mint tea & no sympathy

Last up date for a while
Off to Oz on Tuesday and will be away from my work (and endless surfing time).

Trying to get ready for the big trip has been a nightmare of delay and distraction.

Starting with the man calling from the Inland Revenue and demanding my presence with all my receipts and invoices on Tuesday morning. Turns out they had LOST my tax return. Then chasing the personnel department - "You do know I will be OUT OF THE COUNTRY AFTER MONDAY" at last it penetrated and I got an early inteview on Friday morning. The Wednesday was the bookgroup - much frantic cleaning beforehand and muttering on my part. Oh Goddess I hate being a hostess - its the hell beforehand. By the time I've cleaned and tidied and just want to project my housework hatred onto who ever turns up. Friday I went to the Turkish baths catching up with 3 friends. We had a lovely time lolling about eating strawberries and the mint tea provided by K. We left about 9.15 and to our amazement saw seals yes SEALS in the sea just off the beach. We got a chinese take away and went back to my place (still tidy from the book group visitation) we had a jolly time with the last person leaving at 1.20am so I scrapped the idea of getting the 7.30am train to Glasgow to see the Dalai Lama. Yesterday I went down to my parents and studied the serious question of 'which wheelie suitcase to choose?" I took the smallest hoping it will make me a disciplined packer. We also got a witness for my newly revised will (incase I get mauled to death by a Koala) and then finished the evening after dinner raking through a basket of travel goodies my mom has been keeping. Tiny dolly sized tooth pastes, eyemasks, ear plugs. She then found some compression socks a hideous shade of beige which I will not use. Tomorrow I find a pair of black ones at Boots. I've now got clothes drying on the line and I must must start piles of 'things to take'. Oddly enough as I am leaving I'd had a sudden spurt of friends appearing out of the woodwork and I've been having this heavy social round of lunches and impromptu meetings with people at bus stops who I haven't seen for months and months.

Knitting a revolution
"There was a call for global knitting during the G8 – to use the G8 to very visibly counter the corporate world," he says. "It’s the idea of being able to take care of ourselves if we have to – it’s a metaphor and an action."

With that in mind, about 60 knitters gathered in front of Bankers Hall while the world’s eight most powerful leaders met in Kananaskis Country to discuss issues of poverty and nuclear non-proliferation. And what kind of reaction did the activist-knitters get from the members of Calgary’s corporate elite who passed by that day?

"I haven’t had a negative reaction," says Neufeld. "Oddly enough, the corporate media coverage was great."

In fact, Neufeld gets so much attention when he knits that he ends up spending as much time talking about geo-political issues with strangers as he does stitching together his latest scarf or hat.

"Knitting opens the door to talk to people," he says.

That openness is fundamental to this group, in which members share tips on the best way to start a purl stitch, and throw in a generous dose of companionship and activism for good measure.

"The youngest person (to attend) the group has been five and the oldest has been in their 80s," says Neufeld. "We produce our own clothes and some members donate blankets to the shelters."

You can read the Revolutionary Knitting Circle manifesto at their site.

From Rubble to Revival

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA – The top of an old water tower offers Mandla Mentoor the best point from which to survey the subtle transformations taking place in his community below.
From here, the view is vast and panoramic: Sprawling, haphazard jumbles of shanties and geometric rows of matchbox houses stretch to the horizon, divided by pockets of barren land. They are Soweto's black townships, created more than 50 years ago by the former apartheid government.


"We call this place Somoho, the Soweto Mountain of Hope," says Mr. Mentoor, a wiry man with a thin goatee and a broad grin, gesturing to the open hillside on top of which the water tower rests. "It has seen both rain and storm in terms of trouble."

Just a few years ago, this 45-acre space that divides Mentoor's township of Tshiawelo in half was strewn with garbage. During the 1980s and early '90s, residents protested apartheid by refusing to pay local taxes, so uncollected garbage soon piled high in Soweto's open spaces. Criminals frequented the area, women were raped, and local people sometimes found abandoned babies and dead bodies in the rubble, Mentoor recalls.

Today, however, the trash is gone, and patches of dusty hillside have been planted with trees and vegetable gardens. Residents have built makeshift theaters and cooking huts, and walls of rock have been piled up to form "dialogue circles" - spaces for meetings, parties, and performances.

more here

Via Path of Freedom

American readers of Mint Tea & Sympathy -
John Kerry has supporters in Leith!

I went to Portobello with my friend R - we ate chips on the beach and then came back to Leith for tea as it was getting a chilly. As we drove beside Leith Links I looked over to one of the large early Victorian houses which overlook the links and saw it had a large canvas 'Support John Kerry' banner hanging from two 1st floor windows. Sadly its a part of Edinburgh were few American tourists come.

Lost in the city

Food
DON'T go and eat at Debenhams in Princes St, nice view of the castle but bogging food - I ate the scampi but left the rest.... £5 down the drain.

Pickled garlic where the hell has it been all my life and how did it take me 35 years to discover it last Friday at of all places a container of olives bought at Porty Scotmid?

What kind of knitting needle am I?



You are plastic.
Futuristic, milky, and silky, you are willing to go
where no crafter has gone before. You can do
just about anything, with strength agility, and
pretty colors to boot! While you are good at
slipping and sliding out of sticky situations,
remember to stay where and when you are needed.
Don't overdo it on star gazing when there's
earthbound knitting to be done!


What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not convinced I thought I'd be more prosaic!

Troy
Went to see it last night with two friends - I wanted to see Bad Education but T refused on the grounds they had had a really bad week at work. We went to the Dominion Cinema which might be the last family owned cinema in Scotland. Built in 1938 in Art Deco style, just off the main Morningside road. I got there about 10 mins early so decided to have a precinema ice cream outside as it was so warm. A & T cycled over from the west of the city and using cycle paths took an impressive 20 mins. Troy was however pants. Once you start thinking more about the hairdo's of Brad and Brian Cox et al and thinking about the costume design and production values instead of the plot - the film is pretty much lost. Suddenly the film stopped with an intermission sign up to the screen. A said she couldn't face another 45 mins of battles and killing for no particular point so we left. T was entranced by the Harry Potter cardboard promotions thingy of a cardboard lampost with owl on top completed with a wanted poster which was hologrammed so the person kept appearing and disappearing depending on the angle of your head when looking at it. I left him bobbing his head one way and the other and went to the ladies loos. When I got back I found that the management had come up to them and given them a voucher to see another film! Very sweetly they gave me one two. We went downstairs to the cafe/bar and had drinks so we weren't an entire loss as customers.

The Dominion cinema cafe used to have a resident cat which lived close by and had its own chair. My friend Laura told me about it. If it came to the cafe and found someone sitting on his chair he would march up and down in a very cross way until they moved.

Anyway while we were downing our drinks bemoaning the way of the world and discussing Brad's hair I remembered that I'd bought some heart shaped jelly babies to celebrate A & T's engagement and fished them out of my pocket.

The Urban Badger

is a great title for a blog. I nearly feel off my seat at work when I read this post about what inspired her blog name - a 1984 BBC TV series penned by Andrew Davies no less which starred a Welsh speaking badger called Mary.

All pertinent because I have this job where people are liable to phone up with queries about badgers. A lady phoned last week a badger had moved into her garden in the Borders and made a home near her hedge. I asked if she lived near a busy road and she said 'no' and I thought 'What a sensible badger'! She was worried about it getting into fights with the dog next door and was in residence right next door to her raspberry canes. I passed her onto the relevant person and reflected that I'd be very proud to have a badger in residence. More info on Scottish badgers here.

That is why I call the system that simultaneously dominates over nature and women the “capitalist patriarchy.” The connection between feminism and ecology is basically reclaiming the creativity of nature, reclaiming the creativity and productivity of women. Even today, 70 per cent of the food production in the world is taking place through women's labour. I would imagine that 90 per cent of food processing in the world, where there is good food still and not the industrial non-food and industrial waste products that are sold as if they are food, is in the hands of women.

That creativity is being ignored. A lot of reports on globalization talk about how societies like India have only one per cent processing, as if we are all living in forests collecting beautiful, nourishing fruits. No, we are engaged in creating tremendous diversity in our crops and in our food culture, but that is all an invisible domain of nature and women. We want to reclaim that creativity and that productivity because society needs it. We don't want to do it purely as our own liberation, because we believe the liberation of other species, the liberation of men, the liberation of society across the board and of nature is tied to being able to notice those amazing zones and spaces of creativity. MORE
Interesting interview with Vandana Shiva via Woods Lot

Trickle down morality

An interesting/depressing article by William Rivers-Pitt. I don't for a minute think declaring those Daily Mail photos a 'hoax' put the UK in the moral clear either.

Chav Cat is back!
I was watering my containers this morning and he appeared without a care on my pathway and went into my hall to do an inspection. Jo will be very relieved.

My mother came over at the weekend to cut my hedge. I concentrated on housework and managed to haul out the spare door which used to be on the press cupboard in my bedroom. I'd promised it to my neighbours. Victorian doors are now being sold at the architectural yard for £200. But I'd be lucky to get £50 and hauling it about Edinburgh does not appeal. Jo-from-next-door has got Jim who lives two doors up from me to make cupboards and shelves so hopefully he can hang the door as well. She also reported that Perry AKA the Chavcat has been missing since Friday. Yesterday she put out photocopied notices. We hope he's living the life of riley somewhere (he's chipped so if there had been an accident she should find out quite quickly).

There are lovely springish smells - wall flowers when I walk down the road.

In haste as I should go to bed...
Computer returned from intensive care, hard drives scrubbed, data taken off put back, instructions NOT TO ADD ANYTHING until I get back from Oz, muttering about the need for a new hard drive, phone calls 'What's your email address again?' muttering about the scankiness of microsoft but the patient seems to have evaded MRSA and is back chez Mint Tea.

Been catching up with the blogosphere felt strangely cut off with out email though I did actually manage with marginally more frequent phone calls and in desperation chucking out a few wine bottles with missages in them in passing currents. In all probably 'good for me'.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed by a list of to do's before June Ist. Ranging from buy Australian Dollars, clothes, get hostel accommodation to make a will ( insistence of Mama Mint Tea) emails flying back and forth to Papa Mint Tea's email addy with relatives saying I should stay with them and I'm beginning to feel a major heel for booking a hostel in Surrey Hills for my first 7 days trip. The picture promises a blue painted Victorian Brookie Lace building and it didn't advertise any free drinks vouchers but promised a mixed neighbourhood of cafes. Squinting at the map online it looks about 30 mins walk into the centre of Sydney. I threw financial caution to the wind and booked a room to myself. Now I just have to persuade the rellies that I'm not being stand offish. I'm beginning to feel about 15 rather than 35.

Went off today to try and buy clothes - someone told me that the Sainsbury's Savacentre in Cameron Toll had nice cheap clothes in bigish sizes. I puzzled at the map a the bus stop at the bottom of Leith Walk it claimed that a 14 would take me there. So I hopped on the one coming... did it go to Cameron Toll? Did it hell - I ended up in the Craigmillar Terminus then got off on the way back at Dalkeith Road got another bus and tramped the isles of Sainsburys. Actually there were a few suitable things but the woman at the counter was nonplussed when I asked where they were made - obviously nobody had ever asked before.

Bussed it back up to Newington to go to WordPower and pick up my plane reading. The first in Laurie R King's Mary Russell series which had to be imported from the US and I got SARK's new book, then picked up Peter Carey's book on Sydney and Van Gogh's letters which I'm been meaning to read for a while.

I went past the middle eastern shop so I nipped in to see if they had dried lime which Cassandra had advised me to do. They did - £1.10 for a small packet.

I gave up then went to Spoon for lunch - realised I was sitting beside this man and remembered how he came as a callow youth to the publisher I used to work for bearing review copies from the publisher he now runs.

Millers Art store for pens incase I want to draw while sitting outside on Sydney Cafe pavements... Then to Evans urgh! and finally to meet K at the Cameo to see Perfomance which is being reissued with a new print by the BFI. I've read about it forever in film essays and journals so I was pleased to get the opportunity to see it on the big screen. I found it a refreshing change to watch something packed with ideas and bursting with the desire to say it and say it in a new way compared to the thinness of contemporary films. Donald Cammell is one of the few if the only great film-maker to emerge from the bouregois landscape of Edinburgh (he went to Fettes College like Tony Blair(!)) or there is Bill Douglas who grew up in a decaying mining village outside Edinburgh. I could tell that K wasn't that keen though. Left Cameo to come and tend to the return of the invalid.

A virus on home computer hence blogging light.
I phoned up my IT dept (dad) and its going to be hauled off to the PC hospital on Saturday.

I've been dabbling in gardening and on my surfing travels found this blog with the wonderful title The Show So Far:Dispatches from the Fringes of Late Capitalism/ notes on propagating rare trees which does what it says on the tin and has discussion about avant garde film - what more can a woman want?

Also You Grow Girl has been feeding my grandiose belief I'm going to become this fabulous greenfingered 'good life' woman in Leith.

Finally via Making Happy an article about bell hooks which reminds me I should dig out her books for my Australian trip.

~~~~

Part of her particular gift as an academic is her ability to make highfalutin, incomprehensible theory accessible to a huge range of people. She's deeply committed to challenging the elitism of academia. In town for this weekend's Spirit Matters conference at the University of Toronto, she's spending Saturday giving a public talk on behalf of the Toronto Women's Bookstore, prefaced by a free storytelling session for kids.

"I'm devoted to working to maintain independent bookstores, especially those that deal with women's issues and feminist issues," she states passionately. "Bookstores are important sites because they're democratic. They're places that can choose to do a focus on kids, cuz it's not an academic setting.

"And sometimes I think, gosh, what would I have been like if I'd been able to meet a bell hooks as a kid? I don't have a sense of 'These are the people I want to read to. These are the people that matter and over here are people who don't really matter.' I feel like my audience is truly the world."

The fact that tickets for the talk, titled Love: Connecting Self And Community, sold out almost immediately (we're talking 1,000 seats) shows the status hooks has in alternative circles. She's the intellectual equivalent of a Madonna-sized rock star.

My friend R called on Saturday and suggested a swim and walk. Anything better than housework so I went to meet her at Portobello. The woman at the desk said the baths were closed due to a 'problems with the water'. She said that they had been closed for a while so I sat outside on a bench watching people promenade past and children playing in the sea. The weather began to turn rather gray and drizzly but Scottish children have to be hardy and it made little difference. My massage therapist walked past with her two yorkies who were delighted to be out walking with two old English Sheepdogs. Though the mismatch in size was quite funny.

It started to get really cold and I regretted my choice of skirt and sandals. One tends to think (optimistically) that by May your wooly tights can be stuffed to the back of the drawer.

Then R came out she had been in the pool and was wondering where I'd got to. We drove first to Gullane thinking that would be a nice place to walk and then decided to go further south to get to clearer weather. But even in Coldingham the weather was wet, slightly windy and mist starting. It was so nice to be driving through East Lothian. The fields were all first growth crops, so the freshest green, beautiful undulating shapes occasionally with the piercing yellow of a rape field. As we walked down to the bay in Coldingham I could hear the roar of the surf (Portobello is looking onto the Forth so unless its a winter storm the waves are not so high). There were several surfers out in the bay. All wearing all over wetsuits including mittens it must have been freezing. The water was an icy gray. Around the bay were beach huts, all a bit down at heel. Zipping up my jacket I followed R up the cliff she intrepidly marched off. The next bay was deserted but up and down the cliff it was covered in cowslips. I really haven't seen so many and so thickly before. As we came back over the cliff top about 5pm there was only one surfer left. Not very good at it either. As he struggled and failed to get on the board a woman in an anorak came down the beach stood about 50 yards from the shoreline, hood over face, stoically facing the water. A sort of patient Griselda for our time.

The Surrealist Compliment Generator
'You move with the eloquence of a fiery wall of disintegrating fuselage.'

Via Moleskinerie

Trying to slow down...

Slightly frantic time recently I can barely keep up with The Archers (Grog topped himself).

On Friday I went to the Nile Valley a Sudanese/East African restaurant with 5 friends. I leave work on Fridays at 4.30pm so even with a visit to Wordpower and Tescos I had 2 hours to kill until 8pm. And I ended up feeling ravenous so I went to Susie's Diner around the corner from the West Nile to keep body and soul together. Susie's has great vegetarian food (it used to be vegan and entirely staffed by vegan flatmates of my friend B) but it's not a favourite haunt of mine. Wrong side of town, too many students and .... how can I put it the customers are .... w e i r d - a strange couple the woman much younger than the man had a hissy under the breath row in the corner, two late middle aged women sat talking about detoxing and trying to phone 'Fiona'. I've been in before when it was raining and my senses have been assaulted with a man wearing these h u g e orange plastic pants like something to take to the North Sea in... Anyway I ate my broccoli cheese, whipped out my knitting and spent my time furiously knitting, trying to retrieve my escaping small balls of wool, and muttering under my breath about people who dine late and it slowly dawned on me that I was becoming as mad and weird as any Susie's Diner regular - aaaaaaaaah!

More Jenny Holzer aphorisms

Pictures of Holzer Billboards

Finally send a genuine Holzer e-card!

jenny holzer truisms
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE CAN GO A LONG WAY
A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS
A SINGLE EVENT CAN HAVE INFINITELY MANY INTERPRETATIONS
ABSOLUTE SUBMISSION CAN BE A FORM OF FREEDOM
ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE
ACTION CAUSES MORE TROUBLE THAN THOUGHT
ALIENATION PRODUCES ECCENTRICS OR REVOLUTIONARIES
ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED
AT TIMES INACTIVITY IS PREFERABLE TO MINDLESS FUNCTIONING
BOREDOM MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS
CONFUSING YOURSELF IS A WAY TO STAY HONEST
DEVIANTS ARE SACRIFICED TO INCREASE GROUP SOLIDARITY
DREAMING WHILE AWAKE IS A FRIGHTENING CONTRADICTION
EATING TOO MUCH IS CRIMINAL
EVEN YOUR FAMILY CAN BETRAY YOU
EVERYONE'S WORK IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT
EXPIRING FOR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL BUT STUPID
FAKE OR REAL INDIFFERENCE IS A POWERFUL PERSONAL WEAPON
FATHERS OFTEN USE TOO MUCH FORCE
GRASS ROOTS AGITATION IS THE ONLY HOPE
HIDING YOUR MOTIVES IS DESPICABLE
HUMANISM IS OBSOLETE
HUMOR IS A RELEASE
IF YOU AREN'T POLITICAL YOUR PERSONAL LIFE SHOULD BE EXEMPLARY
IT IS MAN'S FATE TO OUTSMART HIMSELF
IT'S IMPORTANT TO STAY CLEAN ON ALL LEVELS
KILLING IS UNAVOIDABLE BUT IS NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF
LACK OF CHARISMA CAN BE FATAL
LOVING ANIMALS IS A SUBSTITUTE ACTIVITY
MEN ARE NOT MONOGAMOUS BY NATURE
MOTHERS SHOULDN'T MAKE TOO MANY SACRIFICES
MUCH WAS DECIDED BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
MURDER HAS ITS SEXUAL SIDE
OFTEN YOU SHOULD ACT LIKE YOU ARE SEXLESS
PEOPLE WHO DON'T WORK WITH THEIR HANDS ARE PARASITES
RAISE BOYS AND GIRLS THE SAME WAY
REVOLUTION BEGINS WITH CHANGES IN THE INDIVIDUAL
ROMANTIC LOVE WAS INVENTED TO MANIPULATE WOMEN
SLIPPING INTO MADNESS IS GOOD FOR THE SAKE OF COMPARISON
SLOPPY THINKING GETS WORSE OVER TIME
TAKING A STRONG STAND PUBLICIZES THE OPPOSITE POSITION
THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION IS ADOLESCENT FANTASY
THE IDEA OF TRANSCENDENCE IS USED TO OBSCURE OPPRESSION
THE MOST PROFOUND THINGS ARE INEXPRESSIBLE
TIMIDITY IS LAUGHABLE
TORTURE IS BARBARIC
WHEN SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS PEOPLE WAKE UP
WISHING THINGS AWAY IS NOT EFFECTIVE
YOU ARE A VICTIM OF THE RULES YOU LIVE BY
YOUR OLDEST FEARS ARE THE WORST ONES

from thought peach via reconstructed mind

We Live by the Grace of Forests

From Under the Firestar

I have a large wild cherry outside my flat - flowering at the moment but a hailstorm this afternoon means the petals are strewn on the patio. But the very expensive Italian squash seeds are growing! I nearly yelped in surprise when I looked up from the mixer in the kitchen sink to see two green round leaves coyly peeping over the Woolworth's soil in the aluminum pots. I bought artichoke seeds as well and I'm now thinking I might get lucky.

Yesterday was a bank holiday here and my friend A suggested a trip to the country. My mind was blank when she asked where I wanted to go. Then I remembered Dawyck which is an outstation of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh where they hold a collection of trees. The trees include a quite young redwood comparatively, Douglas Fir's and many rhododendrons blooming away tastelessly. Its beautifully landscaped with a burn through the garden and steep hillsides which make for great views even if my thighs are whinging today.We scrambled up and down dale for about two hours then succumed to coffee outside with blue tits trying to get crumbs of muffins off tables and then postcards. However it was very quiet for a bank holiday and we hardly saw a soul though the teas were doing good trade.

We went for proper lunch in Peebles and then went for a walk on the beach at Portobello (it was too nice a day not to get some sea air as well). Small children were flying Bob the Builder and Barbie kites - and the cheepo plastic jobs seem to be working much better than the traditional kites I've tried to fly in the past. We finished off the day by seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I now feel in retreat mode after being with people for so long.

Moroccan Dried Fruit Salad
the main salad
stoned prunes
dried apricots
dried figs
dried sweetened cranberries
sultanas
grated lemon zest (small amount)

the syrup
some water
orange blossom water
rose water
brown granulated sugar
cloves
cinnamon sticks
grated nutmeg
some lime juice

for decoration
blanched almonds
sesame seeds, toasted

Make the syrup by heating up all the syrup ingredients, and cooking slowly. Strain. Pour over the cut up dried fruit. Decorate with the cinnamon sticks, and if you fancy, almonds and sesame seeds. Make it at least a day before, so the fruits can stew.

If using, sprinke with seeds/nuts just before serving. It's that easy.

from Sashinka

My next culinary adventure I think.

Sundayish
I'm feeling - its hard to push myself to be 'productive'. Last night I made a Moroccan style vegan stew with butternut squash for B. She came back from her day of 1st ADing and collapsed on sofa and I joined her. We watch trash TV. I do miss Hodge who loved TV as it meant laps for the dozing on...

Today has been filled with The Archers, supermarket shopping (Scotmid has a fairtrade South African wine Yay!), present wrapping for B's Birthday cocktails bash tonight, a bit of endless washing up. Its a Herculean task just as I think I've finished and put the bloody things away I find a stash of cups lurking elsewhere.

The weather has gone all gray - must push on got to leave the house at 7.15pm.

Happy May Day!
Last night was Beltane. I used to go to the celebrations on Carlton Hill - infact I started going about 3 years after the first Beltane. It was a small cozy affair then. I can remember staying most of the night beside a bonfire and people playing the guitar. My friend P came with some Cypress brandy and got so drunk that when friends tried to explain to her before she got in the taxi where she lived she said 'I don't live there' and she strongly denied being married. (She left her husband some months later). But the last one I went to was horrible people pushing and shoving particularly into the procession where the participants have lighted torches so I decided I was too old for it.

My flatmate and girlfriend went though and said that with the introduction of a entrance fee it was much more manageable. They got in at 6am though and I felt sympathetic exhaustion.

The Beltane celebrations are fake - a made up event - traditionally Edinburghers went to Arthur's Seat to see the dawn on May 1st and bathing in the dew was supposed to make you beautiful.

~~~

I went up town to put in another lomo film and decided to do the one day service. I was desperate to see if using the 800 asa film made any difference. I decided to have lunch at Spoon and walked up to the High St. On the way I passed St Cuthbert's and I could hear the church bells ringing. There was a sign saying it was open so I went down into the churchyard. It was beautiful with many trees, fresh new leaves and blossom. I went in and was amazed to see it had rather sumptuous marble carvings at the one end - not very Presbyterian! Apparently the bells were to celebrate the centenary of the bell ringing association.

I had a wander after my lunch up and down the High St 'eye shopping' for a cardigan but nothing was suitable. I saw a trio dressed in 18th costumes tuning up outside St Giles. Everyone looked so cheerful and less grumpy. Its amazing what a bit of sunshine will do.