and I just got offered a new job. I will start on 25th October as an Involvement Development Co-ordinator at the Advocacy Project.
It's a brand new post in a brand new team so no-one knows yet exactly what I will be doing. I'm really excited. I did have to take an earful from one of the tenants who is very annoyed at me for leaving. He's annoyed mostly that I didn't tell him that I had applied for a job.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Walk like a Marrekshi
That's slowly and in single file, since you ask.
I have had this post sitting un-published since June. Waiting for me to get round to putting photos in.
My, time really does fly. I cannot believe it's been almost a month since I came back from Marrakech.
It's a crazy, crazy city. We were staying in the beautiful and relaxing Riad Dar Najat.
A Riad is the best option for staying in Marrakesh as you can stay right in the heart of the Medina (old walled city) and as they are small you experience a much more personal service that you might in a larger hotel. Riad's are traditional Marrekshi homes but a lot seem to be tourist accommodation now. From the exterior, you ca barely notice them. In Islam it is not allowed to make big displays of wealth so these larg homes are not very visible from the street.
Dar najat has (I think) just six rooms, ours was small but perfectly formed with a MP3 speaker system which I think was a nice touch, though as music is played throughout the day at Dar Najat you don't really need your own. The rooms all open out onto a central courtyard. The courtyard is shaded and cool on the ground floor and the rooms on first where we
were also remained cool but the upper level terraces benefitted from the sun. The sun was hot in the middle of the day and a cool jacuzzi is there to help the overheated to cool down. The breakfast was fantastic and the evening meals were so good that after eating in the first night we didn't consider going else where on the other nights.
We visited the Palais Bahia which has beautiful gardens and interiors and Museum Dar Si Said. The interiors of this museum were stunning and the Moroccan arts and crafts inside were beautiful and interesting. We didn't know that the museum was there and were walking nearby when a shopkeeper said to us 'the museum is that way' and we asked if we should go and he said yes so we did and were glad that we did.
We also took a taxi out to visit the stunning Jardin Majorelle. Jacques Majorelle is born in 1886 in Nancy (France). In 1919 he settles in Marrakech to continue his career of painter, where he acquires a ground which was going to become the Majorelle garden. Since 1947 he opens his garden's doors to the public. Following a car accident, he returns to france, where he dies in 1962. in 1980 Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent repurchase the garden and restore it.
The gardens were an absolute work of art.
Oh and we took a horse taxi back into town -touristy and tacky it was but fun. I look like I'm trying to be cool in this photo which has been pointed out is ridiculous on a horse taxi.
On our last day we did the best thing and visited Les Bains deMarrakech. A fantastic spa. We had a duo treatment. Hammam (steam room) - black soap scrub, ghassoul mud bath and a draining massage. There was also lounging around drinking mint tea. It was absolute heaven. My skin and mind have never felt so good.
I have had this post sitting un-published since June. Waiting for me to get round to putting photos in.
My, time really does fly. I cannot believe it's been almost a month since I came back from Marrakech.
It's a crazy, crazy city. We were staying in the beautiful and relaxing Riad Dar Najat.
A Riad is the best option for staying in Marrakesh as you can stay right in the heart of the Medina (old walled city) and as they are small you experience a much more personal service that you might in a larger hotel. Riad's are traditional Marrekshi homes but a lot seem to be tourist accommodation now. From the exterior, you ca barely notice them. In Islam it is not allowed to make big displays of wealth so these larg homes are not very visible from the street.Dar najat has (I think) just six rooms, ours was small but perfectly formed with a MP3 speaker system which I think was a nice touch, though as music is played throughout the day at Dar Najat you don't really need your own. The rooms all open out onto a central courtyard. The courtyard is shaded and cool on the ground floor and the rooms on first where we
were also remained cool but the upper level terraces benefitted from the sun. The sun was hot in the middle of the day and a cool jacuzzi is there to help the overheated to cool down. The breakfast was fantastic and the evening meals were so good that after eating in the first night we didn't consider going else where on the other nights.
We visited the Palais Bahia which has beautiful gardens and interiors and Museum Dar Si Said. The interiors of this museum were stunning and the Moroccan arts and crafts inside were beautiful and interesting. We didn't know that the museum was there and were walking nearby when a shopkeeper said to us 'the museum is that way' and we asked if we should go and he said yes so we did and were glad that we did.
We also took a taxi out to visit the stunning Jardin Majorelle. Jacques Majorelle is born in 1886 in Nancy (France). In 1919 he settles in Marrakech to continue his career of painter, where he acquires a ground which was going to become the Majorelle garden. Since 1947 he opens his garden's doors to the public. Following a car accident, he returns to france, where he dies in 1962. in 1980 Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent repurchase the garden and restore it.
The gardens were an absolute work of art.
Oh and we took a horse taxi back into town -touristy and tacky it was but fun. I look like I'm trying to be cool in this photo which has been pointed out is ridiculous on a horse taxi.
On our last day we did the best thing and visited Les Bains deMarrakech. A fantastic spa. We had a duo treatment. Hammam (steam room) - black soap scrub, ghassoul mud bath and a draining massage. There was also lounging around drinking mint tea. It was absolute heaven. My skin and mind have never felt so good.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Monday, 30 August 2010
BabaGanoush, Belly Dancing, Birthdays and Berry bugs.
This weekend, Catriona's life was brought to you by the letter 'B'
Friday night I went to watch belly dancing at Nur, an Egyptian restaurant in the Gorbals. It was a dinner and show with the star performance by the beautiful and talented Lorna Gow. Lorna is from Edinburgh but now dances professionally in Cairo. She is one of, if not THE, best dancer I have ever seen. Why I think she is so great to watch is that she is technically a good dancer but also understands how to be entertaining and has a good sense of humour and a lovely personality that really shines out in her dancing.
The restaurant was pretty good in its own right though the veggie option of vegetable tagine was pretty poor. I hate when chefs make veggie options for people who don't like vegetables. It's strange, sometimes a plate of steamed veg and potatoes would be so much better than what I've been served up in the past. I did enjoy the mezza starter, humous, baba ganoush, something with fava beans and flat bread. Plus cold, hibiscus tea.
The restaurant was full of belly dance women and one table of four men. Four Gay men. who had an absolute ball, starting zagreets by the time we were at the second performance of the night and absolutely delighting in it when everyone else joined in.
Alas, I could not stay for the dancing at the end, I think it went on late but I had to go to stupid work on Saturday. After work on Saturday I missed my bus, and there was much dram a as I tried, but failed to get a taxi to outrun it and I got a bus back to Stirling from Menstrie then had to wait an hour and a half for the next 23 to Auchtermuchty. A little like baby from Dirty Dancing, I carried a Cake. A birthday cake for Emma in a really insubstantial lidless box. I carried it from Miss Cranston's to Queen Street Station, to Stirling train station to bus station where it sat in a locker, to the bus stance, to the taxi rank, to a payphone in menstrie to another bus stop in menstrie, back to the bus station, back on the bus, to my mum's house then to the Tannochbrae tearoom and it didn't get mooshed. Well done me!
Dinner for Emma's big scary birthday was good. I had baba ganoush again, swithered though as two days in a row but Neal made it even better than the Egyptians AND my main course was veggie for vegetable lovers. (aubergines again though - good job I love them almost most of all)
Fun night, with Claire saying 'we need to go drink bacardi because my mint is wilting' being number one best quote of the night.
Sunday night involved more belly dancing. At muchty Hafla. There was great turnout and a lot of belly dance 'virgins' which is always great. Next year I will perform. I have decided.
oh, and I won a raffle prize.
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Cleaning out
I was at my Mum's this weekend for a hafla and a birthday dinner but also took some time to pay a visit to my Gran in her new care home. She is happy there, she seems so well settled and much more vibrant than she has been for quite some time. I think having the option of company when she wants it and peace and quiet when she wants that is suiting her, along with the regular meals.
Mum and I also went to their old flat to clear out some stuff. A lot has already gone, either with Gran or was thrown out (Grampa's clothes etc) we were throwing out some broken crockery, things that weren't good enough for the charity shop and found Grampa's old 'World's Best Grandpa' mug. He used to use the mug all the time when I was little.
Strangely, at first I had no hesitation throwing it in the bin. In my mind there will never again be a world's best Grampa , it would be wrong for it to be used again. Then I pulled it out again, hesitating that it may be wrong to throw it - him- away. Stupid things that our brains think.
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Friday, 6 August 2010
On the Couch
When my Dad died people I knew made such a fuss, flowers, cards, phone calls etc. So much support from every angle and people saying how I was going through something none of them could yet understand. It was nice, but misplaced and it made me feel guilty. Guilty because although I was sad that he died I knew even then that after the tears at the funeral I wouldn't miss him. I think about him from time to time but it's hard to miss someone that you never really knew. We were never close, I saw him at most for a week a year and spoke on the phone maybe three times a year. I never felt homesick anywhere except when I stayed there. The last time I saw him was because I made the effort after nagging from my mum and ex boyfriend and my dad was so dismissive of me that I said I was not making the effort again. Now my Grampa has died and I feel the way other people thought I should have felt then. It's been three weeks and I still want to cry, shout and beat my fists. There is a big hole where he should be.
I'm not sad for him, he was 90, the end was quick, without pain. But I'd give anything for another chance to see him. See, I saw my grangparents almost every day of my life until they moved away when I was 17. They looked after me when my mum was at work and I not at school. They celbraated my acheivements with me and comforted me in my failures. Now my grampa has died and I'm watching dementia slowly take away my Gran.
I'm not sad for him, he was 90, the end was quick, without pain. But I'd give anything for another chance to see him. See, I saw my grangparents almost every day of my life until they moved away when I was 17. They looked after me when my mum was at work and I not at school. They celbraated my acheivements with me and comforted me in my failures. Now my grampa has died and I'm watching dementia slowly take away my Gran.
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