Man, I wonder how long this New Year resolution will last...??? I'm shocking even myself with this frenzy of posts!
Anyhoo. The New Year weekend has been most unadventurous but very relaxing. Yesterday after a breakfast of fried eggs on rolls (very tasty, made by Gareth – he is becoming so domesticated!) we headed off to Dunfermline to spend our Christmas vouchers, specifically to find machine-washable suits from M&S (Gareth) and get wasted in Trespass/Mountain Warehouse and Waterstone's (me). Getting there was an absolute nightmare – there had been some snow overnight and the slope going up the East Port to the Kingsgate was total mush. The wheels on the Clio were spinning and spewing slush all about (one of the downsides of a small car) and after all that trouble getting parked there wasn't even a wide selection of suits in store. The High Street was all slushy and icy and we had to be very careful making our way to Mountain Warehouse. Alas, couldn't really find anything I wanted there but I did get a new pair of water/windproof trousers at Trespass – can't wait to get out there and sled!
After navigating our way safely across the melting Siberian wasteland that was the High Street we popped into The Pancake Place for munchies – it's always been a place that I've wanted to try because it looks so warm and inviting. It was bustling and we got a table with a street view – very cozy especially with the arrival of a sudden snow flurry. The food didn't disappoint – Gareth had the Bookmakers' Sandwich (fried mushrooms and onions on steak, yum!) and I had the stovies (tasty, could have been better – I always expect it to be a take on potatoes dauphinoise), but the service left a lot to be desired. Food took a while to arrive, staff seemed just happy waiting about the counter, no communication between kitchen and service resulting in food sitting around (our pancakes were apparently “just off the griddle” but were getting cold by the time they arrived). Not entirely sure if I'd go back again, unless I was in the area and absolutely starving.
Coming home we were both struck down simultaneously by a sudden case of the runny jobbies – might have been the eggs. I was especially struggling to hold it in, and all we wanted to do was get home and into the toilet. So it REALLY didn't help matters that, thanks to the snow flurry, the street coming down to the flat had even more slush. It was really quite scary and, for me anyway, a case of nearly shitting ourselves – didn't know if the Clio would go first or we would. It was just skidding along downhill despite Gareth applying the brakes – and after what seemed like a spell of car-in-slow-motion, finally got it to the kerbside. It was a right butt-clencher as we inched our way down slowly to the junction and to the flat (and seeing a couple of cars in front and behind us spinning like tops on the slush while we were at it).
This morning – woke up bleary-eyed (result of playing Indiana Jones: The Adventure Continues on the Wii till 2am) to more snow. About a couple of inches of fresh powdery snow fell during the night – really loved seeing everything blanketed in white again after the melt of the past week. Was supposed to be -10°C last night too. Caught the train into Edinburgh and went for the first service of the year at St Giles' Cathedral – first time we'd both done it. The minister spoke on 'A River Runs Through It' – given that it was the New Year sermon, it was fittingly about time (micro-time and macro-time), how the years bear down on us, and how we conquer the end of our time (death) if we have God and believe in Christ. Not a bad sermon overall but I felt he could have rounded it off better, come to more conclusions – as it was it felt like a lot of clever quotations on the passage of time from learned men throughout history.
Went for lunch at Wannaburger (also another first – never been in there) and had Mos Burgers which were very good. Melted cheese, fried onions and mushrooms on a Scottish beef patty in a toasted sesame seed buns (mine had free extra toppings of pickles, Cajun spices and jalapenos). Then hit Princes Street where Gareth got two suits at M&S and I got a new pair of walking boots – they're comfortable, sturdy and robust, but I think they're a tad heavy. I've yet to find anything half as good as my favourite Adidas ones, which I've been mourning since 2005 when they had to be cut off following my ankle fracture. Sob. We also got a couple of DVDs and books (which is slightly insane considering how many we got over Christmas).
And now here we are at home all cozy, especially in the knowledge that neither of us needs to be in the office tomorrow (though I'll be working from home on my stories, top of the list being the New Year babies). It hasn't been very outdoorsy but I'm not complaining. Not really anyway. Still think the only thing that could have made this weekend more fun would have been more walking... or sledding...
Factoids of the Week:
Even if I don't post anything else for the rest of the year, this should see my trivia quota right through to the next Olympics. For its New Year's Day 2010 edition, the BBC's Magazine Monitor compiled a rather splendid list of the “100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year”. Among the titbits for your delectation are:
Using both hands to read Braille achieves an average speed of 115 words a minute, compared with 250 words a minute for sighted reading.
Triple Olympic gold winner Sir Chris Hoy was inspired to cycle by ET. He started riding in BMX competitions as a seven-year-old after being inspired by the movie.
DJ/musician Moby is related to novelist Herman Melville and was named after his most famous creation.
You can hiccup while asleep.
John the Good was bad and William the Bad was good.
In camel-racing the jockeys are electronic robots.
The bubonic plague still exists. Apparently, it still kills a few hundred a year, and the pneumonic plague can kill within 24 hours.
Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of edible frogs – 5000 tonnes a year. About a billion frogs are taken from the wild for human consumption every year and about a third of all amphibians are listed as threatened species.
The brain chemical serotonin causes locusts to swarm.
Naked rambling is legal in Switzerland.
Being born with additional digits (fingers/toes) is called being polydactyl.
The Channel between Dover and Calais froze over in 1673.
Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.
The average number of friends is 150. (This got me a bit depressed.)
Monkeys floss. Researchers from Japan have observed female monkeys in Thailand showing their young how to floss their teeth, using human hair.
Holding your hands up on a rollercoaster stretches the torso, enhancing the physical sensations.
'YR' was an abbreviation for “your” in the 17th and 18th Century too.
Parts of cremated bodies are recycled. Nails and pins from the coffin, prosthetic hips et al joints survive the furnace and are traditionally been buried in a dedicated plot on site or, more recently, have been collected for recycling.
A broken heart is known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and it can be cured.
There are 19 countries in the G20.
Farting is a bookable offence in football.
Being sorry originally meant to be distressed and sad.
Paper can be made from wombat excrement.
Five trees make an orchard.
Wine varies in taste from day to day.
Many mosques in Mecca point the wrong way for prayers. (This REALLY made me laugh.)
An outbreak of swine flu in 1976 killed one person but a vaccine to combat it killed 25. (Gareth will be well pleased to read this...)
Britain once sent an envoy with a quadruple-barrelled name to Moscow – Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurley Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.
Youth hostelling was invented in Germany in 1912.
A tribe in Bolivia has a festival of violence, called the Tinku, to settle disputes.
Franco had one testicle.
Britain had animal welfare laws before it had child welfare laws.
Wayne Allwine, the third man to voice Mickey Mouse, was married to Russi Taylor, the woman who did Minnie's. He had voiced Mickey for 32 years, longer than anyone else, at the time of his death in May 2009.
Stabbing in the buttocks has its own verb in Roman dialect – punctitate.
In the 1970 US Census, the number of people who said they were aged over 100 was about 22 times the true number.
Canada used to border Zimbabwe – 2.5 billion years ago.
More than half of all Patels in the UK are married to people born Patel. (Hmmm...)
Streetlights cause problems for bats. In travelling to feeding grounds, they avoid hedgerows illuminated by streetlights and scientists say this could cause them to use longer and less safe routes.
Scotland has the lowest age for criminal responsibility in Europe: eight. (So why I still see so many gawpy inbred teen yobs up at court every week is beyond me.)
Buddhist monks sleep upright.
Chilli can be used as a weapon in crowd control.
Tennis legend Fred Perry was also table tennis world champion, at 19.
The keffiyeh, a chequered scarf worn mostly by Arab men, and made famous by Yasser Arafat, is now mostly made in China. (Go, China!)
Trousers used to be called unmentionables (from around 1823).
The best place to put a wind turbine is in Orkney – average wind speed 5.75m/s.
Brahms liked his audience to clap in between movements.
The best Italian saffron is made from crocus flowers picked at dawn.
It's always “esq” and never “esquire” as a written honorific.
A third of England's coastline is inaccessible, due to lack of full access to walkers.
Bees warn other bees about flowers where dangers can be expected.
Bristol is the fourth most visited city in England.
You're as likely to be hit by lightning as killed by a mentally ill person.
Only about one or two in 200 people with autism have a savant talent, or exceptional ability.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has a water slide in his garden.
Emoticons in the East are the right way up (^_^).
The UK population grew more in 2008 than at any time since 1962.
With 24.1 births per 1,000 people in 2007, the village of Cambourne, in Cambridgeshire, has a higher birth rate than India and China.
The crease under your buttocks is called the gluteal fold.
Nasa gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries following lunar missions in the 1970s.
Married couples used to always sleep apart. Sleep specialist Dr Neil Stanley says that historically we were never meant to share our beds, and that the modern tradition of the marital bed only began with the industrial revolution, when people moving to overcrowded towns and cities found themselves short of living space. Before the Victorian era it was not uncommon for married couples to sleep apart – in ancient Rome, the marital bed was a place for sexual congress but not for sleeping.
There are so few redheads in Mexico they often greet each other in the street.
Sportswear firms Adidas and Puma have had a 60-year feud.
Banana skins can take two years to biodegrade.
The only woman ever in the French Foreign Legion, Susan Travers, was British.
Ken Livingstone was twice rejected for a cameo in EastEnders – to promote a recycling campaign while he was still mayor.
Homes are 4°C warmer, on average, than 50 years ago.
In the early days of barcodes, there was a plan for round ones.
Male life expectancy in the UK goes up by about three months every year.
William Pitt's dying words in 1806 were about House of Commons catering: “Oh, for one of Bellamy's veal pies.” According to Parliament's website, John Bellamy, the deputy housekeeper, set up “a snack bar, or grill” for MPs' and peers' dining in 1773.
The city of Bath, in Somerset, was referred to as “The Bath” until the 19th Century.
Tattoos can be done with a person's ashes.
The BBC rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because it was “too authoritarian”.
French babies cry with an accent.
Teeth grinding is known as bruxism.
And finally (though not on the list)... the most-read story on the BBC in February last year was about the UK's worst snowfall for 20 years. Personally, I hope this year goes one better...
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