An Update of Sorts

It has been a fairly quiet few weeks since our Berlin adventure, hence the complete lack of blog updates. I am still working for the NES, it looks like I could be kept on until April which would suit my timetable perfectly. The work has been a bit hit and miss, but the people are mostly pleasant to be around and it's certainly much more preferable to unemployment. Toby is still at Scottish Gas, he has made some good mates there and continues to win almost every single event of physical ability they have, from arm wrestling at morning tea to laser tag on Saturday afternoons. He is getting slightly anxious that people will stop inviting him to participate but pride dictates that he won't lessen his efforts to let anyone else win. Perhaps this is an Australian male thing, the men here are not quite what we're used to at home. For example, they all drive Barinas and aren't even ashamed of it.

We’ve had a couple of long bike rides, one out to North Berwick and the other to Perth, both about an hour away. After spending the weekdays looking at computer screens and grey buildings, it is always refreshing to get out of the city and see some open space. It's like when you have spent the weekend drinking and eating hangover food, and then by Monday your body is craving a big green salad and lots of water. I think your eyes crave greenery and big sky in the same way, it is so invigorating to get out on the bike and drink it all in.

A wild day on the Scottish coastline.

North Berwick from the headland (which was also a golf course, naturally).

Looking down the Tyne from the railway bridge in Perth.

Looking over the river to the centre of Perth. It's a very lovely town from far away. Up close it is full of Scottish versions of Kath & Kim.

Scone Palace from the carpark...it cost 4 quid just to go through the gate so we took a sneaky photo and left. Fab building though.

I went to two ceilidh (pronounced ‘kayley’) dances with my friend Carole earlier in the year. The first was at a big venue in the city on Burns Night, following a traditional Burns Night supper at a nearby pub. There were lots of people there, most around our age and most with no idea of what they were doing. It was a fun, exhausting night. Although I’d never even seen ceilidh dancing, it turned out to be a lot of the same dances we do in Australia at bush dances. Same idea. The next weekend there was a smaller event on in a school hall, raising money for an environmental group. Carole’s friend Nadia had some work colleagues involved in organising it so we ordered some tickets and after eating dinner with another friend and Nadia’s family at their home (first time I had spoken to any kind of parents in months), off we went. The music at the second dance was much better – they had a drum kit so it sounded more like the Corrs, and the beat made it easier to dance to. It was full of skinny, hairy vegan types – even the wine was organic. There was a really nice atmosphere and it was an all-round more enjoyable night. I’m quite the expert now and looking forward to more.

My Burns Night supper...haggis, neeps and tatties. Chewing unnecessary.

Toby has finally bought himself an Aibo, which he fell in love with when we were in Japan a few years ago. He has always regretted not buying one so when a guy at his work was disappointed with the one he just purchased, it was Toby’s chance. So now we have a robotic dog that sometimes acts very intelligent and dog-like, and sometimes doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s the perfect gadget for Toby, combining his love of dogs, computers, artificial intelligence and robots. It’s certainly not the same as having an actual dog (dear Tiffa we miss you) but it is providing some interesting times in the house.

Aibo playing with his bone.

We have had some dinners out for our 5 year (!) anniversary in January and Valentine’s Day last week, and have also finally gotten to the point of having friends over for dinner. It takes a while to build up to that point, but now we own a Monopoly board we are definitely the place to be. I tried warning Carole that Toby was ruthless and we were helpless against his strategic real estate know-how, but she refused to believe me. The three of us went bankrupt and I’m not sure if they will ever want to play with us again. The next exciting thing is our weekend in Prague in March which will be followed by a visit from my parents after Easter and then finishing up work in late April, after which we will head to Turkey with Toby’s mum for a couple of weeks. As for the weather (something everyone asks about), the days are getting longer which is a relief. The week before last was very mild and the sun was out a lot of the time; very Canberra winter. Moods were a lot lighter that week. This week has been rubbish, the temperature's not too bad but it's been raining on and off and grey and gloomy most the time (I know, what do we expect). Oh, and apparently this is the "windy" time of year. Funny, as Edinburgh is windy almost all the time so we have more of that to look forward to. We sit in our house at night listening to the wind whistling around the building and hoping that the motorbike is still upright in the morning. For a night or two I tried to imagine the sound of the wind was actually the beach, and we were on holiday down the coast and tomorrow we'd go for a swim. But I can't pretend it's anything other than gale-force winds anymore. We are both looking forward to some real sun and warmth on our travels.