couple of lobsters that I turned into a killer lobster salad and baking a Dutch appeltaart (apple cake) to satisfy the sweet tooth.

After a few days of really nice weather, the 19th dawned rainy, grey and cold. Definitely not picnic weather. It seems Mother Nature had let us down. Actually about the only ones that came through were the Dutch national team, who squeaked out a win for Fiona against Japan, ensuring their qualification for the next round.

We ate our picnic inside while watching soccer between bouts of Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii. It turns out my little after-thought of a gift was a winner. The appeltaart and lobster salad were well received and Fiona claims she had a great birthday. I still feel like I owe her, though. One of her gifts was a waterproof digital camera, and I've been dropping broad hints about a diving trip to the Maldives or Seychelles. Perhaps her real birthday will come in March next year, when one of those trips comes to pass.

The next day we had the privilege of hosting my Ome Guust (Uncle Gus) and Tante Miep. They had seen a good deal for a long weekend in Glasgow in the local paper and decided to give Scotland a try. They were nice enough to swing by and see us. I hadn't seen either of them for something like 10 years, so it was nice to reconnect. We caught up on a few years of comings and goings and took a little side trip out to Dunottar Castle, as we usually do with visitors. The weather was great, as you can see from the pictures. There was next to no wind and some nice blue sky. If only we had had that the day before! We had dinner at a great seafood restaurant in Stonehaven called the Tollbooth. It's located right on the wharf, located in the oldest building in town and it has been voted the number one seafood restaurant in Scotland. It lived up to the billing. Everything was excellent - crab soup, lemon sole, smoked salmon, scallops with a ham-flavoured foam and herb crusted halibut. Highly recommended for anyone in the area.

BIrthday Weekend in London

Last week I had the unfortunate privilege of turning 34. It hit me a little harder than I thought it would, and I'm still not sure why. It just felt old.

In order to alleviate my suffering Fiona had been spoiling me all week with some great presents, including the re-introduction of surround sound into our home entertainment system, some classic Blu-Rays and a few shirts to keep me looking stylish. But she saved the best for later in the week, having arranged a weekend trip to London. We left Aberdeen on Thursday night and hopped the train and tube from Heathrow to our hotel on Tower Hill. We had a great view of the city from our room on the 10th floor, but quickly traded it for a seat in the hotel bar. We had a couple of drinks and watched the world go by. Surprisingly we also found a pretty good Tex-Mex snack platter amongst the other more traditional offerings on the bar menu - the mozzarella sticks and BBQ chicken wings perhaps being the hotel's birthday gift for me.

Friday was my actual birthday, and has it had so many times in the past, the weather fully co-operated. It was sunny and bright, with temps in the mid-twenties. Our room was perfectly air-conditioned and we were already familiar with the extremely high quality of the bed, so we had a little bit of a lie-in before our big English breakfast. Once the beans, toast and mushrooms had settled sufficiently we hopped on the Tube and headed for the British Museum.

Because of the weather we took our time getting there, stopping in the odd shop. Being my birthday one of them was a comic book shop and Fiona let me browse to my heart's content. I only realized later, after lugging them through the museum for a few hours, that perhaps it would have been better to re-visit the shop later in the day - especially since one of the titles I picked up was Allan Moore's seminal (and incredibly large) "From Hell". Fiona had figured this out, apparently, as we stopped in at the antique bookstore after museum and she bought me some first edition copies of Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples".

The museum itself was spectacular. It was busy, but not so much so that it ruined the experience. I don't think we had ever seen this amount of antiquities in one place before. The Egyptian and Assyrian exhibits were the stars of the show, but the Roman and European exhibits were also really cool. All the guide books warn about trying to see all of the museum in one day, or attempting to do it without a plan, and I think we would agree with that sentiment. We latched on to a BBC program called "The history of the world in 100 objects" which attempts to show the history of human development through ... well, you get the idea. But 70 out of the 100 objects were in the British Museum, so we browsed through most of the halls quickly and spent our time at the specifically labeled objects. We stopped for lunch at the posh bistro on the museum's second floor, and, suitably refreshed, headed back in to see the showpieces - the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. The Rosetta Stone was smaller than I thought it would be and surrounded by a crowd and their associated camera flashes. While cool to see, I think it gets most of its cool factor from its historical significance. There were far more interesting tablets and carved stones, covered in tiny cuniform scrawl with subjects covering ancient kings granting tax free status to their favorite charioteers and stories resembling the biblical flood narrative. The Elgin Marbles were cool and well-displayed. I was assured of that fact by an exhibit about why the Marbles should stay in the museum. But they were amazing examples of Greek artistry. Whether they should stay there or go back to Greece, well, I can see both sides of that argument. But if they had to give back everything they stole, there really wouldn't be much left.

We Tubed it back to the hotel on time because Fiona had organized dinner at a swanky restaurant in the West End called Quaglino's. We got all dressed up as you should do when you go to a place with a doorman, a live jazz band playing in the lounge and cigar & cigarette girl selling Cohibas (post-dinner cigar = perfection). Having planned this quite a bit ahead, we were quickly escorted to a reserved seat in the lounge where a chilled bottle of champaign was waiting for us. Have I mentioned before what a great woman my wife is?

Dinner was fabulous. I had a great starter with scallops and guacamole, followed by a terrific steak. To top it all off, Fiona had arranged for a cake. It was great, which was a good thing because they only make cakes for parties of 6. We ate this delicious cake for the next two days back at the hotel.

Saturday was reserved for another museum we had wanted to see for a while now - the Victoria and Albert Museum. Their specialty is the integration of art and design in industry, so the exhibits were somewhat different that what you would see elsewhere. It is also cavernous. It goes on and on and on ...

We knew it would be a good day when we got to the museum and saw sign that the temporary exhibit would be all about Grace Kelly. People who have watched "Rear Window" with me, would know how I felt about that. Unfortunately, in probably the only thing that didn't work out all weekend, the exhibit was sold out. But the rest of the museum was awe-inspiring. By the end we had a new appreciation for all sorts of different craftmanship - perhaps none more so than for carved ivory. There were other highlights, including an elaborately decorated gaming board, an old cup used in drinking games, tapestries and a really cool exhibit on the art behind theatre performances. We left knowing that we would need another couple of visits to see everything the museum had to offer.

We left on time and went back to the hotel for a room service dinner. Time was of the essence as we had tickets to see Macbeth at the Globe. It was great seeing "the Scottish play" in the open air, sitting in the covered stalls as a light rain fell on the spectators and actors. It was neat to have been to many of the places mentioned in the play. The play itself was really well done - gory to the extreme, with eyes gouged out, tongues cut out and people emerging from the sides of the stage doused in blood, dragging others to their doom. They had spread a black tarp out over the standing area in front of the stage, cutting holes for audience members to stick their heads out and view, giving the whole theatre an "underworld" kind of feel.

On Sunday we walked across Tower Bridge to the south bank, where we met some friends for lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon going through Harrod's and napping in the sun in Hyde Park. We went back to the hotel early and turned in, completely tuckered out.

On Monday we had another good lie-in and packed up our possessions for the trip home. The trip was uneventful and we were glad to be home. We went to pick up Casey who had stayed with friends for the weekend. As usual, they were reluctant to give her up.

After all that, understandably, I'm feeling a little bit better about getting older. Maybe even looking forward to next year's birthday ...

Catch Up

I'm going to attempt to play a little catch up and include all the comings and goings that have occurred since Fiona's trip to Belgium and before our little jaunt last weekend to London.

Let's see ... what happened ... oh, yeah, the weather turned fabulous!

We've had a (by now) well documented slow start to spring, with both daffodils and lambs long delayed by late spring snow and frost. But the last month has been quite mild, with lots of sun and temps in the high teens and low twenties. They've even managed to land on weekends, meaning we've had several great barbeques in the backyard and a couple of trips into the countryside for walks. We've even started working on the back and front yards, putting in new plants and attempting to grow some of our own veg in planters and pots (Fiona's radishes are wicked awesome!). But, having been here a little while now, we are starting to have some of the same misgivings that our Scottish neighbours are voicing - what if this nice stretch of 2-3 weeks is our summer? What if June, July and August hold nothing but rain and misery? You try to drown out such thoughts while sitting outside and enjoying the weather, but it's always there. Maybe the key is to have just one more pint ...

One of trips a few weeks back was out to Craigievar castle, about 45 minutes east of Aberdeen. Guide books and locals say it is one of the more "magical" castles around; I guess that has to do with its very Disney-esque towers. It's been closed for the last few years as they did some extensive restorations. Although we didn't go inside, we did enjoy a walk on the grounds with a certain 4-legged nutcase. The fields were freshly mowed and there were great views of some authentic countryside. We sat on a bench over-looking a small valley, with the sun slightly filtered by brand new leaves on the maple tree above us and drank it all in. We must have sat there for quite some time. Had we brought our books and a pitcher of iced tea, we might still be there.

We've been doing a little bit of reading in the last little while, Fiona on her Kindle and myself with good old fashioned paper. We find we've settled into a groove where a Saturday spent reading outside on the patio is not considered a waste, and the more "exciting" things to do just don't appeal. Fiona's been reading the Stieg Larssen books ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", etc ...) Very disturbing, is her verdict. I've immersed myself in more historical work, including a very interesting book about the building of the CPR and the new one by Simon Schama about the abolition of the slave trade.

We've also been to the movies since Fiona bought me an unlimited movies pass for my birthday. I think we both enjoyed Iron Man 2, although we add our voices to the chorus of those who say it wasn't as good as the first one. Last night we watched the International, with Clive Owen and Naomi Watts - particularly prescient given the current banking crisis. A pretty good thriller, with an amazing running gun battle in the middle of the Guggenheim Museum. We also watched the Dillinger movie Public Enemies and were a little disappointed. It was alright, but nothing special. And if you're in the mood, Michael Moore's latest - Capitalism, a Love Story - will have you raging at your screen, no matter what your political leanings. That's a couple of good ones in a row for Mr. Moore, following on from Sicko.

Got to run, we're butterflying a leg of lamb so we can put it on the BBQ for dinner tonight. Including a little fresh mint and rosemary from the garden. Wine is at the ready. Drop by if you like, there's lots.