A New Family Member

I have a cheese plant!

It gets to hang out with our holy bookcase, and make oxygen and happiness. It is green and shiny (has been dusted since this photo was taken), and has funky air roots, and sometimes drips on unsuspecting house guests, and the leaves do this funky thing where they start out whole and then get holes and slits in. And I am very easily entertained. I am going to go so overboard when Christmas comes around and I can decorate the cheese plant.

It comes with the name "Single Leaf Cheese Plant", which I am going to keep. Yet another inanimate object duly christened. On which note - I think all your postcards must have got lost in the mail and you should try again.

This beauty is a gift from some very green-fingered friends. I only hope I can keep it alive. I am not cut out for this much responsibility, but I will try. If I remember to water it with more regularity than I write this thing then it stands half a chance.

This has come in to my life (and L's life, but she wandered off to the other side of the world, so she'll just have to live with the consequences of leaving me unsupervised) at this time for a reason. It's been nominally ours, but still living in safer surroundings for a little while, but I decided to be bold and take the plunge. This is all because my parents are coming to stay* and I still feel the need to convince them that I am a fully-functioning, coping-with-everything adult. I can be responsible for myself, and still have enough responsibility to spare to choose to bring living things in to my life. Is what this cheese plant says. Look, it's not dead yet, therefore I must be so on top of things that I can remember to care for another living organism.

I am such a fraud. Today I wore matching socks and felt really proud of it. Last week I spent the first 10 minutes of my working day wearing sunglasses in the office until someone mentioned it. I nearly had a toddleresque tantrum at Church because my new favourite minister was on holiday again**.

What I am trying to say is that I might need some external support with keeping this new living thing alive. You guys need to set up a rota or something so that once every week or two someone phones me up and checks on the cheese plant. Please?

Oh, and please don't mention any of these things to my parents!

I leave you with a picture of me, with the Tiny Squirrel (who has gone adventuring to far flung places) at a ceilidh in a castle. For no particular reason, except that I can.

*They're coming to stay because we're having a Festival, with French people. You should all go to our website and buy tickets and then come to all our events. 'Cos they'll be awesome.

**For someone who only works one day a week... 

So I Bought a Tandem

Tandem's First Outing. In which the Tiny Squirrel is lost, found, and has to wear a seatbelt.

First up, another gratuitous photograph of the bike.

 'Cos I am rather taken by it.

This is its better side, so in photographic terms, it's always going to be heading East, kinda like not being able to turn left.

Second up, boys and girls: a competition. 

Because everyone enjoys a bit of Audience Participation*. There has been some tense eBay bidding, the spending of all my pocket money, some complicated cross-country logistics, and a Very Long Drive. All to get this beautiful lump of metal up here to the wild corner of Scotland we inhabit. We're trying our best to get the poor shell shocked thing settled in. And still, it is un-named. Something that causes me (and my friends, it seems) this much excitement ought to warrant a Title. I have reservations about naming inanimate objects, but they've never stopped me yet, so I should probably get over it. Something about not being too attached to material things. Heck, I'm attached to it already. 

Suggestions on a postcard please. On a card, through the post. PM me for the address.** 

The first half of this post is the story of how we cycled many tandem miles (22 mile round trip, which I make a total of 44 miles covered between us, right?), and there was a big scare about the tiny squirrel. The second half winds off on a tangent about why this was a thing I wanted to buy what I think I like to do with money. It could be a whole post on it's own, but I think I shall leave it be.

Here come the pictures. We load up the valiant steed and head off on our many miles of bartering over gear changes. 

L gets the front seat because I cannot be trusted.

There was a lovely BBQ, involving a quantity of cider. We had great fun giving everyone a ride, whether they liked it or not.

My friends agree with me: it's bloody scary back there. 

There was a Tiny Squirrel Drama!

Set off with Tiny Squirrel in cupholder, arrive without Tiny Squirrel. Oh No! Four of us set out on a rescue mission, re-trace our steps, scouring the road for traces of the little ginger fellow. We find him, looking somewhat worse for wear. Someone ran over the Tiny Squirrel! But he's a tough little guy, first aid was performed, there was great rejoicing in all the land, and it was all so intense absolutely no photographs were taken.

A Near Miss Form was carefully filled in, our Risk Assessment was re-assessed, and the Tiny Squirrel was fitted with a seatbelt.

We all made it home safe and sound, daily exercise done, and our currently-nameless tandem welcomed to Scotland.

By way of proof that he made it all the way home.

So I've just bought (half of) a bike that's so fancy it has cup-holders.

Not as secure as it looks.

A decent chunk of money went on that thing, as well as another chunk on the fuel to go get it, the roof bars to get it home on the car, and the coffee to keep me awake for the drive. The next thought is to go get it serviced. Things I decided were worthwhile spending that cash on.

This has got me thinking, as I do fairly often, about what crazy things I spend my money on. There's a lot of thinking space on the back of a tandem. I've been an independent soul most of my life. When I was at 6th Form college, every spare thought was about what I would do so that I could get some grades, move away to university, and what I would do once I got there. Now I bumble along in my proto-adult ways, and am really very grateful that I get to make my own decisions about what I do. So sometimes I get to spend my money and not feel guilty about it. Some other times I know I've got to come up with another way to manage what I have in mind. After all, my main focus is saving the pennies to get going on the Wonderous Campsite of the Future (TM). Sometimes I'm quite good at landing on my feet and finding that things come my way and I just need to be thankful and find a place to put it.

Offbeat ran a post a while ago about what things give the most satisfaction per unit spend, and in that vein I shall write you guys a list. The things that give me the most enjoyment foe money spent.

• Stuff that might come in handy in that Potential Future Campsite

This includes the Tent of Doom, of which half (sharing is saving!) was purchased some time ago. It includes the hammock that cost a fiver, and the lengths of climbing rope that cost me more than that. Whether it's actually cost me money or not, I'm always keen to hold on to stuff that fits this remit, like the giant outdoor games a friend gave me a while back. Cost me nothing but storage space and I can see them coming in to their own one day.

• Camping Holidays and Camping Supplies

Like the trip to Comrie Croft that I'm yet to properly write up. These things get mentally counted as Market Research, and therefore worthwhile. 

• Charity Shop Stuff

Charity shops, second-hand on eBay and TK Maxx. Something in me does not believe in paying the asking price for clothes. My clothes get worn for dancing, and cycling to work and climbing hills and stuff. They wear out on me. They get quite scruffy quite quickly and generally live a hard life. Those things are as well being second hand, or at least cheaper than normal. 

• Whimsy

Throwing all sorts of stuff in here. Tomorrow I am going to an "Aqua-Ceilidh". A ceilidh, in a swimming pool. It'll cost me a fiver and a bit of fuel, but I think it's worth it. The Tandem probably more than fits in this category.

• Ki:Lau Brownies

Ki:Lau is an independent little Coffee Shop in Aberdeen. They do very good brownies.

• Adventures, and cups of tea whilst having adventures

On our grand day out to the Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre

Because an adventure is better when it features a tea break, and because everyone should be allowed the occasional adventure every now and again.

• Hats

For wearing whilst drinking tea and having adventures. For starting conversations. For keeping my head warm. 

On the topic of keeping one's head warm, I'm off out for some free Opera in the park.  

For those of you who have been enjoying Tuesday Blog Time, apologies for it's absence. Sometimes my life gets mental, and something's gotta give. I keep trying though!

*In my experience, the only people who enjoy audience participation are the (1) the person making the audience participate, who thought it was a good idea in the first place, (2) the guys in the tech box who are safely out of the reach of any possible participation, and (3) that one friend you have who gets a bit exhibitionist after a few.

**I really really really like getting post.

The Tandem Adventure

We did it!

This is the story of how much the two of us can cram in to a long weekend. 3 1/2 days is all we could scrape together. There's quite a lot of adventuring here, so I shall attempt to spare you too many words, and give you all the pictures instead. 

1046 miles. This accounts for a good proportion of the miles now on our poor wee motor.

Dad gets a Tiny Squirrel Cuddle. 

4 lanes. How is that even fair? They just creep up on you and before you know it there are people driving Death Machines at high speeds on all sides. (I learned to drive in Aberdeen)

So we got there. There was a bike. Kinda funky, no?

The bike made it as far as a local drinking establishment; me on the back, holding on tightly whilst cursing, whimpering and praying for safety. I quietly drank cider in a very pretentious beer garden (it had fake grass, and people were drinking white wine and not being ironic about it), then the chain jammed and we had to push it home.

There were exhausting Small People who did a better job of tiring me out than the other way round. There were far too many people in one house, so we had to sleep in the garden. There was Chinese takeaway. They do it different in the Sowf. I watched Frozen for the first time, with all of it's glaring grammatical inaccuracies. And then we had to go home (because we are boring grown-ups who have to be at work on Monday mornings).

Daddy Jones assists with the fiddly bits.

Spoyk gets loaded.

So it does sort-of fit up there, and everyone looks worried about how far off the back it goes. 

Should've bought a longer car, Kiddo.

Don't get too worried, I promise you it was secure. Precarious and unbalanced - yes, but secure. We chose a route avoiding all A-roads, bridges, height restrictions, sharp bends and the Tour de France and set off on our mammoth journey Northwards. 

My original notion of how this would pan out, car vs bike. I like to think I wasn't far off. 

Being so far south that Bedford and Milton Keynes and listed next to "NORTH" makes me twitch. 

Shadow-watching. When the Sun went behind the clouds I would start worrying that the bike had fallen off.

We found a Dobbies, because I am a sucker for a good scone, and had no problem remembering where we'd parked.

Lunch by the Seaside in Morecambe. There are chips, and seagulls. Things are now feeling a little more Northern and I am twitching less.  There was also ice cream.

For a 500 mile journey it was quite fun. We stopped for regular caffeine intake, listened to the tennis and waved at small children who thought we looked interesting. The Wimbledon Men's final went to 5 sets just to keep us entertained for longer.

More shadow-based proof that it's still there. 

We briefly considered copyrighting a method of determining the time based on the angle of Tandem-Shadow, but thought it might not take off in Scotland.

And many many slow and precarious hours later, we made it home. This, incidentally, is the darkest it's been in Aberdeen in about a month now. 

So we did it. There is a bike. It is huge and heavy and very scary to ride. I am not strong enough to steer. It doesn't have enough gears and one of the brakes is always on. It has the turning circle of a Tesco lorry. But it's gorgeous, and half of it is mine, so none of those things matter.