Vivaldi in the National Museum

In my Scotland Street post I mentioned my long-suffering teenagers, waiting after a morning of playing in a concert at the National Museum of Scotland while I took photos. Here's what they were working hard at - a concert featuring the music of Vivaldi. Their school has a community baroque orchestra, and two groups from it played recently for Sunday visitors to the National Museum. Here they're playing Vivaldi's concerto No. 11 in D minor for 2 violins, cello and strings. My daughter has longed to play this with an orchestra ever since we attended the Suzuki World Convention in Turin, when it was played (from memory) by hundreds of young violinists, violists and cellists from 28 countries - the common language of music. My daughter is at the extreme left in the front row of standing violinist, and my son is second from right in the two standing violists. The acoustic in the museum is glorious, and the orchestra really enjoyed playing there.
In taking these shots I realised even more my photographic limitations. The museum has beautiful stonework, but I need to find out about exposures and all that stuff. This is hard for me - it involves numbers.

So this is how my season has gone

This was supposed to be the year I got serious about this whole randonneuring thing. I was planning to complete a super-series this year. To say things haven't worked out as I had hoped is a bit of an understatement, here's how it unfolded:
1. By some scheduling quirk, the season in Australia actually starts on December 1, meaning the opening 200 was the ASH Dash in Hobart on the first weekend. The simple ride from Hobart airport to the accommodation in Battery Point leads to the rear-derailleur decided to spontaneously fall to pieces in the Queen's Domain. Fortunately, the ride was scheduled on the Sunday, and I found a bike shop on the Saturday to help me out with it. I then managed to complete the ride despite an error in the route slip sending me off course and making me actually ride 230-odd km, with over 12,000 feet of climbing.
2. The first ride back in Queensland was a night ride in early January. Two flat tyres that night slowed me down, but it was completed without too many problems, and after riding to and from the start of the ride, I even managed to set a new personal distance record.
3. I then rode 2x300km rides without any problems -- even setting yet another personal distance record getting to and from one of the rides.
4. A plan was hatched to ride a 400k up in Toowoomba. A crash on wet cobblestones that severed a wire in my primary headlight just before the big ride put paid to that one.
5. I lined up for a 600k anyway, but got fatally owned in the unseasonal heat. May is supposed to be one of our cooler months, yet it managed to hit 34 degrees C (a May record), and I wasn't prepared for it at all. I abandoned at 200km after spending time sitting by the side of the road in whatever scarce shade I could find (I'd rather ride through a hail storm than a heatwave).
6. I'm supposed to be doing a 400k this weekend, but right now I'm sitting here nursing a chest infection that, presumably, came from assisting a family member who had been sick to move house last weekend. Just walking to the shops seems like hard work today, and while I'll probably be recovered by Saturday, I'm not sure I'll have the strength to do a 400k. I'm thinking I'll scale my ambitions for this weekend down to a couple of more modest local rides.
I think it's fair to just write this off for the year and focus on my touring plans now. Six weeks until I fly out for a tour of Scotland. Hopefully I've used up all the bad luck and things will start to improve. At least it was a nice sunrise here this morning.

Quote of the day: "Debt is people spending money they didn't earn to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like."

I Get Whimsical With a Little Help from my Friends

When the security guy pulled our daughter over to the side at the Seattle Airport back in 1993 it wasn't a total surprise. Our irresistible souvenir from Molbak's wouldn't fit in any of the suitcases, and Lily had gamely volunteered to haul it home in her backpack. The shape was unrecognizable on the screen so the guard opened the zipper and looked down at a concrete statue of a Fu Dog, sometimes called a Foo Lion. After inspection we were waved through to the plane.
We bought this small Seattle version of a ferocious guardian lion partly because he reminded us of The Fu Dog Garden at Allerton Park in Illinois and partly in tribute to Henry Michell's foo dog. Our dog~lion stood in a clump of hostas in our Illinois garden for a few years, and when we moved to Texas he came along as the dean of our whimsical objects, here guarding a wax begonia.


This wacky confection greeted the people who stopped at our Illinois garden during a garden walk in the 1990's: Philo & I turned an old broken bedframe and some chickenwire into a whimsical Garden Bed - and if you look carefully at lower right you'll see the companion piece - a open suitcase rescued from the trash, painted and planted to complete this fanciful guest suite.

These dips into garden whimsy are rare - my natural tendency is to the functional and rather plain - a metal obelisk, wooden benches and chairs, undecorated clay pots, a natural stone fountain, hypertufa troughs and things like this windchime.
Long ago at a Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin we met a vendor from Austin and fell in love with these simple tubes of metal, large and tuned to a Mongolian scale. The sounds they make are harmonizing low notes of genuine music rather than clanking or tinkling. It's my kind of wind chime.



But fear not - all is not Spartan here at Circus~Cercis! Thanks to friends and family there's no lack of whimsy in our garden. Although the attrition rate from Texas weather (and critters) is high and some decorations from friends and family have melted, faded and disintegrated, there are survivors:

A motion-detecting frog was a fun gift from one dear daughter-in-law with the turtle sundial coming from one of our sons. Our other dear daughter-in-law and and another son gave us the St Francis statue. While we still lived in Illinois one of my sisters gave us this wooden angel that has miraculously survived nearly a decade in the Texas sun.
A strong wind gust picked up the heavy ceramic St Francis and slammed him against a peach tree last year. Philo filled the decapitated statue with cement and put it back together.

Whimsy seems to gravitate toward the secret garden - My friend-of-40-years, Roberta, sent the hand-painted wildflower sign. My friend Barbara sent this young girl, who reads and dreams under the pomegranate tree. Philo reused three discarded sections of ornate white iron fence to enclose the Secret Garden and that frog bench is a memento of last spring's visit from the fairy garden consultant. The squirrels and birds take it apart once in awhile and I rebuild it.
Many small decorations from the Divas of the Dirt are scattered around inside and out - including this sign Another sign came from Roberta - when she read the word "Diva" she knew who to send it to
Carol in Indiana had better avert her eyes now - here come faces in our garden!!
Philo and I bought a terracotta sun to hang on the chimney in Illinois and this face seems even more at home in Austin Titania has led a rough life in the 15 years since Philo gave me her planter head - she's no longer pristine but bears repair marks from storms and squirrels and weather damage. Maybe someone else would evict her for being too battered, but I look weathered, too, and find her companionable.
Early this year Dawn and I spent a day together, each finding pretty pots. Now this seashell planter reminds me of days on the beach in Carolina.
Are any of us completely resistant to whimsy? Once upon a time I gave this sign to my no-nonsense, vegetable-gardener uncle and was touched that he kept it. The saying was amusing, but it turned out to be untrue - this final bit of whimsy returned to me as a sentimental legacy from an old gardener. I miss him.
This wallow in whimsy and nostalgia was written by Annie in Austin, photographed with the help of a borrowed camera- go to Gardening Gone Wild for links to other bloggers who are joining in this months Garden Design Workshop.

UCAS

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service is the body which manages applications to, as it says, universities and colleges in the UK. Its abbreviation, pronounced 'YOU-cass', has become a noun. 'Have you done your UCAS yet?' translates as 'have you completed the on-line application process through UCAS?'
At the moment it feels as if we're living with UCAS, and have been since last year when our daughter's school started preparing students and parents for the rigours of the application process. If she had been applying for entry in September/October .. to medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, veterinary science, Oxford or Cambridge, the on-line application would have been completed by 15 October ... These courses are under extremely high pressure from applicants, often involve additional entrance tests, and most have interviews as part of the selection process.
Since our daughter is firmly on the humanities side, the deadline in her case was 15 January ... However there is 'strong encouragement' at her school to have applications in well before the deadline, so since November it's been a case of watching email and the UCAS on-line tracking system for replies from her 5 choices. That's the maximum number of places you can apply to in your initial application. There's the possibility to go into an extra round of application if the initial one is unsuccessful, and finally a Clearing process when the summer exam results come out that matches applicants with no places with universities which still have vacancies. Within that there are further restrictions, such as only one of Oxford or Cambridge in any one year, and only four choices for medicine, vet, dentistry or vet science in any one year. So far 3 of daughter's choices have made her an offer: 2 unconditional offers from Scottish universities, where she doesn't have to get any further qualifications, and a conditional offer from an English university. Still awaited - decisions from an English and a Scottish university.The difference in the offers in a nutshell is because Scottish university degrees are normally 4 years long, and English ones 3 years. Scottish degrees also, in the main, have a broader base in the first and sometimes second year, where students take other subjects alongside their intended final specialisation. Scottish applicants can gain the entry requirements to Scottish universities on the basis of the Highers exams they take at the end of their 5th year at school. The rest of the UK takes A levels at the end of their 6th and last year at school. This is a very small nutshell - the whole issue of parity of entrance qualifications would take me several posts to work through.
As well as different entry grades, there's now the issue of different costs to be considered. Tuition is free for Scottish students attending a Scottish university. If they go to England, they will pay £9,000 a year for tuition (a few places charge slightly less), which is what English students studying in England pay. If an English student comes to university in Scotland they will pay fees - the £9,000 or whatever it is the university is charging. Keeping up? However, if a student from the European Union comes to a Scottish university they will pay no fees, as that is held to be discriminatory by the EU.
If you want to find out more about the wonderful world of UCAS (and it is an impressive set-up), have a look at their website at www.ucas.com. Meanwhile keep your fingers crossed for us!

Summer breakfast

Fusion food - Scotch pancakes like my granny never made them. On Sunday morning my daughter decided that she wanted a stack of pancakes, North American style, for breakfast. Here are the results of her labours, with woodland strawberries and blueberries from the garden, and homemade butterscotch sauce (not whisky!) from the Grant's jug.
We realised that two years ago to the day we had also had pancakes for breakfast, this time by the shore of Slocan Lake in British Columbia, on the first day of the Suzuki Valhalla Institute. Miranda blogged about it here, and I hope will have more posts as the week goes on.
Edited to add recipe for butterscotch sauce, courtesy of Katie Stewart's Times Calendar Cookbook:
Measure 100g. granulated sugar into a dry pan and stir over moderate heat until the sugar has melted and turned a golden brown. Draw off the heat and add a scant 2 1/2 dl (1/2 pint) water - take care because the mixture will boil up fiercely when you add the cold liquid. Replace the pan on the heat and add a pinch of salt, 2 teaspoons golden syrup and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence. Stir until the caramel and syrup have dissolved (it will form a lump initially, which will gradually melt into the remaining liquid). Add 1 level tablespoon cornflour (not sure of the North American equivalent - it's not maize flour as such, but a thickening agent) blended with 2 tablespoons cold water and stir until the sauce is boiling and slightly thickened. Add 15g. butter. Leave to cool. Serve warm or cold. The butterscotch taste is more pronounced next day.

Holes in the story

At my sister's house, insects lined up for dinner in order of descending appetites.

At my sister's house, mice held a Scherenschnitte party, but it was interrupted at an early stage.

At my sister's house, pixies were unhappy with their needlework, and unthreaded all the leaves.

First Light over Hat Point

This was a pleasant surprise from this morning. I was on my way to my pre-planned sunrise location when I looked back across the bay and saw this beautiful softly-glowing light over Hat Point and Pete's Island. You can see a glimpse of Isle Royale National Park in between Hat Point and Pete's Island. This light was so beautiful I had to stop and make a photo of the scene. After this I headed to the spot I was originally going to and found lots of incredible plate ice floating on the lake. Stay tuned later today for another posting of the plate ice at sunrise!

Tracking Our Movements ;-)

Sea Mist RV Park — NAS Oceana, Dam Neck Annex — Virginia Beach, Virginia

Have we been enjoying ourselves this week or what? The weather has been great — cool enough for a light fleece in the mornings; warming up comfortably in the afternoon with little to no humidity. But I’ll write about what little we’ve been doing since our arrival in Virginia Beach in another post.

I just wanted to share a photo one of Mui’s school friends, Korkut (Korki to friends), designed and e-mailed us.

Had no idea we’ve become so notorious that freeway signs are tracking our movements

Nah … we weren’t really there — where ever there is. In fact, you can play with your own signage at this website and have some fun!

Wave Wash on the Cascade Coast

Cascade River State Park, MN



I finally made it out to shoot a Lake Superior sunset again, something I haven't done in quite a while. The wave action this evening was pretty sweet. It would have been nice to have a bit more color in the sunset, but it was a very beautiful scene nonetheless! I even got to see an otter running along the shoreline while I was making images of the waves. Sorry, no pictures of the otter... he was gone before I could get the camera pointed at him :-(

Lyveden New Bield - the building and gardens

When I first visited Lyveden New Bield there was nothing except the house, and perhaps an info board and an honesty box. It felt bleak, unloved and hardly worth the effort. It's all different these days, although you do have to pay an entrance fee. It's owned and looked after by the National Trust. They're doing a great job with their audio tour explanation of the building's construction, use and religious significance. Like other places in Northamptonshire there are links to the Gunpowder plot - Francis Tresham was involved, as was his cousin Robert Catesby.Thomas Tresham, who built the house as a summer lodge was a wealthy Catholic landowner, but had to pay huge fines because he would not deny his faith. He spent 15 years in and out of prison, but still managed to father 11 children, and find time to design and build this house and its garden, as well as the Triangular Lodge at Rushton.
The house was designed using the numbers 3 (the Trinity) , 5 (the wounds of Christ when crucified) and 7 (significant in religion - because of the seven days to create the world, seven deadly sins and cardinal virtues, among other things).

An unfinished building, rather than a ruin

The building was left unfinished when Thomas Tresham died in 1605. His son Francis was involved in the failed Gunpowder plot, and died later in 1605. A younger brother Lewis inherited the estate with its debt worth over £1 500 000 in today's money. Lewis was not good with money and eventually the family estates and fortunes were lost.
looking up from the basement to the upper floors

Servants entrance into the basement where kitchens etc were - This is lower than 5'6" now

servants' entrance - hidden from the view of guests by the raised banks

The New Bield was the destination of a walk from the Old Bield, seen at the end of the orchard in the photgraph below.

The orchard has been planted with old varieties of fruit - as described by Thomas Tresham

The walk went through the orchard, via the mounds and moated orchard, and on to the spiral mound and the New Bield itself. The National Trust is restoring the gardens, using evidence including a wartime photo by the Luftwaffe.

A lone duckling - it later followed its mother and siblings to the other part of the moat.

The reflection would be perfect if only the wind dropped

Food for fish and ducks? Tadpoles galore!

We must have spent a good hour and a half walking around - the great weather helped of course.

Nene Way 4 - from Billing to Wellingborough Embankment

With Marta. 11.1 miles, including our wander round Earls Barton. Hot, sunny, dry underfoot in spite of yesterday's rain.A lot of up and down, to visit the villages above the flood plains.





From the info board at Billing Lock:
The River Nene is a particularly important navigation as itlinks the Grand Union Canal to the sea and, via the 'MiddleLevel' to the Great Ouse. Rising at Badby, Naseby andYelvertoft, the Nene becomes navigable at Northamptonwhere the three tributaries combine. The navigation, whichwas opened on 7th August 1761 when "7 coal laden bargesreached Northampton with the customary band of music,flags and streamers" begins at the junction withthe Northampton Arm of the Grand Union Canal near Cotton EndLock, Northampton and extends 91 miles (147 km) to the sea.There are 37 locks between Northampton and Peterborough.


We set off from Billing, via the lock with its two different styles of gate - the 'pointing door' and the 'guillotine'. The Nene Way marker showed the way across a bridge, and a couple of fields towards the Brafield Road. We took the road and turned left into Cogenhoe, now an attractive village on a hill above the Nene valley.





In a central position is a village sign erected by Cogenhoe and Whiston Parish Council . . . in commemoration of the millennium July 2000.





On four sides are pictures representing the history of the village, and in the base there is a time capsule compiled by local children.





The pictures show local scenes, transport and the past industries of brick-making and shoe and boot manufacture.





















There is an active local heritage society - Cogenhoe and Whiston Heritage Society.

I also happened upon a blog entry about Cogenhoe Football Club .

Cogenhoe church clock stands just after half past five, though it was late morning.

From Station Road turn left into Church Street, and follow the Nene Way signs through a small lane and gate into an open field.





When we left Cogenhoe I was surprised how high we had climbed above the river. It's only about 300 feet above sea-level and 100 feet above the valley, but there are lovely views over sloping fields of cows, and trees, and the path descends quite steeply to the Nene. Over to the South East Whiston Church is prominent on the hillside.





By the river we found a great stash of ripe blackberries, the best so far this year, and pretty early.





Follow the river as it winds its way to Whiston Lock. At this point a man was sitting next to a boat -la Sabatera.

'You've found a nice quiet spot', I commented

'Not by choice,' he replied. 'Have you seen a boat making its way along here?'

He was stuck at the lock for the moment - but was 'rescued' as we saw him two or three times later.





We crossed the river here and made our way towards Earls Barton. The route includes a slightly hair-raising crossing of the A45 using a flimsy-feeling footbridge. Then along a track parallel to the road (B573) past a farm shop/garden centre and uphill towards Earls Barton. Turn right and walk the length of the village.





As you walk in the church tower is very striking. The centre of the village is attractive, though it was impossible to get a view of the church again without going into the churchyard itself - there are huge trees in full leaf, and I think we'd have missed it if we'd arrived from the other direction.









We had lunch in Jeyes Apothocoffee shop's Walled Garden. Some interesting history on their website.





Lunch over, time to move. Just about the half-way point, we reckoned. Loins girded, and packs backed we walked to the end of the village to Mill Lane. We turned right and follwed the Nene Way down to Mill Farm and over the river, following the path between the river on our left and the lakes on our right.





We didn't cross the bridge over the weir but continued on the right of the river to Hardwater Mill, where, according to Mia Butler in her book Exploring the Nene Way a miller fell in the water and was drowned in 1309, and Thomas à Beckett called in on his way to France, after he escaped from Northampton Castle.

Hardwater Mill

The bridge takes the Nene Way over the mill pond, which was teeming with fish

We followed the path over the bridges and to the right. At this point we went slightly off course by following a concrete track tot he right of the sewage farm. We were able to cut back and find the path with gates leading up hill to Great Doddington. The village has a shop - handy for a cold drink, and a public area with a seat just across the road too.





On through Great Doddington, with a short diversion when we saw a sign for the Nene Way, followed it for a while, then decided it was leading us in the wrong direction - back to Cogenhoe. The path we wanted is to the right shortly before the Stag's Head.





It leads downhill through fields, and another mill where several boats were moored.





The path stays on the left hand side of the river, all the way to the Embankment. We were overtaken by La Sabatera only to catch it up at Wellingborough Upper Lock.

We refused to resist the temptation of an ice-cream before making for the car, and seeing another section of the walk completed.













Billing - Cogenhoe - Earls Barton - Great Doddington - Wellingborough