Hestia at 61 - warning: contains Gaelic

Back in 2012 - those halcyon days where nobody dreamed that a cough in the supermarket could shut down your internal organs and have you hospitalised - I decided to challenge my dislike of Scotland's native Gaelic language and try learning it via resources in my local library.

As with most things I start, it fell by the wayside almost straight away because I wasn't immediately brilliant at it. TBF it didn't get off the starting blocks because Gaelic is a very difficult language to master from books - sounds and letters don't correspond the way they do in other languages.

Fast forward to 2019 and the year when a cough COULD shut down your internal organs and have you hospitalised and I took up Gaelic on the Duolingo app.

Reader, I stuck with it for over 1,000 days - did the introductory course twice and completely fell in love with the weird little fucker. One thousand days - that Duo streak lasted longer than my marriage. 

I have since had a 15 week zoom class with other furrow-browed natives as we plough through the slenderising, the lenition, the irregular verbs and downright contrariness of Scottish Gaelic - and made new friends into the bargain.

From there we undertook a mammoth 30 week session with our indefatigable tutor Pàdruig Moireach. I loved it, but, by Jimminy - it's a hard language.

Even when that set of lessons rolled to a close, a little bunch of us decided to soldier on and we bought a few more lessons from Pàdruig. But what were we aiming at? Why were we putting ourselves through the hell on earth that is the Genitive case, the 16 words for 'the' and coping with no words for yes/no?

Reader, we decided to sign up for our Nat 5 in Scottish Gaelic via E-sgoil (online tutoring). Last year it was about £70 to take your Nat 5, this year? Nearly £400.  The £70 figure was, of course, subsidised and the £400 is what it costs to sit a Nat 5 (a Nat 5 is what we in Scotland used to call an O-grade). Just think of all the O-grades we sat back in the mists of time, with no thought that they had to be paid for, somewhere.

We started last week - just a getting to know you session really - because the onboarding process was not without incident, but we all seem to be online now. There are over 30 of us taking our Nat 5, which can only be good for the future of the language.

Why am I putting myself through the hell of another exam? 

It's something to aim at. Look at me, fearlessly ending a sentence with a preposition at my age! Gaining (one hopes!) a Nat 5 will show a standard achieved. Another tick on the sheet of life achievements.

I turned 61 last month and it was a lot harder to bear than turning 60. When you turn 60 your life is full of glittery cards and balloons and lunches out and people congratulating you and promising that life really can get going now.

At 61 there is a lot less of that. The caravan has moved on and there is no denying that we are over the crest of the hill now. Hell, there was even a report last week saying that there is a huge jump in the aging process at 60 (that's bollocks btw, I've watched videos that better interpret the statistics!). It would be SO EASY to take my foot off the gas pedal and just potter into my dotage - a little bit of gardening here, a little bit of watercolour there.

But I don't want that. I want to keep my brain active and my body moving. So what if I've become utterly invisible? I'm going to find a way to play that to my advantage.

I bought myself a new pair of running shoes for my joggy walking.
I got most of my hair cut off.
I am studying for a Nat 5.
I am looking after my physical and mental health much better these days.

Re-invention isn't the preserve of the young. And you don't need to wait until Hogmanay to make changes in your life. A Sunday night is as good a time as any.

If you want to change, you just start from where you are. I am minded of a quote from Twyla Tharp, the genius choreographer who writes so brilliantly about creativity:

If you are at a dead end, take a deep breath, stamp your foot, and shout 'Begin!' You never know where it will take you."

What are YOU going to do to get out of your dead end?! 

Hestia is baking scones. And binning them.

I am very partial to a fruit scone, with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Very partial indeed *pats tummy* but also rather keen to cut down on processed foods. I would, I decided in a fit of culinary madness, bake my own scones.

How hard could it be? 

Reader, the first couple of times they were gorgeous! Light as a feather and I felt my full Hestia-potentiality might AT LAST be realised. If this is what I could do with plain flour with added baking powder, how marvellous might my scones be if I actually used SELF-RAISING FLOUR?! At this point you may laugh hollowly at my naive, beginner's optimism.

Thus I purchased a small bag of self-raising flour and set to work. 

I baked a batch on Friday (Tartarus was away for the weekend with his boyfriend) and I thought I'd have a little bout of domestic goddessness.  Not only did they refuse to rise, they remained resolutely doughy inside.

I would also like to tell you that I put the failed scones straight in the bin, but they actually went straight into my tummy. Cue stomach-ache, but not enough to make me put the rest of the scones into the bin. I am a waste-not-want-not kind of a gal.

Anyhoo, yesterday (Sunday) I finally gave up and put the final scones into the bin.

Today, Tartarus is BACK (from the NI road racing) with a vengeance and doing all the housework that his slut of a partner failed to do (correctly. Or just failed to do. Which is more likely). I would, I thought again, make him happy with me by making scones. This would prove that I was good for something.

Wrong.

The scones again failed to rise and I just took their pale, flat, flabby bodies from the oven, let them cool down and tipped them straight into the swing bin. He said nothing, but I felt as if my failure with the scones was just confirming to him that I was indeed generally fucking useless.

Actually, I'm being pretty unfair on him. He DOESN'T think I'm useless. I can practically promise you that as soon as I am out of his eyeline he doesn't have a single thought about me at all.

Which I hope one day to play to my advantage in some as-yet-unforseen way.

I digress! Back to the scones. I don't know what I did wrong. My hands are cold. I barely touched the mix to draw it all together. I remembered all the ingredients .... I wonder ..... My wondering took me back to the kitchen (now cleaned up by the Mrs Mop that is Tartarus after any kind of break: see any kind of post that I made after any of his trips abroad for work) and lo! I hauled out the flour. And. Yes. You guessed it. I have been using the PLAIN flour and not the self-raising flour.

I'll have another go this afternoon with the right flour, but am not looking forward to telling Tartarus that I know where my mistake was made. If anything will underscore what a useless bit of humanity I am, it is admitting that I have used the wrong flour - not once, but twice.

Promise to post pix of some DECENT scones. Assuming that I make some!

Hestia and Spring

I am hesitant to say this, just in case Mama Nature decides to throw storms or snow all over the west coast in a fit of pique, but today feels a bit like Spring.

It's just coming up to the Easter weekend and yeah, it feels quite nice outside really.

Feeling Nice Outside means that I have to don my gardening jacket and get out there and do something in the garden. Which isn't really fun because the soil is still bloody cold to work with.

Anyhoo - I had to get four plants into the front garden before they reported me to Monty Don for cruelty (been waiting - in the kitchen - to be planted for a fortnight) and so today was the day for getting them in.

In other news, here are some photos of a lovely pot that I have at the front door.

Crammed with goodies from Farmer Gracy (can recommend - quality bulbs for sure!) We have Blue Eyes hyacinths, tiny turkestanica tulips and the foliage for the Rasta Parrot tulips and the Pheasant Eye narcissus are all up and looking lovely.

Almost feeling like the garden could look nice this year.

Almost.