Sarah in Aberdeen

Lego

posted by Sarah @ 09:42 0 comments links to this post

Pittsburgh Summit Spouses

Belgian Waffle asks us to consider how far we have to go in gender equality in relation to this photo (For names see here).



Immediately, we notice that Angela Merkel's husband is not there. Joachim Sauer is a Professor researching in quantum chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin and does not often attend public functions. Not even her inauguration this year.

Also not in attendance is Nestor Kirchner, husband of Cristina Kirchner, President of Argentina. Cristina was elected as Nestor's successor. So, should he support her as much as she supported him in her role as First Lady, or should he stay in the background?

A third First Gentleman could have attended, if India had sent their President rather than their Prime Minister.

These women are, for the most part, well educated and had fairly high power jobs. However, the information I can find seems to suggest that most have given up their own work to support their husband and his political party, along with some charitable or governmental work. Only two seem to be labelled as mothers - Svetlana Medvedeva (Russia) and Nompumelelo Ntuli (South Africa), though many have children. I can only find clear information to show three First Ladies working in their own right: Thailand - Dr of and lecturer in Mathematics, France - singer/songwriter, Australia - MD of a Welfare to Work Emploment Agency. I suppose, though, if you choose to take on the role of a First Lady there isn't time to work as well.

But, the question remains. Why is it that these well educated, successful women are the First Ladies, not the Heads of State? Why does gender still matter?

Many of their husbands began their political careers at least 20 years ago. The times maybe changing, but it might take just as long for current politically ambitious women to work their way up. In 20 years will things be different?

posted by Sarah @ 14:21 1 comments links to this post

OMM Training

My sister in law convinced me that doing the short score at the OMM was a Good Idea. Having gone out for a five hour run with her at the weekend I'm now considerably less convinced.

While my other half was doing the Two Breweries race (between Traquair and Broughton in the borders) we went for a run over Broad Law. We were staying at the Tweedsmuir Outdoor Centre, so ran straight from there. Our route took us through the woods to the trig point on Garelet Hill (680m), then descended straight off the side of it (400m ish descent in 1k) down to cross the river on the road. We then tried to run up the road - and failed, it's quite steep - alongside the waterfalls and followed the cairns up to Cairn Law and then Broad Law (840m). We then came off Broad Law past the large circular mast array and back to the forest tracks via the S side of Great Knock. We came out onto the road at Hearthstane and then picked up the track on the old railway line to get back to Tweedsmuir.


Sister in law descending Great Knock

After finishing our run we went to Broughton to see the others finish theirs. Not many Cosmic runners this year, but one took the prize for 1st F50. Some of which we have in our fridge - she doesn't drink beer.

posted by Sarah @ 13:52 1 comments links to this post

Harvest

Our potato harvest. Hopefully we got them up before the Blight set in too badly. We had a couple of mushy ones, but will have to wait and see if they survive in storage. We have three varieties this year, white, pink and stripy. Not sure if the stripy ones are a cross of the other two.

Our tomatoes definitely have Blight. They look just like the image on the RHS page. We shall have to cart them off somewhere and burn them.

There are also three of our five parsnips in the pic too. They've grown well, but not a great germination rate...

posted by Sarah @ 00:07 2 comments links to this post

Painted Lady

We have many of these this year. We also have Red admirals and Peacocks, but I haven't found any willing to be chased with a camera yet.

posted by Sarah @ 23:59 0 comments links to this post

Holiday

Staying in Skerries seemed like a good plan when we booked it. However, the morning we arrived we found out that the rail bridge had collapsed at Malahide a week earlier and hence there was no train to Dublin. We took the bus from the airport via Swords, so hadn't been stuck in the city like the American guests who arrived late and very flustered. The disruption meant we spent quite a lot of time (and euros) at the mercy of Dublin buses. Thankfully they were running extra express services through the Port Tunnel - as the local bus took some time to get to Skerries. There was supposedly a replacement bus service running south from Skerries (though we saw no evidence), but no replacement service running north for some reason.

Anyway, Skerries is nice. A sort of seaside town cross commuter belt place. The area is dotted with numerous Martello Towers looking over the Irish Sea beaches, to make sure that the Irish didn't indulge in co-religious aiding and abetting and help Napoleon across.

We stayed at the Redbank Guesthouse, which has a very swish website, and lovely food. The attached restaurant is quite expensive, so we only ate there once, but the food we had was delicious and proper portions. The owner, Terry McCoy, seems to be quite well known as a seafood chef in Ireland.

On the Sunday we went down to Malahide to go sailing with Terry. As the train wasn't running this cost us a fortune in taxi fairs, but was a good day out. We sailed around Lambay, pulling into a small cove to look at the gannet colony. A large bull seal kept treading water close off the stern watching us, but wasn't interested in cream crackers. There were races in progress from Rush as we motored back, including one for Mermaids - a local type of boat. Back in the marina we had lunch made by Terry.



In Malahide we also had a walk around the castle grounds and a coffee and cake in the teashop, but it was rather pricy to go in. We stopped in at an art show, and I was inspired and disheartened at the same time.



To guide us around Dublin we downloaded some walking tours from the VisitDublin website. These were written and read by local artist and historian Pat Liddy. We found them interesting and the ones on Georgian Dublin and the Northside took us to places we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. We used the one on the Guinness family to take us from the City Centre to the Guinness Storehouse. I've been to the Storehouse before, with Uni in 2001. This time though I could be interested in the Guinness, rather than the treatment of the building. Apparently I still can't drink a whole pint of Guinness.

As we walked past City Hall on one of our tours we saw the first Velibs being installed. The scheme was launched this week.



On our last day we went to the National Museums and the National Gallery (They are free and have cloakrooms for luggage). My other half doesn't normally display an interest in art, but he did seem to be interested in the National Gallery, if only to disagree with me on the depiction of light in the sky in various paintings and to keep asking me why I don't paint more. He also seemed to like the portrait gallery. I find that interesting for the back stories as well as the paintings.

I did notice when we went into the Benson and Forsyth extension to the Gallery. I felt it was very similar to their extension to the Museum of Scotland, at least internally.

I once commented on Belgianwaffle that Tesco in Scotland promote Scottish produce. She had written that in Ireland they seemed to be cutting back on Irish products. I now wonder whether they did that because Ireland has Dunnes. We bought our lunch there one day, and they seem to have Irish produce pretty well covered. There isn't a particularly Scottish shop like that in Scotland. Except perhaps Peckhams, but they don't operate in the same market.

posted by Sarah @ 20:30 0 comments links to this post

Holiday

I am finally getting to go away some where! We are off to Ireland for the weekend, to stay in Skerries on the coast just north of Dublin. It looks rather pretty and the guesthouse looks nice on its website.

Just slightly worried by the prospect of flying with Ryanair. And by the the leaks in our house which appeared last night. I'm not sure if we need a new roof, gutters, windows or all three... How much of the world's resources would I use up if I left the dehumidifier on?

posted by Sarah @ 11:41 2 comments links to this post

Viral Video

Apparently United break guitars...
From the Guardian's Viral Video page

posted by Sarah @ 13:05 0 comments links to this post