Hello from Scotland. We are long overdue for a post and so I am stepping up to the plate finally to give you folks an update. All is well up here in Edinburgh. As you all know, I have been running regularly to train for the Belfast Marathon in May. Currently I am taking a week off because I hurt one of my ankles and seem to have been aggrivating it by running so much. Hopefully I will be better next week and I can start up again. My max milage is presently six miles and I am scheduled to do eight next but I might have to back off a little after taking some time off. Though it is surprising how responsive the body is to these kinds of stresses, how quickly it is able to get stronger, faster, etc.
For the most part the last couple of weeks have consisted of working on my reading for school but mostly on various sewing projects in order to avoid schoolwork. I just finished a rather stylish wool purse (a picture is coming soon). I bought too much fabric and so I will also be making a matching skirt. Hokey I know but oh well. I won't wear both at once!
We are going to be having thanksgiving here in Edinburgh. There is a large group of Marshalls who are organizing a group dinner in Oxford, but we decided to is just to far to go and not a good time to travel anyway. I will be going to London at the beginning of December for an event put on by the U of O and so I'd rather stay up north for now. We will be having a couple dinners here in town--one with an American couple who moved here from Eugene last year, and another with a group of Canadian (although their thanksgiving was a month ago), British (they're curious) and American friends. It will be interesting for sure because most of the participants are vegan. For our part I believe we will be contributing vegan sweet potato pudding and vegan stuffing (without the bird of course) with gravy. For the other dinner, with the American couple I am going to be trying my hand at a proper English bread pudding. This will be a practice run for the much more complicated plum pudding I am going to try and make for Christmas (it is a process that takes weeks in fact). If I get it all figured out properly I'll be coming back to the states with an expertise in bread puddings!
All around town all sorts of Christmas stuff is going up rather quickly. Every neighborhood has a large Christmas tree in the square with lights and decorations. Off Princes Street the Christmas fair and market is going up, with a farris wheel and everything. There are lights strung across the streets and all the stores are getting geared up. Once they get all the lights turned on (it will be a special ceremony in a couple weeks) we will take pictures of everything. Yesterday we went Christmas shopping and got several regional specialities to send home for the family to share. They'll be coming in the mail soon. For everyone else, we are sorry that we can't send you all special Scottish treats. We will have to throw a Scottish themed party next time we are home. (Next fall maybe??)
Saturday night was the first time it had gotten really cold here. It was down to 3 degrees (celsius) and so we had to really crank on the heat to stay warm. We sat around all day wrapped up in blankets and drinking a lot of tea to stay comfortable. As sad as it sounds, I am hoping those clouds will roll back in soon and get us warmed up again.
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