Singing for my supper

We didn't go far out of town, but one of the beauties of Scotland is that from the major cities you can be away from the city and into rural countryside in a matter of minutes. Callander/Killin used to be one of my favorite "get away from it all" spots when I was working in Scotland and living with the family in Glasgow, and - thanks to the glorious weather (we're still marvelling at the 50+-degree temperatures and true sunshine that we had for 95% of our visit!) and a cousin with a car, we had a magical day out on this trip, including not only a quick stop by my former haunts, but also getting to see a couple of the minor lochs, a very castle-y castle and a celebrity Highland Cow - all within an hour's drive of central Glasgow. Bliss. Loch Earn Even in the depths of midwinter, the countryside is staggeringly beautiful. FWIW, this was about 3pm - may have been warm, but the sun still goes down early in the frozen north.... Doune Castle Edinburgh Castl

(PSA: this post probably ought to come with a tilt-shift alert!! The camera I was using recreates the effect of these adjustable focal-plane lenses digitally and since I love it I may have... uh... indulged a little..... :) Duddingston Village (from Arthur's Seat) Towards the Lothian Coast (from Arthur's Seat) Duddingston Loch (from Arthur's Seat) Edinburgh from the Castle same view without the TS effect You can always find a muckle coo if you look... The Forth Railway Bridge

The University Yup, blue sky. In January. Kelvingrove Art Gallery (organ recitals - in the art gallery - most lunchtimes) The Burell Collection, in the idyllic grounds of Pollok Park Pollok House (The tilt-shift feature of my Canon s95 saw a lot of use this trip...!) One of the themes of the entire visit: Muckle Coos (aka Highland Cattle). The prizewinning herd at Pollok House are known around the world

Nearly thirteen years. Since I left the UK I've had a baby, established a career, and watched my life morph from what was more-or-less still a student lifestyle to that of boring (but stable!) suburbia. I've been re-assimilated into my birth country and had the luxury of living near my parents and getting re-acquainted adult-to-adult. I've learned to accept and enjoy the higher standard of American living, embracing the 24hr supermarket with open arms, and have grown to consider firehose-strength water pressure a constitutional right. I've even started thinking of Chipotle as our "local". Still, within minutes of landing in Glasgow, it felt like being back home. Now, granted, I never lived in Scotland (although I did work there and spend extended time there), so perhaps the changes of 13 years weren't as obvious to me as they would have been in London or Manchester, but even with that in mind, there was that sense of coming home and, frankly, of never ha

A well-timed nudge expressing pleasure that I'd "finally posted again" (!) reminded me I hadn't yet posted my annual roundup for the year. Somehow while working on that I was also moved to experiment with a "new year, new look" for the blog so apologies for any glitches - work in progress! So, without further ado: In 2010 ..... I finally caught up on about 5 years of British television I'd managed to miss; this project started out merely as entertainment, but quickly became something much more artistically important and, in a way, prompted the theme of dramatic exploration that drove my performing year. We started the year with North & South and were bowled over by this amazing production - it would be hard to overstate what a tremendous artistic "reboot" it prompted (it even warranted its own blog entry ). Impressed as we were, we decided to give some of Richard Armitage's other productions a try which led us first back to S