Dance Scottish

    I know I promised not to bore my followers with any more dance videos, but we learned an interesting one last night which I thought you might enjoy hearing about.

   The dance is called "The Royal Deeside Railway" and it was part of a program designed by Nigel, our teacher, celebrating Queen Elizabeth's 70th Ascension Day. All the dances we did had something to do with the Royal Family as the Queen is the patron of RSCDS (hence the Royal in the organizations name). Seemingly there would often be ceilidhs at Balmoral while the Queen was in residence.

    The Deeside railway line was inaugurated in Queen Victoria's time and the dance dates from then. The railway wasn't used as much by subsequent monarchs and was finally decommissioned in the 1960's. In the video see if you can identify the connection to a train - the wheels of the locomotive, the engine being followed by the carriage, for instance.

   Hope you enjoyed this. We certainly enjoyed learning and dancing it!

Still Digging Out

    It was a little milder today so I spent an hour scraping ice off my driveway and digging a circuitous route to the composter. It was hard work but I kept warm, even my fingers. Now my shoulders are aching but in a pleasant way. When I got tired I cleared the snow off the deck chair and sat for a while to get my breath back. The sun felt quite warm on my face!

I think the piles may have shrunk slightly but it's still a lot of snow!

This is the path I dug from the garage to the house and back yard.

 

Continuing around to the walkout which is intermittently frozen shut so I haven't been using it.

 The pool is under the snow to the left.

And finally to the composter - it's a bit of a trek but worth it for the glorious compost I will get next fall! I still have to put my boots on as I just dug through the deeper drifts.

   I hope you find this interesting. As you can probably tell, it will be some time until we see any signs of Spring although, once it starts to melt, it goes quite quickly. At least I won't be having to mow the lawn any time soon!

At Long Last

    Picked up a new book at the library yesterday and I am already well into it. It's the latest in the "Outlander" series by Diana Gabaldon and I  have been waiting for it for several months. If you haven't read any (this is the ninth in the series) or seen the TV dramatization, you need to start with the first one and read them in order which I have done over many years. Each one is mammoth  (this one 880 pages!) and take her several years to write as they are meticulously researched. But I'm sure it will definitely be worth the wait.

    Today was a good day to get stuck into a new book. We are back into frigid weather and all I did today was shovel and snow blow. We didn't get as much snow as forecast but I still had to stop several times to defrost my hands. As I get older I seem to be more prone to getting completely numb fingers no matter how warm my gloves - the worst part is thawing them out as that can be quite painful. Luckily the rest of me stays quite warm when I am shoveling. It should warm up a bit by Sunday.

Groundhog Day

     Today, the temperature has been above zero for the first time since December and what a lift it gives to the spirits! Despite being drizzly and dull I really relished an almost intoxicating lift to my mood. It is merely a short reprieve but very welcome! Wiarton Willie (our local groundhog) definitely didn't see his shadow today which means we will have an early Spring - let's hope he's right.

    On Monday I managed an abbreviated workout as I was still not 100%, but today I did the whole shebang (aerobics, abdominals and weights) and felt much better for it. Then later in the morning I walked for about 40 mins. (despite the drizzle, it was actually quite refreshing). Things are definitely looking up!

   We are headed for another big dump of snow overnight so it was even more important to have today's milder temperatures. It shouldn't be quite as much as last month but will be enough to give me a bit of a workout shoveling. I will boost the battery of the snowblower just in case it is a bit more than I can handle with the shovel.