My Year in 2019

As we get to the end of 2019, I find myself not quite sure what to make of it. It has felt like a bit of an "in between" year - 2018 saw some big beginnings and endings, and we know that there are further big transitions coming, probably in 2020, but 2019 seemed mostly to be about anticipation. It's been an odd one.

Anyway, time for the traditional round-up...

My Year in... Blogging

In 2019 I formalised my sort-of goals from 2017 and 2018, and set myself a target of posting 120 times here and 60 times on the Imaginarium. I achieved that, so am fairly happy with it. However, I did find at times I was posting mostly for the sake of building a post count - the topics could perhaps have been a bit more inspired.

My Year in... Work

2019 had a really rocky start, to the extent that I seriously considered quitting several times in February. However, I eventually got to grips with my new project and the new technology (well, new to me), and was able to start making some significant impact, to the extent that the year has ended exceptionally well, and the year overall counts as a major success.

Which, if you had told me in February, I would not have believed, but am very glad of.

My Year in... Health

There has been no change here, so that's good.

My Year in... Gaming

Sadly, 2019 has been a let down on the gaming front. The work game continues apace, which is quite nice, and just enough to keep me in touch with the hobby, but it really doesn't scratch the itch. I can't see any prospect of 2020 being any better, for various reasons, but I'm inclined to consider 2021 to be a crucial year - if I don't get some 'real' gaming in by then it's probably time to consider that hobby ended.

My Year in... Band

This has been fine, but somewhat uninspiring. It does what I need it to do, but it doesn't do anything more than that.

My Year in... Resolutions

As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post.

My Year in... Travel

Unusually, we started this year in another country, celebrating Mum's birthday in France. We then added a second trip to France, for a week in the summer. That was nice, especially seeing Funsize spending time with her cousins.

My other ventures abroad were with work - a day trip to Amsterdam and back and a two-day trip to Copenhagen.

As a family, we took a few days holiday in Banff, and then made another trip to England - we spent a few days in Alnwick, just in time for it to get flooded, and then travelled further south for a belated 40th birthday party.

The major thing I wanted in most of 2019 was to avoid getting on a plane - 2018 had been crazy, and the start of 2019 was likewise quite busy, so I was keen not to go too far. But the last few months have given me a little cabin fever, so I'm keen to venture further afield at some point in 2020. Mostly, I want to see the sun!

My Year in... Faith

There's very little to report here. We've continued to settle in our new church. I had to turn down an opportunity to join one of the committees, as I felt I just didn't have the time. Funsize continues to be made extremely welcome.

I do find myself a little concerned about the numbers in the congregation, which seem to have dropped recently, and also about youth work, which is a permanent problem for much of the Church of Scotland. Though it is a fairly academic concern, since I really don't have the means to actually do anything to change it.

My Year in... Sadness

When Grandad passed in 2018, there was a glimmer of hope that this might give Grandma a hint of more life - so much of her life had been bound up in the care of his last days, so there was a hope it might be a burden lifted. Sadly, it was not to be, and Grandma fairly quickly went downhill quite steeply. That has been difficult to watch, even from afar, with no prospect of meaningful improvement.

My Year... Overall

As I said, this has felt very much like an "in between" year. We've moved forward from the big changes of 2018, but we also know that there are further big changes to come, so we've been kind of stuck. 2020 looks like it will probably be the year when those various changes actually come about, and so I expect it to be another very busy year. But, hopefully, it will be a good one.

As always, this will be my final post on this blog for the year, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish anyone still reading a very Happy New Year when it comes. Thanks for sticking with me!

End of Year Update on Goals

At the end of last year I set myself four goals. This was then complemented with a To Do List that in time became, effectively, a fifth goal. As we near the end of the year, then, how did those shape up?

• Books: I completed book 60 with three days to spare, and have read 13 books from The List this year. However, many of those 13 are re-reads, and I did not complete the British part of The List as I had intended. That's a mixed fortune, but I'm not too despondent about it - The List now contains 33 unread entries, 4 from the British side, 31 from the American (and 2 on both).
  
• Weight: This is failed, but... I'm now set up with a fairly aggressive schedule at the gym, so I'm hopeful of getting this moving in the new year. Maybe - I've been saying that for years.
  
• Blogging: This is a clear success - I completed 60 posts exactly on The Imaginarium, and passed my target here with a little to spare.
  
• Redecorate the Study: This was completed in October. I would quite like to get a new curtain for the room, but it's not urgent - we never close it anyway, so it would be purely decorative. A second clear success!
  
• The To-Do List: This was likewise completed. Further, I reached a point where I didn't really have any major tasks to add, never mind several in order to warrant a list. So that was good.

So that's four goals completed, albeit one with a significant caveat, and one failed utterly. That's not terrible, though the fact that it's that same goal that's falling short year after year is annoying. For 2020 I'm going to set four goals again, though I can only really talk about three of them (and the fourth is largely beyond my control anyway...) So here goes:

• Books: The goal for 2020 is the traditional 60 books for the year. I'm not going to set myself a specific goal as regards The List, though where I find myself without a clear next choice I'll prioritize those books over others. I'm also not going to be setting up sublists for this year, as I've basically run out of ideas on that front.
  
• Weight: Again, the goal is the same - to end the year 20 pounds lighter than I started.
  
• Blogging: And, again, the goal is the same: 120 posts here, plus 60 on The Imaginarium.
  
• Work: This is the goal I can't talk about.

And that's it. Three fairly routine goals, and one that may well be beyond my ability to influence anyway. As with last year, I'd quite like to sort out something gaming-related, outside of the work game, but my feeling is that 2020 is not going to be the year for getting that done.

Experimental Cookery 2019: Roast Dinner Soup

For reasons of family drama (long story), I was compelled to cook a roast beef dinner last night. Naturally, there was too much, and therefore there was a significant quantity of leftovers. Fortunately, I've picked up Hugh's "Love Your Leftovers" book, which provided the source for today's lunch.

This was quick and easy - basically, put everything into a pot, cover with stock, and simmer for a bit. I actually added yet more stuff, effectively making it a "whatever's in the fridge" soup, which was fine.

The soup was okay - a good way to use stuff up, without necessarily being something I'd generate leftovers specifically so I can have it again. Though it did suffer the indignity of a double rejection - Funsize first refused the roast beef yesterday, and then the soup today. I'm also making a noodly beef lunch tomorrow, and so running the risk of the dreaded triple rejection...

And that's that. This will, of course, be the final Experimental Cookery of 2019. I hope it was worth it!

The Rise of Skywalker

LC and I saw this on Friday. Given that it has been out of a week, I'll keep this short. There are no spoilers below.

I thought this was a good film, easily the best of the sequel trilogy. By my count it is therefore the fifth best "Star Wars" film, after the original trilogy and then "Rogue One". Though it is a long way behind "Rogue One", largely because it only works in the context of the previous two, and they serve as a significant drag factor on this film.

I felt that the various decisions that were made in this film were about the best they could be, given the constraints they had to work with - Carrie Fisher's death meant that her role had to be built using pre-recorded material taken out of context, while "The Last Jedi" had left a real mess for this one to clear up.

And that's the big problem both with this film and with the sequel trilogy as a whole: they set up several mysteries in "The Force Awakens" but didn't plan out the trilogy with all the answers. This left the team who wrote "The Last Jedi" with free rein to take all of those mysteries and just chuck them in the bin... and left "The Rise of Skywalker" to pick up the pieces. Maybe they should instead have decided on the answers beforehand?

(Actually, there's no 'maybe' about that. They absolutely should have worked out the answers before they wrote word one of "The Force Awakens". Doing that would have allowed them to actually foreshadow the revelations: "Luke's just not a farmer Owen. He has too much of his father in him," "That's what I'm afraid of.")

But that's spilled milk, and "The Rise of Skywalker" does its very best to clear it up. And it mostly does a good job. A decent end to the trilogy, and a decent end to the saga. And, much like "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" before it, a film that leaves me keen to get back into some version of the "Star Wars" RPG, which is another win in my book.

A Winterval Dirge

The BBC's "A Christmas Carol" starts with a scene of a young man pissing on a grave. This is entirely appropriate, as it then spends three hours pissing all over a classic.

The second most infuriating thing about this abomination is that it is genuinely well made - the cast are excellent and play their parts well, the staging is very good, and the effects are well done. They've actually done what they set out to do very well.

And the most infuriating thing about it is that the concept is actually sound. This was sold to me as a spooky retelling of "A Christmas Carol", which is entirely appropriate - "A Christmas Carol" was the culmination of an old tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, and it was only as a result of that story that the new tradition of the Christmas story (and later the Christmas movie) came about. So doing a retelling focussing on the terror invoked by the ghosts is a really good idea.

But the problem is that this isn't a retelling of "A Christmas Carol", or even an adaptation of the novella, any more than was the "Doctor Who" episode of the same name - yes, there are characters in all the same places, and the archetypes are more or less present, but none of those characters are the ones taken from the novella, the plot is mangled beyond recognition, and the theme is utterly different.

Digging into some specifics, the heart of the story, and the heart of the problems of this mini-series, is Scrooge. The problem here is that they've ramped up his evil enormously, which I'm sure seemed a good idea at the time. But the material isn't actually served by making Scrooge a monster. Dickens made him a skinflint, but not much different from the businessmen and moneylenders of his day, and for good reason - the more recognisable he is to being one of us, the more powerful he is. Make him a monster, and he's not one of us, and then there's nothing we can learn from his story; make him one of us, and the lesson for him becomes a lesson for us.

Worse, not only is Scrooge a monster, he's also an imbecile. In the worst section of the mini-series, he decides to strip Mrs Cratchitt of her dignity and her agency, humiliating her in return for money for a life-saving operation for her son. He talks, at tedious length, about seeking to find some sort of "moral exchange rate" - how much money is her dignity worth? But the stupidity here is that she told him why she was doing what she was doing, and it was that that set the rate - her price was £30 because that was the cost of the operation; if the operation had been £50 the price would have been higher, or for £20 it would have been lower. So we have a deeply offensive scene built on the assumption that Scrooge is an idiot.

(And, worse, the show had already established that Scrooge understood circumstantial motivations very well, in the scene where he and Marely engaged in a bit of disaster capitalism with the mill owner. So it's not even consistent in its idiocy.)

Mentioning that scene of course brings up another big problem with the mini-series - its handling of women. There are already precious few female characters of note in "A Christmas Carol". Therefore, the mini-series of course decided to drop one. This then leaves us two: one who is dead to begin with, and Mrs Cratchitt. Yay!

Actually, I have no real objection to the handling of Scrooge's sister, either as his rescuer or as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Yes, the bit with the gun was utter nonsense, but it was a tiny flaw on an otherwise disastrous work, so I'll let it slide.

But the handling of Mrs Cratchitt was a disgrace. Not only for the stripping of her dignity and agency that I've already mentioned, but then her declaration that as a woman she could summon spirits for revenge. Because, of course, all women are witches.

Then, finally, we come to the end. "A Christmas Carol" is, of course, hugely sentimental - Scrooge is redeemed through grace, and is immediately and obviously restored back into right company.

But this is a story crafted by secularists for a post-Christian age. Which means there can be no grace, and since there was nothing done to earn it there can be no redemption. And that in turn means there can be no hope - Scrooge remains a pariah to all, with his promises to make things right being treated with nothing but scorn.

(And it's worse than that. Scrooge promises to close down his business, but what isn't mentioned is that large numbers of people depend on that business for their homes and their employment. In the best case things will be sold on as going concerns, to other businessmen who are marginally better. In the worst case, he's just made hundreds of people unemployed and/or homeless. Merry Christmas! What he should have done was keep the business going but actually made the investments he'd avoided - making his apartments safe and comfortable and charging fair rents; making his businesses safe as well as profitable, and paying fair wages. As it stands, the moral of this story is that making money is evil, and we should all live in hovels, cold and starving. Ho ho ho!)

So that's that. For the second time this year, the BBC have been roundly outclassed by a silly musical, this time by a literal bunch of Muppets. (The other was "Les Mis".) And with this they bring to an end a truly awful year in the history of the Corporation. For the first time, I'm really finding it hard to justify the license fee - "Still Game" is finished, "Doctor Who" has been poor at best for two years now, and their adaptations of classic works have fallen flat. Yes, they produce some good dramas, but this is the golden age of TV, so there are plenty of others who do that. Worse than that, their news is not to be trusted, they've had a truly disastrous election, and their political editor is awful (although, damningly, a marked improvement over her predecessor). And so I find myself hard pressed to answer the question: why am I forced to pay for the BBC as a condition for watching any TV?

#60: "The Bourne Identity", by Robert Ludlum (a book from The List)

Experimental Cookery 2019: Paul Hollywood's Mince Pies

Due to the stresses at work, my Christmas baking ended up being deferred until this week, and was reduced to only a single item. Which was not ideal, especially since LC doesn't like mince pies, Funsize is too young, and I can't possibly eat 18 of them by myself. Oh, and we can't even give them to the church or other group due to strict food hygiene requirements (they're fine, but I can't absolutely guarantee which allergens are present in the mincemeat).

It's possible I haven't chosen the very best item to cook!

Anyway, these turned out to be a mix of easy and frustrating - the pastry came together nice and easily, as did the enhanced mincemeat (which is regular mincemeat with the added apple and orange). But putting it together proved awkward - at first I hadn't left the pastry to chill for long enough, so had to put it back into a ball and chill again. This meant that it ended up over-worked, which seemed appropriate but was a little disappointing. Then the quantities were off - I had enough pastry for 18 pies and enough mincemeat for 24 or more, which was a sad waste. Plus, I really need a bigger cutter for the deep-fill pies.

But they turned out pretty well:

I should note that those aren't at all burnt - they were over-filled somewhat so the brown bits are where the filling has flowed out. Which makes for a fairly awful washing-up job!

They actually taste pretty good, although as noted the pastry was over-worked. But next time...

And that's basically that. I'm reasonably happy with the way these turned out, but slightly dismayed at how pathetic my Christmas baking turned out to be. But it's a start, so I guess that's okay.

Success!

I've just ordered my final present for Christmas! This took considerably longer than I would have hoped, and meant I was cutting it a lot finer than I would have liked, but it was a success nonetheless. All I need to do now is wait for it to arrive and wrap it suitably, and that will be the Christmas preparations done (except for that one thing that I've forgotten, of course!).

The present-buying this year has been a bit of a funny beast - the people who are usually tricky to buy for turned out to be remarkably easy, while the two people who are usually easiest (one by virtue of providing a detailed list; the other being easy to please) proved to be extremely difficult. More than that I can't say at this time.

I'm particularly pleased with three of the gifts that have been picked out. Whether the recipients will be similarly pleased remains to be seen, of course.

Tasks for the Holiday

I don't have a huge amount I want to do over the Christmas break. In fact, I'm actively trying to avoid getting too much to do - I mostly just want to rest for a while. That said, there are a few things I'd like to do:

• Deep-clean the kitchen. This is something that hasn't been done in rather too long, and it's therefore something I want to tackle early in the holiday (indeed, ideally before Christmas Day). Basically, it's a case of moving everything off the work surfaces and cleaning those, then cleaning the appliances and putting them back, cleaning the oven and the microwave, and then giving the floor a good scrub. It's probably a couple of hours of work, which isn't too bad, but it does need that effort applied.
  
• Restock the freezer. We have a few things in stock, but I'd like to spend some time building those supplies - making up some chilli, a number of curries, some pizzas, and maybe a shepherd's pie. This isn't too tough a job, since it can be spread across many days, but it's worth getting done to make January that bit easier. (This will also help determine whether we go back to our two-freezer approach, or can fit everything in one.)
  
• Get new kitchen bins, maybe. LC has identified a good solution to our bin problem, depending on the sizes working. So we'll need to measure the area involved, and if suitable we'll order the new bins and fit them.
  
• See Star Wars. This may or may not qualify as a task, depending on how badly they've screwed it up. I'll let you know.

And that's it. Four things - one for before Christmas, one (probably) for the 27th, one for some time in the next two weeks, and one longer-term task. Should all be manageable. #58: "Fantasy Mapmaker", by Jared Blando #59: "Shiang", by C.F. Iggulden

Crumbs of Comfort

Last night was an almost unmitigated disaster, with much worse still to come. However, I am clinging to a few very small crumbs of comfort...

1. Corbyn will be going, and Swinson has already gone. Their utter inability to agree an interim PM meant there could be no vote of no confidence to remove Boris, delay Brexit, and have a second referendum. That chance is now gone. Their inability to cooperate during the election meant a split Remain vote, and led to more seats for the Tories (that might not be the decisive factor, but it certainly didn't help). So good riddance to both.
   
2. Thankfully, the SNP had a good night. Had they stood still or, worse, actually lost seats, the narrative would have been that there is no appetite for independence. Given the government that is now in place, and what we fear they may bring, it is absolutely vital that Scotland retain at least the option of escape.
   
3. As things stand, 2024 stands to be a very good year - Boris in May, and then Donald in November. (And, yes, I'm writing off 2020. Sorry.)

And that's all I've got.

Irn Bru 1901

This has been out for a couple of weeks now, but I've only just been able to track down a couple of bottles. I'd started to think that reports of its existence were yet more of the fake news that has so come to plague our existences.

There's a lot of fake news surrounding Irn Bru. But I've ranted about that before, so I'll not repeat it again.

But it is a truly remarkable coincidence that, just as Barr's have been forced to issue a profit warning, they just happen to find a handwritten copy of the 'original' recipe, and it just happens to be close to, but not quite the same as, the old version. Gosh, that was lucky!

Anyway.

This 'new' product is a horrible, even disgusting, price gouge. The RRP is £2 for a 750ml bottle of the stuff. This is made worse by the painfully limited availability - I actually paid £4.98 for two bottles. By way of contrast, Coke costs £3 for 3 litres in Tesco. (Technically, Coke should cost more than that. But Tesco has it on a near-permanent reduced price offer - either two 1.5 litre bottles for £3, or 1 litre bottles for £1. It's extremely unusual for neither of those offers to be running.)

Still, I felt I had to pay it when I had the chance. But that's too much for it to be more than a very occasional indulgence.

Upon getting home, I gave it a try. It's fizzier than the old stuff, the main effect of which is that it takes longer to pour. But that's fine. And then came the taste...

It's okay. It's certainly better than the new "full fat" Irn Bru.

But it's not as good as the old version. As with the new "full fat" version, it tastes like it's missing... something. However, I'm not able to pinpoint what that is - the "full fat" version is very obviously missing sugar, with the artificial sweeteners very clearly providing a hollowness in its place. But that criticism can't be levelled at the 1901 version, which actually has more sugar even than the old version. I would suggest caffeine as the missing link, but I'm not sure.

There is one other thing of note. A lot of the cheap Iron Brew (and, indeed, Sugar Free Irn Bru) substitues tend to have a fairly nasty metallic aftertaste. I had assumed that that was caused by their own use of artificial sweeteners. However, that theory can now be discounted, because it's present here, too. It's very muted, to the point of almost not being noticeable at all, but it is there.

The upshot: I miss the old version. As a substitute, this is better than nothing, but it's not a match. And it's far too expensive. I will have it again, though as I said it will be an occasional indulgence rather than a regular drink, but I'm still waiting for the real thing.

Experimental Cookery 2019: Comforting Sausage Bake

This will be short but sweet:

This meal came from Jamie's "5 Ingredients" book. It was quick and easy to put together - took about 10 minutes to get into the oven, and then was just a matter of waiting 45 minutes for it to cook. And the result was good.

It was a winner, and something we'll surely have again. But it's also not something that's going to feature on my "best ever" lists. It's just a good, solid option, which is always a nice thing to have.

The Snow Queen

Alphabetically speaking, the first tag in this blog is 'ballet', and I haven't done a post on the topic for ages. So there was clearly a need to do something about that, and so LC and I went out to see "The Snow Queen" at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on Saturday. (Or something. There might have been some other reason, but what could it have been?)

Anyway.

We arrived at the theatre nice and early, in plenty of time to find our seats and to pre-order our interval drinks. (That last is a particularly nice idea - it meant that at the interval it took us all of 20 seconds to get our drinks rather than waiting in a lengthy queue.)

The performance itself seemed to fly by. I made the mistake of not reading the plot summary from the programme before it started, which meant that while I got the basic plot, some of the finer details were lost on me. Plus, it didn't help that none of the characters had names.

Still, it was a well-staged performance, with good music, good dancing, and a third thing to complete my list.

And that's more or less that. The only other things of note are not really anything to do with the performance - Scotrail managed to let us down again, which meant I had to endure the horrors of driving both into and out of Edinburgh; and Funsize actually slept right through the night on Saturday, which both meant that we were able to get some sleep... and also that Nana and Grandad did something different when putting her to bed that made all the difference. Still, it proves that it is possible.

Cool

We took possession of our new fridge freezer on Saturday. It's an absolutely huge, grey lump that takes up considerable space in our kitchen, but is also has the massive advantages of providing large amounts of storage space and being much more efficient than our existing fridges. Basically, it's a massive upgrade.

The consequence of that is that we've now reverted to a primitive single-fridge existence - everything from the existing fridges has been moved to the new fridge, one of those fridges has been taken away for recycling, and the other has been switched off. At some point we'll probably have it removed, and a dishwasher installed in its place, but that's a decision for 2020.

We're not currently sure what we're going to do about freezers - I moved everything from our existing freezers into the big one, but that took up all of the available space. Part of me wants to consolidate down to the single unit, and use the space freed up for something else instead (not sure what). On the other hand, I can see significant advantages in retaining the second unit for the extra storage that gives us. So we'll need to think on this. (In the immediate term, we've switched it off and will allow it to defrost before giving it a really good clean. And then... who knows?)

Of course, with any new device there's a period of getting used to it. In the case of a fridge freezer, that mostly amounts to finding the best way to use the space, so that things that are used together are kept together, the most-used items are kept easily accessible, and so on. But I'm sure we'll figure that out.

In the meantime, though... it's pretty nice.

#45: "A Legacy of Spies", by John Le Carré (somehow it got missed at the time)
#57: "The Cerulean Storm", by Troy Denning

War of the Worlds

It's starting to feel like the chances of the BBC successfully adapting any classic novel are a million to one against. They did an okay job on "War and Peace" (despite their insistence on pushing a barely-there incest subplot front and centre), but they made a mess of "Watership Down", and their "Les Miserables" was an epic failure. And now this.

As far as I can see, there are three big problems with "The War of the Worlds".

The first is that the first half of episode one is spent on a massive diversion from the book, establishing a petty domestic drama surrounding George and Amy and how monstrously unfair it obviously is that they have to live in 'exile' in Woking. (Presumably, this was chosen because the trendy media types at the BBC could think of no fate worse than having to live so far from the centre of their universe. It's such a shame that their timing is so lousy, given the role of Woking in recent events.)

In theory, this is fine. It allows the audience to find their feet and identify with the various characters, so that they actually care when those characters start dealing with the Martian terror.

Unfortunately, that immediately runs into the second problem: the characters are all awful. There's the standard-issue 21st Century feminist, the sexually ambiguous atheist doctor, the caricature of a Christian priest, and the drippy liberal journalist. Oh, and the British Empire apparently runs half the world while being governed by nitwits and defended by fools. Yay! They're all so fundamentally dull and unlikeable that by the time the Martians got around to actually doing something, I'd decided I was on their side; the sooner these muppets got wiped out, the better.

The third problem came in the second and third episodes, where it turned out we were 'enjoying' flash-forwards to eight years after the main action. This mostly seemed to be providing an elaborate setup to series two; and as far as I'm aware there is and never was any intention to produce such a thing.

The upshot of all of that was that there was a curious lack of tension throughout. About the only interest I could find was in trying to pinpoint when the various entirely predictable deaths were going to occur.

Oh, and I suppose I was bitterly amused by the fact that they very obviously ran out of story ten minutes before the end of the final episode, and therefore we were treated to them desperately trying to pad it out.

But mostly what I don't understand is why, if you're going to do a period adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" you'd bother to semi-accurately adapt the time period (albeit the wrong period, by about a decade), and then throw out almost everything from the book. Did the writers only have access to the Speilberg/Cruise version or something?

It's yet another real shame. When I heard the BBC were doing another version of "War of the Worlds", I found myself really looking forward to it. When I heard it was being done as a period piece, that was even better. And when it was then delayed a year, that further ramped up my anticipation. But it looks like the reason it was so delayed is that somebody realised they'd really messed it up.

And now it's on to "A Christmas Carol", which I should be looking forward to...

Experimental Cookery 2019: Slow-cooker Lasagne

It's important that I provide proper attribution for this one: this meal was made by LC rather than me. It comes from the BBC Good Food website.

The slow cooker lasagne is fairly quick and easy to made - there was an initial stage of making up the filling, then it was a case of layering them in the slow cooker, and then it was just a case of letting it do the work. Which, really, is the big advantage of a slow cooker. This was definitely a boon - which lasagne is not terribly difficult to make, it is very time consuming; this one was much less so.

The results were pretty good. I had to eat mine reheated after my band performance, so I probably didn't get it at its best, but it was a nice, filling meal. Coupled with plenty of garlic bread and a huge salad, it made for a very satisfying dinner. Basically, I liked it, is what I'm saying.

It is probably worth noting that this will not dislodge my current lasagne method of choice (which comes from Lorraine Pascale), but this is definitely a nice option to have available as a low-hassle alternative.

Torchlit Processions 2019

Last night I attended Pumpherston Torchlit Procession, being the second of these events for the year. My band attend two of these every year, and LC and I then attend a third in Livingston Village.

The events so far this year have been a bit odd. The first, in Uphall Station, was on the 22nd of November, an felt way too early. I think the crowd felt much the same - there were very few people present, nobody really seemed in the Christmas mood, and the whole thing was just a bit of a damp squib. I felt really quite sorry for the organisers.

The event in Pumpherston was marred by the lack of a road closure license, which meant that the Torchlit Procession did not actually feature a procession. Instead, we played at the meeting point, they played again at the tree, but walked directly between the two rather than parading through the streets.

On the one hand, I was quite glad not to have to walk all the distance - Pumpherston is usually a very long one. On the other hand, it was very cold. For some reason, they had decided not to use the school for the first part of the event this year, which meant we met outside, stood around for a while getting very cold, then tuned up, waited some more, then played. All in sub-zero temperatures. It's fair to say it wasn't a vintage performance.

(Fortunately, the kilt is actually surprisingly warm. But that doesn't stop fingers, toes, noses, and ears from getting extremely cold.)

The Livingston Village event is this Friday. As noted, my band don't perform at that one, so it should be a rather more relaxed event, at least for me. Anyway, I'm now feeling properly in the Christmas spirit, so I'm rather looking forward to it.

#55: "The Obsidian Oracle", by Troy Denning
#56: "Children of God Storybook Bible", by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (a book for Funsize)