Scotland, ho!

Posted by David


Well, I finally have a weekend off, and can relax a bit this week before resuming my studies in preparation for exams in January. But after that, there's a three week vacation, so there's something to look forward to.

Both Debi and I had the day off for St. Andrews Day, Scotland's National Holiday.   It was a great time, and there was plenty going on in the Saint's namesake town.

Debi made an itinerary, and after a relaxing morning, we were off to my University town.  It was a rare, sun-filled, day, and the drive to the coast was wonderful.   We have to pass through miles of scenic farmland and hillsides between here and there, and it was nice to be on the road together.

Debi wanted to see the vintage costume and dress exhibit on at the museum, so we rushed through town to get to that in time.   We were treated to a small but interesting collection.   They allowed us to photograph some of the dresses (without flash, of course), as Debi is considering recreating one of them at a later date.


The moon was just about full overhead, and the sky remained clear so we were able to get some nice photos at dusk.



We walked over to South Street to see the Pipers beat the retreat and the 'Nae for Wimps' Outdoor Ceilidh.  The pipers were amazing; there's something about the pipes that just does it for us.

The pipers, once greeted by the Provost, retreated to the West Port, where a lively Ceilidh Band was waiting on a huge stage.   They began straightaway; as the first reel was announced, dancers moved towards the centre and within minutes, over a hundred revelers were dancing in unison.   Debi and I aren't well-versed enough in the traditional dances yet (though we will be, after the forthcoming ceilidhs in our town), but it was great to see so many people of all ages dancing together, students and professors, children, parents, and pensioners... it was really a wonderful sight.

The band was cracking, and the energy remained high throughout.   However, I'm not used to the breeze, and after a few hours outside, my knees were getting frozen in the night air.   Debi was getting cold as well, so we retreated to the West Port ourselves (there's a pub named after the town gate), for a wee dram.


We decided to forego the torchlight procession, in favour of a quiet candlelight dinner.  It was a lovely way to end a great day together.

The next weekend, we went to our new friend, Nicola's housewarming, and then to Elspeth's for a lovely dinner and evening by the fire in warm company.   We had a great time, then went off to St. Andrews on Sunday so I could join the Archery Club for practice and brunch.

I made my first apple pie from scratch to bring to Elspeth's.   My friend, Alison gave us a pie bird for a wedding gift, and it was great to get to use it.   It worked quite well!

There's more to add, and some fun events coming up now that Christmas is near, so more postings soon!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

posted by Debi

I was in London this past week for work and finally got my chance to make one of my dreams come true!!  To see an opera at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden!!  The site was originally a theatre in 1732 and Handel was one of the first musical directors of the company.  In fact, Handel premiered most of his operas and oratoris in Covent Garden including his first opera 'Il Pastor Fido' and 'Ariodante' (1735).  Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the theatre in 1808.

It was rebuilt and reopened in 1809 with a performance of Macbeth.  Seems they have had bad luck with fires because on 5 March 1856, the theatre was again destroyed by fire. The third (and current theatre) opened on 15 May 1858 with a performance of Meyerbeer's 'Les Huguenots'.

This is what the opera house looks like today:


So you can see my huge excitement at having the opportunity to visit this mecca of opera.  I saw Tchaikovsky's 'Cherevichki' or 'The Tsarina's Slippers.  Tchaikovsky himself said this was his favorite opera he produced, though it's rarely played outside Russia. The opera had an almost entirely Russian cast. Based on a Christmas tale by Gogol that mixes realistic village comedy with fairytale fantasy.  You can read the plot of the opera here.

I love the Muppets:



The end is especially funny since I do so many teleconferences at work!

posted by Debi

We had our first real frost this last week. That means that the remaining Summer and Autumn vegetables from our garden are just about done. I picked the remaining runner beans, an artichoke and three pumpkins today (though the pumpkins aren't fully orange yet--but I am assuming they are still ok to eat?).


We had pretty good results given that this was our first garden. Ever. And the fact that we now live so far north. We had tomatoes (though we had to ripen ALL of them indoors after the plants died), lettuce and salad greens, onions, shallots, green onions, kale, herbs, potatoes, red chard, peas, carrots, beets, radishes, strawberries, pumpkins and a zucchini. I've got loads of plans for next year. Including what and more importantly when to plant things.

Matters have been complicated ever so slightly by the fact that we now have a beautiful fence behind our garden (instead of looking straight into our neighbors backyard). However, this means that some of the afternoon sun is blocked so I have to think more about where I plant things so that they get as much sun as possible (if the weather cooperates).

Fun Stuff!

by Debi

It's been awhile since we've updated the blog. I just wanted to say how much we love visitors! So far we've had five visits from friends outside of Scotland: Bonnie and Tom last year, Mandi and Daniel from Germany this spring, Jenny from New York and Jenny Mundy-Castle from Santa Fe this summer, and our friend Meghan from New York. It's so great to reconnect with friends and spend quality time together. Not to mention, seeing the place we live with new eyes--we love it!

Here are a few highlights from the visits:

Having our first visitors, Bonnie & Tom, when we were still living in our wee studio on campus:
Going to Glasgow and St. Andrews with them...
Climbing the Lomond Hill for the first time with Mandi and Daniel:


Watching the waves at the Scores in St. Andrews with Jenny (not to mention our wonderful evenings cooking and drinking wine together!):



Hiking in Falkland with our Santa Fe friends and little Salome (what a doll!):


A 1950's murder mystery party for halloween (another highlight was eating cheese and fresh bread on the River Tay after a long day's hike in Birnam and Dunkeld with Meghan):



What great times!! So, come and visit us :-)

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

posted by Debi

So, we are at the halfway mark of my 32nd year of life. So I thought it's high time for me to check in with my 32 things list. I am happy to say that I can check a few things off...

4. Cook more meals at home
David and I have been eating more meals at home. Now that we both work in Falkland in the same office (different organisations), we even come home for lunch together. It's great.

6. Submit an abstract for the Family Violence Prevention Fund (even if I don't go to present it myself)
Check. I submitted an abstract with my former colleagues at the Alliance and it was accepted. I won't be able to attend but it is great to know that the information will get out there. I also had three abstracts accepted at APHA, one abstract at the SVRI conference in Johannesburg and hopefully I will have one accepted at a Nairobi conference on urban health (that one I might actually attend!)

7. Attend the Brisbane, Australia conference this summer on community-centred economies.
Check! I just got back from this conference! It was amazing. Here is a picture of me with our international Board of Directors...

8. Go snorkeling in Australia!!
Unfortunately, I missed my chance to go snorkeling. It was winter in Australia and not much snorkeling happening BUT I did make it to the beach and that was fantastic!!

14. Learn more about trees, plants and herbs and maybe even try my hand at gardening
hehehehe...I think I have this one covered. I have learned so much about gardening in the last two months (see my blog post 'I heart gardening')

17. Update our blog more
Hey, two blog updates in a day....I'm on my way....

18. Attend my best friend's wedding celebration
What an amazing event! My best friend, Manju, got married in Brooklyn at an amazing space. It was so great celebrating such a happy moment with her!

20. Climb the Lomond Hill in Falkland, Fife
I first climbed the hill in April when our friends Mandi and Daniel came to visit (our first visitors!). Check out the view from the top....



24. Move to a bigger apartment
Done! Instead of moving into a bigger apartment, we moved into a three bedroom house! Much better than our studio flat!

25. Acquire two more consulting clients
So far in 2009, I have acquired three more consulting clients: Columbia University, Carnegie UK Trust and Community Development Alliance Scotland!

29. Learn how to drive a manual car
I still don't feel 100% comfortable driving a manual car but I now know 'how' to....which is great since we got a free car back in April from one of my colleagues. We affectionately named the car 'bugsy'. But bugsy is a stickshift and thus, I had to learn how to drive a manual much sooner than planned!

So far, so good!

posted by Debi
So, in case you haven't heard...I am quite taken with gardening! I love everything about it. I love watching things grow. I love how complex but also how very simple it is. I love that I can grow things to eat and also grow things just to look at and enjoy.

Shortly after moving into our new house, I decided to take up gardening. This is the first time I have had any green space to call my own. And, well, I went a little wild! You know me, I never do things half-way. Some call it obsession, I call it passion! I started reading everything I could get my hands on about gardening. I joined gardening websites. I even started volunteering with a local community group called 'Falkland in Bloom' that is responsible for the beautiful flower baskets and tubs in Falkland. I discovered a whole world of gardening!

We moved in to our house in March and there was this weird architectural platform in our backyard:

It's hard to tell from the picture but this triangle is almost shoulder height on me and tapers off to about knee height at the far right side. I thought hmmm...this is such an unused piece of space (the New Yorker in me). So, we decided that we would turn this into a vegetable plot.

Well, if you know Scotland, you know that we don't have extremely warm weather. So, despite it being April, it was still too cold to plant anything outside. So, I began growing things from seed in the house. These are some basil plants...

Poor David, every (and I mean EVERY) windowsill in the house was covered with plants...


I really enjoyed growing the plants from seed. For me, this was the first time I had done any gardening in my life. I really liked growing tomato plants (the stems smell like tomatoes).

So, in May, we decided to convert that unused triangle into our vegetable plot. First, we had to remove ALL the rocks. David was the man for that! He happily removed a very thick layer of rocks.

Then we realised that we had really heavy clay soil there. So, I had to dig in both compost and sand to help improve the drainage. I decided that I wanted to do organic gardening and to rotate my crops every year. So, I made five different 'plots'. This is how it looked before we put in any plants (the only thing we had planted early on was onions, shallots and green onions)...



This is a picture of all our outdoor flowers and you can see the potatoes starting in the big green tubs.




Now that it is July, everything is now officially outside and our garden is just starting to take off! Check out our vegetable plot now....
In the upper left hand corner is our curly kale, red chard, broccoli, radishes and sorrel. In the middle top are tomato plants and beetroot (and some marigold flowers). In the upper right hand plots are runner beans, peas, fennel and some nasturtium flowers and the most upper right hand plot (the smallest plot) are some artichokes. Then in the lower left plot are strawberries, one courgette and some struggling okra. Then in the lower right hand plot are our thriving onions, green onions, shallots, lettuce, leeks and spinach. Phew! Not bad for a beginner! So far, David and I have had green onions and radishes from our veg plot and are looking forward to have some red chard, onions, curly kale, lettuce, and shallots in the coming weeks. The end of July should see our first batch of potatoes and maybe some tomatoes?

Oh, and we also created a pumpkin patch at the back of the garden....I'll do a separate blog posting on that and our lovely window boxes.

But for now...I leave you with this happy quote:

"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling." ~Mirabel Osler