Anniversary

I've now been in Scotland two years. It seems longer than that. I could lie and say they have been the best two years of my life but they haven't. They've been stressful, hurtful and a lot of work. I think they can best be described in terms of a grieving process. I lost a part of my life when I moved across the North Sea and I needed to work through my grief before I could see what my new life was giving me. That was very hard - especially because I failed to recognise my grief.

But here I am two years later and I have managed to build a new life. This takes time, I was told, but I never believed it.

Here's to many more years in Scotland. May they be so much better than the last two.

And, finally, was it worth it? Yes. Yes, it has been worth it. Yes.

Do You Taunt Me On Purpose Or Do You Just Roll Like That?

Parcelforce, the bane of my British existence. 2005: Box with my collection of Alasdair Gray First Editions goes missing. Parcelforce either forgot to attempt delivery or to leave a collection card. Boyfriend bravely battles his way to a remote depot, doing excellent postal kung-fu and leaves with my precious books in his arms.

2006: Christmas presents go missing, Parcelforce insists they've been delivered when I phone them for the fifth time (the other times the presents didn't exist on their system), December 29 our downstairs neighbour comes home from holiday to discover that our presents had been left with her for no apparent reason. No card or notices, of course.

2007: Another overseas "surprise" present goes missing. Parcelforce claims incorrect address when confronted with tracking number. Another delivery attempt obviously not attempted. We have to paid for extra special delivery - and our correct address is printed in big, black letters on the top of the box. We are not amused. Especially not me who may have given Parcelforce the URL of the Danish postal service, just for kicks.

2008: Where is my red alpaca-silk yarn, you freaky Parcelforce people?

Stay tuned.

Open Letter

Dear World, Today I had an absolutely brilliant idea. And then I sat down, worked out a tentative plan, and made sure I could cross out the first line of my plan.

Love, Karie

PS. Devising super brilliant plans is way easier when you are listening to New Zealand's answer to Belle and Sebastian (youtube link)

Brambles

It is odd how smells affect the human brain. Example: the leaking water pipe in our kitchen has finally been fixed but there is an odd damp smell in the air. If I close my eyes I'm immediately transported to my great-grandmother's pantry/scullery in rural Denmark circa 1981. My great-grandmother lived in a damp old house in a small village. She had a huge garden which supplied her (and her two sons who remained with her) with fresh produce virtually all year round. The house was always in constant need of repair, the loo was outside and there was no hot water - but I had my tree house in an apple tree, the attic was filled with relics pre-WWII and I'd do little archaeological digs at the back of the house (next to the caravan where my mother slept as a teenager, behind the makeshift football pitch/outdoors badminton court and right by the cherry trees). At Christmas time, the house would fill with her eleven children, their spouses and own offspring. Her sons would sit around the big table with their playing cards, their cigarettes and beer bottles. Her daughters would be in the kitchen cooking the Christmas food, opening the mysterious jars on the top shelves of the pantry and cursing the lazy men.

My great-grandmother (and her two sons) moved into our little rural town some fifteen years later. Her house had become too cold and too damp for an old lady. She finally got hot running water, a real bathroom and a shop across the street. But she had her sons build her a pantry and she turned most of the new garden into a vegetable patch.

She passed away some six years ago. And here I am, her quiet great-grand-daughter, in a Glasgow tenement flat on an overcast Saturday afternoon and I'm looking forward to picking brambles later this year and making bramble jam - just like Nan would've expected of me.

Oh. Em. Gee.

This t-shirt WILL be mine.

In August 2000 I spent an entire day in Te Awamutu - I even have a picture of myself posing with a sign saying Te Awamutu - and it's a small, small North island town in New Zealand. It only has two things going for it: its rose gardens and some people who left.

Like the Drip Drip Drip of the Raindrops..

I'm sitting here quietly listening to the gentle drips of water flowing into .. a bucket I have to empty every two hours or else.

Yesterday's sore throat/headache-tranquillity was broken by our downstairs neighbour pounding on the door. Water was dripping into the kitchen. Seeing as we've had some sort of leak around our sink and had been waiting for a plumber since last Monday (long story and a boring one too), I wasn't too surprised. A few phone calls later and I was still waiting for a plumber, but now I had been promised one and on the same day! Same day meant next day, of course, and so far he has put a bucket under the sink, ripped part of the window frame out, dismantled a tap .. and left.

Oh, if you are in Edinburgh on Saturday, my friend Lilith is doing a trunk show of her fabulous hand-dyed yarns (she runs Old Maiden Aunt). There'll also be handspun yarn and tiny trickets. The whole she-bang takes place at K1 Yarns just off Grassmarket.