On my recent trip to the city I visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery, coinciding with an organ recital which soumds amazing in this great space.

But inspired by the book Thunderclap by Laura Cummings I wanted to revisit the good collection of Dutch painitngs in the gallery.  This is one of my favourites. Neither the artist or the sitter is known. It is titled Portrait of a Girl aged 15 and was painted by  a followe of Nicolaes Eliasz in 1633. Such skill!

I always visit her and wonder about her life.

Off for my face to face getogether with my sisters...

..are still looking fabulous.

I shopped yesterday for all the ngredients, I prettied up the kitchen and cleaned all the worktops, filled a basin with hot soapy water and put out a fresh tea towel, and opened the recipe book at..
Sardine and Lemon Pate..

and at the very moment of taking this photograph the electricity went off. Yet another power cut (yet more wild weather).

This one lasted only a few hours, not a few days!

I namaged to make the pate, two plum crumbles and a large pot of Moroccan Mince. The coffee and walnut cake will have to wait till tomorrow - I am too tired tonight.

Intruiging...

I an sttruck by the extreme contrast between my last two posts! The humble tiny robin which whispers so sweetly when I feed it in the morning quiet, and the almost overwhelmimg drama and volume of Scottish Opera in full flow and with full orchestra in the gilded Theatre Royal in Glasgow. (I mistakenly posted the Welsh Opera video.)

Variety being the spice of life, I am lucky to experience both.

I hadn't realised Janacek could be funny!

Face to face February includes live music. Short blog break while I go to the Opera..

Forgive me if I am sounding rather pleased with myself. I actually enjoyed my cooking day, and may even do it again.

I made a large pot of corn chowder and had some for lunch.

I then baked a Belgian fruit loaf, washing up as I went..

then tested it, while still wrm - the butter is melting. Delicious.

I next made a big pot of Caribbean Chicken

cleaned the kitchen back to my starting point,

and had some for dinner.


Lots for the freezer.  :-)

..cooking!  Unusual for me. I can cook, but don't partiularly enjoy it. However I do like good food and the freezer needs restocking after the four day power cut. My very small, slightly shabby kitchen (it really needs some money spent on it) was not very inviting so I spent half an hour clearing and cleaning all the worktops and prettying it up a bit so that it was a place I wanted to be in.

Taking inspiration from the yellow plums I found some cards and flowers and put on some music and the linen apron,

 a gift from a friend which somehow makes me feel likke a real cook.

All ready to go..

..means extra trips to the city to meet friends for lunches and concerts. Weather is very very cold but sunny -so far so good!

Another way I still enjoy my books is to put a 'coffee table' book on this side cupboard  (don't happen to have a coffee table) and turn a page every morning for a week or two. This book has stunningly beautiful photographs of our world.
 
A positive way to start the day.

Most of the books of this type that I have were bought for very little in remainder book shops. Do you have any books that would serve this purpose?

..and all the beauty in our world.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Thank you Mary in Washington DC for this gorgeous photograph!

I once had a book called Women Who Read Are Dangerous! I love my dangerous women friends and our book group has been going for many years.

Each year we try to read as well as current novels, a biography or autobiography, a classic, a historical novel, something in translation, a crime novel, a work of non-fiction which can be a travel writer, something by a Scottish author (although we are not all Scottish). At summer and Christmas lunches we have short readings on an agreed topic.

Do you belong to a book group?




I love mu book group

My book group (thanks to Aidible I can still be part of it) has just finished Thunderclap by Laura Cummings which has made us all want to go to Amsterdam, which we may well do....

Next read is Hilary Mantel's A Memoir of my Former Self.

Suggestions welcome!

I believe the Sami people have three names for winter - there is Autumn Winter, Winter Winter and Spring Winter.

I think that with the daffodils we  in uk can say we are now in Spring Winter, which is nice.

Thank you Lynne for that interesting snippet of information!

From where I was sitting my decoy duck looked as if it had a halo over it's head.

It's the small things  :-)

..was the motto inside my fortune cookie at the Tai Chi group dinner. A demonstration in the village hall then next door to a wonderful Chinese inspired meal at The Blairmore.

Good fun and another reason to be glad I took up Tai Chi last year.

..I am feeding three robins and a hen pheasant with two broken tail feathers.

They are camera shy.

..there is a soul nourishing aspect to face to face communication which I really value. There is also some irony in that, if I am with you I can't actually see your face! (Macular Degeneration does that). So I miss a lot by not seeing facial expressions, but there is still body language, tone of voice being important. Nuanced is the word Lucille used.

It's all a bit mysterious but what I do know is that it's important - perhaps we can deduce a lot about another person from the energy they give off. Are they being sincere, are they genuine, trustworthy? Intuition you might call it. Can you make these subtle judgements via a screen? What do you think?

Do read Lucille's comment on this post and Clare 's on this one.

The hyacinths smell divine.

..led me to The Woodland Florist in the small village of Kirn on the shores- of the Firth of Clyde. What a lovely find!

Exquisite, unusual flowers, delightful cards and small gifts - a little woodland wonderland. It was such a treat and I will definitely be back. I am already planning to buy myself some Valentine flowers there.

The wonderful scented candle from The White Company has come to it's end though there is still a faint smell from it which I love. It's called Fireside and was quite ecpensive but I think I have enjoyed it every day since about mid November.

A Christmas gift of Paperwhite narcissus are providing the scent of spring now and moving me on.

Spring is coming and tomorrow I am going hunting for some hyacinths.

I enjoy listening to Sarah Raven's podcasts and this one with Tim Smidt was very interestng.


Recommentdations for podcasts most welcome..

..make me happy. They don't seem to be having the same effect on the frog.

Some of you will kmow I have a history with the month of February, during which I often felt so low that I began to dread it. I think it was in 2011 that I saw how foolish this was and made the decision to make February fun.

For a few years I made it my Writing Month and I loved that, taking myself off on writing retreats in Buckinghamshire and fatefully, Venice (where my grandaughter and I got locked down for six and a half weeks (see March 2020)

In February 2022 I had Fit in February, in 23  Romantic  February - that was lovely - and last year I did Colourful February.

This yeaar's plan is Face to Face in February.

In yesterday's comments Gwendoline described beautifully the limitations of communicating through screens. During the pandemic my sisters and I began weekly chats via WhatsApp, a habit we have kept up since. My first face to face project has been to plan several days together in Nairn - really together, in reality! You know I oftern say I like the real thing.

Do you have any February plans?

Zoom and WhatsApp are b'trilliant but there's nothing like face to face, don't you think?

Will elaborate tomorrow..