vivdunstan

A phenomenally sunny Geddes Quadrangle at Dundee University this afternoon. We were baking for the 20 minutes or so we were sitting there! Lovely spot.

This is my photo for once, snapped with my iPod. Difficult to get the light balance good, but I was struggling to see anything much on the device in the bright sunlight.

Crikey I so wanted to type 2024 there haha!

I've got off to a flying start this year, partly with 2 books that were hang overs from before, but also a quick read for my book club. But then I also quickly read 3 other books that had been hanging around for too long, and I wanted to pass on to charity shops. I'd previously started reading a couple of them.

1. An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson
2. Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
3. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
4. Egyptian Myths: Meet the Gods, Goddesses, and Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Jean Menzies
5. Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb by Zahi Hawass
6. ABBA: The Treasures by Ingmarie Halling and Carl Magnus Palm

An Academy for Liars is a dark academia book, with rather a lot of violence and gore added to the mix. It was ok, but I had to push to keep reading it to the end. 3/5 stars.

Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri was an incredible insight into the experience and history of black hair. A strong 4/5 stars.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop was another 3/5 star read for me. Ok, mostly, but a rather odd writing style, and an unexpected and lengthy shift away from the cosy bookshop setting mid way through. 3/5 stars.

Egyptian Myths by classical historian and YouTuber Jean Menzies was an entertaining and informative text, full of striking large format illustrations from Katie Ponder. I did find the order and structure a little confusing in places, but I learned a lot. 4/5 stars.

Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb is a large format coffee table book, filled with huge photographs and details of many hundreds of items from Tutankhamun's tomb. The items chosen are a selection carefully curated by Zahi Hawass, and it's not exhaustive. But for what you did get it was jaw dropping, including multi-page folding out large photographs. Both Martin and I were stunned by parts. 5/5 stars.

ABBA: The Treasures is a large format squidgy book telling much of the story of ABBA in photographs, reminiscences, and reproductions of paper ephemera connected with them, tucked into folders inside that you open up and work through the contents of. It's a nice book, but a rather narrow perspective on their life, focusing mainly on some of their 1970s international tours, which one of the authors accompanied them on. I did feel that I was missing out on the wider story. But the folders of paper ephemera were a delight. I was particularly amused by the customs list, for the Australian tour I think, including a "piano accordion". 4/5 stars.

Again a rare photo post from me here. I post far more on my Mastodon, Bluesky and Facebook feeds. Almost always photos from my husband. Usually from his Saturday walk near our home. Like this one.

This afternoon I had my first breast screening appointment from the NHS. It is offered every 3 years to women in Scotland between 50 and 70. Sometimes you have to go to a hospital for it, but I was booked in for a mobile scanning unit in the next door town, Carnoustie. It took us just 15 minutes to get there this afternoon, when it can take up to 45 minutes to get to our local big hospital. We parked right by the scanning unit, so I hardly had to walk any distance. At the hospital I'd have had to walk masses. I waited until a short time before my appointment before going in, because it is a small space. They had two discreet changing areas, and a waiting area for others. I was seen soon. It was very caringly done, with discretion, and in a way that put me at ease. Not always comfortable, but not hard to go through. And the nurse was lovely. I will get the results by post in the next 5-7 weeks. Then be called back again in 3 years.

We hadn't realised it but today was the opening day of the Senior Open golf championship at Carnoustie. That probably explains why the car park was so full! It was good weather for them. Martin was excited by a plane flying around, and dashed out of the car to photograph it. Its flight path was a constant loop above the town. I wonder if it was filming or photographing the golf from on high. We didn't see much of the town today, and I was too ill today to go exploring. But we did notice that Carnoustie has an awful lot of hotels and pubs. I guess for the golf. The town has a fair number of golf courses, including a championship one.

I especially liked this photo Martin took yesterday afternoon in the wooded river valley near our home. More photos are posted on my Mastodon, Bluesky and especially (most numerous) Facebook feed.

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

Pretty amazing aurora tonight, though we had to wait a long time up here in northern Scotland for it to get dark enough! We don’t usually see vertical streaks with the aurora, but that was quite something. And still is. Martin is still out seeing if he can take a good picture. Aurora viewing was accompanied by the sound of snuffling hedgehogs in our garden 😜 Meanwhile I am back in the warm.

Again making a rare exception of posting one of Martin's pics here. This was taken while he waited outside the accordion tuner's house this morning.

Photo from Martin today. Taken in the V&A Dundee's walkway. The view is looking over the River Tay towards Fife.

I uploaded some photos Martin took by the sea in Broughty Ferry, uploading them to other places. But I thought they might be of interest here too. Here are 4 of the best pictures. This is Broughty Ferry, a seaside suburb in eastern Dundee, Scotland. near where we live.