Surrounded by Art!

Not only have I still got the Alba ad Astra exhibition on show in the shop, I also have a window devoted to the West Port & Grassmarket Art Walk, with 6 pieces by art college student Robert Powell… There’s a picture on the shop blog.

When we were at the zoo recently, we noticed that they had an exhibition of animal art on beside the entrance and, as we went in to see it, Madeleine immediately spotted a print of a picture an old friend of mine (whom I haven’t seen for years since he emigrated to Australia) called Jon Hoad had given me years ago! The poster of his rendition of Troodon formosus (a raptor-type dinosaur) is still on a wall in the shop, although it’s only visible to me, not my customers…
Slightly further in to the exhibition we came to a cabinet with several sculptures of strange animals in it – one was an ancient, huge-horned rhino, and another was a… tapir! A big, happy-looking tapir! (the rhino’s at the top, the tapir’s quite far down towards the bottom). The price was very off-putting, though. Later at home we looked up the sculptor and discovered that he had recently opened a gallery in Perth  and was also an outlet for Jon Hoad’s art in the UK!

A few days later I saw my sister, who lives in Perth, and she presented me with a thoroughly bubble-wrapped gift (which I will insist is our joint Christmas present) and I deduced almost immediately what it was!

Yes, it was a Julian Jardine tapir!
He’s wonderful.
He’s smaller than the one on display at the Zoo, but he’s still big enough to take pride of place on our mantlepiece! We still have to agree on a name, though…

And, finally, one of Madeleine’s aunts is recently back from an Alaskan cruise and presented me with a lapel badge from my favourite enamel badge maker!  And she got it signed to me by Bill, as well.
It’s a little Alosaurus skull! Maybe not my first choice, but still very neat!

Update!

There’s no date set yet, but Madeleine’s 2nd op is approaching steadily – hopefully by the end of next month! In the meantime, her operated hip is getting better and bedding in nicely and we’re starting to get out and about a bit more, although now the other hip is the one holding us up… It’s taken a lot of wear while the new joint comes up to speed and is starting to show it badly.

Anyway, we went to the movies for the first time in months – the seats were too low while she recovered – and saw District 9. I thought it got off to a fairly slow start and I wasn’t immersed at all, but that changed as the film went on and, while I still have questions and theories, it was very good!

We also went for a meal at Oloroso, although we didn’t get to eat on the terrace. It was celebrating Madeleine’s birthday but her health had meant that we had put it off for almost 6 months! Very good once we finally got there, though… It had been even longer since we visited the zoo, so that was what we did at the weeekend, getting very good views of some of our favourites; the giant anteater (with cub), the wolves, the baby pygmy hippo, and others… saw Mercedes the Polar Bear for probably the last time, saw Indah, the young tapir for turned out to be the last time (emigrated to Kent a few days later), saw Ka, the male tapir out and about, and I also saw caught a glimpse of tiny Red River Hog hooves.
The papers had pictures of them a few days later once the zoo officially announced their arrival, but I saw them first!

In a reflective mood

Unexpected Anniversary!

As part of an important message I had to run for Madeleine  I ended up with Andrew Wilson in a small pub in Leith! Madeleine and I had been there several times before and quite like the Roseleaf pub. Especially sitting outside in the evening sun with a pint… Or maybe she prefers the food; not too sure!

Anyway Andrew was driving, so he ordered a coke, and I had a pint of IPA

A few minutes later the barman came up and offered us complementary cocktails from a teapot he had on a tray. (This is how they present their cocktails – they have a thing about teapots, etc) I accepted and he laid down a teacup with ice already in it and poured a fair measure of a very nice cocktail of a newly launched Malt I’ve already forgotten the name of, Grand Marnier, and something else.

Very Nice! So nice, Andrew asked for a little  – also served in a teacup. Next,  one of the other bar staff appeared with a plate of little salad sandwiches followed in a few minutes by a second barmaid bearing a tray of salmon mousse sort of stuff on toast!
Turned out that they were celebrating their 2nd anniversary as the Roseleaf, so we had picked just the right day!

All completely unexpected, but most enjoyable.
Then, unfortunately,  it was time to go home…

Paint, Paint, Paint

Some of Madeleine’s studio down at Coburg House in Leith needs painted prior to an Artists’ Studio Open Day later this summer and this week is pretty much the only time spare to do it, so this’ll be the 3rd evening in a row spent rushing down there after work to put a coat of paint on. Some of the walls are ok, but  some is plain wood-coloured board and some is very black board, both of which need a lot of white paint to look good, and match the rest.

The good thing is that it doesn’t take too long, and then we can go round to the nearby pub and sit outside on a bench with a pint or two!
It also means that no gardening is getting done this week, apart from some minor watering… Still a huge pile of lopped branches to deal with, but a lot more light is reaching parts of the garden than has done for years!

Quack!

Quack!

Originally uploaded by miketransreal

No sign of them using semaphore, but still very cute!
This was on the Water of Leith, just above the Dean Village last Sunday.

A stroll around some of the Dean Village then down the riverside walk to Stockbridge, coffee and a muffin and a bus home. Once Madeleine recovers from her upcoming hip operation in July, we may get further afield and do slightly more strenuous things!

Star Trek the movie was pretty good; lots of references for the knowledgeable, but not so many that they bogged the story down. By the end the ‘classic’ flight deck crew had been assembled, so it’s all ready for a re-imaginging of the original five year mission in subsequent films!
Wasn’t really convinced by the Romulan ship though, I’m afraid.

World Tapir Day, 2009

Raffles at the Zoo

Originally uploaded by miketransreal

Sadly, we couldn’t get along to the zoo today, but we did visit it yesterday, which is close enough!
This is the 2nd Annual World Tapir Day and hopefully our official WTD coasters will be waiting for us when we get home this evening…
Transreal’s sponsorship of the Edinburgh tapirs was also renewed, with effect from today!

May have to have a pint of Guinness tonight to celebrate; it’s black & white, just like Raffles and other Malayan tapirs!

Next year it’s on a Tuesday.

Summer Time is here…

Saturday night was a great gig at the Queen’s Hall – Basskou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, a band from Mali who mainly play electric gourd guitars! Seven of them on stage, BK himself on lead and his wife on vocals, a percussionist, a drummer and three more strung gourd players. In theory it was traditional music, but an awful lot of guitar solos (well, gourd solos!) crept in to the performance. The percussion bloke had a great time capering at the back – he could kick his height sideways! With their silky african tunics and non-Western tunings they occasionally looked or sounded more Eastern, and the vocals (great voice) also had a touch of the Far East about them sometimes.

another poor gig picture, with pillar

If this had been on at the Picturehouse, like last week’s gig, I strongly suspect they’d have doubled the audience; the Queen’s Hall just don’t seem to get promoting gigs quite right…

Sunday was the first day of Summer time but we didn’t lie in too much! Out for breakfast across at Henri’s Deli in Morningside before noon! We were there just in time to sit in the sun and then have it move off us, leaving us in the shade. Oh, well… A bus up to Colinton and a stroll down through the Dell to Slateford and a very nice pint of Stirling Crag 80/- (?) at the Dell Inn before heading back into town, a light tea and then a ridiculous movie! It was The Good, the Bad, the Weird. A ‘western’ set in northern China and Mongolia during the mid/late 30s when Japan had occupied Korea and large areas of China. Much galloping and racing about, gun fights, duels, etc.  as various parties (the Japanese army, Korean and Chinese gangs) fought over a map and (broadly) followed the plot of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

Stuff That’s Happened!

Maybe three weeks ago we had a quiet Sunday looking at various gallery exhibitions, some good, some not so good.

The City Art Centre had 3 different shows on, including the Bob Dylan one – perfectly good, but not really very appealing to me – and the Visual Arts Scotland show, with some nice-looking pieces. The other exhibition they had on was mainly of Scottish architecture paintings and photographs; also good stuff.
Across the road the Fruitmarket had a new exhibition on, but I don’t really remember that much about it – already! – except the cafe served very nice rhubarb tarts!

A couple of weeka ago we visited Newcastle for their Science Festival – especially the strand called Maker Faire, which is a successful American event for techno-crafters (or whatever you want to call them!) Good fun, with several exciting ideas, fire-breathing mechanical horses, robots, demos, etc.

Flame on, Tonto!

Easy trains, good hotel nearby (the Vermont); a nice joint birthday treat!

This weekend, we had intended to finally get along to see Watchmen, but I noticed a gig I had marked on my calendar months ago as being possibly interesting… so we went to that instead!
Three Mali tuaregs calling themselves Tinariwen were to do a joint set with an English electro-folk band called Tunng. Sounded like it should be at least curious!
It was at the Picturehouse in Lothian Road and we never imagined it would be as busy as it was! I walked across from the Filmhouse bar once their box office was open before the gig and easily bought tickets. But when we went across for the gig an hour later after a meal, it was mobbed and verging on sold out.
Fortunately we got seats upstairs (Madeleine using a stick helped a lot!) and sat down just as a fairly brief dj set (with added bits from some of Tunng) started. This was followed by an equally brief set by Tinariwen – a drom player and two guitarists – before they were joined onstage by all five of Tunng and the concert proper began…

It was great!

another poor gig photo!

The two groups hadn’t rehearsed much together but it all sounded good – 3 full-on 6′+ tall tuaregs in robes and turbans trading guitar licks with archetypal folkie-looking Brits, with a wee, barefoot singer in a cocktail dress backed by some seriously heavy drumming from both traditions… some electronics flung in the mix as well…
Apparently the blokes in Tinariwen like listening to AC/DC out in the desert, and it showed sometimes!
Good stuff; avoided most of the crush leaving by being allowed to use the lift, although then we just missed a bus… pint at Reverie, and home!

On the Sunday we were off seeing exhibitions again – a small one downstairs at the National Gallery of photographs acquired over the last 25 years for the Scottish National Photography Collection – and, in the RSA Building, slide shows of some classic (mainly Edinburgh) photographs from the middle of the 19th C (have to go back as we didn’t have enough time to see them all properly) together with a great little exhibition of recent 3-D work by Calum Colvin.
Very impressive!

And then home for tea!

The Joys of St.Patrick’s Day

The new, revitalised Grassmarket (still not finished yet, despite what anyone says) got it’s first test of coping with mass drunkenness yesterday, as the hordes of pseudo-Irish took to the bevvy.

Huge amounts of noise, swearing, disruption; giant crowds outside the pubs (quite probably beyond their licenced limits) and, within a few minutes of my closing for the day, bright yellow vomit on the shop’s front step.
Wonderful.

Fortunately the council cleaned up most of the vomit before I had to open the following morning, but, just as I was feeling relieved that wouldn’t be my first job of the day, I saw my front door had been attacked with lurid green grafitti.
More wonderful.

At least it scrubbed off, but, really, hordes of drunken, noisy, vomiting vandals is almost exactly what we were told would be reduced by the last 18 months of hassle and noise as the Grassmarket scheme took shape.

Prehistoric Creature Day (again!)

So it’s a Friday the 13th again already! Seems like only a few weeks since the last one! And unlike some people expecting bad luck on Friday the 13th, we look forward to it as another Prehistoric Creature Day!
I’ve still not put up photos of last month’s PCDay – they’re awfully shy sometimes, but that’s not very surprising for critters thought to be extinct! – but today they should be getting cake for tea! There might also be some wine, so who knows what poses we might see them in!

previous PCDay post (June 2008)
Previous PCDay post (February 2009)