First Dip

Scones. (I know, I know, not typical breakfast fare; but they were yummy--and made by me.)

Yesterday I had my first alfresco swim of the year. I say "swim," that's a generous description of the very brief few strokes I made through the cold, cold, lily loch. (It's yet to get its lilies.)

The dog did not at all approve of my dip. And while it may have been chilly, you couldn't really ask for a better swim spot.

An Open Letter to Donald Trump

Toast and honey.

Dear Donald Trump,

I think I speak for many Scots when I say that your hair is beyond preposterous and ask "do you want to be known for centuries to come as 'Deranged Donald - the man who destroyed a site of special scientific interest?'"

I for one would much rather look at a wind turbine than Trump International Golf Links. After all, the former is a temporary structure with a minimal environmental impact; the latter is a permanent structure with a devastating environmental impact.

Nice offshore wind turbines

Not so nice Trump International Golf Links

I sincerely hope that Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group get their offshore wind farm and that you, Mr Trump, "get tae fuck" (as we poor, naive, renewable energy-supporting Scots would say).

Yours sincerely,

Iona's Breakfast

I am no lumberjack

If this evening's log-splitting efforts are anything to go by, I can safely rule out lumberjacking as a plan-B career (or lumberjilling as Miss Ramsay and I decided it should be called sometime when we were shifting bonfire materials and I was revealing my incredible weakness and she was demonstrating her freakish strength.)

The Turnip Princess

Doppelganger shreddies and muesli.

New fairytales, huzzah. Strangely, I had turnip for supper this evening. No princes or princesses have since materialised.

I Always Wear Wellies

Doppelganger Shreddies.

 Sometimes I wonder whether I ought to don my hiking boots like a proper walker person; but wellies are so much better for standing in the sea in.

Is this Old Age?

I am falling to pieces. (Physically, not emotionally--which is a nice change.) The other night I yawned and pulled a muscle in my ribcage somewhere near my left shoulder blade. (Yes, I did just yawn on typing that. And again.)

Is this old age? I'm pretty accident prone. I need some resilience against my clumsiness. It's really no good if the business of growing older means injuring oneself more easily and these injuries taking longer to heal (I'm talking to you rotator cuff). Today I dropped a log on my knee taking it out of the wheel barrow. This is a pretty standard altercation with an everyday object for me. I wouldn't ordinarily remember having done it except that it's actually rather tender still. I'm sure that in my younger days this wouldn't have hurt. Instead, when I noticed the bruise some days later, I would vaguely recall the log-dropping and attribute it to that.

Apologies again for the lack of photo. Can't find my card reader. I had potato scones with gooseberry jam.

Yawns and Ghosts

Toast with gooseberry jam.

Writing about other people yawning makes me yawn. That's how suggestible I am. In other news, a woman talking on her mobile phone outside the front of the house scared the crap out of me this evening. I could only just barely make out that the peculiar sound I was hearing was a voice. But it sounded so strange I rather persuaded myself it was supernatural. Having talked myself down, I went to the kitchen and came back to the morning room to discover that the previously closed curtains were now half-open (I think this was the dog's doing). Can't a scaredy cat catch a break?

International Polar Bear Day

Mon Papa thought I told him it was International Polar Bear Day this evening as a riposte to his complaint that the morning room was cold (it was his way of maligning my stove lighting skills); but it genuinely is International Polar Bear Day. And thanks to the good people at the Grauniad, you too can marvel at these furry, wonderful creatures.

P.S. Apologies for the lack of breakfast picture. I was far too hungry this morning to go upstairs in search of my camera. I had muesli.

I Heart Lichen

I went for a walk today in a most splendid wood teaming with moss and lichen and all nice green spongy things. I had mon Papa there, my hound Harry and a dog called Dan. Dan is 90 or so in dog years, but was never-the-less quite determined that he should go bounding in to the river and bark at the water, as he likes to do. We had to run after him to stop him. (It seemed a bad idea to let him get all wet as he's been unwell of late). Dan is a champ.

Fat Tuesday

I made some rather yummy pancakes this evening and even managed to flip them (not all that skillfully) without dropping any on the floor. Hurrah for me. Naturally I have no intention whatsoever of giving anything up for lent. My only interest in this festival is in the  pancakes. (There's nothing like a convent school education for putting you off organised religion or unorganised for that matter.) If I hadn't been so ravenously hungry, there might have been a photo or two. (Breakfast pic to follow! I had weetabix, in case the suspense is killing you.)

On being irresistible to toothless chain-smokers

Pain au chocolate and an apple, lime and kiwi smoothie.

The universe has a funny way of paying you back. Having bored Miss Ferguson to tears last night about seemingly no-one ever fancying me, I've just spent a three-hour bus journey rebuffing the repeated advances of a drunk, smelly, middle-aged pervert.

Perhaps it's a lesson in not overlooking what you do have. I'd forgotten in my despondency that while it tends to be the case that nice, pleasant-smelling men familiar with the norms of social interaction are largely oblivious to my charms, I am an absolute hit with chain-smoking, toothless creeps.

I suppose one should always try to be thankful for one's particular strengths (however unwanted!). There can't be many women in the world who can say there's not a single boozed-up, bad-breathed, fifty-something multiple-divorcee who can resist them...

Reading List

Photo to follow...

I stumbled across this today, The Observer's list of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time! (My exclamation mark not theirs.) It's a bold claim, and one that I'm ill-place to judge very well given how many of the books I haven't read. I think this year, I'm going to make it my mission to tick a few more off the list.

Jane Eyre a klutz?

Photo to follow...

One has to wonder whether Decca Aitkenhead has actually read "Jane Eyre." Given the below I can only assume that it's languishing at the bottom of a Things I Ought to Have Read pile. Or perhaps Ms Aitkenhead tackled it at too tender an age and quite seriously misinterpreted it (a little bit like me and "Les Miserables," which it turns out does not feature dragons).

Part of the problem is that no one can agree on a definition of chick lit. Bridget Jones's Diary is generally cited as an early example, but Allison Pearson hit the roof when her novel about a working mother, "I Don't Know How She Does It," was assigned to the genre. The book's key ingredient – a sassy but klutzy female protagonist, embroiled in comical misadventures – could arguably be found in Jane Eyre, leaving any definition so elastic as to verge on meaningless.

Jane Eyre is many, many things: "sassy but klutzy" is not one of them. Also, Aunt Reed, typhus epidemics and nutso-bananas pyromaniacal first wives hardly constitute "comical misadventures."

Humbugs

Porridge. Yum.

I got another non-chewy humbug this evening. Bah!

Bed Socks

Muesli and blueberries.

This is the current temperature in my bedroom...

... Which is why I have to dress like this for bed...

I know what you're thinking. I don't understand why I'm not married to Matt Damon either.

What is it About Matt Damon?

Honey loops and cornflakes and apple, grape and pomegranate juice.

There's just something completely winning about Matt Damon. I can't put my finger on it at all, but every time I watch him in something I fall a little bit in love with him (with the possible exception of The Talented Mr Ripley; but even then...).

I have just spent the last two hours wishing I was Emily Blunt in "The Adjustment Bureau." Much as I spent a lot of watching "Birdsong" wishing I was Clemence Poesy. Eddie Redmayne's a pretty darn winning one too. Except I'd want to inhabit a fantasy universe in which there was no death and destruction and Mr Redmayne and I just had lovely freckle-nosed babies together and lived on stinky cheese and red wine.

What can I say, living in the middle of nowhere with a small shaggy dog as my most regular companion has left me a lot of time for extremely far-fetched daydreaming. I'm not sure I'd entirely enjoy life in early twentieth century France though. The corsets and lack of gender equality might prove tedious.

(On an entirely unrelated note, I've been eating a lot of humbugs lately; it's upsetting when you get one that isn't chewy in the middle.)

Coco Pops!

Coco Pops Moons and Stars and Rice Crispies.

For reasons unclear, my father arrived home last night with a present for me: a Kellogs Fun Pack. It's an odd sort of an offering for a twenty-nine-year-old. And perhaps the first time ever that my father has faciliated my eating sugary cereal. Maybe he's making up for all those years of not allowing me Coco Pops. How I remember the joys of visiting other people's houses with "children's cereal." The breakfast stuffs of my early years were stricly cocoa and sugar free.

Red Sky in the Morning

Weetabix and an apple.

Sometimes it's not so bad getting up early:

Though it is true what they say about red skies in the morning. And it's not just shepherds who mind.

What Dr. Seuss Books were Really About..

Toast with bramble jam.

This is doing the rounds on Facebook. I like it.

See BuzzFeed.

Messing with Facebook

Doppelganger shreddies and an apple.

I discovered the other day -- through Miss Ramsay -- a new and childish delight: messing with Facebook's advertising feedback. I like to think that by flagging an advert for Manolo Blahniks('s?) as "against my views", and labelling "Get paid to type" "sexually explicit," I am distorting some algorithm or other. Perhaps   I need to get off the island. Or Facebook.

Eau de Crotte de Mutton

Doppelgnager Shreddies and an apple.

Today I walked up Ben Tianaviag with a couple of Hughs and my hound Harry, who -- I realise -- used the expedition to douse himself in his favourite scent: Eau de Crotte de Mutton.

This is clear to me now that he is curled up in my lap and a familiar smell is wafting its way into my nostrils. And to think how diligently we steered him away from the dead dogfish on the beach, so he wouldn't roll in that. At least that would have been a new olfactory experience; sheep shit is both pongy and prosaic.

What if...

Whilst looking for a photo of a Robin I came across this on the Beeb. Didn't know that about postmen and Christmas cards...

Yesterday I was watching a Robin bobbing around under the bird table when a Blackbird came along and chased him away. Then I wondered how the poor Robin would have felt if an Eagle had come along. It's incredible really how there's such variation in size across the same genre of animal.

Imagine if that were true for humans; if one day you could encounter a person who was to you as an Eagle is to a Robin. I suppose that happens on a metaphorical level from time-to-time, like when you meet someone of towering intellect who is also about a hundred times better-looking than you, and ten times as funny.

Still, at least there's some room for denial here. If, however, you were genuinely to encounter someone forty times bigger than you, there would be no deluding your way out of it.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I was on holiday and then injured (shoulder all messed up); computers have been (and remain) something of a challenge--most especially use of the mouse, because I am absurdly right-handed, and this is the not-really-functioning side.

P.P.S. I forgot to take a photo this morning. You merely missed a bowl of doppelganger shreddies.

Chilblains, Chilblains, Chilblains

Toast with strawberry jam; toast with bramble jam and two clementines.

One of the great disadvantages of living in the cold north is the chilblains. Of course I do all the wrong things: plunging my icy feet into hot baths, warming them on my hotwater bottle at night, practically putting them in the fire in the evenings. Still, even when I try my very hardest to avoid such temptations I seem to suffer from them. I feel like I've fallen out of the wrong century. It doesn't seem to be a very modern affliction. Though I suppose most people nowadays aren't obliged to wear five layers indoors.

I'll never be James Bond

Shredded wheats and clementines.

It turns out you can't join MI5 if you haven't lived in the UK for nine out of the past ten years. Foiled! Perhaps the CIA would have me instead. I expect, though, that being a dual national rather rules me out of any sort of espionage (to say nothing of the fact that "blogging" about it -- I still need to put this word in quotes to minimise its obnoxiousness -- quite definitely constitutes a major infringement of the "tell only your loved ones" guidelines).

Ho hum. Almost certainly just as well. Everything that fiction ("literary," cinematic and televisual) tells me indicates that things always go rather shaped like a pear for lady spies.

All My Favourites

Shredded wheats and clementines.

The only person missing from this is Alan Rickman; but perhaps that would be too much actorly magic.  Am very much looking forward to seeing this in approximately one year when it finally makes it to the Portree cinema. The rest of you may see it in February I believe.

Elementary!

Porridge.

I can't believe I've only just cottoned on the BBC's Sherlock -- it's good gripping stuff. One of the benefits of coming to these things late though is that I still haven't seen the first series. And I suppose there's the new Guy Ritchie one too; but I thought the last one was a little too pleased with itself. Still, needs must.

An Elephant Never Forgets

Co-op shredded wheats and a pear.

Sometimes I worry about my memory. I hardly remember anything about being little, excepting instances of guilt, idiocy and a few bouts of illness. Specifically: pushing my sister (gently) down the stairs when I couldn't think of anything further to say and I realised I was advantageously placed (it was a short flight, I promise); shutting my fingers in the hinge of a door because I wanted to know how the hinge worked; shutting myself in the coal hole because I wanted to know how dark it was in there with the door completely closed (very); getting a part from a wind-up clock lodged in my nostril (necessitating a 6-7-hour round trip to Raigmore Hospital); and finally, being struck down with the measles at my Grandmother's house and her insisting that I wear a scarf on my head for weeks afterwards as she was worried I'd go deaf otherwise.

Other than that, I remember bizarre things like the round seat that was in the drawing room (evidently these are called "sociables") and my Great Grandmother's car. Or at least I thought I remembered this car, vividly, until I was describing it to my father the other day and he hadn't the foggiest idea what I was talking about; which brings me to this fascinating article I read in The Guardian today about the unreliability of memories.

Mashed Potatoes, Dribbling and Arthritis

Co-op's own shredded wheat thingys and banana.

I had bangers and mash for supper tonight. Yum. I've shared before my irrepressible need to sing the Bodger and Badger song every time I make mashed potatoes. I wish it wasn't so.

When I'm old and dribbling and don't know who I am anymore, I'll still remember this flaming theme tune. Forget Barney the Dinosaur, this is a far more effective instrument of torture.

To old and dribbling and not knowing who I am, I ought also to add arthritis,;which my father helpfully suggested I may already be suffering from when I complained about my left index finger hurting in the cold, and always taking longer to warm up (it's the one I slammed in a door).

No Breakfast

Winnie the Pooh sniffing out some condensed milk.

I didn't get around to breakfast this morning, which is most unusual for me. Perhaps I ought to have photographed my lunch, but I'd entirely gobbled it up by the time the thought crossed my mind.

Not to worry though, I've more than made up for any calorific losses in the morning by indulging my passion for condensed milk. Not an entire tin (for once), but a sufficiency shall we say.

French Children Don't Throw Food

Toast and raspberry jam.

French children may not throw food, but they are hard-wired to protest. During my days as a "jeune fille au pair" I remember sitting in the garden on a sunny day and watching as a group of preposterously Gallic children marched around in single file brandishing sticks and chanting "on dit non, on dit non." The youngest striker was about 18-months-old, and barely talking. The cause of their protest was not evident.

Rain, rain, rain

Weetabix.

I know it's predictably British to talk about the weather, but I'm actually amazed there's any sea water left to evaporate and fall as precipitation on this here island. The ground is water-logged. I exaggerate not. Everywhere I step, it squelches. The whole garden is a bog. Is this the end of the world?

First Snowdrops

Toast with raspberry jam, and an apple.

I spotted my first snowdrops whilst taking the dog on his nightly rounds. Only a few were in flower, the rest were just little green shoots pushing up from the soggy, soggy ground and hinting: "spring is coming"...

Damn you Zooey Deschanel...

Found the card reader! Toast and raspberry jam.

... And your ridiculously ruly hair. Every time her perfect locks fill the screen I'm reminded of the inadequacy of my own capricious mane. Miss Deschanel wouldn't be nearly so manic pixie dream girlish if she was contending with extremely fine, cowpat-coloured hair that acts as a reliable barometer.

Barnet envy aside, I did enjoy rewatching (500) Days of Summer this evening.

Cables Cables Everywhere

Sorry for the late posting, I've had no internet for the last twenty-four hours.

It turns out you can lift an awful lot of floorboards and wiggle an awful lot of cables and still not know where the wires for the plug you want to move originate from. We figured it out eventually. (I say we, my role was mostly cable wiggler, screwdriver holder and comic relief: mon Papa did the figuring out.)

Still, after a great deal of furniture moving, drill-wielding and tea drinking, we now have a plug in the corner of the morning room. I bet you're all thrilled to hear that.

Oopsy

A live orchid that was not left in my care(lessness).

Still no sign of the card reader for the breakfast pictures, and ... five days into 2012 and one of my resolutions (better blogger) has already fallen by the wayside.

In other news, it turns out that the clips that were holding the orchid that I forgot to water on to its supporting canes are actually rather good hair grips. I think they call this a silver lining. Not sure that my father would agree (he was rather vexed to discover that I had killed just about all of the house plants in his absence). It's just when its pouring with rain outside, one rather forgets that it isn't raining indoors too. In fact, in parts of our house it does also rain indoors -- but there are no plants there. Worse luck. Mea Culpa. Hortus Siccus. Amo, Amas, Amat.

Lost Count

Now seems a good time to dispense with the breakfast numbering, as I seem to have lost count.

Had a lovely walk out to Oronsay today, accross a tidal causeway. The tide wasn't very far out when we got there, we tried to run for it, we got wet. Very wet. But then that's half the fun of Skye walks. Especially when you know there's a warm fire to go home to.

P.S. after last night's game of 1981 Trivial pursuit, I can advise that -- if in doubt -- the answer is Brazil or Boston. Also, if you answer Humphrey Bogart enough times, eventually it will be the answer.

P.P.S. Sorry for the lack of photo again today. I did take one, but the camera is a long way from the computer and who knows where the card reader is... I will post it tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

That's right, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, I've just been a useless blogger. Partly this is down to a surfeit of fun (and a minor bout of ill health that saw me go entirely breakfastless) and partly because, the longer I left it, the more daunting the task of smooshing together all my photos in a easily viewable form became...

As you will notice, I have not risen to the task, nor -- let's be realistic, am I likely to. Instead, I promise to be a diligent photo uploader and blogger in 2012: it will be my resolution. You'll just have to imagine what I've been eating for the last fortnight or so. I will say, there were a goodly number of Weetabix.

I'm sitting by the fire now gearing up to a play a game of 1981 edition Trivial Pursuit with some friends in which we will all be equally disadvantaged because most of us weren't alive then.