Books and Clay

I had Christmas day on my own for the first time as Mum and James were stranded as their street is on a hill. They watched a car try to come up and it just slid all the way back down so we postphoned everything until Sunday. It didn't bother me so much being on my own as it was due to the weather, besides I managed to make headway with the blanket for my new niece who was due on 29th (still no appearance at the time of writing!). Anyway, it's finished and as it had to be different from my other 2 nieces blankets, I did it in squares and stitched them together which took most of a day to do. The squares that are one colour are actually sewn sideways to make it look different. I'm just waiting for the bairn to make her appearance and I'll let my wrist recover before starting another one. I'm thinking about doing a non-baby for a change, at least until the next baby comes around! Happy New Year to all!

Road going towards the direction of the lighthouse. I didn't notice the bird until today! View of the Glens Going up towards Boddin and Usan View of Montrose and Dun, the train just happened to appear. Although we didn't have as much snow as some parts of the country, we did have several inches. I'm off work on holiday at the moment so thankfully didn't have to drive through it but the snow certainly brightened up the landscape. I've posted some photos taken round Ferryden. We were bothered more by ice which was lethal. We usually get gritted in Ferryden but after Christmas Eve, we didn't see them till about the Tuesday. I was through in Arbroath for the Watchnight service only because the singing group were singing - I usually go to the local kirk which is about 5 mins away. Our organist was playing otherwise, I wouldn't have gone as I got a lift from him but I walked down with mum and the whole journey was a nightmare as the roads and pavements were

This is proof that we had snow on Thursday! More fell later, in fact, the car still has some on it's roof. It's been on and off since then but I'd rather have snow and floods. So, now been at the Panto three times! I went with my nieces this morning as mum got free tickets via her work. I'm getting to know the lines quite well though and it's nice to see how the actors have changed things. I met Joelle for lunch afterwards and caught up on the news which was great. It's hard to meet up as we both work different hours but we more than make up for it in the end. I went back to work on Tuesday to discover that I was being sent to Hamilton (round trip of 230 miles) for a meeting as the director and libraries manager couldn't go so off I toddled in the car on Wednesday and the journey was fine. There's alot of work on the M80, M73, M74 but got through that with no problem. However, I did get hopelessly lost in Hamilton! I was on the correct street b

At the end of November I went through to Edinburgh to see "We Will Rock You" at the Playhouse and it was an excellent show. My one criticism is that the band were a tad too loud and drowned out some of the singing but apart from that, it was great. The cast were strong and you could see Ben Elton's humour in the dialog. I recommend it to everyone. We had some Glasweigians behind us who were spoiling for a fight, one woman ended up in tears just as we arrived and a couple of rows behind, at least half a dozen folk were thrown out after the interval. There were alot of folk constantly moving around which seems to be the thing these days but to be honest, it annoyed me and it must annoy the cast. The Playhouse also have binoculars at every second seat or so for folk to use (after paying £1). I went through the mum and some of her work colleagues, we got a minibus and stayed the George Hotel which was lovely. We were booked into another hotel but some idiot had left hi

I can't believe I've just written my first Christmas card today - where has the year gone? Of course, I'll have to do the rest so this year those abroad may actually get their cards on time for once! Panto season is away to start and it's been a wee while since I last went but I'm going twice to see Aladdin in Arbroath. I'm going to a preview, never been to one of those, with some of my workmates and then with the Rotary. Add into that the Christmas Tree Festival, staff meal, singing group and a show this weekend, December is looking to be fairly busy which is how it should be. So I've got a couple of days off just now with most of December off. I'm back at College and have to fit my holidays around the classes so I think I'll only be a work for about 4 days in December. I'm currently designing and building a website which is interesting and am using Dreamweaver and Photoshop and trying to learn CSS at same time. Added to that, I'm bus

Well, it's been raining most of last week - again. Today is lovely in comparison. On Wednesday I went back to Uni in Aberdeen for the day on a cataloguing course (of all things!). I must admit I never thought I'd hear the name Lubetzky again. Robert Gordon's (RGU) moved to Garthdee a year or so after I graduated and apart from being at an interview at the time, it was the first time I'd been in the new campus. What a difference. Everything is ID controlled, masses of students everywhere as there are quite a lot of departments under the one roof. It was nice though, loads of rooms and toilets on every floor and it was spacious. We were linking up via video conferencing with folk in the Islands and the technology didn't work most of the time. The sound failed due to the RGU network apparently so all the folk saw was the tutor waving his arms now and again! It reminded me of the time we spent waiting in primary school for the teacher to figure out how to put t

On Thursday I got to out of the office (yipee!) to visit Heelix Binders inFalkirk. Pauline, one of our staff, also came with me so after dealing with the mobile drivers we left. I'd packed the flasks and she brought the biscuits (essential!) and we stopped in a layby on the way down and way back. We found a lovely restuarant just 10 mins from Falkirk and also went over the new bridge - there was only us and one other car so it felt a bit strange but you got a good view. We spent three hours in the bindery and were shown everything from start to finish. We even saw some of our books at stage one. I fell in love with the glue machine - it's just a roller with glue constantly moving and the buckrum is rolled between and hey presto! one side is covered in glue! After the visit, we headed straight up the motorway and timed it prefectly by hitting the Broxburn roundabout at Perth at the start of rush hour. I'd visited the bindery 10 years ago but the company has since spl

It's commonly known that the British love to chat about the weather - in fact, it rules our lives. Well, this weekend will keep us going for months to come! It started on Friday night when my roof decided it was going to leak again. It's been fine for the last 6 months or so, but not on Friday. It seems that the wind has to be blowing in a certain direction, at a certain speed. Of course, it generally doesn't leak during the day when I'm not there (but the buckets are) but at night, so I spent the night on the sofa bed. I can sleep through many things like fire engines, but not drip, drip, drip. Saturday was lovely and so warm I actually walked around town with a summer top on and sun glasses. With the clocks going back last weekend, it's dark going to work and dark coming home from work so seeing the sun was nice. But yesterday was wet. It basically rained from early morning through to early this morning. The roads were fine when I went up to Aberdeen, alo

My friend Joelle and I finally managed to meet up on Saturday so hit the shops in Montrose. I managed to make a good start on my Christmas shopping which was great and then we headed back to mine and walked out to the lighthouse to build up an appeite for tea. We had an Indian takeaway (and alcohol of course) and watched Shrek the Third as she had never seen it. It was a lovely night and nice just to chill. It's hard nowadays to meet up due to the different hours we work. I went up to Aberdeen yesterday to give Maria and Bryan the blanket. Owen was awake and is soooo lovely. It's amazing the way babies stare at you - you have to wonder what they are thinking. The cats said hello as well though Benson (the fluffy one) decided to wait until I was leaving - maybe it was cheerio?! Anway, as promised, I've uploaded the photo of the blanket. You may think it's the same as the last one but it isn't really. It's the same pattern but the colour scheme is differ

Owen Robertson was born in Aberdeen yesterday at 14.50 and arrived safely. Both him and Maria are fine as is dad Bryan. He's baby no. 2 for getting a blanket which has been finished for a couple of weeks now but I won't put a picture up until I've given it to Maria and Bryan otherwise it'll kinda spoil the surprise! Must admit, Bryan took a lovely photo of Maria holding Owen just after the birth and she looked really good having just gone through a long labour. I'm hoping to go up to see them soon once they're home and settled. So, one more blanket to do and I really have to do a different pattern as I've done the previous designs for my other nieces. This baby to be is a girl by the way and I've 11 weeks apparently, so no pressure! I know I'd said I'd upload photos from the weekend away but as usual, the phone rang and 2 hours later, I'd enough of staring at the PC. Hopefully, I'll get them done soon and I reckon I'll have to l

Where has the time gone?! It's been about six weeks since my last post so here's a brief update. A couple of weekends ago, Since it was forecasted to be a lovely day, I went round Glen Clova and Glen Doll with Sharon, a colleague from work, on our bikes. We reckon we cycled about 18 miles or so though admittedly I had to walk up a few of the steeper slopes! I get half way up and just grind to a halt. It was a great day and the weather held only deciding to rain when we were leaving. I have noticed a problem with the bike, just a minor one really. The seat has a tendancy to move so I can be pedalling along quite happily then suddenly my knees are up at my chin!! This of course, tends to happen going up a hill making life challenging, so I'll have to figure out someway of tightening it. The bolt is not like a standard bolt either - typical. I'm now back at College and am having to create a website from scratch which should be interesting since I've never used CS

Well, this is blanket number one and I finished it on the day he was due. It's hard to see but the colour scheme is blue, green, yellow and white. It looks better on the camera though. The body of it only took a couple of weeks to do but Mum thought I should do the edging the way it said in the book. The problem was (and still is) I can't make head or tail of it, so I spent five hours down at my aunt's madly crocheting away. I've only done five out of ten rows as I think that's enough otherwise it'd be overkill. Anyway, Rory made his entrance on 27th August 2009 and is gorgeous!! He was due the day before and Kathleen went into labour bang on time though she ended up getting a caesarean. Both are doing well. So now it's on to blanket number two and I've decided to do the same pattern mainly as the baby is due on October 5th. By the time I get to the edging, I'll be back down at my aunt's again as I still don't understand the pattern!!

Just a wee note to say that I've collected £288.20 in sponsor money so a big thank you to everyone who sponsored me. Kate handed the money in today for me as I couldn't get off work in time to do it and was told they'd raised £23,000 which is fantastic.

I've finally got Michael Morpurgo's signature in my authograph book! I already have a couple of books signed by him but he's now with the rest of the signatures so I'm happy. I went to see him speak yesterday with the Montrose and Forfar children's bookgroup and he was fantastic as usual. I could listen to him talk all day mainly because he's so passionate about reading and storytelling. In case you don't know, Michael Morpurgo was Britain's children's laureate a few year's ago, is a top children's author and because he's so popular, it's next to impossible to get him to come to a small, local event so we were extrememly lucky to be able to get tickets for his talk this year. Mind you, I did spend over an hour on the phone only to be told that I'd to phone a different number as they dealt with groups! Anyway, the children did the treasure hunt and got their prize though strangely enough the answers were at the bottom which sor

We get some fantastic sunsets here and possibly sunrises except I'm not up that early! I took this one a couple of nights ago though the sky was pinkier. I couldn't get the camera on the right setting in time. You can see the outline of the Glens in the background. The harbour's been busy recently, in fact, one ship has just arrived and another has left. Someone asked why I use the name Spud Murphy. Well, if you read The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer you'll find out why and please, please, please ask for it at your local library first as not only are they free, it's also a children's book and will take you about 20 mins to read. Believe it or not, my street cred actually rose when the kids in the library read it as well - hence the reason I use it!!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who sponsored me for the walk round Montrose Basin. My brother-in-law Dave walked it with me as Kate is pregnant just now. We arrived a little late so missed the registration but caught the last group up at the House of Dun. We even passed some of them and finished the walk in 2hrs 55 mins which was a fantastic time. It's supposed to be 10 miles and is all on the road or pavements as there isn't a actual path round the basin itself. However, I'm positive that there was at least an extra mile at the end plus we had to walk back to the car! It's was a lovely evening though I did get a couple of blisters as I wasn't wearing my hiking boots but I'm really pleased that my knee was fine. I think the cycling has definetly helped with that. Oh, and I really recommend Irn-bru at the finish line!! I'm still waiting for the last of the money to come in but I've got around £270 I think and I will post the fina

I'm currently on holiday at the moment and go back to work on Monday so have finally got some time to update the blog. It's raining at the moment (it's true, the British love talking about the weather!) so it's a fine time to work on it. Thanks to the fridge/freezer that decided to die on me just after it's guarantee had run out (naturally), I'm holidaying at home which has turned out really well. The corn lice, of course, came out on the first day and we now have a bird scarer going off literally every two minutes and sounds like a gun. The Council are also proposing to put double yellow lines starting from my house up to the last house leading to the lighthouse, meaning all and sundry will be parking in front of my house and there will nowhere for the 15 or so cars to go. The car park is full, can't park there and rest of the streets certainly can't take the cars. Needless to say, the majority if not all of the street are objecting and you have t

I've just realised that I mention the lighthouse and forget most of you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. This is Scurdie Ness Lighthouse and my house is in the old part of Ferryden and on the the road leading to it. It takes about 15 mins to walk there (unless you meet folk you know and end up talking!), the road has different gradients so is great to walk after work. It's still a working lighthouse though unmanned like the rest. The house and road are privately owned and the local farmer has a couple of routes for folk to walk. We also have loads of dolphins, the occasional Orca whale and the sea has alot of shipping traffic and as well as the local fishermen. In the winter you get fantastics waves and can be pretty wild. I'm hoping that this year the corn lice won't put in an appearance as the crawl all over you, get in everywhere and make you itch. Of course, being next to the sea means you get a lot of haar. A couple of summers ago everyone

I've finally bitten the bullet and got a new bike as my other one resembles a rust bucket and is a nightmare to get in and out of the house. I also need to build up the strength in my knee again as it's been seizing up over the winter. So, I did my research on the web (handy being a librarian and all) and have not got a folding bike as it has be stored either in the car or in the kitchen and for those of you who have seen my house, you know how small it it is. This bike folds down very easily and certainly takes up a lot less space. I picked it up last night and cycled out to the lighthouse and back and this morning, went through the village, walked up the brae (in my defence, they're pretty steep!) and did a circular route of Usan and Boddin, then back to Ferryden. I forgot how great it is to go downhill at speed with the breeze in front of you. There are alot of steep braes round here so I should get a goood workout so I'll be out on it as much as I can. The onl

Well, apologies for not updating sooner. There are several reasons, main one being I need to sleep! Working full-time, studying at College plus being the secretary of the Rotary (and that's just the start) take up quite a bit of time. Anyway, more photos will go up soon especially as they're a great way of showing everyone what's happening instead of printing them out and posting them (especially the rate my printer seems to go through ink). I'm quite busy at the moment as I mentioned. I'm trying to read for our bookgroup as well as read for the Angus Book Award longlisting. I've decided to finish with the Boys' Brigade for new as I've done it for 19 years and need a break particulary with studying for college. There are other reasons as well but I will miss the kids. I don't have a piano at home, just a keyboard which I don't play alot as I end up playing air and the majority of my music isn't suitable for a keyboard. Our Church has recen

As a family, we always went on loads of picnics and that hasn't really changed. However, we seem to pick days when it's snowing, raining and in this case blowing a gale. On Monday past we went north and this mum and I at a picnic site outside Aboyne freezing to death. The wind is at our backs hence the reason my hair is everywhere. Probably explains why I've now got the cold! My brother James and Aunt Madge were also there but I'm not going to embarrass them - yet! For Mother's day, we went to Crombie with Kate's family and yes, it was also blowing a gale. We put down a rug on the table and guess who ended up with all the crumbs over her! Picnics are so much fun.....!

This picture was taken for the presentation I made to our Rotary Club last year. The urn on the left was the very first thing I made at pottery when I was in Wales. Believe it or not, it was supposed to be a jug!! This is the fourth blanket, the one I made for Sally's son James. This urn was never supposed to be this tall, it just sort of grew and barely fitted into the kiln. The design is an Ancient Greek Octopus and is scratched into the white slip (wet clay that's coloured and painted on).

Another hobby of mine is crochet which my Aunt taught me though I was taught with wool and in straight lines so I find cotton and shapes harder though I've made one or two things that way. I did make a necklace for a friend which worked out well. Anyway, I make tea cosies (bizarre, I know) and baby blankets. My sister fell pregnant with her first daughter so I had to learn fast to make her one. Each blanket is unique and I improve with every one I may add. So far there are four: first one for Jade (Kate's eldest), Brooke (her second), Jayden (my friend, Jennefer, in America's son) and James (Sally in Wales's son). My neighbour Kathleen at the back of my house is pregnant, due in August so I'm making her one and my friend Maria in Aberdeen is also expecting in October so numbers 5 & 6 will done together which will be a first. At the moment, my favourite is Brooke's as I couldn't understand the pattern so made up the edging! A bit of blood, sweat and

Right, this herd is my pride and joy. I started making them when I stayed in Wales and I was the only Scottish person in the class and couldn't think of anything to make, so thought of highland cows. My favourite and first one is Morag (the brown one on the left with the lovely horns). The wee brown one is Wee Hamish. I moved back to Scotland soon after so they are technically Welsh! The one at the back left is best forgotten about, more like a sheep than anything else! To his right is Catherine, then Big Angus (created to go with Morag and Wee Hamish) and last but not least is Jock.

Well, I created this blog two years ago on a course and guess what? I'm on that course again! I'm hoping to keep this blog up and running so as they say, second time lucky. I'm hopeless at coming up with an idea off the top of my head so I orginially thought to show everyone my wonderful pottery creations (orders happily taken!) and to write about books (well, it's my profession after all). I should mention that I'm not taking pottery classes at the moment as I'm now the secretary of the Montrose Rotary Club which is on the same night. I do intend to take it up again in a couple of years though. Bye for now!