Happy Christmas for some

The day started a bit complicated, because something had gone wrong with the heating. It turned out  in the end that something had gone wrong with the electricity supply to the bothy, presumably due to high winds, but once that circuit was isolated, the rest of the system condescended to function. While we were in the cold kitchen debating where the problem might lie, a frantic bumping from the cupboard revealed the presence of a mouse caught in a mousetrap we had pretty much forgotten was there. Soft-heartedly, I transferred it to a mug and took it outside intending to release it a long way from the house. However, I was barely over the threshold when it gave an almighty spring and catapulted itself out of the mug – alas, almost literally, into the waiting jaws of Colman the Rough Cat, who was hanging about hopefully and proceeded to enjoy an unexpected Christmas treat. There’s some people you just can’t help. I suppose I love Colman the Rough Cat a bit more than I do meeces, so all’s well that ends well.

A short(ish) intermission

As so often at the end of the year, I have ended up neglecting the blog - in fact I have only just realised I've been off line for a month, for which, apologies. As usual, there is the general melt-down of the end of term, with many essays to mark, there is also the business of the Christmas book, which is quite time-consuming, there is Christmas more generally, but this year, there was also a party. The Professor announced some time ago that since we were approaching having been married for 25 years, we ought to have a party. A rather small one, since 20^th December (which was also the last day of term, and the Friday before Christmas) is a pretty hellish date on which to have a party. What we in fact did was to bunk down to Edinburgh as soon as my last class of the year was over at 1 o’clock, to meet the Tropical Godparents, and the Professor’s cousins. One of the cousins is a Master of Wine, and thanks to her good offices, we had a private room in the Malt Whisky Society’s premises in Leith – there were sounds of obscure revelling offstage, but we had a little panelled room to the six of us, where we could talk comfortably. Very nice it was too. At some point after the idea first came to birth, I counted up on my fingers, and realised that it was in fact the 24^th anniversary. The Professor meanwhile did the same, and both of us decided not to mention it till what with one thing and another, we realised that the other, in fact, knew, so that was all right. As a trophy of the occasion I organised for my self a very grand pair of earrings. I managed to extract from Ebay for no very large sum two oval cornelian intaglios, pierced end to end (middle eastern, with some age on them if not precisely antique), which gave me the idea. Meanwhile, I had a pair of quite nice and lustrous oval cultured pearls, which had hung on slender gold chains, one of which broke in the middle, and I had a few Roman gold beads I’d bought from an antiquities dealer. The intervention of a reasonably competent making jeweller strung together a small gold bead, an intaglio and a pendent pearl to make a pair of wonderfully archaic looking and rather grand earrings for high days and holidays. We had a lovely time in Edinburgh, and came back on the early train on Sunday. There was quite a lot of scurrying about on Monday, including a deathdealing episode where I lost track of the cloth bag in which was my wallet, among other bits and bobs, and, after running round Turriff in the rain for forty minutes, found it had been handed in at the police station. We live among honest folk.  The weather has turned disgusting, and the wind is screaming about us. Dr Biswell and Mr Wil communicated, saying they had bought a case of wine and battened down the hatches. We are, I think, adequately supplied, and similarly, we have a definite ambition not to go anywhere at all. Happy Christmas, everybody.