Festivus

It's been a really nice week leading up to and through Christmas.  The company has been grand and we've been blessed by really unseasonably warm weather which has caused much confusion amongst the roses that are starting to bloom again in our front yard.  Besides being good for the flowery flora, it also gave us a couple of nice days at the beginning of the week to coincide with some time away from work.  As the snow started to melt we went over to Bennachie and did a small trek through the forest.  The dogs quite enjoyed it, running on and off the path and acting as scouts for the trail ahead.  They've generally been quite spoiled for the past couple of weeks, getting lots of attention from Oma and Opa.  Sydney, our friend's little miniature Schnauzer, has wormed her way into several hearts with her big dog attitude stuffed inside such a small package.

On Monday evening we got all fancied up and went to the Marcliffe for dinner.  It was superb.  Drinks in the lounge followed by an excellent course of starters - scallops and seafood bisque for myself and Fiona and guinea fowl and crab salad for my parents.  The main course was the real winner, however, as it was only a few bites in when my mother proclaimed her Chateaubriand to be the best beef she had ever eaten. Given that there was 12 ounces of it on the plate, that was probably a good thing.

During the week we took it easy, counting down the days to Christmas by taking care of the dogs, finishing up the Christmas preparations and watching way too much darts.  Gary Anderson made us all reconsider our jump on to his bandwagon with a lacklustre round 1 performance against a German qualifier.  Although I didn't stay up for the match (having to work the next day) I could easily follow the ebb and flow through the loud and raucous cheering and jeering coming from downstairs.  Hopefully he picks things up a little in the second round.  The tournament is in a break now, set to resume with more second round matches on the 28th.  We'll be watching for sure.

We've also been watching a few movies.  Some are Christmas classics, like 'Elf' and ... 'Die Hard'.  Others were just movies we had to hand, like 'Thor' and 'The Way Back'.  The latter was a decent little movie about a group of escapees from a Siberian gulag that walked to India in 1941.  Yes, walked.  Very inspiring.  It's hard to complain about a few metres of rough trail on Bennachie after seeing that.

We've also been doing some game playing, although not as much I had originally thought we might do.  Our major focus has been the Christmas puzzles.  We've now completed four of them.  Three 500 piece ones of mixed difficulty and one new 1000 piece puzzle to go along with our usual '12 Days of Christmas' theme.  We finished that on Friday night/Saturday morning.  Having worked all day I tried to convince everyone that we should call it a night at a reasonable hour, but with slightly over two-thirds of the puzzle done, the bright eyed optimists decided that it could, and should, be finished before anyone turned in.  So we buckled down and knocked it out, putting in the last piece sometime just before 2am.  Now that's commitment.

Christmas Eve was a wonderful and relaxing day.  We had planned on a fondue supper, so we started early in the afternoon preparing meats and sauces.  Using a borrowed fondue set to complement our own, we set up both a broth and an oil pot.  We had always had discussions regarding the pros and cons of broth fondue over oil fondue and, judging from those conversations, you would have thought broth to be the consensus choice.  But set up one next to the other and the oil was most used.  Perhaps there is something in the Scottish air that just makes everyone want to deep-fry.  The dinner was delicious and well complimented by the wine, a nice 2005 Bordeaux we had purchased on one of our Paris trips.  Should you see a similar wine kicking about in your local store, be sure to pick it up.  We had lamb, beef, pork, chicken, shrimp and scallops to fondue, but the most popular dunkers were the turkey meatballs I whipped up.

Before the accusations of sloth and gluttony start flying at us, I'll need to bring up that we did spend a few hours earlier in the day wandering around Balmedie Beach, just north of Aberdeen.  The weather was ... refreshing.  A cool, constant wind was blowing, but the sky was blue and the sun was shining.  I think the mercury topped out at over ten degrees.  The dogs had an absolute blast, running all over the dunes, dodging and weaving along the rabbit paths in the long grass.  It was a beautiful walk and left us primed and ready for our dinner.

With the clear skies and good weather, we found ourselves outside on Christmas Eve, looking through my telescope at Jupiter and five of its moons, as well as what we believe to have been Uranus.  No flying reindeer or sleigh, though.  But perhaps you need a filter for that?

Christmas Day started a little slow as we were all still digesting a little from the night before.  But once the 'Wife Saver' was in the oven and the presents popping out from under the tree, it quickly got a lot more lively.  Apparently we had all made it on to the 'Nice' list, as there was a pretty good haul of presents under the tree.  Our family gift exchange worked well this year, as I had my Mom and she had me.  Fiona received the new Professor Layton game from Mark, so if you have anything you need from her in the next few days, I'd hurry up and get to it before she disappears into her DS.  The theme for Dad was books, as he received some on Russian history and on Libya, and also a biographical book about a Scottish doctor who worked for the Tsars which he has being powering through.  Mom received a nice family calendar and her sought after infinity scarf, as well as more of her favourite gemstone, amber, set in a pair of earrings.  She also awoke this morning to find the Duchess of Cambridge on the front cover of the paper wearing a hat the exact same colour as the one she found under the tree.  Who's the trendsetter now?

Fiona and I also found Santa had ticked most of our boxes.  Fiona received a nice map of Europe, framed and mounted, with a supply of pins so that she can keep track of her worldly travels.  She also found the complete set of Harry Potter movies, as well as the Harry Potter video game, so I guess JK Rowling had a good Christmas too.  Her wish for socks was also granted.  The wide angle lens for her camera was perhaps the greatest prize.

Santa decided I should finally do something about my driving habits and gave me some example videos under the 'Fast and Furious' banner.  I also received a plethora of Scottish beer glasses, something I had been looking for in vain for the past two years.  Turns out Santa (or Mrs. Claus) is just more efficient that I am.  As a card-carrying member of 'Familie LeesNeus' I also received my share of books, both of the comic (Sherlock Holmes and Adele Blanc-Sec) and novel (Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman) varieties.  Santa also fed my growing astronomical habit by sending an SLR camera attachment and series of filters and eye-pieces, as well as a re-chargable power supply so I am no longer dependant on those 8 C-cell batteries.

We spent the day talking to family on the phone and on Skype and preparing the evening meal.  Turkey was, of course, the main attraction, and Fiona truly knocked it out of the park once again.  It was a little touch and go for a few minutes, as she tried to make the call on whether it was well and truly done or not, but in the end she achieved the perfection she was looking for.  Prior to the turkey we had a salad topped with sauteed lemon shrimp and a chipotle aioli.  With the bird came a fine assortment of the usual suspects - braised Brussells sprouts (the last in all Aberdeen), cranberry sauce (using berries imported from, get this, Latvia), stuffing, roast potatoes and green beans.  We all took it easy on the portion sizes knowing that Fiona would be carting individual Sticky Toffee Puddings to the table for dessert.  They were an absolutely fabulous capper to an amazing holiday meal.  To top it off we introduced Mom and Dad to the wonderful tradition of Christmas Crackers.  Everyone was a winner and paper hats were worn by all.  The toys were actually quite good - a slinky for Dad, a yo-yo for Mom, a clapper for me and a bracelet for Fiona.  The jokes, however, were the usual groaners, with the best one being:

What do you call a line of men waiting for a haircut?

A Barber Queue.

We've spent this Boxing Day reading our new books, playing our new games and going to Castle Fraser with the faithful hounds, who are now resting quite peacefully in the living room.  It has been a a truly grand Christmas.  I hope it was the same for all of our dear readers, with good times shared with your families the way we were fortunate enough to spend this year with ours.

Onward and upward to New Year's Eve!

Mom and the dogs

Puzzling is harder than it looks.

Balmedie Beach on Christmas Eve

Boats queuing outside Aberdeen harbour.

Christmas Eve Fondue

Puzzle number 4: the 12 Days of Christmas.  Can you spot them all?

Christmas Day chaos.

Christmas Day in Aberdeen through the wide-angle lens.

Castle Fraser - Boxing Day.

Walking the hounds in Victoria Park.

More Christmas Eve Fondue

Bucks Fizz on Christmas morning

Christmas Day - regal cooks in the kitchen.

Family for the Holidays

My parents are here in Aberdeen to spend the holidays with us prior to our New Year's trip to Holland.  They arrived last week, but after a brief rest day they moved on to Edinburgh.  Apparently the train trip was nice and smooth, passing through the beautiful countryside.  Auld Reekie itself was also enjoyed, with visits to Edinburgh Castle, the cathedral and the city's wonderful parks.  The pub food, especially at the Jolly Judge was also a highlight.  They came back on Friday evening, just in time for the World Championship of Darts.  There have already been some upsets, including my pre-tourney favourite, Mark Webster and yesterday's shocking exit of Raymond van Barneveldt.  We're all on the Gary Anderson bandwagon now.

The weekend was relatively quiet, with none of the usual epic day-trips planned.  On Saturday the dogs got walked, the first of the Christmas puzzles was started (and finished), the crossword was attempted, beer and wine stocks were brought up to snuff and fantastic burrito bowls were had for dinner.  Fiona also took the time to teach us all mah-jongg.  Although it took a while to absorb all the fine detail, at the end of four rounds we were all getting into it.

Sunday was another relaxing day.  A good lie-in followed by beans on toast helped to start the day off right.  Proper fortification was required as the temperature had gone down significantly and there was a fresh layer of the white stuff on the ground.  Not too much, only a couple of inches, but it helped in setting the proper Christmas mood.

In the afternoon we all went to the movies and saw the latest Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law.  It was quite entertaining, but slowed down a little too much in places.  Post-film we returned to the house and had burgers on the BBQ with a colleague of mine who is moving to Oslo next week.  Another good meal, finished off with Millionaire's Shortbread and mince pies.

Weekend in Paris

We've been caught up in the hustle and bustle of pre-Christmas madness, which I am sure is not unique to us.  Cards, presents, staff parties, dinners and whatnot have kept us so busy that we neglected to blog about our quick weekend trip to Paris at the end of November.  We decided to tack a couple of days on to a business trip I had to take for meetings at our office on the outskirts of Fiona's favourite city.

Fiona came with me so she could see where the office was located, and whether or not the surrounding cityscape was liveable.  I was stuck in meetings all day while she explored a little bit, before heading back into Paris to our usual hotel in the 15e arondisement.  At the end of the day I joined the commuter rush and took the metro into town to join her.

We had Thursday and Friday to wander about and we deliberately chose not to put too many things on the agenda.  On Thursday we did some shopping on the Champs-Elysees and in the surrounding areas, finding some very nice Christmassy items and a whole load of fancy mustards.  We had nice long lunches at the local brasseries.  It was really good to enjoy the city at such a relaxed pace.

On Friday we went to the Rodin museum to take in the sculpture.  A lot of his works were located outside the old hotel he used to work from, which was nice because the weather was gorgeous and the central location of the museum meant his works had beautiful Parisien monuments in the background.  'The Thinker' was an obvious highlight, although I also particularly liked 'the Burghers of Calais' and Fiona was a fan of his bronze of Victor Hugo.  Also located in the gardens - the Gates of Hell.  While some people may have always guessed these were located in Paris, it was interesting to see where the devil would get his pizzas delivered.

The rest of his works were located inside the hotel and we thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  Although mostly known for bronzes he did fantastic work in marble as well, which is a medium which we more enjoy.  He was especially good with hands.  His works had an unfinished quality to them, like he would get the majority of the work done and then walk away to start something else.  He also made efficient use of all three dimensions, quite often including a different motif on the back of a sculpture.  He had this wonderful sculpture of a man and woman on a rock and hidden around the back was a giant hand holding the rock up.  It was brilliant.

The only real disappointment was the state of the hotel itself.  Dirty, dingy and desperately in need of repair.  The real problem was the fact that it clearly had so much potential.  With a few million euro it could be one of the highlights of Paris.  But who has a few million euro these days?

So now we're back in Aberdeen.  Winter is here, with hard frosts and snow in the higher elevations.  We've had the staff Christmas party, which was a success, and a relief, as I was heavily involved in organizing it.  The tree is up, the Christmas cards are out the door, and the shopping has been done.  Just in time for the holiday season and our first Christmas visitors.