Things to keep you sane when the weather goes mad

Apart from trudging through the snow to work every day I have been doing a few things to get me through to the end of this cold spell… there will be an end won’t there?

First off, I have visited the Dean Gallery to view the BP portraits competition. The paintings are high quality and interesting. The winners from last year (which I had seen on-line) are there too and it was good to see them in the flesh, so to speak.

The next time I was in Edinburgh, I went to the gallery of modern art, which is doing a retrospective of the last 50 years, so there are a lot of interesting works on display. I found it amazing that the abstract paintings, look very modern to my eyes, but they often come from the 1930’s!

An added bonus to these visits is the trip to the cafe afterwards… more later.

Another good place to visit is the new Botanical gardens building. The design of the place is astonishing. There are plenty of hands on experiences which are a great idea for youngsters. When we were there, children had covered an jungle hut with their drawings. There is a strong ecological theme to the building and lots of interesting information. There is also an excellent restaurant upstairs where you can get a meal for £8 to £10.

I haven’t been a complete slob during the holidays and post festive freeze. This week the Wednesday night club run involved, the two of us who turned up (Frank and me) running around the slush covered roads of Haddington. The surface wasn’t too bad and luckily there weren’t too many cars about!

The other thing I have done to cheer myself up, is buy a wireless printer-scanner. The print quality is excellent and it means that I can scan my paintings and print them off. Here is one I did earlier…

CAFÉ CAFÉ

Cuisine Actuelle, Lodge Street, Haddington, only just qualifies as a café because until recently it had no tables or chairs. It’s raison d’etre (to continue the French theme) was to serve sandwiches etc to the office walla’s and the passing public. It now has a couple of tables and chairs, so it just about gets a mention. I have included it because it serves great bacon rolls and delicious homemade cakes. The fruit scones are delicious, I could have cried over the one I had this morning - yummy.