Chatiryworld

Moooooooomin

It's no secret that Jon and I are huge fans of the Moomins (we had a reading from Who Will Comfort Toffle? at our wedding).  There's currently a Moomins exhibition on at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, and these lovely children travelled over from Finland to sing their song and open the exhibition.  If we weren't already planning to go over to Brussels later in the year I think we'd be on the next Eurostar, but we're going to be good.  Maybe the exhibition will come to the UK.

There's more about the Moomins at The Moomin Trove, and you can also learn about the TV series from the late 70s/early 80s that introduced us both to the Moomins when we were sprogs, over at The Fuzzy Felt Moomins.  If you're passing Tampere in Finland, you can also go to the Moominvalley Museum.  There's also a theme park but I think I would prefer the museum.

What flexitime was made for

I opened the front door on Monday morning, already running a bit late for my usual bus, and was confronted with this sight.  I decided capturing a few photos was worth missing the bus for, so scampered back inside to get my camera, breathlessy half explaining to Jon what I was doing and losing a glove on the way.  As well as this photo I got another two, and of course missed my bus (I later found it from a colleague it was early anyway).  But what's the point of flexitime if you can't use it for nice things like this?

Speaking of nice things, Yorkshire readers may be interested to know that there is a Rob Ryan exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (apparently there's a Clothkits workshop going on too but it's sold out).

Cooling towers of Sheffield

Cooling towers, originally uploaded by Gigglejuice.

Came across an article on the Guardian website about a campaign to save the iconic cooling towers of Sheffield and turn them into an art installation, one of the guys involved is a friend of my sisters Ellen and Martha.

I suppose the towers can be seen as pretty ugly but after a while they become a sign of nearly being back in Sheffield (or just leaving it, depending on which way you're going on the motorway or train), part of the urban landscape.

If they are structurally unsound, as the owners claim, and there is no way of preventing this, then maybe they should come down.  Plus they are going to be replaced with a biomass power station, which is a good thing. 

I don't want the towers to come down, but I do recognise the safety issues and replacing them with an alternative energy source is probably better for our planet in the long term.

My cultural world

Yesterday I popped into the National Library of Scotland to see the Happy Birthday Miffy exhibition.  There was a similar exhibition touring public libraries a few years ago and I wasn't sure if it would be the same one (it was in Leeds when I worked there and I helped out one morning), but it wasn't.  If you don't have kids, Saturday isn't the best time to go, but if you do, there are loads of fun activities alongside the exhibition.  I tried to avoid tripping over any little ones and wondering if lots of them needed their nappies changing or were just farting with excitement.  I didn't really get a chance to linger but what I liked best were the non-Miffy things, I'd never seen any other examples of Dick Bruna's artwork and it was really interesting.  I'd love to go and see the Dick Bruna Huis in Utrecht in the Netherlands, another thing to add to the list.  So, in conclusion, great exhibition, just don't go at the weekend if you want to spend quality time looking at the artwork.

Music now.  I heard the Soulsavers track Revival a few days ago on 6 Music, and then my cousin's hubby Ben blogged about it and I thought I'd look into them a bit more.  I may not appreciate the religious content (indeed I'm going to have to get the video for Revival out of my head, it's a cracking track but the video sums up a lot of what I don't like about religion, even if it is well filmed) but the music is bloody good and their latest album features greats such as Mark Lanegan and Will Oldham (big favourite in our flat).  It's also available in Fopp for £7. 

I'm filing Soulsavers alongside Nick Cave's Into My Arms (although they're not quite as good), which is a beautiful song and were Jon and I to have a big celebration in the future where we were committing to each other for life we might want to play it.  But we can't, because we're both atheists, not just one of us.  Actually, there's nothing to stop us playing it, we probably would at some point during that celebration but it's so powerful and we can't quite match the lyrics ourselves so we wouldn't be able to play it at any particularly significant point in that celebration.  In fact, why don't we all take a moment to appreciate it:

It's not cultural, but I tried to go shoe shopping yesterday.  I'm not sure I've recovered yet.  And I didn't come back with any shoes.

Anyone got about £6 million?

Or feel like clubbing together for the last Charles Rennie Mackintosh house that's in private ownership?  (You need to scroll down and then the details are in pdf).

And did the person who came here searching for asda+toilet+training+wipes+flush+unclog ever find what they were looking for?

Hera

Hera, originally uploaded by Falling Sky.

Jon's been experimenting with printmaking, and has produced this rather lovely image of Hera, the Greek goddess of family and birth (explaination over at his place).  There's 9 of them available to buy at his Etsy shop. 

I really like printwork and am quite tempted to try some myself (at some point in the next ten years...).

We're not total festival miseries

under the stars 3, originally uploaded by chatirygirl.

At last weekend's Under The Stars, part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.  We were waiting for Swing Time.

ART!

My boy's on Moleskinerie - again!  I like the thumbnail mosaic of his sketches.  The cow parade ends this Sunday and neither of us have managed to photograph (me) or sketch (him) all the cows, this is partly due to vandalism though.  I was looking forward to photographing Salty but some mindless thugs have beaten him up and he's out of the parade.

If you fancy owning an original Nagl artwork, check him out on Etsy and eBay.  It's a gentle toe-dip into the world of selling and will hopefully lead to greater things.

Lovely lovely things

My new favourite (ok, one of) shop is Fifi and Ally (nothing on the website) in Princes Square, Glasgow. It sells clothes I can't afford but lots of lovely gifty things that I almost squealed with delight at (Mr Nagl wasn't there, but he's seen me do it elsewhere). I particularly liked the mini, mini cleaning kits that came in boxes covered with vintage children's illustrations. I have no idea what the point of them is, too big for a doll's house, way too small to be useful but I liked them.

I also finally got to see Karin Eriksson's beautiful ceramic work in the flesh. I've been reading her blog for a few months and the vases and tealight holders lived up to my expectations. There was also lovely stationery from Jill Bliss plus some fun stuff from Chronicle Books.

If you want to see some other lovely things, my other half's gone Flickr Pro, at last.

Glimpses from Skye

All my Skye photos can be found here.

Filming some of the journey using the iSight.

Arriving to sunshine and the B&B owners letting us check in early so we could scamper off round Broadford.

Strolling around the beach and seeing the B&B we want to stay in next year.

Chatting with the owner of the second-hand bookshop.

Enjoying handspun yarn and beautiful clothes, then discovering a gorgeous ginger and white cat happily curled up in amongst some jumpers (why didn't I photograph this?).

Throwing up on our first night, opening the window to get some fresh air and inadvertantly introducing Mr Nagl to vicious midgies.

Getting off the bus in Armadale to find the sun breaking through, people sitting on a cafe terrace, bagpipes playing and a ferry from Mallaig coming out of the mist. I was quite overwhelmed.

Enjoying permaculture garden Rubha Phoil in the sunshine, with lots of stops at the viewing points.

Wanting to buy a load of herbs from Rubha Phoil but realising that was a tad impractical on public transport.

Being inspired by knitwear at Ragamuffin.

Having a good site down and some free pastries (it was the end of the day) at Armadale Castle.

Having a quick look down a path near the beach whilst waiting for our bus and seeing amazingly clear blue sea.

Going to one of the best restaurants I've been to in a long while, the Harbour Restaurant in Broadford. Absolute best bet for vegetarian food in the village (despite there only being three choices per course) and exceptionally friendly owners. They go for fairtrade and local food where they can. The cheesecake was wonderful and I could have just eaten a plate of the sweet cherry tomatoes for my main course (I didn't, I had a lovely wild mushroom pasta dish).

After said wonderful meal, watching the sun set.

Venturing over to Portree and revisiting some nice shops.

Walking out to An Tuireann Arts Centre and seeing a lovely craft exhibition then stuffing ourselves with delicious cake.

Stocking up at the Isle of Skye Soap Company.

Coming back to sunny Broadford and relaxing on the beach, eating strawberries, sketching (him) and chucking pebbles in the sea (me).

Getting a takeaway and eating it in the garden thanks to the midgie zapper.

Mr Nagl finally getting a timelapse film of the sun rising on the our final day.

We were naughty! We decided to go to the cafe at the Serpentarium whilst waiting for our bus. It wasn't even 10am and Mr Nagl had some beer and I had some chocolate cheesecake. He started it.

Dropping our bags off in Kyle of Lochalsh and going to the Best Toilet In The World...Ever. Well worth the 20p for the wall-to-wall tartan tat. And it's very clean. Kyle itself isn't great but if you're passing through make sure you go to the toilet here.

Going for a walk to Castle Moil in Kyleakin. I spent the summer of 1996 in Kyleakin working as a hotel receptionist.

Getting hot and bothered back in Kyle of Lochalsh and sitting reading on the station platform until our train came.

A pretty reasonable journey home, Friday night and we were heading in the opposite direction to everyone else. Shared a pizza at the Pizza Express next to Inverness station then took loads of photographs of the sun setting on the Cairngorms on the way back home.

Being too tired to be too sad to be back, but there were several points on the holiday where I wanted to phone work and say 'I'm teleworking from up here, ok?'. Give us a few years and hopefully our dream will become a reality.

skye, portree, broadford, portree, armadale, kyleakin, kyle of lochalsh

Up there, round the corner, let’s go this way instead

My mum and Hugh went home at lunchtime after a lovely few days up here in Edinburgh (only a teeny bit of rain). Mr Nagl was working so I lead them all over town visiting places, generally confusing them by never returning the same way. But that's how you get to see a city and it keeps you away from busy Princes Street. Here's what we did:

Stockbridge - with a particular emphasis on foodie and charity shops
Botanic Gardens, including 'The Glasshouse Experience' which was fun, lots of photos to be uploaded onto Flickr soon.
The Circle Cafe, read lots of good reviews about this place. I had yummy courgette and rosemary soup and the others had Moroccan lentil soup which they loved, along with their Illy coffee.
Edinburgh Printmakers - or we would have had it not been shut.
Valvona & Crolla, an unmissable deli. Thank you for the beautiful Rococo chocolate you got us!
The Scottish Gallery, nice pottery but very expensive.
Dean Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Hugh saw Antony Gormley and everyone enjoyed the recreation of Eduardo Paolozzi's studio.
Grassmarket and Victoria Street.
Royal Mile with stops at the Just Scottish gallery and the Scottish Poetry Library, which I have now joined.
Princes Street Gardens - great way to avoid Princes Street itself.
Little stops in the One World shop under St John's Church and at the Studio One gallery.

Quite a lot for two days! Next time I'd like to take them to the Royal Museum of Scotland and some of the Museum of Scotland. Only some because it's not especially easy to navigate round in the correct chronological order and there's also a lot to see. The Royal Museum is a higgeldy-piggeldy collection of all sorts of interestingness in a gorgeous building.

Not surprisingly, my feet are rather sore but Mr Nagl has joined me in having time off work so we'll have a relaxing few days together. We start by going to see Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Harem Scarem tonight.

edinburgh, galleries, museums, stockbridge, botanics, food, ceilidh culture

Ian Hamilton Finlay

Has died at the age of 80. I'm a big fan of his work, even if Hugh tells me he was a bit of an awkward old man (Hamilton Finlay, not Hugh).

ian hamilton finlay

More blogging goodness

tree card


Originally uploaded by chatirygirl.

Here's a not very good photo of a very good card made by Mav from port2port, a blog I haven't been reading for very long but I really enjoy it. I'm going to frame the card at some point and I'm very glad I bought it when I did as it's sold out!

links and links and links

Seriously Scottish LIVE streamed music player. Mix of classical, folk and popular items from the hit parade. Includes one of my favourite pieces (makes me cry), Farewell to Stromness by Peter Maxwell Davies. Unfortunately you can't listen to the tracks individually but they all look pretty great to me.

DIY paper bookmarks. Via moleskinerie blog.

Two fantastic 'duo' blogs I've just discovered: Muse To Muse and port2port.

NOTHINGSOMETHING via port2port, what the web was made for...

My del.icio.us page, will work on integrating it into the blog soon, but this is how I manage my links now.

My Suprglu site, all my feeds in one place.

Cinderella

Yesterday Mr Nagl and I went through to Glasgow to see Scottish Ballet's production of Cinderella at the Theatre Royal. I hadn't been to the ballet for many years (and I seem to remember dropping off) but I had harboured a dream at the age of ten to be a ballerina. Plus the tickets were only a fiver.

We discovered why on picking them up - limited view. We weren't that bothered but they never mentioned it when I bought them on tinternet. Anyway, turned out it wasn't too limited, just a narrow pillar in the way, which we could work around. Unlike the little boy nearby who wouldn't shut up. Actually, our position was good for Mr Nagl as we had a dim light above us meaning he could see to sketch.

Anyway, the ballet was everything I hoped for and more. The sets and scenery were stunning, going from pop-art baroque to botanical illustration. This production was set in eighteenth century France (albeit one with telephones and retro pink fridges, but hey, it worked), complete with over the top wigs and big skirts. The ugly sisters and the stepmother were dressed in lurid pinks and greens, adding to their ugliness. I can't help but wonder if the prince's sidekicks were either based on the two stewards from the High Life or Elton John (he would certainly approve of their clothing taste), whatever, they were most certainly not attracted to the ugly sisters.

The fairy godmother (who was a fantastic dancer and had a wonderful costume) and ball scenes were sumptious, a feast for the eyes (as they say) and I enjoyed one of the ugly sisters throwing up from eating too much (it's ok, this wasn't graphic). We were both really glad that the original nasty bit was kept in - the ugly sisters cut off their toes to fit into the shoe, it worked a treat.

Highly recommended, with three short acts and two decent intervals you are able to keep refreshed. And of course the music is wonderful.