The Brownlees moved to Loughborough so they started a blog. Now they've moved to Stirling but this is still your opportunity to keep up with all their goings on...
Having chosen to be a stay at home Mum the reality is that in years to come the girls won't remember the amazing holiday to far flung places we went on or the stuff we bought them or even particularly the places I take them but it is my privilege to be able to make memories with them in the simple things each and every day.
This morning Miriam and I had a friend round to play but we had a wee while before they arrived so we baked some cakes. This is exactly the kind of thing that we chose to put Naomi to morning nursery to achieve. Simple moments spent together before the baby comes and spoils it all!! Naomi and I used to do this kind of thing a lot (and still do while Miriam naps) so it was nice to do it with Miriam without her having to fight over a chance to stir or add an ingredient.
Putting the cases in the trays
Mixing the ingredients
Helping putting the mixture in the tray
The finished article (we ran out of icing!)
She's so proud of herself AND she got to eat a cake while our friends were round!
Well, the voting is over, and the result is in. Obviously I'm disappointed with how it's gone, frustrated that we're now essentially stuck with a lot of what's not working in politics just now, and a little concerned that we've missed both a great opportunity and chance to protect ourselves from the direction that Westminster seems to be travelling in. However, we have to respect how the majority of people voted and move on. A similar number would have been disappointed had it gone the other way. Thanks to those of you who already expressed sympathy or commiserations to me. I'll be fine, really! God's in control.
A couple of thoughts as I wind down on all this. I really hope that this morning's offers of real change ahead do actually come to something, particularly for the thousands of people who voted for the first time in their lives to make a real difference. The noises of backbench conservative MPs and the appointment of an unelected Lord to oversee the changes aren't all that promising. I'm also not all that keen on the various statements about "what a no vote means" this morning: I reckon lots of no voters will have had lots of different reasons! (as with Yes voters too) However, I'm happy to give them a chance - maybe they will surprise us and to be fair, at the moment there does seem to be a real move for change. After all, we still all need to live together and work out the best way to make our country work.
I mentioned yesterday that I was quite taken by the huge numbers of new voters - equally inspiring is that such a large number of people then turned out to vote: 84.6% of all the people on the register. It was over 90% in some places, and nowhere was it below 75%. Remembering that the register is usually a bit out of date (it includes people who have moved away, died or or become ineligible to vote in the past few months) and that it includes the over 300 000 people who registered since 2010, this reflects unprecedented participation levels for this country. I hope that this level of engagement can continue, because the country works much better when everyone has a hand in saying how it should work.
Of course, life goes on. We were quite amused yesterday that Naomi dug out a book that's been unread on the shelf for months:
Our girls continue to have perfect timing!
Yesterday was an interesting one. I ended up doing two things. Quite amusingly, I was assigned to help in Bannockburn, and our base there was Wallace Street! As someone who is (in the main) a Yes supporter for pragmatic rather than patriotic reasons, I felt a little irony in that. For the first couple of hours I was at a polling station. Mostly this is just so that Yes had a presence to allow for last-minute questions and to serve as a human face to that side of the vote. There is also a need to keep count of how many people are turning out to vote, so we can target areas for door knocking. There were a couple of other Yes people there as well as a couple of no's - and although there was some debate at points it was really very friendly and there was some great banter there. We all knew we weren't going to convince the other side, and we're all humans with in interest in what's going on, so we got on well. My experience of those in politics at other times has been similar: while there are a few in it for the wrong reasons, I'd say that most of them do it because they want to make a positive difference and are genuinely nice people. Remember too of course, God loves us all equally! The other thing I was doing was door knocking, which is just visiting houses and reminding people that the vote is on and checking if they need help to get to the polling station. This is quite pleasant because the list we have is all people who said they'd be voting Yes: consequently there was a lot of hand shaking, offers of drinks (none taken - must remain compos mentis), people asking how it was going and general encouragement. This was great fun, but very tiring! I also have a lovely blue hi-vis YES jacket to show for my efforts. No, I don't have a picture. :) I was also interviewed by that bastion of local record, the Stirling Observer, on why I was helping Yes. I'm sure they asked lots of people so I might not appear, but I said it was simply that I thought Yes was the best way to achieve the kind of country I want my daughters to grow up in. While I still think that's true, I suspect that they'll do just fine with things as they are, because they are amazing.
On that note, I think that's all that needs said (probably more). Since this has all been a bit heavy (great Scott!), I conclude with a Llama saying "yeah".
As the adage goes, vote early, vote often. Well, okay, don't do that, but today: those of you who are eligible, please do go out and vote, whichever way you've decided to go. Polls close at 10pm, so you have plenty of time, but the doors really do close bang on 10, so don't leave it to the last minute! If you're genuinely still undecided, try to bring it back to the basics of what kind of place you'd like to live in long-term. There are genuine "heart" and "head" arguments both ways, so ultimately it boils down to which parliament you trust to make the right decisions for you. This is simply a vote about how we're governed, not about who are friends are or our geography.
Whichever way it goes, I at least have been happy with this whole process. For all the media has tried to conjure up images of division and arguments, the true story is far better. According to the Grauniad a record number of people are registered to vote in the referendum - 97% of all people eligible - including people who have never voted in their lives before. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country have taken part in town hall meetings, discussions and debates. We've discussed changing the way we're governed without the use of bombs or bullets, and little violence of any kind. Most of the ill-tempered side of things has been on the internet, where you'll find people getting far more worked up about far less important topics any time you care to look for it. I certainly haven't met anyone who's "fallen out" because of it. I won't naively suggest that it's been trouble free, because there have been some folks spoiling it for everyone on both sides. However, on the whole it has been civil, and this is extraordinary for something that so many are so passionate about.
I won't go over my arguments for voting yes again, as I'm sure you're all looking forward to the debate being done. I've had a good few conversations with people off the back of that blog post and some people have expressed their thanks for putting it together. Thank you to all who took the time to read my ramblings on the matter! I hope it was helpful. Today I am doing my last bit for the campaign - what's called "knocking up", which is simply contacting all those in the area that said they'd vote yes, and making sure they remember to go out and vote. Seeing how the whole campaign is managed, with hundreds of volunteers in Stirling alone, has been fascinating.
Finally, those of you who pray: pray for voters to have wisdom to make the right choice, that the whatever follows the result is good and positive for all people, and that ultimately God's will is done. There are some good words and more points to pray for here, here and here. This world is temporary, and all we can do is make the best of it we can while we're here. "And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever." (1 John 2:17 NLT)
Naomi loves cooking/baking/helping in the kitchen and in the name of encouraging this behaviour I try to let her, although, if I am honest I find it all a little stressful and would rather just get on with it by myself!
Today's dinner is "scrunchy crunchy chicken" from Naomi's ever useful "I can cook" cook book (thanks to Auntie Liz for getting it for Naomi, I'm not even being sarcastic!)
Here she is chopping up some bacon, she chopped some cooked chicken the same way
Here she is popping the stalk out of a pepper, she then tears it up into pieces the right size.
Here she is making the sauce (we just made it in the cream pot to save on washing up later!), cream, flour, a stock cube, pepper and sage
Using a pastry brush to "paint" the filo pastry with melted butter
Before scrunching it up
And proud of the finished article (well apart from when I cook it later on)
A couple of weeks ago I made yet another excursion for work purposes. This time it wasn't quite so exotic - sunny York - for the PATAT conference. I had a talk on the last day of this one and if you're really interested you can see my slides here - it's about planes so there's at least some nice pictures!
The conference is about the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, though it's much more broadly about any problems related to scheduling, including transportation stuff. It's actually the first academic conference I'd ever heard of, back in 2004 when I was doing my honours project on genetic algorithms for timetabling - which for some reason has recently been cited a couple of times. Most of the group from Stirling was there, along with some other very good people, so it was very good for the old networking.
Obviously much of my time was spent doing this.
Somewhat excitingly though, one of the conference dinners was at the National Rail Museum. Excellent! This is me with a replica of Stephenson's Rocket, one of the most famous early steam engines,
Dinner in a train shed.
The view out of my hotel window - a bit greener than Beijing!
Some Yorkish stuff.
The River Ouse, viewed from a place that took two hours to bring lunch.
The hotel was right next to York Racecourse - here's the hotel garden set up for the conference's opening barbecue.
Another quick veg update. We're busy harvesting now. Another batch of peas is on its way soon, but I was really impressed by the courgettes. We've had three now, with more coming:
