nature walks

We went on a trip to Aberfeldy
Tra la la la la
And on our trip to Aberfeldy we saw...
(And sometimes even identified with our handy Trees of Europe and Wildflowers of Europe books)

12 flat rabbits with white bellies
4 flat frogs
robins
sparrows
some funny birds that fly like jumping frogs
1 hawk
1 leech (just a little delicate European variety)
Some wee fishes that swam and swam all over the dam (and nibbled our feet)
Hemlock (possibly)
Lupins (probably)
Cows-parsely (part of the carrot family)
Birches
1 barking doberman
Beeches
Oaks
Hazel (mpst likely)
1 handful of raspberries
2 still-round hedgehogs (almost alive, practically)
1 rotund and happy tourist info man in training (Do you like steak? Oooh boy, this is the place!)
1 persnickety bossy tourist lady (Why haven't you got an hour? What else have you got to do?)


Quite a good collection of specimens from the Perthshire area, I reckon.

The tourism magazine recommended walking very quietly through the wood and listening to what the trees have to say. Beeches seem to keep their own counsel, but Alders will giggle if you slip on the path. Ferns, however, look to be quite a gossipy lot.

Also, human skin emanates the scent of honey when it is wrapped around someone very happy. It may even attract bees.

nature walks

We went on a trip to Aberfeldy
Tra la la la la
And on our trip to Aberfeldy we saw...
(And sometimes even identified with our handy Trees of Europe and Wildflowers of Europe books)

12 flat rabbits with white bellies
4 flat frogs
robins
sparrows
some funny birds that fly like jumping frogs
1 hawk
1 leech (just a little delicate European variety)
Some wee fishes that swam and swam all over the dam (and nibbled our feet)
Hemlock (possibly)
Lupins (probably)
Cows-parsely (part of the carrot family)
Birches
1 barking doberman
Beeches
Oaks
Hazel (mpst likely)
1 handful of raspberries
2 still-round hedgehogs (almost alive, practically)
1 rotund and happy tourist info man in training (Do you like steak? Oooh boy, this is the place!)
1 persnickety bossy tourist lady (Why haven't you got an hour? What else have you got to do?)


Quite a good collection of specimens from the Perthshire area, I reckon.

The tourism magazine recommended walking very quietly through the wood and listening to what the trees have to say. Beeches seem to keep their own counsel, but Alders will giggle if you slip on the path. Ferns, however, look to be quite a gossipy lot.

Also, human skin emanates the scent of honey when it is wrapped around someone very happy. It may even attract bees.

seven year Venus

Remember that story by Ray Bradbury, All Summer in a Day? It goes something like this.

Once apon a time there were some children who lived on the planet Venus where it rained all the time. Even more than Edinburgh. In fact, it rained so much that none of the kids could even remember what the Sun looked like because it only came out once every seven years for a single afternoon. They listened to stories about it, oh boy, and they waited it for it like it was Santa Claus, which it kind of was since no one was really sure if it was real.

Only, one girl cried all the time for the Sun because her horrible parents had moved to Venus a year ago to work on a ridiculous solar energy project. It was ridiculous because how could you learn anything about solar energy from a planet where it rained all the bloody time and you had to have special lights to grow anything and even take special icky-tasting vitamin supplements just to keep you from going mental? (and she was going mental. She was so sick of rain, she couldn't stand to take showers)

Well, one day the planet did spin around toward the Sun again, and everyone was totally excited. It was the biggest holiday of seven years, like Christmas, the Olympics, the last day of school, Easter, and town parade day altogether. All the kids ran around outside for the first time of their whole lives (that they could remember), playing games and rolling down hills and trying on each other's sunglasses. And then when it was all over they went back inside for ice cream and cotton candy (as if they weren't wound up enough already. they were going to be grumpy little shits tomorrow.).

And that's when they remembered. That morning they'd locked stupid Earth Girl in the closet. It was only for a little while. Because she wouldn't shut up about the Sun being a flower, or a penny or a fire in the stove and stupid things like that. And then it was time to go outside and nobody remembered who's job it was to let her out. So she missed the whole thing. It was kind of funny. But kind of really mean.

So the story might just be an illustration of what nasty little bastards kids can be. Or a metaphor for for hideous self-denial. Or for...discipline?


What if she'd locked herself in the closet on the one sunny day. Maybe to complete the six hours of writing she'd promised to do before her next life-coaching session, the research on Canadian job markets , the 5 letters to go out that were now overdue.

It might have been for her own good, you know. Because, after all, a promise is a promise even if it's to yourself . And how can we learn discipliine if it all goes out the window everytime the sun comes out?

We can't. That's what.

But what do we learn by staying indoors, except how to wear stoic, industrious expressions on our faces (smug white faces unblemished by freckly sun-kisses) rather than disappointed ones, when people ask us how we spent our weekend, our various creases clear of impertinent specks of salt and sand.

So I've unlocked myself from the closet and I'm laying in the park right now (well, not right now obviously, but i was when i wrote this) and dotted around me are other members of the unbaked, known as peely-walleys here in Scotland. Some are yapping on cell phones to their poor pals still at work and some are actually wearing Speedos, which is totally unforgivable because with skin like that they can't possibly by Spanish or Italian.

We did actually get three days of Sun instead of one afternoon, which is lucky because it takes me that long to get organized. Saturday i spent just quickly picking up a few groceries: wheat-free muesli, new correctly-cup-sized lingerie, a hand blender, some pineapple and watermelon. And then waxing my legs, trying out the bikini, discussing the sun with V on the phone. Until i was ready to go and when i looked at my watch it was 7 o'clock. Seriously. Seven pm!

Maybe nobody locked her in the closet. Maybe she was just embarrassed about how long it took her to decide whether she could get away with a bikini, if she should pack a picnic, if she should take a magazine (perfectly suitable for a beach day ) or a book (there's so many on the night stand to get through). Oh, and sunglasses . They must be somewhere.

Sunday i managed Portobello beach though and Monday afternoon i got away early for a few hours in the park. It's all over now though i fear. Plenty of time now to let those bullying little tasks out from the closet.

5 Things that make me UNBELIEVABLY Happy

Okay this is one of those tag things, my very first one, and i don't want to let Sleevespeak down. Especially since her goal was to spread happiness and joy through the internet.

(And it works really because after worrying about not coming up with enough, i've got too many.)

1. Wiggling my toes when they're wearing garishly bright toenail polish
2. Getting knocked down by a surprise wave and nearly losing your bikini
3. The smell of good black dirt
4. Really, really loud cracking thunderstorms
5. Cocktails with frilly names and ice cubes that clink

And now i tag...
1. Hurr_ah
2. Captain Obvious
3. Deanna
4. Marie of CBC
5. Greg

Some of them are tricks, you see, to convert the non-bloggers to blogs.

the power of C

I've only been off the cigs for a week now and i'm already up a cup size.

Who knew this would be a side-effect? That's what the tobacco companies are hiding. Stunts your growth. Ha! They're clearly in league with the breast-pumping plastic surgeons of the world. Look younger, have better skin, breath and teeth AND get bigger tits, all without spending a dime.

I know, I know. I found it hard to believe myself. But i've had it confirmed by numerous third parties.

The girls at work, for example, a vicious, nosy lot. The two ladies were worrying that their own breasts were getting bigger. Last month they were only Ds and this month E's. Is it something in the water? They could each think of two or three friends with the same problem. Soon the whole world would be natural FFs. (Obviously, i didn't have too much to contribute at this point, so i just nodded sympathetically.)

Then on to something else, travel or babies or something. And then the one girl, the new one, looks at me with narrowed eyes and says, 'So. What size are you?'

'Me?' I said, all flustered. I've never been asked my cup size by someone who hasn't already seen me in my underwear.

'Ummm, B34.' As it has been, as it ever shall be.

'Beeeee?' they squealed in disgust, looking at me like i'd just said my method of birth control was jumping up and down.

'I don't think so, honey. You're a C if there ever was one'.

Could it be? A 'C'?

So off I went to Frasers and tried on every brand of B34 they had in the shop. And it's true. Not a single one fit. Like the ugly sisters squeezing bunions into an uncomfortable glass slipper.

'How're you getting on, then?' the girl's calling in the door. 'Terrible!' I sing back. 'Not a single one fits!' Ha Ha.

How exciting! Though, there have been a few other natural upsets to my world: at 28 my hair went curly, at 25 I grew an inch in height (doctor confirmed) and at 16 grew a brand new permanent tooth (an eye tooth, filling in a year-long gap left by a latent baby tooth).

What's next? Shockingly big biceps? Plump Angelina Jolie lips? Or - please God - a forehead?

Perhaps i'm becoming an Amazon, or some kind of mutant Superhero. Oh, i can't wait til my secret powers reveal themselves. Finally, my dream of becoming a dangerous and impossibly sexy vigilante with a punchy manifesto is within my grasp.

Mwaaa, haaa, haaa, haaaa!

(on the other hand, i have nothing to wear now, because i ran out of the store cackling without buying any Cs)