December 2006

Old year: I’m 51 today. These are the rotten beams from our recently re-roofed steading. the man from Historic Scotland, alas, found some adze (axe) marks on them, and began muttering about replacing the brand-new ones with some of the old ones. What to do? Hmmm…let’s have a wee think…Old year: Burning the rotten beams…

….might include… Hallo Saferide – Introducing Hallo Saferide (album) AND Would you Let Me Play This Record Ten Times a Day? (EP)The Feeling – I Love it when you Call (single)The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America AND Almost Killed Me (albums)Josh Ritter – Girl in the War (single)Neil Young and Crazy Horse…

Nigella (and that’s Lucy the St Bernard, not Nigella. She’s watching Quoyle the labrador have his annual dip) loomed large over our Christmas foodstuffing. Several recipes were downloaded and printed out, and there were parsnips, there was goosefat (frozen since last year’s goose, in fact) and other such delights (including pomegranate cous-cous). Bed, eventually, after…

…and the preparations are just about done. Susan’s away to visit her mother in the care centre. Tragically, Audrey’s just not fit to come home for Christmas dinner this year, and it’s the end of an era. Scott was just here with a card and tremendous news from the Sullom Voe oil terminal, just down…

Well, I call it work.Home, cook the tea, try to make Garageband work on the Mac. Very nearly succeed. Resolve to try again. Have glass of wine and resolve not to. Interesting observation from Gerry, one of Susan’s oldest friends. Why do people fae sooth, like us, come to live in Shetland? Because, he says,…

Exciting times on the Bookcroft front. After closing Britain’s Most Northerly Second-hand Bookshop in September, following a reasonably successful summer season, I moved The Radiocroft broadcasting operation into one of the main bookshop areas. Now people have been asking when the shop is opening again, and COPE, a local social enterprise company has asked me…

Nine o’clock on Saturday morning, and I’m Glasgow’s Trongate, waiting for Drum Central to open. Thus began a hell-for-leather day of shopping, visiting, eating and attempting to pack an ever-increasing amount of stuff into a Renault Kangoo van. All of this culminated at IKEA with a gut-wrenching moment when Magnus and I thought the red…

Phew! Safely in Glasgow, after last night’s BBC Music Department (Popular Rock And Accordion Dept, Aberdeen HQ)party at Bistro Verde on the Green, one of my favourite Castle Greyskull eateries. Truly fantastic food, though the chilli prawns almost blew the top of my head off. Alas, I had to behave in a fairly abstemious manner,…

…Good grief, that was a bad one. Twelve hours of violent pitching, rolling, slamming, crunching and clanging on the way from Lerwick to Aberdeen aboard the good ship Hjaltland. It could have been a lot worse, and frankly, I expected it to be, what with all the warnings about taking care when moving about, switching…

Not a good forecast for tonight’s sailing to Aberdeen. Force seven, eight and occasionally nine, eight metre seas…and there’s no chickening out. I am Seasick Santa, ready to head south on a mission to IKEA, Drum Central, Sainsbury’s and to extract son Magnus from his student enclave, Yule celebrations for the purpose of. To which…