Everything else.
In Scotland, Winter … lasts. Two weeks ago we had sunshine, birds singing, and temperatures approaching 50°F / 10°C. Today? Snow. Snow that’s not melting on impact with the ground. Snow that’s sticking. So much for Spring.
We hope that it warms up a bit before F & D come to visit … but we’re advising them to pack long underwear and warm clothing. Their “Spring Break” will mean that they’re visiting Winter like they’ve never experienced it, as they’re from California.
-D & T
It’s the breakfast of champions, kids. And the lunch, and part of the dinner…
It isn’t the pancakes that are so fabulous in this shot, although they were pretty darned good with the cranberry compote that was going to be jelly except someone decided they were bored with their partner being in the kitchen watching the pot and convinced her to turn it off — ahem. It’s not the pancakes, or the slightly out of focus Linda McCartney sausages lightly festooned with apple-plum sauce, nor the pretty stainless steel fork which is the last of a very large retro set, some of which must still be buried in a drawer in T’s mother’s kitchen. No, no, it’s none of those things. It’s the fact that in the background, the sky is a washed-out blue.
That hasn’t happened in a awhile around these parts.
We got about eight consecutive hours of sun two weeks ago, but today’s temperature was actually in the fifties – 10°C – which made it deceptively warmish. (Quite a few were deceived, including the man in pink tee, white shorts and Birkenstocks. He looked to have been deceived by a great many things, however.) A few more days of warmth like this, and some of the crocuses might start to consider wakening. We are DESPERATELY hoping this happens, as the biggest of T’s so-called Littles are coming to visit, and she is trying to special order sunny skies and daffodils for them. This could take some doing.
As a courtesy tutorial for the Littles, we present this tidy little explanation of the United Kingdom. Unlike the gentleman from Stanford who recently visited the University and miscalled the country wherein he was speaking ENGLAND, we are hoping the Littles will make a better showing than this. (Explanations are more needed than you know, as we have acquaintances who believe we live in Switzerland — and last time we were home, someone asked us how things were in Finland. Americans, stop making us look bad with the geography stuff, okay?? Just because it all ends in “land” does not make it the same country!)
The United Kingdom Explained brought to you by C. G. P. Grey on Vimeo.
There. Hopefully you’ve got that now. Not Switzerland. Not Finland. SCOTland. Part of the UK, but not ENGland. ::sigh::
It’s been a busy time. We are enjoying gaining mastery with our Rossini piece in chorus, and the Vaughn Williams is all but polished. Of course, that means Il Maestro had to introduce something new — Belshazzar’s Feast is a cantata by the English composer William Walton. It is so very theatrical,so very bizarre and so, so, difficult that we are doing a lot more snorting and chortling in the ranks than actually singing. We sound AWFUL. It’s hilarious. We plan to record rehearsal next time we think of it — the cries of dismay and the odd pauses where people attempt to come in are priceless. Music composed in the thirties — full of cacophony and general weirdness — it’s good fun, and it keeps our brains sharp to keep grappling with strange music. Or, so we tell ourselves.
It’s a good thing to be able to laugh at oneself… at times, there’s really just no choice!
In “business” news, T’s just shot off another novel to the eagerly waiting editor, who is promising to bump her to the top of the list, as her agent is buzzing to all and sundry that this is a “lovely” one. This is the fastest novel she’s ever written, as it came together in just under five months. She begs her agent not to come to expect that kind of time! Meanwhile, D. has been 
in a bit of a funk for a bit, as his advisers got into a disagreement about how he was to display a set of statistics — ending with him having to rewrite his first chapter and do a lot of annoying backtracking, then present the statistics BOTH ways — but that’s finally over. The cobwebs are clearing, and he’s grateful indeed to be writing on his dissertation again, and making clear progress. He’s also somehow been roped into teaching this week and next, but is taking it all in stride.
As much fun as D’s time in Scotland has been, it’s definitely coming to a close in terms of the University. The BBC has reported that major cuts in both courses and in faculty, in order to raise money mean that thousands of both faculty and students will be affected, and there’s definitely a feeling of uneasiness in the ranks. Protests and sit-ins are becoming routine, and everyone is unhappy. It’s a real shame — and it seems very much to be a sign of the times, as we hear the same news from the U.S.! Friends of ours who are new graduates are not sanguine about finding positions in academia at present — but D. is optimistic that he’ll be able to find a job regardless — just not as a professor. And he’s not sorry about that, as he’s not sure he can deal with any more academia at this point anyway.
It’s a chaotic, turbulent world out there, and everyone seems to be feeling the strain. What do you do to lighten the load for yourself and those around you? At the moment, the hope of Spring keeps us going. How about you?
A certain time of winter comes, and the body simply cranks down into Survival Mode. It’s post-holiday, after the New Year celebrations, and once the glitter is gone, and the thrill of the first snowfall, your psyche is just OVER IT. Skin is constantly dry, and one drinks tons of tea, slathers on lotion, and has a rather grim set to the mouth. Add to it wild weather, various illnesses and relapses, bedraggled hems and soaked shoes, and people just get snippy. Extraneous communication ceases, people do what they have to and sleep in the rest of the time.
(… unless they’re in the Bay Area of California, or San Diego. Then, they revel in the sunshine, and plot where they’re going to plant their tomatoes, the fortunate miscreants.) While our friends in the Midwest and the East Coast are still losing the last vestiges of Snopocalypse II, 2011, and Seattle braces for more snow this weekend (!); while many are reeling from the news that three of the next five winters will be just this severe, *thanks to climate change (and if you don’t believe in it, we don’t want to discuss it); while many hack and cough and hunch over their inhalers (looking at you, Mom and Van), we thought it might be time to play a round of Summer Preview. Feast your eyes on D’s photography from years past, and allow the images to jumpstart your brain into seeing a future of beach scenes, seed catalogs, sharpened mower blades, short sleeves, and giving yourself that much-needed leg deforestation (well, not everyone. Just you swimmers.) and pedicure…
Are you feeling inspired? Perhaps craving grilled vegetables and food on sticks? Salad??? That’s right, drag that ratty fleece blanket a little closer, have another sip of tea, and let your mind go… to somewhere in the world there is a whole color palette that doesn’t begin and end with gray, white, and black. It exists! You will see it again! Honest!
*You hadn’t heard about this Winter Hinterland thing being the new normal? Meteorologist’s long-term predictions seem to point that direction. If that fills you with horror, you’re not alone. Instead of panicking, there should be something (other than buying a lot of thermals, flannel and Thinsulate™) to do to plan ahead, to enjoy winter more (or at all) and to not let months of your life pass you by as you sleepwalk/whine/sniffle the days away. “Teh Interwebs” offer this advice (well, they actually offer a whole lot more – this is what’s useful and doesn’t reiterate too much what you already know):
Winter is only a part of the cycle of life and death of the natural world, and fierce and heavy winters will only mean that we’ll enjoy the temperate autumn and summer days that much more. We hope you’ve enjoyed this round of Summer Preview, and that it’s bringing you some anticipation of good things to come. Spring will come again — and so will winter. Next time, hopefully, we’ll be better physically AND mentally prepared!
“May you live ALL the days of your life.” ~ Jonathan Swift
All of these photographs are of flowers at the Glasgow Botanical Garden. It’s a great place to go when the temperatures are down into the low numbers, because it is ALWAYS balmy inside those glass greenhouses. We spend an entire morning there our first February in Scotland, and before the month is out, we hope to do it again!
At the beginning of the year, Glasgow University announced that the Heatherington Research Club would be closed, because they’d accumulated £40,000 of debt and didn’t have any way to pay it back. Well, here it is nearly 6 months later, and the postgraduates have rebelled: they broke into the building last week and have occupied it, serving free coffee and tea, and giving the postgraduates a space in which to congregate once more. It was silly of the University to leave the space unused (D. wished that it could have become postgraduate office space, as there is so very little of that on campus). Now, it’s back to being a postgraduate space … without the membership fees.
This evening D. went to a “Turing Lecture” given by Donald E. Knuth. It was deadly dull (one of the questions was on whether P=nP, and Knuth asked whether anybody wanted the problem explained … and a lone hand extended: one of the university faculty. D. and the rest of the audience could have screamed and chased the man out of the room.), but the man is a legend in computer programming circles. D. admits that he’s been away from the computer science people for long enough to feel uncomfortable at the vast amounts of body hair and all-around geekery present. When nerds want to get a book signed, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
-D & T
 |
 |
 |
 |
February 7, 2007, found us deep into the renovation of our condo in Benicia, picking out cabinets and fittings. The floors had been torn out and had begun being replaced, the place was in chaos, yet we were honestly thinking that we’d be there forever … or, at least another few years, to enjoy living through all of the dust! D. was working as a technical instructor, teaching people various programming languages. T. was busily writing, trapped in a single room away from the builders. That month also saw us finishing up some interesting knitting projects, such as this yellow hat … which was made for an adult who begged and pleaded with D. to make her one. It’s a baby hat, but she just had to have one for herself.
 |
 |
Two years later (2009) found us living in Glasgow, Scotland, making Tacos. Between the two points, we’d finished the remodel, rented out the condo, sold everything else we owned, and moved to Glasgow. D. had finished another Master’s degree and had embarked on a PhD. A La Carte had been published, and Mare’s War was four months from being released. We were living in a converted church, a block from the largest reference library in Europe, with no idea where we’d be in two years.
Flash forward another two years to today, and the end of the PhD is in sight, we’re contemplating selling everything yet again, and moving … again. And contemplating buying stock in a box company…!
A scientific fact – recently humorously discussed on NPR – is that human beings can’t go from Point A to Point B in a straight line. Unlike birds, with their magnetic senses, blindfolded, a human being makes a staggering line of loops and circles. That has some parallel to how we live our lives. In many ways, not being able to see what’s coming next feels like being blindfolded, but the good news is that even as we’re making crooked loops, we’re circling our goal… and eventually, we end up safely where we started from. We don’t believe we’ll do that geographically, as there will be transportation involved with people who actually can see where they’re going, but we do live in faith that metaphorically, at least, this will work to our advantage. A person walking blindfolded eventually circles and ends up back where they started from, and so we, too, will find our way “home,” where ever that will mean next.
-D & T
I’ve had some bad flights before, but they’ve been bad for being long, or occupied by obnoxious people, squalling babies, hyperactive children, or other somewhat tolerable things. This morning’s flight to Southampton, for example, was a bit frightening getting underway, because we made such a steep ascent, almost like we were going to do a loop. We didn’t level out until 25,000 feet and we were practically pulling g’s. It was a bit bumpy along the way, but we did eventually head out.
Today’s return flight from Southampton, though, qualifies as the worst flight I’ve ever been on because we had to abort the landing 2 times due to sever wind shear, and wind gusts from between 35 and 56 miles per hour. We were finally told that we had fuel enough for one more shot at it, and if we couldn’t make that landing, we’d have to divert to Aberdeen. The prospect of being diverted to Aberdeen is a fair horror because it’s several hours away by bus, which would have been how they’d have gotten everybody back to Glasgow. But the landings?
The aborted landings were a true horror of flight. The first was aborted at about 10 feet from the ground, the second at several hundred feet from the ground. In both cases, the pilot yanked the plane into a high ascent (think, better than 45°), powered the engines to a high whine, and said nothing until we’d climbed back to altitude to circle around for another try. You’d think that the first one would have been worse than the second, because we knew something of what was possible. Not so: the second was worse, because we’d all had time to worry about what might possibly happen. By the time we were circling for the third attempt, people were vomiting, and those who weren’t were either cursing, whimpering, or very quiet.
There weren’t even any bumps on the third attempt, except for the very definite jolt of the aircraft as the pilot sought to get us firmly upon the ground.
So, I made it home, after a fairly successful business day, and am supremely grateful that it’s over.
(T. adds, Thank God.)
-D
Gung Hay Fat Choi! Never has the Lunar New Year seemed like such a good idea. 2011 hasn’t seemed to have much to recommend it thus far, what with the ice, cold, and illness it has had to offer, so we’re gratefully looking to the Year of the Rabbit to begin. Can’t believe it’s February already — ! In the dissertation countdown, D. now has five months until his oral exams, and his first deadline to turn in a completed first draft.
The next few months promise to be better. The program for our March concert has been set — and it’s definitely a long one, timed down to the second to take advantage of the orchestra until the final moment. (The Musicians Union is pretty fierce.) We’ll be singing a few of the aforementioned “choral classics,” including, for our choral aficionados, the Parry, I Was Glad, Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine, a really gorgeous arrangement of Elgar’s Lux Aeterna from Nimrod, and the Easter hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana — PLUS the Rossini Vespers! Yes, there will be the usual twelve minute or so intermission, and boy are we glad.
Also, in March, we’ve got company coming — our last of the year, unless the Georgia friends come in June — we may have T’s “little” though-taller-than-she-is-and-has-been-since-he-was-thirteen brother and niece coming to visit, if all the passport issues go well. Looks like they’ll be our last guests, though; after March, the Purge and Pack will continue in earnest. So far, T’s rid the house of three suitcases full of books, and next week will weed out all of the extra clothes that won’t be needed. After that, small appliances and furniture will be sold and given away — because we want to travel as lightly as we can. We still have no idea where we’re going, but especially after D’s last bout of illness, T. is beginning to feel like the East Coast city slickers in the 1800’s who were told to move West to help out their consumptive relatives. Much as we love mist and fog, there’s something unhealthful about it in a big city, and we’ll have to find someplace either cleaner or drier — or both. D. has been sick here every winter, at least twice, and was sick for the entire month of January. He’s finally — gratefully — on the mend… and job-hunting.
Right now, we’re trying to be open to possibilities, but T. would very much like to live where she can have a few herbs growing in a sunny patch — even a sunny patch of concrete with little pots. D. tends to be looking toward where the best money could be made, as he’s looking ahead to those student loan bills, but he’s planning to do some sort of teaching or mentoring wherever we end up, even if it’s volunteering somewhere. One of the best things we’ve learned from being here is more of what our personal strengths are. Living abroad, you learn to do without familiar things, but you also learn what you cannot do without. Despite the pipes and the mold on the window casings, with which T. battles on what seems an hourly basis, it’s been a good experience.
…and it will be an even better one when all the loose ends are tied up, and we’re on the road to somewhere else.
Meanwhile, we’re scuffing our feet in our metaphorical bunny slippers, and vowing to take what comes with curiosity and equanimity. Just like a rabbit.
They’re ubiquitous, when shipping into and out of the European Economic Community: Customs Declarations. They must go on every package we send back to the US, and on everything coming over here. Occasionally something gets stopped by customs (we’re recalling having been told that we must pay £115 for a lens which we owned, but had sent to the factory for repairs – didn’t happen, ’cause we kept the sales receipt). But, most of the time, things don’t get stopped.
In this case, what didn’t get stopped (and we’re so thankful) was labeled “Syrup” and “Candy.” Umm… really? The cough medicine must be the “syrup” and the Ibuprofen, therefore, is “candy.” Yeah, sure. Also? The dollar value beneath which things don’t routinely get inspected … would be $15 coming this way, and £15 going that way. So, if you ever need to have something slide beneath the radar, well, there you go.
It’s supposed to snow this evening, and D. is off to Southampton for work: a 6:15 a.m. flight down there, to arrive back in Glasgow at something like 9 p.m. Truly a long day, for someone who had been so ill. We’re glad that he’s now almost completely recovered from whatever nasty flu-thing he had, but looking forward to a decent weekend without sickness!
-D & T
As we return from our weekly choir practice, we walk past George’s Square. Time and again, we say, “we ought to have brought a camera!” Usually, though, it’s just too much fuss, between music, water bottles, hats, gloves, scarves, coats, and (perhaps) our snow-cleats. This evening, though, we bothered, and were rewarded with the sight of the moon floating above the City Chambers building. Despite the forecast, it wasn’t snowing, nor really even very cold (a few degrees above freezing). We don’t know about stars aligning – we can never see but one or two, due to the light pollution – but we certainly feel fortunate to have been there.
-D & T
Not much to photograph here in gray Glasgow, just the heel-end of the year, with short, dark days, brief, public spats from the packs of feral children roaming the neighborhood who have been out of school for far too long, and finally, at long last, the end of the ice.
…let the people rejoice.
Not the type of folk who make resolutions spanning more than a single day, we nonetheless are looking behind, to the past few years in Glasgow, and looking ahead, knowing that our time here is ticking down. T. has finished reading for her award and is in the process of clearing the living room of an excess of several hundred books, so that we have fewer to pack when we go. The question of “where to next” is a pulsing throb in our bloodstreams, as D. prepares to buckle down for that last dissertation (or, thesis, if you’re British) push, and then the mind-boggling task of networking, interviewing, and hoping to find degree-related employment. (There are no guarantees on this.) We are relishing these last days of laziness before we straighten up and get serious again.
‘Tis the season… and we kind of hate to turn on the TV or the computer, there are so many ads this time of year for …regret. Regret about what we’ve eaten during the holidays, what we’ve purchased, or where we’ve gone or what we’ve done. (They’re called something else – fitness center ads and all kinds of sales, generally.) It’s strange to be part of a society so highly motivated by guilt and regret. This time of year especially, it’s easy to get wrapped up with what went wrong in the last twelve months — and God knows, there was a lot — but one of the nicest things about us leaving our safety net back home and moving is that, whatever else goes wrong, we know we at least took a chance… took a leap, and did entirely what we wanted to do. So, in the name of getting a fresh start in a new year, we wish you hope and courage for new beginnings. We hope you claim the promise of the unspoiled shine of a brand new year — and do something with it. Take a chance. Take a step.
Onward.
Happy New Year.