Another busy week on the ‘30 things of 30 for 30’ challenge, although I am slowing done on some things and yet to get started on others!
The week started with a Christmas Ceilidh with my mountaineering club, thus adding another type of exercise to my tally, bringing me to 6. It was a fantastic evening, with a great band and some of the more unusual Ceilidh dances. In addition to the normal Gay Gordons and Strip the Willow, we also did dances where the guys had to pretend to be rutting stags, complete with growling, and another where we galloped around the room at will, until they shouted find a circle and you had to grab the nearest people you could find. I also ended up with ceilidh bruising, from doing a ‘basket,’ or ‘helicopter’ as Matt calls it, where 2 men and 2 ladies form a tight circle with arms round shoulders, and spin around until the ladies feet come off the floor.
The next day saw a Christmas meal at a fellow mountaineers house. He provided the turkey and few other staples, while other guests brought the rest. Matt cooked 40 pigs in blankets, although he was disappointed at the way the bacon shrank when it cooked, so they became ‘pigs in scarfs’ and we also made some cheese straws (unfortunately I do these fairly often, so it didn’t count as a recipe for my challenge. ) While at the party, I engaged in the festive spirit, with some sherry and also some champagne, adding to my ‘try 30 alcohol drinks.’ We also watched the film ‘Elf’ to get into the Christmas spirit, and as it’s a film I’ve never seen before, it counts towards the 30 new films tally, bringing that one to 6. I also had a chance to educate an American on how Christmas should be done. She’d never heard of Trifle, Christmas Pudding, Devils on Horseback, Christmas Cake, Christmas Crackers and quite a few other Christmas traditions. She even said they don’t normally have turkey!
Both occasions also seemed appropriate opportunities to do something different to my hair, so I found a handy clip to keep the hair of the back of my neck while getting sweaty at the ceilidh, although I did look like a flamenco dancer and I actually put some time and effort into using curling tongs for the Christmas meal. Although the curls looked equal lengths in the mirror, I could not get them to look equal lengths in the photo!
The week started with a Christmas Ceilidh with my mountaineering club, thus adding another type of exercise to my tally, bringing me to 6. It was a fantastic evening, with a great band and some of the more unusual Ceilidh dances. In addition to the normal Gay Gordons and Strip the Willow, we also did dances where the guys had to pretend to be rutting stags, complete with growling, and another where we galloped around the room at will, until they shouted find a circle and you had to grab the nearest people you could find. I also ended up with ceilidh bruising, from doing a ‘basket,’ or ‘helicopter’ as Matt calls it, where 2 men and 2 ladies form a tight circle with arms round shoulders, and spin around until the ladies feet come off the floor.
The next day saw a Christmas meal at a fellow mountaineers house. He provided the turkey and few other staples, while other guests brought the rest. Matt cooked 40 pigs in blankets, although he was disappointed at the way the bacon shrank when it cooked, so they became ‘pigs in scarfs’ and we also made some cheese straws (unfortunately I do these fairly often, so it didn’t count as a recipe for my challenge. ) While at the party, I engaged in the festive spirit, with some sherry and also some champagne, adding to my ‘try 30 alcohol drinks.’ We also watched the film ‘Elf’ to get into the Christmas spirit, and as it’s a film I’ve never seen before, it counts towards the 30 new films tally, bringing that one to 6. I also had a chance to educate an American on how Christmas should be done. She’d never heard of Trifle, Christmas Pudding, Devils on Horseback, Christmas Cake, Christmas Crackers and quite a few other Christmas traditions. She even said they don’t normally have turkey!
Both occasions also seemed appropriate opportunities to do something different to my hair, so I found a handy clip to keep the hair of the back of my neck while getting sweaty at the ceilidh, although I did look like a flamenco dancer and I actually put some time and effort into using curling tongs for the Christmas meal. Although the curls looked equal lengths in the mirror, I could not get them to look equal lengths in the photo!
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My Christmas-mad friend Kristina came to visit on Sunday, in a flying 26 hour stopover. We packed a lot of Christmas in, starting with a panto (oh no we didn’t) a visit to the Christmas markets (complete with Baileys Hot Chocolate) and a visit to the Virgin Money Street of Light (good, but not as good as Fremont Street in Las Vegas, which is what we were both expecting) We finished the night with a meal at my favourite restaurant Maison Bleue, (you have to try the haggis balls!) taking my restaurant count to 8, and my alcohol count to 14 with a vodka, lime and lemonade. (I liked it, it didn’t like me the next morning.)
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We had planned to go The Dome for brunch the next morning before Kristina left, but the weather was rubbish and we were both still full from the previous night’s meal, so Kristina instead (strongly) encouraged me to put my Christmas Tree up. While I am normally highly excited by the thought of Christmas trees, and had been half tempted to put it up when the clocks went back in October, I hadn’t got around to doing it before Kristina arrived, and was feeling a bit lethargic about it, partly because I need to dismantle a stack of shelving to get the Christmas tree out from behind it. However, I am so pleased that I have now done it, with a lot of encouragement from Kristina, and I’m very pleased with the result, brightening up my lounge. I’m counting this as an opportunity taken, as its not something I would have done on my own.
This week also saw another colouring picture completed and finally I met another ‘interesting person’ at my swing dance class (and in the subsequent pub meet) called Alex. Alex is a member of the International Scottish Country Dancing team and between Christmas and New Year, he is meeting his Swiss girlfriend and the rest of the team in Vienna for rehearsals for a competition. As with the other new interesting people I’ve met, I did not get around to asking them for a photo.
Things I’ve learnt this week:
Things I’ve learnt this week:
- Christmas is a lot about the tree. I’ve turned into a Christmas Tree snob and find myself criticising other people’s tree attempts on facebook. I’m dreading if I ever have kids and have to let them join in the decorating as they won’t understand that it’s a precision task….
- Christmas in America sounds rubbish. Thankfully, they have Thanksgiving which seems to have more tradition to it.
- There is actually a Scottish Country Dancing championship, and its international!
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