Rambling

I've started going, well rambling, with the local Ramblers (walking) group every sunday. It's great stuff- previously, all my solitary rambling  has been pretty much confined to Haddington -which is not a little limiting- however having tagged along for a mere three weeks already I've got to see some amazing places I didn't even know existed. It's really great finding out about all these little, obscure, beautiful places roundabout.

This sunday I went on my first 'A' walk (in the Northberwick/Haddington group they're graded 'A' down to 'C'), so I admit to having been a tad apprehensive; having been along on the 'B' and 'C' walks (not picky, I just take whatever's going) I'd heard a lot about how the 'A's were much further, steeper, faster and -oh the horror!- with fewer tea/coffee stops. Also not helping my confidence was the fact that it seemed everybody going along on the walk were those people who had clambered over most of the Monroes an odd dozen times...

We headed for Fife and the Lomond hills. This is a terrible quality map, but really the best I could find- ignore the blue line, nothing to do with me. T'was really great , the other ramblers are a wonderful lot, the walk was incredibly exhilarating and oh so beautiful... even the more developed sections such as the reservoirs we passed towards the end were really quite something.

A funny thing was the number of gliders we spotted. Especially at the top of the hills (West Lomond particularly) they would really creep up on us. Their being so silent, you could turn around and find one... gliding... not fifty metres away. We saw them getting towed up by small planes aswell. Tell you something it looked not a bit fun; that's something else to try now...

That's the view from the top of West Lomond. You could see all the way to Dundee. Really quite breezy though- fortunate that we were coming up the west side of the hill at the top because we were practically blown up the entire way. Falling backwards was not an issue.

Something I think Sylwia will like specifically (but am unable to put up on twitter) is a wee video I took. One of the ladies (my ride) brought Zoe along. Meet Zoe:

'Tis a bit shaky, I know, sorry. Having quite a time clambering along at a speed and trying to keep the camera aimed in roughly the right direction. But I think you get the general picture. It was so funny watching Zoe bouncing over the bracken.

One of the best pictures I got was near the end of the ramble when we passed Drumain reservoir. I took a couple of angles on this, but reckon this is the best.

I haven't changed the image at all. It was such a beautiful day (if a tad breezy at points), that all these amazing colours were right there naturally.

N.B. That in the background is West Lomond.
I don't think this was even the most beautiful part. Quite difficult to tell from the photo I reckon, but it's only little. Ten minutes after this we entered a small wood which has to be one of the most breathtaking places I have ever been.

I've been trying to think where it reminds me of, and just realized that it looks awfully like the description of Mirkwood in 'The Hobbit'! We didn't find any wood elves... ='(

Unfortunately though I couldn't halt long enough to take a really proper photo and the light wasn't always great for the camera. Still this photo reminds me oddly of a tapestry of a forest hanging in the Datcha (Babushka's house), so I quite like it. The only thing missing is a bear.

I do intend on going back.

Worry, People.

An R.M.P.S Thing

I might have mentioned before that- being a lovely, conscientious student ;) - I hop along to Amnesty International in Mrs Montgomery's R.M.P.S. classroom on Thursday lunchtimes. Anyhoo, we're reading over an assembly on Human Rights at the moment (watch out first years!) and Matthew was saying his bit, but then when he went to move he tripped and went sprawling, so his speech ended up going something a bit like this;

"I stand for Human Rights!"

*falls down*

Human Rights fail.

New THINGS

I've accumulated quite a lot of new Stuff over the past couple of days. At the selfsame Amnesty meet, Bethie took the opportunity to give me a birthday present (aww thanks =D ), part of which were these 'Worry People'.

From the top down, they are now called Berry, Caramel, Stripe, Mustard and Jelly. So far they have been very accommodating and listen to me complain every night prior to 'Lights Out'.

I definitely have already mentioned the wonderful Craft Fair, which has now sadly left Haddington :'( . However today being the last day of their visit, I seized the opportunity and bought myself a new schoolbag! Having had my current one since halfway through Primary Six, I feel this was well justified- particularly as every single time I go to pick it up, it promptly seizes the opportunity and splits open on me at the zip.
But revenge is sweet, and when I return to the drudgery of early morning starts *shudder*, I shall have one less item to scream at.

New Bag =D (you might have guessed)

It has elephants on it! And is therefore officially everything I ask of a bag.

I'll get this out of the way before I have holidays things to write about =D

First and Foremost, it's now finally the October break!

The official notice in my homework diary:

Okay, so technically the circle should include next Monday. Call it artistic license.
Anyhow, though it has been but a few short days (I find this so hard to believe!) since my last post, I feel though I have been neglecting this blog *sad face*. Yes... it may only have been mere days and yet it feels as though it were a lifetime! ;)

I suppose it is in order to underline the child-friendliness and general overall benevolence of the school that for the last three years on the Friday before we spilt for 'holls sweet holls', the pupils of Knox Academy are rewarded with an entire half-day free of lessons! On paper this is known as Faculty Challenge however more commonly amongst many pupils it's known simply as "Uuuurgh!".

To realise exactly why this is, you really have to sit through one hour repeatedly rolling die (occasionally getting a three and being permitted to draw yet another antenna onto your ladybird), followed by another doing nothing but tapping 'up' 'down' 'left' right' 'SPACE-SPACE-SPACE WORK DAMN YOU!' attempting to negotiate at least one half decent game of Tetris with a computer seemingly determined to lag.

By this point I could truly begin to see why I had woken up and dragged myself out of lovely, comfy, warm bed at 7.20 that morning...

"Today the school is alive with the Faculty Inter-House Challenges. Each faculty is offering activities to challenge mixed age groups of pupils. Challenges range from quizzes to origami to fun maths to sports. Points are awarded for participation and highest scores and will contribute to the overall House winner of the session. Congratulations to all pupils for their enthusiastic participation and thank you to all staff involved and, in particular, Ms Duff for organising the morning."

I shall tackle each point in turn.

Challenge. If -and only if- this is refers to maintaining the necessary control to keep from running screaming from the school gates, do I conceed the point.
Second: Fun Maths. No. Maths can be tolerable, 'okay', even interesting (depending upon exactly how well you're keeping up with the course), but when 'fun' is used to describe maths which is age/ability-appropriate for the entire school and is forced upon one for a full sixty minutes, it becomes synonomous with 'hefty dull'.
... and finally Pupils for their Enthusiastic.... I have not met these pupils.

I think though the rest of the day did a pretty good job of making up for a wasted morning.

I haven't ever seen it here before, but there was a Craft Fair set up nearby the Corn Exchange, in the same place the Farmer's Market usually is when it comes by Haddington. We think it's come from Aubigny- at any rate it's quite something. A tad like the German Market in Edinburgh each Christmas, albeit on a smaller scale, or some sort of Russian bazaar. After we spotted it yesterday Louise suggested we go there post FC today for crepes! I wasn't entirely sure exactly who was coming along, but it ended up being Louise, Claudia, Rosie, Sam and myself.

I acquired an obese miniture (Chinese) Buddha and Louise, Claudia and I feasted on crepes and some delicious Pick 'n Mix. The plan is to go down again tomorrow after our (Louise's, Beth's and mine) traditional coffee at 'The Golden Grain' (it would appear we are intiating Claudia into the cult- she only joined Knox in August), then head down to the fair and introduce Claudia to yet another new friend; Turkish Delight.

Possibly more on how that goes tomorrow. Depending on my degree of laziness.

I can't say anything much else interesting happened when I got home; tescos for food shopping then skedaddling to the library. However I rounded off the day quite spectacularly by ceremoniously mutilating my first mango.

By the time I had finished with it, it was quite a mess.

Before I meander wholly from the subject of school (it's too late isn't it? =S ) I quite wanted to mention that wednesday, you will be jealous to know, was largely cake-based. Dodie had just made cake at home. Anya brought her mum's homemade Brownies in for double Latin. Claudia bought four (small) cakelets on the way back from school -I must have been feeling uncommonly insane as I ended up giving mine to Lyovka- and in the Home Ec. department everyone had made lovely big chocolate cakes.

These -as it tends to be with most cakes- were to eat.

Only it seems that Paul, decided instead to decorate his face with one.

Taken post-wash.

I almost forgot =S

Oh, oh, and last but not least, today was Reace's Birthday. This means:
a) Happy Birthday too you...!
b) He's finally able to move into the Beth & Co. household so everything is GOOD. =D


All that... I'm sleepy. Cheerio!

Dendrochronology (I can say it right too!)

... or as they explained at the session, 'ology'- the study of something, 'chronos'- time, and 'Dendro'- tree runks/rings... except the other way round.

I went to a class on Saturday, unsure of what to expect. It was such a lovely walk there along the river by golf course- the day was nigh on perfect, sunny and toasty with it.

It's due to my camera clicking compulsion that by the time I finally reached Amisfield (the walled garden was to be the setting for our education), my already depleted camera battery gave up the ghost and declared itself caput. Hence I'm now awaiting photos actually relevant to event itself to be mailed me by the lady who organised the whole thing (thankyou!).

... aaanyhoo, there were seven of us in all I think- including the Dendrochronologist and organiser, and it was quite a relaxed atmosphere, pleasant to be with people who were there because of a genuine interest in the subject. Following on this train of thought, apparently there are only around ten Archeodendrochronologists in the entire country (there are different branches of Dendrochronology, we were informed, but I would hesitate to try and specify the distinctions). I must say I'm quite surprised- I would have thought working in this way with trees would have appealed to rather more people... but there you go, perhaps they haven't heard of it? I certainly hadn't.

Coralie took us through quite a number of (as she pointed out, lamenated) sheets of a ex-powerpoint. These talked about everything from the structure of the trunk, to how Dendrochronology can be put to use in a number of situations, to her and her partner's work in the field.

We were sitting outside on a lawn amongst some smallish trees, but to take a sample we exited to garden and headed around the wall to a sizable sicamore. Here Coralie brought out some sharpish contraptions and began manually boring a hole in the tree. The idea is that the middle of the hole travels up the keen-edged tube which she was rotating into the trunk, and then this sample could be retrieved, mounted and examined. The hole in the tree eventually closes up because of the tree's own weight.

And then it was over...

I ambled home into Haddington with fellow now-slightly-more-informed-person Jim, who was heading the same way, and effectively collapsed and was lazy for the remainder of the day- excepting a few minor incidents where my compulsive tidying habit forced me to leap up and briefly knock something (or someone; yes Lyovka, I'm looking at you) into place or shape.

But that is nothing out of the ordinary.

There, I think at last I have been able to write something pretty much entirely relevant to the Blog title. I am pleased.

A Tale of Two Dinners

Oh dear... where to start? Two consecutive birthday parties (as usual, synonomous with massive overeating... ouch), Rosie (16- today) and Belinda (8). For Rosie's, the plan was to hop into Edinburgh to see the new Harry Potter. I had managed to hold back from going to see it before in anticipation of this.

I think a trailer is appropriate here:

I think that by the time I came to watch it, I had already seen so many trailers that I had a fairly accurate idea of what to expect from the film... What surprised me though was that they managed to make it really very good, without necessarily being particularly funny. Still trying to decide whether or not this is a Good Thing (Personally I'm never averse to bit more comedy). Anyway, clearly it worked...

Following our stint in Edinburgh, we scooted back to Rosie's, on the way to which Beth recieved an unexpected text from Louise (who had just left us), and declared to a shocked audience that Amy Winehouse had died. We had all been fairly cut-off from the world in general since midday, so this news came as a complete surprise. Although I don't think any of us is a particular fan of Amy Winehouse, it is bizarre and sad to think that she is no longer there...

Back at Rosie's, we walk Clover (the residing dog- you might have guessed) and EAT. The table is covered in all manner of small edible snacks, and as we remain sitting there and talking a good few hours, we steadily pick away and eventually discover that the table top does indeed actually exist. We migrate to the 'sofa/TV area' of the room, and allow 'Mock The Week' episodes to run in the background as we chat, comment, and devour MOAMs.

The Very Next Day...

Having spent the best part of the night in various discussions with Ailish, I wake up brutally early, feel stuffed and eventually get sat on.

Still feeling stuffeed and now also reasonably squashed, I hitch a lift with Beth back to Haddington, and another party (ie, opportunity to overeat).

By the time I got back everyone had already arrived (everyone being Sarah -aunt-, Michael -uncle-, Honor, Belinda -cousins- and Caramel -hamster-) and the operation to get lunch out was well underway. I was permitted to sit and drool a while whilst these continued, then finally all was ready and with the table threatening to buckle, people sat down and dug in.

Papa and Sylwia arrived a bit after we'd finished the main course- their bus having broken down just outside of Fort Kinnaird.We had however managed to save them some, and pudding (jelly, cake, meringues and ice cream- albeit not simultaneously) seemed to go down well with everyone...

I go to bed begging to be spared dinner and feeling painfully overfull for a second night in a row (I never learn).

History & Edinburgh

Last Friday; History Exam. Too little time, scribbling throughout, hand very painful after. I shudder to imagine Higher history.

Following day; scaling Arthur's Seat by way of relaxation. Not so big as to be daunting, although several points at which a potentialy fatal combiation of wind and sleep deprivation threatened to send me plummeting from the top. Debatable as to whether I'd have noticed.

Forgot my camera, so no pictures. However due to contact lenses, this is the first time on which, reaching the summit, I have actually been able to see anything. T'was very nice by way of a change.

Stopped in on this exhibition;

http://fruitmarket.co.uk/exhibitions/current/

where we found this;

 

in an isolated, sound-proofed room. Slightly hypnotic. Created by Pipilotti Rist, quite like her take on the song (- papa; I googled it, she did re-record it herself -).