Going Home

‘Is the chair coming off?’ the bus-driver asked Sarge.

‘No,’ I said ‘I thought I’d leave the chair here and walk off myself.  Have a nice day.’  And I went down the ramp.

Two more ramps and I was on a train to Glasgow.  As I dug my book out of my backpack, I realised this was the first time I’d done such a trip without Sarge.  And I began to miss him, because I am sap.

I had plans to meet friends and camp out in the pub before spending the night at my Dad’s.  Another ramp and I was at the bar.

‘Framboise, please.’

‘What flavour?’

Perhaps because I am a word-nerd and a beer-snob, I might have laughed.

‘Um.  Raspberry.’  And then I read a sign that said the pub would be closing at the exact time I was meeting my friends.  Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed.

I drank my raspberry beer, and I waited.  Nobody else was in a hurry to leave.  I may have actually looked up at the sky through the trees and said ‘I’m home.’  My friends arrived, and then another one.  Then we got the chair and ourselves into a rather small car and went somewhere else.  I told the story of how last year four people and the chair jig-sawed into a Fiat.  And off we went.  Good times.

The next place wasn’t closing, so we got dinner.  I kept noticing things on the menu that Sarge liked.

‘I miss him.  Is that weird?’

‘Yes.  But no.  But yes.  More drink?’

‘Yes!’

We ate, and drank.  And I swear peanut-butter cheesecake was cosmically placed on the menu just for me.  Because my cheese-phobic boyfriend wasn’t there.  Of course I ordered it, but I couldn’t finish it.  I might have shed a tear.

At one point, my best friend knocked over my drink in a frenzy when her boyfriend walked through the door.  Now. I cannot truthfully say that I don’t spill, drop or otherwise despatch my unfinished drinks sometimes, Sarge or no Sarge.  But as I laughed and dabbed my vodka-soaked thigh, I asked my friends, ‘Are we that bad?’  I knew they’d speak the truth.

‘Worse.  You guys are worse.  But we love you.’

And that’s the truth.

We decided to do shots.  For purely practical reasons.   There is less for me to spill.  I’m not co-ordinated enough to do tequila justice.  There are too many steps.  I do the salt and the licking in the wrong order.  It makes me nervous.  So I was on the B52s, which has only one step.

Sarge texted that he was bored and working late.  He wanted vicarious excitement.  I texted back:  Doing shots and discussing rules of grammar.  Does that work?

My friends are cool.

After arguing semi-colons; I asked if anybody wanted to come back to my Dad’s; so I could beat them at Poker.  It was easier to get the chair in the car the second time round.  The designated driver drove his sister and me to my Dad’s house.  We talked about ethics and equality and the merits of good tequila until early in the morning.

My Dad’s cool, too.

Later that day, I went up another ramp into the taxi to the train station.

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Here,’ I said.

‘Where you going?’

‘Home,’ said.

This seemed to confuse the driver, who changed the subject to the weather.

I was browsing the books at Waverly, when Sarge says, ‘I thought I’d find you with the books.’

I was home again.

Home isn’t just one place, because some people have lots of places.  Home is the people waiting for you when you get there.

 

 

 

 

 

Magic Coffee 5

Tell me what you see in the swirls. You might have to find the coffee first!

Back-seat Baking: Chocolate Ginger Cupcakes

Last week I decided that I wanted to actually make something for Sarge for Valentine’s Day.  Or at least watch someone else do it.  Because the last time I tried to make something, the red stuff wasn’t food-colouring.  But it was iron- enriched.

Anyway, I’m looking up baking ideas, and my PA suggests Martha Stewart.  Now, we have a saying in my family that goes something like this:  Molly was Martha Stewart before Martha was Martha Stewart.

Molly was my Nana, and she was an all around amazing baker, cook, beader, knitter, quilter, home-decorator, general ideas woman and creative. Dinner was not complete without six courses, a sweater not ready to wear without beads on the collar.  And everywhere else.

Nana did everything from scratch.  And I watch people make cupcakes from a box.  Maybe it was Nana’s inspiration that made me add stem ginger to the cupcakes that my PA made and froze last week, and iced this morning.

I added ginger because I don’t like it.  And I wanted these especially for Sarge, who does.

If they were coffee cupcakes, that would have been a present for both of us.  Maybe next week.

Photographic evidence:

Behold the butter-cream icing!

Sarge approves!

Our aforementioned sugar-faces stuck to the plate and couldn’t be added to the cupcakes.  CJ ate them instead.

Hello, My Name Is Lorna. I Have Piles.

I have a confession to make.  I have piles.  Giant piles.  Really annoying piles.  There’s one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, and several in the office.

I spent a good part of last week organising the flat, and this task has spilled into this week.  Because I rewarded myself with an eyebrow wax (well, both eyebrows, I don’t like to be uneven) and a trip to Starbucks on Friday.

With the help of my new people, several black bags and colour-coded folders, I have tackled my bathroom, my closet, both dressers and the office.  Every time I do this, it’s like I’ve been shopping for clothes and other groovy things I forgot I had.  Groovy things like pens and bookmarks, and my old passport.  Yesterday I found a rubber chicken in the office.  Sarge says it’s actually yet another bookmark.  He also says he should sort out ‘his half’ of the rooms, because it looks like the cyclone stopped short.

Going through this process, I’ve learned a few things:

1.        Black bags are my friends.

2.       There’s a couch in the office.

3.       I don’t need new clothes.

4.       I like being organised.

5.       Sarge’s ‘epic detritus’ sounds so much more eloquent than my ‘buncha crap.’

 

The unearthed rubber chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not going to show you my new, tamer purple and blue piles.  Nobody wants to see those.

My Island Diaries

Tuesday 28^th December 2010

We say we’ll be on the road by 10.00.  It is noon before we set off.  I am wedged in the backseat between some bags, two tires and Sarge.  By 3.00, I have lost feeling in my ass.  I find it again when twisting to take photos through the windows.

My father has never been good at time-keeping.  The fact that he has his own time zone is part of his charm.  We always get where we’re going though, and rolled onto our first ferry of the day with ten minutes to spare.  We were actually early for the second ferry, one of the two cars on board.

It takes us about an hour to find the cottage in the dark, perched on the egde of Sarge’s GPS.

Anne getting out of the car and guiding my father’s driving with the light from her mobile phone added to the adventure.

So did needing to pee.

Wednesday 29^th

Sarge is out looking for wildlife and I am watching Dad attempt to make pancakes without a Teflon pan.  We have cereal and make a list of things to get at the one shop on the island, which also serves as the post office.

Dad and Anne venture out, list in hand, leaving me and Sarge to pretend we live here.  We curl up on the couch, and start to read books found on the well-stocked bookshelves.  I promptly fall asleep.

I wake up and the light through the windows has made shadows on the walls.

‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘About five pages.’

I love how my boyfriend measures time.

Friday 31^st

I am watching Sarge make porridge.  Dad and Anne have gone to Portree to find relief for Dad’s untimely toothache.  As Sarge explores the cupboards, I am pretending that we live here again.

Last night was whisky and music and laughs and a poker game, played for chips.  And bacon rolls and Clementine oranges.  I spent quite a few of my growing up years in house on a farm with a kitchen not unlike this one.  If I close my eyes at just the right moment, in just the right breath, these walls and this air feels just like home.

I went to bed last night and dreamt of inviting our friends up here for New Year.

And so, today.  We are left to drink coffee and read books and eat pate.

I started the fourth Harry Potter this morning, and Sarge is on The Odyssey.  After 200 pages for me, and 30 for Sarge, I look up and remark that the pate looks like petrified meat.  Funny, considering that’s exactly what it is.

Dad and Anne returned from the sea with penicillin and popcorn and more booze for the night’s festivities.  Which will begin in two hours when they wake up from a snooze.  Ferry journeys are a tiring business.

We are left with a fire to stoke and dinner on the stove.  My first text to arrive in days beeped through at 6.30.  It was Anne, saying they’d be home by 5.  Now we know.  Time slows and stops on islands such as this.

At the midnight bells, I think of my past and my future and how the two might mingle and meet.  I listen to Auld Lang Syne and Sarge’s heart, twirling my grandmother’s sapphire ring, on my finger since I was 13.  And I am happier than I have ever been.

Saturday 1^st January 2011

Another reading day today.  Also watching birds investigate birdseed on the fence.  So are they.  The house-phone rings and we first wonder where it is, and then who would be phoning us.

It was the couple in the next cottage inviting us over for mulled wine.  Bundling up, we took the long trek next door.  We were welcomed with the promised mulled wine and actual roasted chestnuts.  There was also wonderful conversation swirling around like the embers of the outdoor fire we crowded around.

My camera hasn’t been one foot away from me this entire trip.  I regretted leaving it at our cottage when people began lighting paper lanterns and starting a race in the sky.  I made a wish on one, as it floated higher and higher.  The last to disappear.

And I am writing this as Sarge makes dinner for the four of us.    I’m still in my coat and scarf.  Fire and hope is still all around me, even in my nose.  And I’m scribbling this evening’s moments so I don’t forget them.  Somehow I don’t think I ever will.

Sunday 2^nd January

Sarge went for a walk to the lighthouse today.  Brought me back a bluepurplewhite shell.  And I don’t want to go home.

We all pile in the car and drive up Calum’s Road.  Looking out the window, I start to cry.  And I have a moment like the one I experienced while lighting a candle in the Duomo in Florence.  But as much as I love stained glass windows, God isn’t one old bearded man haunting old buildings.  God is the air and the mountains and the sunset.  God is all my good memories and my Grandparents.  God is everyone’s good memories and everyone’s grandparents.  God is sitting in the car listening to epic movie soundtracks and crying because life is beautiful.  God is on holiday.

Monday 3^rd January

PJ day today.  I finish the fourth Harry Potter while Sarge got further through The Odyssey and Dad and Anne snoozed in the living room.  We had pancakes for dinner and I asked Dad to retell some family stories.  One last poker game during this Island trip gives me a new nickname, Four Aces.

Tuesday 4^th January

After last night’s epic card game, I am almost too tired to be sad.  But I am sad.   Sad to be leaving, but happy it happened.  I’ve already dreamt of our next trip.

(Taken from my journal of a family holiday trip to Raasay and Skye.  No holiday recap would be complete without a slideshow.  Just a few of my photos!)

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From Zero To Christmas in 7 Photos

 

Ornaments courtesy of Mom’s Annual Christmas Box and stuff from previous Christmas Boxes!

What do your holidays look like this year?

 

One Year Ago Today

This time last year, I was moving into my fifth flat in Glasgow.  I’d lived there since 2006 and had five addresses.

The reason I moved so much wasn’t because I’m fickle.  It was because two of my five landlords neglected to pay the mortgages on the flats I occupied.  And the secure places had lifts that liked to break down when I needed to go to work, or on nights I had tickets for concerts.  During one particular breakdown (with me in it), my friend and I had sushi we’d just bought while waiting for the engineers to arrive.  It was a stair lift that was continually getting vandalised or broken by people who weren’t me/didn’t know how to use it (you had to get in, spin around twice, clap your hands three times and ask it nicely to work.) In the end, the management stopped short of asking me to leave, not very nicely.

I’d found a coveted ramped access place after looking for ages.  I’d looked for ages only to find the perfect flat in the building next door.  On the day I got the keys, I celebrated with Sarge and my Dad, and toasted with vanilla lattes.

And on this day last year, I moved in.  With the help of my Dad and my band of crazy friends.  CJ, on the cat equivalent of tranquilizers from having to move, yet again, was no help.

I set up my bookcases that first night, and it really did feel cozy.   Sarge stayed for a week in the run-up to Christmas and I had a pretty damn good flat-warming party.

We went to see It’s a Wonderful Life, and had vanilla tea and left-over party food every night.  I secretly pretended we lived together already.  I bawled when he left, I’d had such a good time.

For Christmas that year, he gave me his favourite book, which I read on the train on my way to spend New Years with him.  I finished the book sitting in my reading chair at home.  It was my first read of 2010.

A few months later, we were watching a DVD (as we like to do), and he asked if I would ever move to Edinburgh.  ‘It is not outwith the realms of possibility,’ I said.

Two weeks later, he said that the reason he was sorting out his spare room was so he could rent it out, and we could find a place together.  We’d been having dinner at an Indian restaurant and the naan bread stopped short on it’s way to my mouth.

‘Did you just ask me to move in with you?’

‘I think I did, yes.’

‘Well then, I think I’ll say yes.’

After my birthday we started looking in earnest.  We found one building with a set of steps at the front, and opposition when we asked for a ramp.   I figured there was another place for us.  We found this flat and moved in during the first week of May.  With the help of my Dad, my crazy band of friends, Sarge’s friends, and a van.

I have now lived here longer than the flat I moved into a year ago today.  Crazy.  Awesome.  Crazy awesome.

Post inspired by a Reverb10 prompt.

My books, before we put up the bookcases.

The Chair

And so, I switch off the computer and my eyes fall on my favourite chair.  Currently piled with duvets and a guitar, it is wedged between a loveseat and a laundry rack.  A penguin is perched on the loveseat, propped up by pillows and the last publically visible box in the house.  This is half of the office.  The half I can conveniently turn my back on while typing.

But I miss the chair.  It started out as my Grandfather’s favourite place to recline while calling out answers to Fifteen to One, or words on Countdown.

 

The Chair, in flat Number 2.

Many nights were spent watching baseball with Dad and Gramps relaxing in the same position, with their hands clasped behind their heads.  One night I noticed this and wanted to take a photo.  I then realised I’d been holding my hands the same way.  And I didn’t want to move.

I’d sit next to Gramps and read aloud the letters he received from old friends.  And write his Christmas cards as he dictated news in lines short enough to fit on them.  More often than not, there’d be actual snow falling outside as we went about this annual ritual.

I like Fall for many reasons. Fall allows you to be functionally nostalgic and cry into your coffee and possibly bewilder your boyfriend while also providing stuff to look forward to.  Stuff like Hallowe’en and Christmas, for example.

When I started to live in places that weren’t University halls of residence, the chair followed me.  I’d cover it with an alternating collection of throw rugs, which up until then I didn’t see the point of.  CJ and I would fight over which one of us would get to curl up on it.  She’d call a truce by jumping up on my lap or onto the top of the chair, guarding me the same way her ancestors and Kodi the dog guarded my Gramps.

In my last flat, I put the chair in front of my favourite window and officially proclaimed it The Reading Chair.

Sitting down in the chair and opening a book was a sign of sundown for me.  When I had a new stack of books to start reading, I could not wait to sit in the chair and see which book grabbed me first.

Without actually meaning to I bought four books for five pounds at two second hand shops this weekend.

I think I’ll liberate the Reading Chair and start reading one or three of them.

Feels Like Home

 

Image via Wikipedia

Sarge and I went back to Glasgow for my best friend’s birthday dinner last weekend.  After my gift-buying mission was complete and we went here for more vanilla (and hazelnut and gingerbread) coffee syrup, we went to my favourite coffee shop in my old neighbourhood.

I lived around the corner from it, and it must have seemed like I held court there.  This is the place where I met friends, laughed, gossiped, waited and wrote.  I looked out onto the street and scribbled

what I saw, listened and noted what I heard.  I ordered a vanilla latte and took a photo of it while waiting for it to cool.

My time there reminded me of Friends, only with better music and without Joey.

It was the setting for my epic first date with Sarge, nearly a year ago.  We’d had lunch and then walked in the rain, finding refuge at my favourite table.  We left five and a half hours later, high on caffeine and life.

Sarge dropped me off at my front door; I went up to my flat and defrosted a pizza.  And then threw up.   Maybe in early solidarity with Sarge, who hates cheese.  Maybe I knew I’d had a day-long, epic last first date.  Maybe both.

Fast forward to Saturday.   Same coffee shop, same table, different conversation.  And as I sat there and listened to the music, I might have had a moment.  I might have teared up a little.  And if anyone asks, I might blame my tears on PMS.

I had more happy moments sitting at a table amongst my friends, making plans to do it again.  I was grateful for the fresh night air and being out in it with people I love and who make me laugh.  Even the taxi driver was in a cheerful mood.  We went home to my Dad’s and an air mattress on the floor.  I love that mattress.   No, I really do.  I imagine watching me get up from it is like something from an I Love Lucy episode.  And I love Lucy.

Pancakes were on the table and show tunes on the stereo on Sunday.  And I might have had another moment.  I won’t blame the PMS.

We went back through my old neighbourhood on the way to the train station.  Thought about stopping for coffee, and then said we’d have one at home.  One with hazelnut syrup in it.  Make that two.

I have been cheating on this blog…

On Friday, I listened to this and this, which made me want to start watching his actual stuff.  Sarge has both of Werner Herzog’s box sets, and he’s wanted me to get into his films for ages.  It can be said that every night is film night in this house.  Films and booze.    Friday film nights are special because they include not having to get up the next morning, and therefore, more booze.

We sat down with My Best Fiend.  And beer for Sarge, cider for me.  That’s where the cheating bit comes in, see.  I drink drinks that aren’t gin and lemonade.

Since moving to Edinburgh, I have rediscovered my love of cider, and drank quite a lot of it here, on Saturday.  There was cider and friends and laughs and card games, and an actual accessible toilet in the pub we were in.  There was no leaving the pub to go off in search of another place to pee.  That has happened before.  I once left the original pub and went to one place after another with Out of Order Signs on their accessible toilet doors.   It took me half an hour to find one, and all I remember of that time was begging Sarge not to make me laugh.  He failed, but I didn’t, arriving at a working and unlocked accessible toilet still needing it.  But there was no such shenanigans on Saturday, and four and half pints of cider later, we went home and had drunken fish and chips.

I awoke without a hangover.  My last hangover was the result of a night out early on in my first year of Uni. I’d gone out with some friends, and the end of the night saw me leaving a trail of nuts and bolts from the chair from our front door to my room.  The taxi driver put the wheel on wrong, and snapped my tipper bars, which was the cause of the leakage.   I should also mention that I’d left my chair in the kitchen, using a spare chair to get to my room.  This confused my hall-mates, who knocked on my door, asking if I needed anything.

Advil, I said.

No need for anything stronger than coffee on Sunday.  And lots of fresh air on the way to the movies to see Winter’s Bone, which was brilliant and not unlike watching a really good documentary.

Since I’ve gone on a bit about drinking in this post, I’d like to say don’t drink and drive.  Even when all you drive is a wheelchair.