vivdunstan

Photo from my husband Martin, who was working in the city centre office today.

A wood pigeon perched on a lamppost against a blue sky, head turned to right, as it preens its widely spread tail feathers. The bird is a mix of soft grey and pink colouring on its body, with layers of slate like grey feathers on its wings. Its tail feathers are a mix of white, grey and black, and it's managed to get one of them in its beak!

A wood pigeon perched on a lamppost against a blue sky, head turned to right, as it preens its widely spread tail feathers. The bird is a mix of soft grey and pink colouring on its body, with layers of slate like grey feathers on its wings. Its tail feathers are a mix of white, grey and black, and it's managed to get one of them in its beak!

Just checking for local cinemas near us showing the Doctor Who finale on 31st May (they're screening the last two episodes of the current season together). It's on in the Odeon (just up the road from us, in Douglas) and Cineworld (in Camperdown). And that's just in Dundee. We will be watching it at home. But yup, it's broadcasting in many UK cinemas. Vue too.

Got this late afternoon in Dundee city centre. I am still offered these Covid vaccines twice yearly by the NHS, being severely immunosuppressed. Very quiet vaccine centre - no one waiting when I got there early. I suspect they have a lot of no shows in the current 75+ group. I was weeks earlier for my vaccine than I might have been, keen to get it before my Capercaillie music concert in 3 weeks.

Because I was seen so early we were able to get an early takeaway dinner from a fab fish and chip shop that is sadly shutting its Dundee branch after this weekend. Sat below the uni, overlooking the River Tay to Fife. Bright evening sunshine, and surrounded by optimistic but unsuccessful seagulls. Martin also spotted wild bunnies on the grass down the steps, so dashed down to photograph them.

Planning a very quiet weekend. I expect to be feverish and very sore overnight. More seriously I will probably have a 3 month long flare in my autoimmune brain disease, starting about a week from now. It’s very difficult. But I will be protected.

My husband’s birds list from his walk today. This is from his usual Saturday walk to the wooded river valley / old railway viaduct very near our home. I post this list every week on Facebook, but thought I'd post it here too today!

28 species seen, 3 species heard (including tawny owl at 12:50!), grey squirrel, bee heard

blackbird
blue tit
bullfinch
chaffinch
coal tit
collared dove
crow
dipper
dunnock
feral pigeon
goldfinch
great tit
grey heron
herring gull
house sparrow
jackdaw
long tailed tit
magpie
mallard
oyster catcher
robin
rook
song thrush
starling
stock dove
wood pigeon
wren
yellowhammer

grey wagtail heard
tawny owl heard
woodpecker heard

grey squirrel
bee heard

Prompted by the Broughty Ferry Guide and Advertiser going partially online.

Searching for our unusually named street (which has a couple of spellings, including in the past two sets of differently spelled street signs!) finds lots of references to one set of neighbours especially, including advertisements for beauty classes and hair styling, planning permission for a conservatory, their daughter marrying in 1992 with a huge photo and very lengthy report, and a 1982 impromptu charity fundraising jumble sale held by their kids and others held in their drive and the drive of neighbours over the road from us.

For our other immediate neighbours we find a big wedding photo for their daughter. And for our house find the death notice of the 1986 husband of the couple here. His widow lived here for many years after then before we moved in.

Charmed by the extra insights and glimpses into life in the street before we moved in here 21 years ago. And not just the street, but our very immediate neighbours, the two couples living either side of us, and also the couple directly over the road. Who are all still living here today.

Note some of these reports were found in the newly digitised Broughty Ferry paper, but others were found in a more general search of the British Newspaper Archive e.g. for "15 unusual street name", which turned up more references in other local papers, especially the Dundee Courier.

P.S. Also just found the report of a 1992 wedding + photo of a daughter of the couple immediately over the road (the ones where the 1982 jumble sale was partially held in their drive), and also a 1992 engagement notice for their other daughter.

Back home from the V&A Dundee now. Really enjoyed the Kimono exhibition. We could turn up any time to get in, with our new joint memberships, and the V&A staff handled that we hadn't got our member cards in the post yet. I came away from the front reception desk with a freshly printed temporary membership card, and they will look into the missing cards (I'm thinking Dundee East postal depot backlogs!). It was incredibly busy when we got into the exhibition, so much queuing needed to get around the different sections. Slightly anxiety inducing for infection phobic us. We dodged a few obviously coughing or sneezing people ... And we skipped some bits that were of less interest. But I saw all the bits I really wanted to see. I was especially interested in the early history and some of the related artefacts on display. Plus kimono pattern books and drawings and paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries. I was agog at those. I only had a few things I struggled to see from my wheelchair because of height/arrangement. More of a problem was navigating around the fellow visitors, who were so engrossed that we'd often have to very clearly alert them to wheelchair coming through. I needed a horn! But we both enjoyed it and are glad we went. And just outside was the Dundee Tapestry exhibition still, which was also attracting lots of visitors, and we were happy to go round it. Bought stuff in the shop after - which is still a bit too much of a squeeze with a wheelchair, though somewhat improved after my feedback a year ago which they acted on. Then coffee and bagels lunch at the kiosk/van outside. Very glad we made it, though I won't be surprised if the same thing happens as last time we went there, and we've picked up an infection (was Covid a year ago). Fingers crossed not though!

P.S. Martin just said he could have done with fewer physical kimonos on display. I also found some of those some of the less interesting elements of the exhibition. But as he said, if you went to a kimono exhibition and didn't see lots of kimonos you would probably be justifiably disappointed! But overall the balance was good.

P.P.S. Have just emailed the V&A Dundee with some feedback on the Kimono exhibition, including how it was much better for me accessibility wise than Tartan, and also to thank them for improvements they have made re accessibility in the shop. Which they did after my feedback a year ago.

Astounded by how packed the V&A Dundee Kimono exhibition is today. Way busier than Tartan near its closing. Bought stuff in the shop, then lunch (coffee and filled bagels) from the kiosk outside. Heading home now. More thoughts later.

Erasing a few old devices (some very old) to take to recycling. Got some really weird error messages on my old iPod touch, when I tried to erase it just now. Turned out I needed to resync the built in clock before it would do that ok! Now wiping. Martin is going to take it with my old Kindle to the recycling centre at Baldovie (we are in Angus, but as Monifieth folk are allowed to use this recycling centre on the eastern edge of Dundee, cos ours was closed by Angus Council). I may have another old iPod touch somewhere ... Plus one more currently in use. And a spare, that I bought on the day Apple cancelled them.

I try to run my devices for an extremely long time. I extended the life of my previous Kindle by buying a replacement battery kit, and fitting it myself, with spudger tool and all. But there comes a time when I need to replace these devices. And at least if they can go to recycling some of the vital parts can be recovered and reused.

Huge thanks to the NHS Tayside staff in the Wallacetown health centre in Dundee. Double vaccinated. Expecting to get very ill from an autoimmune neurological flare starting in a week from now, and it will last 3 months. That will be the 10th time for me after a Covid vaccine ... But I want my vaccine protection too much, and am hugely grateful to have received it again. It's currently a fight between my arms re which hurts more. No fever yet.

Very nippy out there, but there's been a very happy astronomer / space scientist out with camera! It was extremely faint for us earlier tonight, but then we got bright lights shooting up, and a marvellous range of red, green and other colours. Extremely visible with the naked eye. Which is always impressive to see, given we're on the edge of a city, and do have light pollution to contend with.

On to another story, and one that I find personally one of the most disturbing in the entire Holmes canon.

( spoilers )

We've just looked through all 77 he ended up with as the final batch! I loaded them all onto Facebook, and four onto Bluesky and Mastodon. But here are just a couple. He saw *so* many buzzards. And yes, that is a very famous lighthouse glimpsed in the distance, beyond Broughty Castle.

He was out with his camera all day, in mid/west Dundee, while our car had its annual service and MOT check.

Hazy sunny view looking across blue River Tay towards Broughty Castle, and beyond that the North Sea and in the distance white Bell Rock Lighthouse

A buzzard seen close up, perched high on a communications tower, facing left against a clear blue sky, looking over the city of Dundee

Back to more work on the Scottish black servants academic journal paper. Now typing up the story of John Ogilvie Glasgow, a servant just outside Dundee. Whose baptism was - like so many others - missing from the ScotlandsPeople indexes. Though in this case it was not so much a case of systemic racism among those compiling the original indexes, but rather the GRO for Scotland and ScotlandsPeople had missed out an entire register of Strathmartine parish baptisms from their computer indexes! Luckily they had the original paper records, and I had traced this one through a separate baptisms index on FindMyPast. ScotlandsPeople were able to email me a digital image.

Portion of the Strathmartine parish registers, including the 1791 baptism of John Ogilvy Glasgow

Forgot to say we had a fab experience with a seagull at lunch yesterday. We were parked in Costas at Ethiebeaton Park above Monifieth. And a huge seagull suddenly landed on the front bonnet of our car, rocking it as it did. It flapped about, staring inside to see if there might be any hope of food. Then flew off again, the car moving again as it did. Sadly neither of us had a camera ready at the right moment. We were awestruck 🙂

Pleased to see the SNP win in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, my constituency. But it was phenomenally close. The SNP vote has plummeted across Scotland, but Dundee has still got 2/2 SNP MPs after this election.

Martin's work company are donating £50,000 to save the Mills Observatory. It's a spinoff company from the University of Dundee. A very successful space technology company. That believe passionately in this historic and well-used custom-built public observatory, and its importance to the people of Dundee and surrounding areas.

Doctor Who's finale is airing in UK cinemas late on Friday night / early Saturday morning, with a double bill of last weekend's episode and this weekend's final one. Initially the closest cinema to us was in Dunfermline. Now the Odeon Dundee just along the road from us is showing it. Though we're not going, it is nice to see the seats are getting booked up. This is for a 10.45pm screening. The bigger screen 6 is iSense I think. In the pictures you can see which seats have already been reserved / greyed out.

Current seat reservation status for Doctor Who in Dundee Odeon screen 1

Current seat reservation status for Doctor Who in Dundee Odeon screen 6

Another rare photo post here from me today. Martin was in Broughty Ferry while I slept, taking more things to Oxfams charity shop, as well as getting some keys cut, and picking up freshly made Portuguese custard tarts. Anyway trust him, he took his camera. And among lots of nice shots I think this is the best one. Photographed looking through a metal whale bone sculpture looking towards Dundee - Dundee has a long, and difficult history with whaling. You can even see the RNLI Broughty Ferry lifeboat there ("Elizabeth of Glamis") as well as oil rigs temporarily in being serviced and wind turbines being built. The big hill in the background is Dundee Law, which towers over the city.

Looking through a whale bone sculpture across the River Tay towards Dundee

A bonus photo from Martin’s lunch break here in Dundee, Scotland. Unusually he was in the office today.

A herring gull flying high, wings spread, towards the camera, with the Tay Rail Bridge behind and in the distance over the river the hills of Fife. The bird is white and grey and has its head turned to our right.

A herring gull flying high, wings spread, towards the camera, with the Tay Rail Bridge behind and in the distance over the river the hills of Fife. The bird is white and grey and has its head turned to our right.

Making another rare exception re posting Martin's photos here. These are of the aurora borealis, a couple of hours ago, photographed outside our home in Dundee, Scotland.

A photo of the night sky above a bungalow roof. Vivid green streaks shoot down in the sky, with blue and purple among them.