insignificant ramblings of a 40-something woman
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Elizabeth dancing the Highland Laddie
Elizabeth performed the opening dance for her school’s international festival last night. This is the Highland Laddie which is danced to the tune of the same name and is a renowned regimental march. Indeed the dance steps were apparently choreographed by soldiers in the first world war.
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Lost Loch Distillery and standing stones
I experienced a tasting session at the Lost Loch Distillery yesterday for a friend’s birthday. It was a wonderful experience. Lost Loch is very different to your average Scottish distillery because it’s not a traditional one with giant copper stills and they don’t actually make any whisky. They do produce two whisky products but they’re…
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Getting out of bed for berry compote
One of the nice things about going away even if it’s only for a day or two is it takes you away from routine and habit while providing new experiences that you may just want to take home with you. One of these was the berry compote I had on my porridge each morning at…
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Pigeon rescue, St Andrews, Rufflets, and antique lecture notes
We got back to Aberdeen today after a couple of nights in St Andrews. Daniel wanted to go to the university open day so we decided to make it a short family holiday. More on that later. Far more exciting right now is that not long after arriving back Victoria became obsessed with something behind…
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Meet Howard the highland cow, crochet animal head
Today I finished Howard, the latest addition to my collection of crochet animal heads. He’s a highland cow in case you can’t tell. The tufts of fur on his heard are real highland cow fur which we collected from a fence at Crathes Castle over a year ago. The fur has been sitting in a…
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Elizabeth, litterers, chocolate, Easter
Elizabeth is an unusual girl. Up until last year she didn’t have a smart phone and vehemently opposed the idea of getting one. I eventually force one upon her for a school trip but since then it has sat with a flat battery, little used. She’s not on any social media sites and has no…
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Books, knitting, daffodils, and diet
One of my favourite weekend activities at the moment is to knit while listening to audio books. I’ve got through several very good books lately that I can recommend if you’re looking for something. First is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. This a brilliant, funny but tragic novel about an Irish family going through…
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Scotland’s new hate crime law
In 1697, Thomas Aikenhead became the last man to be hanged in Scotland for breaking blasphemy laws. He was a student at Edinburgh University and only 20 years old. His crime was to criticise Christianity. Edinburgh tour guides tell tourists that, while walking home inebriated one very cold evening he told his friends he wished…
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A Mother’s Day lunch in Ballater
I can’t remember when I last spent Mother’s Day with my mother but it was decades ago…that is, until today. Mum is visiting and we made the most of the opportunity by going for lunch at the Rothesay Rooms in Ballater. The Rothesay Rooms were originally established by the then Prince of Wales, Prince Charles,…
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Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve
About 20 minutes south of Aberdeen by car along the coast is the Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve which hosts the largest seabird colony on the east coast of Scotland. In summer it is teeming with over 100,000 Guillemots, Razorbills, and Kittiwakes. We visited it today. Since it’s only March there were not very many birds. You…
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Hill of Fare
Cold frosty mornings often turn into bright sunny days in this part of the world which is what we got today. To make the most of the clear skies we walked up the Hill of Fare knowing we’d get some good views at the top and we weren’t disappointed. You can see in every direction…
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David Suchet: Poirot and more, plus a lovely dress
My sister bought us tickets for Christmas to see David Suchet at Aberdeen’s 2024 Granite Noir festival. We saw it last night in Aberdeen’s magnificent music hall which was originally built in 1822 and the show is excellent! There are still some tickets for the second show tonight; we highly recommend it. David Suchet is…
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Pets and weekend happenings
I was rudely awoken by the cat at 6:30am on Saturday. She slapped me in the face with a paw demanding breakfast. Fortunately she hadn’t put her claws out. Ruby has settled in very well. She’s a very friendly little thing and unlike Rocket she likes being handled and always climbs onto our hands when…
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Spectra 2024 and a walk in the woods
It has been a dreich weekend but while others may complain I’ve rather liked it. The soft, gentle lighting is kinder to my eyes and it also meant the queue for Spectra (Aberdeen’s annual light festival) was shorter than last year so we actually got into it this time. Last year the queue was too…
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Baking bread in the instant pot
When our oven was broken for seemingly forever, I bought an Instant Pot to pick up the slack. We lost our pressure cooker in the fire in the utility room a couple of years ago and still hadn’t replaced it. The Instant Pot not only has a pressure cooker but can also bake, boil, air…
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Meet Ruby
Rocket our hamster died last week. He had stopped running on his wheel and had several large tumours that had become so big they were starting to impair his mobility. We decided the kindest thing to do was to put him to sleep. We’ll miss him. He was a cool dude. It’s always really hard…
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Aberdeen Town House and other photos
This week I had the pleasure of going into Aberdeen’s Town House, a civic building built in 1868-74 by architects Peddie and Kinnear. It is built in Scottish Baronial style which means it has a neo-gothic appearance and a roofline that resembles a castle more than a city town hall. The inside of the building…
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Falls of Dess and new oven at last
We had a delightful picnic today beside the Falls of Dess in Kincardine O’Neil. It’s Daniel’s birthday this week and he wanted to go for a walk in the country and specifically chose this waterfall which we visited once before for Ben’s birthday. It’s a lovely, mostly flat walk beside farmland and through forest with…
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Snow day
If it’s going to be cold then there should be snow and snow we had in abundance today. What fun it is and so pretty. And we had such fun sledging down the hill at Duthie Park. We had the whole slope to ourselves too.
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I captured the cardigan
This year I want to try to buy and wear only natural fibres. I know at the outset I will fail because of coats and running shoes and probably other things I haven’t thought of. It’s difficult to find a waterproof coat that’s not made from plastic. I do have a waxed cotton coat that…
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