WEEK 98 CORONAVIRUS: EASING OF RESTRICTIONS SO IT'S FINE DINING TIME

There is definitely a lifting of spirits now.  Public places are relaxing their pandemic restrictions, e.g. barriers being removed, floor markers in shops and various premises being lifted; the local supermarket is about to re-open their in-store cafe.   However some things are still in place e.g. hand sanitizers, masks still to be worn in shops, trains, buses, offices, restaurants as you enter.

The weekly music appreciation class I attend has re-started and the talk is that the kitchen of the church hall where we meet is to open next week.  So all is moving slowly along as we emerge into post-lockdown mode of living.

It was Maggie's idea to book a table for lunch this week.  We turned up at Unaloma, a new restaurant that opened in June 2021 in the Finneston area of Glasgow.

Apparently, Unalome refers to the Buddhist symbol representing the path to enlightenment.

We booked a table for lunch (£30.00 each for 3 courses featuring a 'tasting' menu ... which really is about 4 courses all in all).

It was absolutely fabulous! 

It is the restaurant of Graeme Cheevers, a Glasgow chap. He has an impressive track record with various important awards.

A 'foodie' I am not; if anything I am the exact opposite.  I eat whatever is put in front of me and have great pleasure when it is someone else doing the cooking (and cleaning up).  Maybe that is why I enjoyed the whole 'dining experience' on Wednesday afternoon so much!

Added to this, of course, is the fact that I have not been out to eat (anywhere!) for the last 2 years. I was like an Arab at an oasis!  We chose the lunch menu (as opposed to the more expensive 7 course tasting menu) and enjoyed every single mouthful: beautifully presented, everything cooked the way it should be (lessons to be learned here) and served by courteous, well-mannered staff, in a surrounding of diners quietly chatting and staff discretely moving about ... all giving a good 'vibe' as they say.  

I noticed an open kitchen off to one side ... impressive!.. and they use Scottish suppliers:  "the hare has finished but you can have Mallard duck".  They only thing we didn't have was alcohol but vowed to address that for next time. We saw an impressive cheese board go by as well!

We finished off the afternoon back at Maggie's where I tried out her non-alcoholic Chardonnay.  I don't know why I didn't think to look for that for myself these days... I simply have got out of the habit of buying wine during the past 2 years (basically I'm using up what's in the cupboard).

To that end I bought some German non-alcoholic Reisling  today and also a bottle of Waitrose English  (Kent) white wine.  Things have got to change I have decided;  nothing spurs me on more that a lovely meal out!

 

 

WEEK 97 CORONAVIRUS - TURNING A CORNER - PANDEMIC TO ENDEMIC

The numbers of reported cases (this, of course, is not 'infections') is now falling quite sharply as was predicted. The news is that the restrictions are going to be lifted in most parts of the UK from next week (the end of January).  

It means masks will not be legally required in places such as pubs, restaurants, supermarkets, stores, trains, buses, public places like the school gate waiting for children to come out.

The days required for socially isolating after a positive test are being reduced. Travel requirements are easing.  Large outdoor venues are opening now and indoor ones will be next week.  So rugby and football are OK, some pop concerts or ballet didn't make it and had to be cancelled very much at the last minute.

So life ... and the weather .... is improving.  The third week of January is probably the one I notice the most as the days are now starting to get longer.  The sun shone this week on several days and I managed to get out and do some 'yard work' as they say in America.

The Allander River at Tesco's ... my route to the supermarket.  Midday light on the river but no heron today.  Out of the photo on the right was a hive of activity: installation of an electric car charging bay.

Speaking of America .... on the news there is a big campaign on just now to alert drivers to the fact that the law is changing with regard to Giving Way.  In this country vehicles have the right of way over pedestrians and cyclists.  

That is going to change.   Finally, finally, finally....! Hooray! Now it will be like North America.  Over the years I have noticed what I call 'Creeping Americanization' (baseball caps, use of superlatives all the time,  people saying 'Have a nice day' ... OK if well-mean but many times not!... phone greetings 'This is xxxxx ..... How can I help you?' sing-songy spouted in your ear) but for once, I applaud the change.  No more taxi drivers trying to run you down at the crosswalk... or anywhere else for that matter!

Actually Iain and I have always had a laugh about this topic of Giving Way.  We both do it naturally as we were drivers in both Canada and the US.  Pedestrians always look at you, the driver, with incredulity when you motion them to cross in front of you. "What"? You mean I can go?"  and off they go.  

I am here to say, categorically, that when I motion to a lady to cross she does the above, then crosses without any particular acknowledgement (and that's fine). However when Iain does it, the lady ALWAYS gives him a winning smile.  We have had a few laughs over the years (as I, sitting in the passenger seat, pointing this out)!

* * * * * * * * * * * *  THE BIRTHDAY GIRL IS 7 YEARS OLD * * * * * * * *

Ellie made her own cake and decorated it for our Sunday night dinner.  She's dandy wee baker.  Here are some more photos:

* * * * * * * * * * * *  HARRIET 8.5 YEARS OLD  (I THINK OF HER AS 'THE GIRL WITHOUT THE PEARL EARING'   * * * * * * * *

WEEK 95 CORONAVIRUS: READING PLEASURES NO.2 OF 2

This is the second (and last) section of two relating to the book I greatly enjoyed   I Married the Klondike by Laura Berton.

Her descriptions of life in Dawson City in the early part of the 20th century included stories of people, places and events.  I loved everything she talked about as I was able to related to so much of it having been born and raised in central British Columbia.  My memories are the 1950s, just a few decades after hers.

She tells this story about 'Spring Break-Up' which is the time when the snow really starts to melt away and you know it's the end of winter as you move into spring. It was a time of mud, spongy roads which were half frozen and half thawed.  For my father with his haulage business it was a time of 'load restrictions' i.e. couldn't haul as much thereby reducing the wear and tear on the churned up roads. 

She describes the anticipation of spring break up.  The town was right on the Yukon River and it played a bit part in their life.  The river froze over in October and stayed that way until May as she describes here:

"The ice went out sometime during the first two weeks  of May, and the moment of its break-up was one of the great events in Dawson.  For weeks before, thousands of bets were laid on the exact day, hour and minute of its going…. 

The news that the ice was moving flashed through the town like an electric current.  The time was fixed exactly in this manner. A Union Jack on a stake was frozen into the river in front of the town early in the spring, about a hundred and fifty feet from the shore.  This was connected by a wire to point on the Canadian Bank of Commerce building, on shore, in such a way that when the ice moved a hundred feet, a switch closed an electric circuit, stopping a clock in Charles Jeanette’s jewellery store and setting a gong ringing. Almost instantly the whistle in the fire hall on Front Street would sound and then the school bells, followed by the church bells. By this time, every husky dong from Lousetown to Moosehide was howling madly and the entire town was pouring down to the river…. Once or twice the ice went on a Sunday morning, and then the entire church congregation flowed from the pews before the sermon had ended.  The famous instance occurred almost immediately after the minister had given a violent sermon on the evils of gambling, with special reference to ice pools.  The choir had hardly started the hymn  “Shall We Gather By the River” when, appropriately, the dogs and sirens indicated that the ice was moving."

While our town further south in central British Columbia and not right on a river but rather on a lake (Shuswap Lake) we none-the-less had similar local 'gambling' schemes she describes.  I recall in my Grade 4 year (aged 10 years old) trying to guess when the first snow was going to be on the rocky face of Mt Ida, the local landmark.

When she talked about Front Street the picture above is what was in my mind.  Yes, there was a Front Street in our town which directly faced the CPR railway line. This photo of Salmon Arm's Bank of Hamilton must be about 1910 or so. (My paternal grandfather was employed there. No... unlike Robert Service who was employed in the Bank of Commerce in Dawson City, he didn't write poetry!)

My maternal grandfather (Rev. V H Sansum) was the minister in Port Simpson about the same time as Laura Berton writes of life in the north.  This is a photo of his family: my mother is back left.  The lady in the photo is her step-mother as her own mother died, in the north, of pneumonia. This photos would be in the mid 1930s (my mother was born in 1919). 

This was our house in Salmon Arm, at Broadview Corner. The photo, with dripping icicles and snow melting off the roof, looks like a spring day.

WEEK 94 CORONAVIRUS: READING PLEASURES NO 1 OF 2

The spread of the Omicron virus continues.  Hospitals are having problems because a lot of staff are off either ill or self-isolating. 

One new measure in our semi-lockdown state is that self-isolation length of time has been cut from 10 days to 7 days.    Schools went back this week but a sudden snowfall meant that in some schools, teachers didn't make it in.

There a have been a couple of very fine days however.  Very cold but clear so it was wonderful to get out and about for walks.

While stuck in the house these winter days I have been reading this book:

I Married the Klondike by Laura Berton. As a child in school in Canada in the 1950s and 60s I Knew the name of Pierre Berton who was a well-known Canadian writer at that time.  This is a memoir written by his mother, first published in 1954. It gives a women’s perspective on living in Dawson (Yukon Territories) for 25 years in the early part of the 20th century.  

The blurb states: 

In 1907 [Eleven years after the Klondike Gold Rush] Laura Beatrice Berton, a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher, left her comfortable life in Toronto Ontario to teach in the Yukon Territories. She fell in love with the North--and with a northerner--and made Dawson City her home.  

I absolutely loved it and could related to many, many aspects in her book, e.g. living in a small town in Canada (Salmon Arm, B.C.) and the experience of the  Canadian winters!

This photo of me would be the winter of 1947/early 48 with Don in the apple box sledge (aged about 15 months old).  

But most of all it gave me an overview of what life would have been like for my mother's family (5 children) where her father was a minister in the north of British Columbia (Port Simpson, off the coast of Prince Rupert).

I also learned some factual information about Robert Service. To that end I am going to do a separate post on this plus some long quotations of her funny stories ..... just like my mother used to tell!

That will keep me from wearying as we continue to keep our heads down during these semi-lockdown conditions... which is coming up now for two years!

WEEK 93: WE WELCOME THE YEAR 2022

And so we say goodbye to 2021.  Iain and I both continue to enjoy good health and for that we are grateful.  We have escaped Covid and will continue to lead our rather subdued life as we wait for this latest wave of the pandemic to pass.

For Hogmanay we toasted the New Year at midnight then spent the rest of the evening working on a jigsaw  'The Cullins of Skye' whilst keeping one eye on the Gaelic TV channel.  Gone are the days when we headed out to party for the whole night!  In these   semi-lockdown times the pubs, nightclubs and discos are to be closed from Boxing Day for 3 weeks in Scotland (also Wales and Northern Ireland).  Not so in England.

* * * * * * * * * 2022 * * * * * * * * * * *

January 1st turned out to be 12 degrees - warm and spring-like.

It was Ishbel's birthday December 31st. The two Munchkins and I blew up balloons (which gave them endless play while they were with me for the afternoon.)

I made her a Victoria sponge with 15 candles for Ishbel. It all turned out rather well if I do say so myself.  Always good therapy when the weather is dull outside. 

The sun shone today; it's been mostly grey skies the last couple of weeks... however it's not been freezing which means getting out to do things is not hazardous.... yet!

Sunshine brings shadows.I still have these flowers giving colour in the garden.  Dot gave me seeds years ago and they continue to reappear every year -  a joy!

Crocuses in a bowl in the porch.  Even thought the rays on sunshine are weak it's enough to give these bulbs a boost.

Winter Jasmine.  In Chinese it means "the flower that welcomes Spring"