Lost in the Wood

The Dome, Edinburgh Season's Greetings! Last week I scampered up to Scotland for the long awaited Christmas holidays, the big city bright lights and possibilities made me a touch giddy with excitement. My first day in Edinburgh (my home city, much loved and often missed) was spent in fine style with a trip to the sumptuous surroundings of The Dome , a George Street institution. Nowhere seems to outdo their lavish festive decorations. Passing the Georgian columns thickly garlanded with lights, inside you encounter the heady punch of cinnamon, a spice merchants fantasy of sticks embedded in rich traditional garlands festooning the impressive interior. An icicled doorway opens out onto the main dining room and bar with its red glowing spectacle of tall Christmas tree underneath dazzling glass dome. It all feels decadently luxurious. Mum & I headed up stairs to the tearoom (think this is a Christmas tearoom only, not all year round) where I'd been assured a wonderful aftern...

Royal Mile Performers Clearly I've been having too much fun & so have been neglecting the weekly blogging. Preparations are in full swing (hint-this is code for frantically working to get it all ready) for Helfa Gelf which starts on Friday, that's THIS FRIDAY! Before immersing myself fully in this though, I just wanted to do a brief round up of the rest of the Edinburgh jaunt. In a programme heavily weighted towards Richard Herring (probably my favourite ever comedian, consistently funny, innovative & hard working), I went to another of his podcast recordings. This one featured Bridget Christie (who the next day deservedly won best show in the Fosters Comedy Award- the renamed Perrier for anyone in their 30s or older), Ed Byrne & a 5 min comic poem by another favourite Luke Wright. Also saw RH's solo stand up show, 'We're All Going to Die' which was enjoyable but not quite as brilliant as previous stand out shows like 'The Headmaster...

It's been a busy week filled with Welsh exams, making felty bees, wrangling with writing an artist's statement (which isn't pretentious) and enjoying this glorious sunshine (new garden chairs purchased, BBQ had, wandering round town with delicious ice cream and glasses of prosecco in the garden, all very lovely). Firstly the exams, it's taken me about 4 years of living in North Wales to get round to taking Welsh language lessons but now I finally have embarked on it, I'm finding it very rewarding and far more fun than I'd expected. Four hours a week over two night classes doesn't, I realise,  sound very compelling but it's turned out to be a lovely, lively and supportive group. There's no denying that it seems a tricky language and it's taken me from last September to get my head around the fact that Caernarfon is sometimes said 'Gaernarfon'  and other times 'yng Nghaerfon' depending on the initially bewildering use of mutati...