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Oct 2007 |
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October 2007
October was a reasonably busy month, but we managed to find some time for a few outings, including a gliding session for Ness at Kinross, and a lovely walk in the Pentland Hills.
Mon 1 Oct
Worked, ahem, from “home” today. We got up early, got ourselves ready and had breakfast in the hotel and checked out. The young Irish co-owner confirmed that the hotel needed, and was about to get, a much overdue update in its décor. We drove over to Portmoak airfield (www.scottishglidingcentre.co.uk). It looked like it was going to be a glorious day, although we couldn’t judge whether it would be ideal for gliding conditions or not. The sky was totally clear, not a wisp of cloud in sight. Thin morning mist hung over the fields. We drove through the quiet country lanes to the airfield. The airfield consisted of a couple of rather dated buildings and sheds and it looked very much like an amateur’s, hobbyist’s, kind of set up. We got a friendly welcome from Graham, the instructor, who charmed Ness with a “you look very much like a young lady who’s here for a half-day flying session.” He took us across to the low hangars in which the gliders were stored and Ness helped Graham to get one out, while I switched to shutterbug mode. Ness said how surprisingly light the glider was. Various arrangements were made in preparation, but we were oblivious to most of what was going on. Among the other flyers was Max, a captain with British Airways who is getting back into flying gliders after a break of over thirty years, and who described his occupation as “airplane driver” rather than “pilot”, and it was clear that commercial flying from his point of view had very little to do with the sensation of flying. Other flyers were Simon, a middle-aged man could have been another IBM’er or an accountant or something, and his two teenage sons. As they had a two-week break at their school their father was taking his boys out gliding (only the older one, the younger had to wait for another year or so) and skiing (on the dry-slope near Edinburgh). Besides the “customers” there were a couple of retired men who were helping out and out for their own flights throughout the day. Graham explained some basics to Ness and then it was time for the first flight. At the far end of the field a winch operated the tow rope and on less than fifty metres the glider took off and rose at a steep angle. I had positioned myself to get some good pictures but was taken by surprise how quickly it all happened. Graham had said that the weather conditions were, although beautiful, far from ideal for gliding as there was no wind. This meant that the flights were quite short, 5-10 minutes each instead of an hour or so. Under good conditions an experienced glider can stay up for four, five or six hours. Ness flew overhead in the glider, describing a circular route, gradually descending from the approx. 1,000 feet height to which the winch launched the glider. As an experienced instructor Graham showed off his landing skills, landing the glider pretty much exactly where it needed to be for the next take-off, without any need for rolling it back. Ness seemed to enjoy the flights and was grinning, although she did admit later that she was feeling “wobbly”. More flights followed and I snapped away getting some decent pictures. Then some of the others had flights while Ness had a break. Mid-morning we swapped for the far end of the field as Graham started to notice a bit of wind (the idea is to take off and land into the wind). The scenery around the airfield was serene and gentle, rural with a few hills around. From her higher vantage point Ness also saw the lake and the countryside far and wide around, back to Edinburgh and North Berwick. We took a break for lunch back at the airfields cafeteria, which was basic but did the job. I made use of the club’s wireless network to pick up emails – nothing significant except for one meeting invitation – and the rest of the afternoon continued in the same vein, with more flights. A lovely relaxed atmosphere and a most successful afternoon. Ness kept asking if I fancied a go. I did but at my current weight of 115kg I’m over the weight limit, and I also felt that this day was really all for Ness as her birthday present. I watched the glider fly overhead, describing graceful turns as it slowly lost altitude and making turns this way and that, moving close to the nearby hill and flying over the lake (out of sight from where I stood but visible from the plane), and lining up with the field to make a smooth landing. What I had not realised was that Ness was actually doing the flying, making the turns, controlling the plane for most of the time it was up in the air with the exception of the landing. Most impressive! Ness did say she was relieved when she could hear Graham’s voice behind her saying “I have the controls now”. We wrapped it up around four o’clock or so and drove back to Edinburgh. Ness managed to get a birthday card for Joe at a Morrison’s supermarket in Edinburgh, just catching the postman as he was about to leave with the last post. We had the leftover sandwiches from yesterday in the car and drove into the city centre. Ness got a text/call from Beccie who was in town on business and we went over to meet her and Lawrence, a colleague of Beccie, at the Dome on George Street where we had a quick glass of wine. Then we carried on to our Arabic lesson at St Thomas of Aquin's school. Salah, our teacher, covered a lot of ground in the lesson. I could see that Ness was getting a bit confused by it all. Salah did tend to go off on little side-stories, although I could tell he was covering a structured lesson, covering a set of consonants and vowels and I really felt at the end of it that the Arabic script had, at least partly, been made accessible to me. It was late and dark by the time we got back to North Berwick. We tazzed round getting bits unpacked, Ness made hot chocolate, I checked in on-line for my “morning” flight and we cuddled up in bed. What a lovely day.
Tue 2 Oct
Mega-early start, 4am. I got out of bed and Ness cuddled up with Joey instead. Outside, the stars were clearly visible above, and before getting in the car the only sound I could hear was that of the waves in the background. I drove to the airport. On take-off I had stunning views of the early morning colours, all shades of red, orange, gold, green, blue. Beautiful view over the Forth. The Bass Rock was clearly visible. Further back from the coast, the Lammermuir hills were covered in a low-lying layer of morning mist. Made the early start worthwhile.
Wed 3 Oct
Worked from home. Ness helped me to do my expenses. It took a long time to unpick the complicated trail of flight bookings, changes, unused tickets, additional flights booked at airport, etc. “Dynamic” partners to blame as far as I’m concerned. If people could stick to a plan things would be a lot less complicated! It took up half the day. Ness had preparation to do for her Spanish lesson this evening.
Thu 4 Oct
?
Fri 5 Oct
Worked from home. Robin contacted me for a few updates to diagrams and having taken care of those the Danish project was, for me, wrapped up. Enjoyed it, despite the frustrations from time to time.
Sat 6 Oct
Early start and flew to Solihull. Frankie & Boss picked us up at the airport. Bought a settee & chair at Multiyork in Solihull. Out for dinner to Liaison, delicious and lots of nice touches but a bit frilly.
Sun 7 Oct
In Solihull. Over to see Beccie & John’s new house. Sunday lunch at the Malt Shovel. Flights back to Edinburgh, Ness drove home.
Mon 8 Oct
Worked from home. In the evening we drove into Edinburgh for our Arabic lesson. The lessons aren’t very structured. Salah does take us through some kind of syllabus I guess but he isn’t the best teacher. Never mind, I’m just glad to be learning this new language and script. Late by the time we got back to North Berwick.
Tue 9 Oct
Worked from home.
Wed 10 Oct
Worked from home. For dinner we had tasty tuna steaks with delicious Thai/Chinese “salsa” (cucumber, chillies, onion). I decided to make a start on travel planning for Libya, conscious that time is marching on and with me having booked the vacation time already we’re committed to the timeframe. I’m keen to make it a good long trip, as long as possible. Shame we can’t do it off our own bat and have to go for an organised tour, but it may have some advantages too. I joined up two “itineraries” from Lonely Planet to give a grand circular route and called one of the tour operators I found on the web, Worlds Apart Travel. Sounded good, run by experienced travellers themselves, and then fired off an email to their “Libya expert”, Mark Wilson.
Thu 11 Oct
Worked from home. Had a reply from Mark Wilson at Worlds Apart Travel to say he’s going to look into our plans for a trip to Libya, which sounds encouraging. He could have said “no way, far too complicated, we don’t do this kind of thing”. It’ll be a matter of planning it out now and Ness seems happy to leave me to deal with that. Ness made a packed lunch and flask of tea which we had sat on one of the benches by the beach. After a couple of cloudy grey days, the light had changed and it was clear, fresh, bright. A constant reminder of what is special about this place, and about our home on Westgate. Over the past days and weeks we (Ness mostly) have been busy lining up people to do work to bring our new home up to scratch. Like Ness said, it needed some time for us to learn how to live here and recognise what we actually have. The “rowdies” have been absent recently, much to my relief. We have had a visit earlier this week from Julie, from the fireplace shop in Haddington, to advise us and narrow down our choice of fireplace. For decorating work Ness has spoken to two people, one of whom is Grant from Inside Out. Grant is the husband of Gillian from Coast Properties through whom we rented Douglas Court, and seems a good and cheaper choice, although I’m a little wary he might be given to cutting corners or paying less attention to detail, but a couple of grand is quite a big difference! We also had an architect round some time ago but are still waiting to hear back from him. Ness has been out to buy tester pots for paint colours. We’re getting on with it in other words, and we’re keen to have made a good dent in it before Ness’s family come up for Christmas. In the evening we went out for a stroll to the harbour and sit on the rocks, watching the daylight fade. We sat in our usual spot, facing out to the east, looking out to the Bass Rock and the open North Sea. Behind us, to the west, the ribbons of clouds were lit up by the setting sun, producing some lovely golden fringes, and behind them we could see turquoise patches of sky. Simply beautiful! Back home we had the tasty and fiery curry Ness had prepared for dinner. I headed off to bed early (4am start tomorrow!) and managed to knock the hall light bulb out of its socket trying to get a stray butterfly out of the hall.
Fri 12 Oct
An early start for me, another airport run, to fly down to Heathrow. I got to the IBM office near Heathrow in good time, and had a very enjoyable day of networking with colleagues, listening to management presentations. Just like the Deloitte “Third Fridays” used to be, although on a slightly smaller scale (approx. 150 people I’d estimate). Flew back at the end of the day, just missing out on getting on the earlier flight. It was late by the time I got home.
Sat 13 Oct
Most of the day was taken up with furniture shopping.
Sun 14 Oct
Furniture shopping. We ended up buying two rugs from John Lewis, worth ££££, just to see how they would look in our lounge. As with most things on the home decoration front, Ness likes one thing and I like the other!
Mon 15 Oct
Trains not running, so had to take replacement bus service to Newcraighall and then catch a train from there. Started to work at the office. I had expected to start my new project, integration architecture for a “food service solutions” company, today but there was a delay of a couple of days while they sorted out the contract. It meant that I was twiddling my thumbs effectively. There was plenty of other stuff I could be doing, and I did some of it (admin, follow-up on last friday’s meeting, etc.), but I figured that with a “free” day we could use the time to finish off the furniture and lighting shopping we had struggled to make progress on this weekend and called Ness. Ness came into town and picked me up at the office at noon and we drove to the Sharp’s showroom in Morningside, and afterwards to MFI at Straiton, and for good measure we did Ikea too. It’s all blurred a bit into one as we try to come up with ideas and affordable solutions. I went out to get a bottle of wine and popped into Lockett’s, the posh offie, where I met Ronnie Corbett. Turns out he lives (“keeps a house”) in Gullane. He looked quite comical with an oversized hunting green flat cap and was very well spoken. The shop was manned by a French lady who turned out to be Sabine, of whom we know by reputation as she makes some delicious bread which is sometimes for sale locally. Turns out Ronnie Corbett is quite into baking his own bread too.
Tue 16 Oct
I worked from home again, despite my intentions to stop doing this and keep work and home separated, i.e. going to the office rather than working from the study at home. Ness took a bag of previously made chilli out of the freezer, which we had with bits’n’bobs, very tasty. Then Ness went out to the cinema club meeting, while I got comfortable on the settee in the lounge, with a blanket and Baloo, and started to watch (& record, as per instructions!) the first episode of the new series of Spooks. Ness kept trying to get through to Beccie who was on the phone to Caz.
Wed 17 Oct
Worked from home. After a bite of lunch we went for a walk along the beach. It was clear, cold and fresh, with a good north-westerly wind, which cleared our heads. Ness was busy downstairs while I pretended to work in the study. In reality, I have actually done very little today apart from downloading Bommel episodes and updating our website. I just can’t seem to get started somehow.
Thu 18 Oct
My new project started officially today.
Fri 19 Oct
Work, presumably.
Sat 20 Oct
In the morning we had someone from a bathroom company in Haddington round. I wasn’t impressed. All she did was to take some measurements and she seemed rather puzzled about what to suggest. Afterwards we drove into Edinburgh. First to B&Q to return the leaf-blower, which is no good to us as it doesn’t pick up conkers, then to Morningside, to choose lighting from Cotterells, and then to John Lewis to return the two rugs and get a refund. We’ve had these for about a week, to “try” them in our lounge. Basically, we ended up buying them outright - £££! – with the agreement to refund them if we brought them back without any marks. We had just enough time to do curtains also and made an appointment for a “consultant” to come to us and help us to select colours and fabrics. Back home in good time for the rugby. England vs. South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. Early during the day Ness had felt something twinge in her back and for the rest of the day it caused her a lot of pain, and I feared this might rule out our planned climb of Arthur’s Seat tomorrow. England lost 15-6 to South Africa in the rugby.
Sun 21 Oct
The pain in Ness’s back was bad today and she was out of action, relying on pain killers and deep heat to alleviate the ache. I drove to Gullane to buy bread from Falko’s but hadn’t realised they weren’t open until 11. Instead I got a Polish bread from Nisa Today’s and some bacon from Anderson’s. Half of the Grange restaurant was boarded up – the rowdies had smashed one of the windows last night. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Much as I tried not to show it, I was annoyed because we weren’t able to do our planned climb of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, which I had been looking forward to – much in need of a hike and fresh air. Ness had a brainwave and suggested we do one of the Linguaphone Arabic lessons and we spent a nice hour or so at the kitchen table going through the introductory lesson. Later Ness tried to encourage me to go for a walk along the beach or the Law, but these alternatives weren’t what I had in mind and, rather childishly, I sulked and slouched for the rest of the day. We watched the Brazilian grand prix in the afternoon, Kimi Raikkonen won the race and the championship, beating Lewis Hamilton by one point in the championship. In the evening it was the last-but-one episode of Palin’s New Europe.
Mon 22 Oct
Ness still had a pain in her back but it was a little better today. I worked in the Edinburgh office, fretting over my current project – too much to do in not enough time, and a client who has high expectations but is also rather disorganised. Great. I had an email back from Amelia at Simoon Travel to say she would try to put something together for our trip to Libya. She seems much more the kind of travel agent we should be talking to and I have a good feeling about what she might come up with. Ness drove into town and met me at the office. We went to Browns, along George Street, for an early dinner. The atmosphere was nice, but the meals were disappointing. Then we headed across to St Thomas of Aquin’s for our Arabic lesson with Salah. When we got home we made some hot chocolate, with a splash of dark rum, and watched a film on TV before heading for bed.
Tue 23 Oct
Worked in the Edinburgh office. Commute in, do stuff, commute out. Ness met me at the station and we went to the spa. We were earlier than usual and it was much busier, but we still had a nice long session and felt refreshed afterwards. Watched Spooks and had an early night.
Wed 24 Oct
Early start, flew to London. On arrival in London I made my first stop Blades, “the city hairdresser” for a much-needed trim. Then I hoofed it to Southbank where I met Phil, my project colleague. Over to the client’s office near Covent Garden. The rest of the day was taken up with meetings, and afterwards Phil and I walked to Waterloo Station where we had a quick drink. I walked back towards the South bank and had a simple so-so Japanese meal, which still cost me £40, and then took a cab to my hotel and settled into my room.
Thu 25 Oct
Back to the client’s office in the morning. Client was late and I found her manners lacking – no good morning, nothing – it wasn’t rudeness, just a lack of thought, and she generally seems to be out of her depth. Not enjoying this side of the work. Anyway, a morning of meetings and talking went by. I got myself changed on the earlier flight and made my way over to Heathrow. Ness had gone over to Scarborough for a few days and would not be at home tonight but even so I preferred to get home early if at all possible. It worked out and I managed to get home at a decent time and settled in front of the TV with a tray with bread, cheese, gherkins, etc. I did stuff on the laptop – mapping, etc. and ended up staying up very late, not getting to bed until around two o’clock. I cuddled up with Baloo and Joey.
Fri 26 Oct
After such a late night it wasn’t a surprise that I couldn’t get myself out of bed on time. Slowly I got going. Ness arrived home at around midday.
Sat 27 Oct
In the evening we drove over to Mark and Eliza’s house in Bathgate. They had invited us over for Mexican dinner and to stay overnight so we’re ready to go for a walk in the Pentland hills tomorrow morning. We packed a little bag, or two – overnight bag, walking packs, boots, presents for Mark (birthday tomorrow) and Eliza (birthday last tuesday), trivial pursuits, bottles of vino… Good to do something like this again. My original plan had been to meet up in town and have a night out in town, but this was actually a much better idea. Eliza was busy preparing the tortilla’s with all the trimmings, including home-made guacamole and so on. Pretty stuffed, we moved to the lounge and got the triv board out. In usual triv style, the game started off quickly, then ground to a halt as we tried to collect missing bits of pie, but ended up being a close contest with both teams ending up on the central square with all pieces of pie, but Mark and Eliza won in the end. Excellent evening.
Sun 28 Oct
Despite best intentions and Mark’s wake-up call, we didn’t manage an early start and had a leisurely breakfast. Eliza wasn’t up for the walking, preferring to go shopping with a friend instead, but Mark, Ness and I drove to the Pentland hills, close to Edinburgh, just south of the city bypass. Mark had picked an excellent route, which he had shown me as a “3D fly-through” on his Memory-Map software. Displayed on the screen with exaggerated vertical elevation it looked like climbing steep mountains, but in reality it was a nice (“gentle”) ridge-walk, climbing and descending from one hill to the next. We drove in two cars. First we parked Eddie at the car park by the Flotterstone Inn (www.flotterstoneinn.com), and then drove on in Mark’s car and parked at the start of the walk, near a little place with the lovely name of Silverburn, although it consisted of nothing more than just a collection of some houses. Mark’s chosen walk came up trumps. The weather was bright and fresh, perfect for a good walk and a clear head, and exactly what I had missed so much last weekend. Ness still could feel a bit of pain in her back but she seemed in pretty good spirits. We climbed gradually up to a saddle point between two low hills and then turned right, heading uphill to the top of the first of five hills: West Kip, East Kip, Scarnethy Law (or something) and two more. From the top of West Kip, the first hill, we already had fantastic views. Ahead of us we could see the ridge of hills. To the left and right we had fine views over the surrounding country. Off to the right was East Lothian and in the distance we could see Traprain Law, North Berwick Law, the Bass Rock and the North Sea. On our left was the more built up region around the M8. Beyond the hills ahead of us we could see parts of Edinburgh. Up here we were a million miles away from it all though. We followed the route, descending one hill and then climbing the next, but it never felt strenuous. As we climbed the hills further towards the “front” of the route we got better and better views. The wind was pretty strong at the top. Mark had prepared a packed lunch, Ness had brought the cereal bars we had bought at a service station, and I had a small supply of hopjes, or "hopkiss" as Mark has decided to call them. We had intended to only have a short walk and do “stuff” in the afternoon, but all in all it was after 4pm by the time we got back. It was just starting to rain, and the |