HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

New Year 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERY ONE

It’s been so long I hardly know where to start. I signed off here for what I intended to be a couple of weeks  back in the middle of November, now here we are already into the New year. This is a pair of small portraits I had for sale in the craft fair.

The Art exhibition I entered returned both of my works, without hanging either of them, with a short explanatory note saying that this year the exhibition was open to the whole of Scotland for both professional and amateur artists. Apparently the criteria for entry changed this year which led to the exhibition being vastly over subscribed, seems for the first time they rejected virtually one out of every three entries. So guess I’ll just chalk that one up to experience and try again next year. The exhibition itself was interesting though and showed me the standard expected so it wasn’t entirely a wasted effort, it was very valuable experience.

Afraid I didn’t do that much better on my craft fair stall either, not a lot was selling that day.  I often go to these craft fairs, they are held in the local community centre, usually in the run up to Christmas, and usually the stalls are hired in aid of different charities. It’s a good place to buy home-made and original Christmas presents. This year was a bit of an eye opener. I have to say; the recession had gone largely unnoticed by me. My job is pretty low paid but I do have a permanent contract AND job security. This, for me, meant life continued to be as difficult, but manageable as it always was. BUT…………..The craft fair was an eye opener, whereas in other years these places have been throbbing with Christmas shoppers and people left laden with bags bulging with goodies, this year there were far fewer people and many of the stalls (including mine) struggled to sell any thing at all. Another one to chalk up to experience, the recession is real and it’s affecting ordinary people in ordinary situations. This is just one of the bags that remained unsold at the end of the day.

And then there was the ‘’Green Flag’’ experience, I’ve already written about that so I’ll not bore you with the details again. I’ll just say that since then our eco group with in the school has been more high profile and more appreciated than ever before. More people want to join our group and more people are willing to recycle more stuff and generally be more aware of environmental issues. (Altogether is moorish experience) We seemed to get quite a lot of press coverage too which was nice.

Once all that was out of the way, work became very, very hectic with all the normal ‘end of term’ demands PLUS the kids did a Christmas Pantomime for the first time. That was great fun; they did so well I think a Pantomime will be expected every Christmas. Any one who has ever worked in a school will understand how hectic end of term is.

And of course there is the ‘’big freeze’’ to contend with. I have lived in Scotland for twenty years and can honestly say I have never known a winter like this. I can’t remember the last time the temperature rose above freezing.
I have been out side on a daily basis checking my fish pond. I think I have lost most of the fish I put in last summer. I know the guy in the pet shop said they would be OK outside, even OK if the pond froze, but no one expected a freeze like this. At one point I could see the fish swimming sluggishly under the ice, they looked as if they were trying to get to the surface but there was no where left for them to get through. I was taking the ice off the top every day and then the ice became so thick it was very difficult. In the end I had to force the huge sheet of ice away from the top because the ice had taken hold of all the plants, the plants froze and the ice seemed to travel through the water, through the plants, into the baskets of earth and extend all the way down to the bottom of the pond. The pond was in real danger of freezing solid. When I finally forced the ice sheet away from the water it was eight inched deep in places had covered all the plants and the baskets they were planted in.
The ice came away with the plants which left the pond half empty, this meant I had to spend more time in the freezing weather carrying buckets of water out to re-fill the pond. Think next year I’ll go for frogs not fish, at least frogs have the good sense to leave the water and live in the ground over winter.  

The shops all sold out of salt because so many people used it on the ice. The bins full of gravel that are provided by the council were always running out.
My driveway was like a skating rink and very dangerous. Fortunately I remembered I had some builders sand left from last year. It took me a while to get the shed door open because the locks had frozen solid but once I managed to unlock the door I had plenty of sand and the grandchildren seemed to enjoy throwing sand all over the place.
Funny how kids have the capacity to actually enjoy what to adults is just another chore to get through. I think most of my lavender will be dead next year, this is just to cold for it to survive outside.
But for some weird reason the parsley is thriving!!! I wonder..........is this some rare form of Arctic parsley??

We did manage to get out a couple of times over Christmas to walk the dogs but even that became difficult because the ground was frozen. We have not had nearly as much snow as other places have but we have had very low tempratures and freezing conditions for what seems like months. 

The dogs ( and kids) were skating  around a field of ice. It was cold, quite dangerous in places but oh was it pretty??...........yes ....very, very pretty.

Christmas itself was good, I had one daughter and her two children here on Christmas day for their Christmas dinner.

On Boxing Day I had all three daughters, and their partners, and their children, and their dogs……………all in my rather small apartment………….great fun though.

New Year was spent over on the West coast in Ayr (I live on the East coast) with my youngest daughter and her family. It was a quiet but very nice family  New Year. From the coast of Ayr you can look out onto the islands of Bute and the Mull of Kintyre which is hopefully where I’ll be heading in better weather next summer.

And that kinda brings me up to now, I came back from Ayr yesterday and intend to spend what is left of today and tomorrow packing away the Christmas decorations, throwing out all the rubbish, having a bit of a spring clean and preparing for work again on Wednesday. Yep…………….Wednesday is the first day of term, time to start all over again.

New Year resolutions?? I have a few …………..the obligatory ‘’ I must lose weight and take more exercise’’, but also things like try to stop collecting rubbish, live a more minimalist life ‘cos all this stuff that seems to accumulate from no where just clutters up my house and my life. I find it very difficult to throw things away, partly because I’m so aware of the land fill problem so If I can’t recycle or reuse or re-home……….it tends to clutter up my house which isn’t really a good thing. In which case; I am going to try to accumulate less in the first place.

Also of course, over the next couple of days, in between packing away the tree, throwing out the clutter, de-icing the pond, spring cleaning the house and preparing for work on Wednesday, I’ll get round to as many of you; my much missed and sadly neglected friends as possible.
For those of you who who I haven’t visited in a while
I SEND ………………… VERY, VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR WISHES AND MANY THANKS FOR ALL YOUR GOOD WISHES OVER THE HOLIDAY PERIOD.