Category: Journal
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Hamster escapes!
Bella (our hamster) escaped from her cage last night. Daniel was still partly awake when he heard a thud in the hall outside his bedroom. Eventually he dragged himself out of bed to check on his hamster and one of the tunnels had fallen off. She has three levels connected via tunnels, and one of […]
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The avocado tree
A few years ago I planted an avocado seed from a supermarket avocado I ate. Within a year I had a nice potted plant for the kitchen. Here it is back in 2020. Today the tree is close to 3m high. It lives in my office beside my desk. I’m not sure what to do […]
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Slow food
Cutting out salt has been a bit of a learning curve for me. But we’re slowly falling into a good routine and I thought I’d share some ideas for inspiration. I started making my own bread and whether it’s a coincidence or not the start of homemade bread consumption is when my blood pressure dipped […]
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Bunny roundabout
There’s a roundabout in Garthdee in Aberdeen that’s home to a colony of rabbits. It’s a very busy junction in a fairly industrial area with large shopping centres and building supply stores. Someone feeds the rabbits. There’s always a selection of carrots and green leaves and bunnies can usually be seen munching away when you […]
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The greenhouse
We were lucky to inherit a greenhouse with our house when we bought it almost 7 years ago now. I love growing veggies in there through the summer and love sitting inside on a sunny spring day when it’s still cold outside. Today in Aberdeen is 10C but inside the greenhouse it’s 28C. Sometimes I […]
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Eat healthily or fit in?
My average blood pressure for the past few days is 115/73. A few weeks ago I thought I’d never see a reading under 120 but then one day I got one and gradually over the next few weeks it happened more and more often to where this is now the norm and I’m disappointed if […]
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Some crochet garments
I accidentally sprayed my armpit with peppermint oil this morning. Don’t do it: it stings! I thought it was deodorant as the bottles are the same. We bought some peppermint oil recently and put it in a glass spray bottle to spray as air freshener after the fire. It did a good job of hiding […]
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The evolution of salt
The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine is an ancient Chinese text dating from 300 BC. A translation from the text reads, If too much salt is used in food, the pulse hardens… The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine The Chinese knew more than 2000 years ago that salt causes high blood pressure. In […]
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Homemade haggis
I made my own haggis last night for the first time ever and it was delicious, better than the supermarket version. I got the recipe from the Scottish Vegan Cookbook by Jackie Jones. It’s a wonderful book and I do recommend it. Scottish food is renowned for being fatty, meaty, and generally unhealthy but Jackie […]
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Birsemore Loch
There’s a lovely loch in Aboyne that I didn’t know existed until recently. It’s only small so good if you just want a quick walk through forest. It’s called Birsemore Loch and it’s special not just for the beautiful scenery but because you can walk past the Queen’s Hut which is a log cabin built […]
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Loch Callater
It’s always nice to find a new walk we haven’t done before and that happened today with a walk up to Loch Callater. The walk starts about 3 miles south of Braemar at Auchallater Farm. There’s a small carpark there which costs £3. It’s about 7 miles to the loch and back from the carpark […]
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Knock Castle in the snow
It snowed in Ballater today so we decided Knock Castle in snow was the place to be and we weren’t disappointed. You can’t beat a castle ruin in Scotland in winter snow. I got Ben doing a jumping shot this time. My jumping shot is fab. Look ma, no legs! You can go inside Knock […]
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Craigendarroch, Ballater
We went for another fantastic walk today, this time up Craigendarroch in Ballater. I got lots of great photos. We’ve climbed up Craigendarroch many times now and in all seasons and weathers. Today was mostly sunny and a very easy climb except for the beginning bit where we ended up off the path. We usually […]
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Seven Bridges Walk and Knock Castle
We went on a lovely, long walk in Ballater today called the Seven Bridges. We extended it slightly to Knock Castle and all up we think it was around 6.5 miles. The walk starts at the old train station and follows the main road out of town towards Braemar initially, before turning left onto Invercauld […]
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Fruit and hare
I had a busy weekend again although not quite as busy as the last one. I did some wallpapering in the kitchen. With the cupboards extending to above the picture rail I was able to easily wallpaper a section next to the start of the cupboards. Plus some of the old wallpaper was damaged when […]
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Wildfarmed flour at Bandit Bakery
All the bread at Bandit Bakery today was baked using Wildfarmed flour. This is wheat that is grown alongside other crops to increase soil health and biodiversity. Instead of one giant monoculture of wheat, the rows of wheat are interspersed with a herbal lay of plants, grasses, and legumes. I bought my usual loaf of […]
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More dramas in the night
We had another eventful night last night but nothing life-threatening this time. First I was woken at around 1am by the sound of Elizabeth’s bedroom door. I went in to find her getting dressed. I told her it’s 1am and she laughed and went back to bed. This morning she told me she thought she […]
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Busy weekends, crochet, step stools, greenhouse, and war
What a busy weekend this has been. I went into hyperdrive on Saturday and accomplished a huge number of jobs which felt good. I started the day packaging things for the post office and writing a letter. Then I dropped some used carbon dioxide cylinders off at the corner store to return to the manufacturer […]
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A new kitchen: before and after pics
This week we got a new kitchen. It was planned last year and fortunately went in after the laundry fire and not before. The fire did make things a little more chaotic because last weekend we had to empty our old kitchen of stuff; stuff we were planning to put in the laundry. Instead we […]
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The day after the fire
I didn’t sleep very well last night. I could smell smoke all night and it’s difficult to ignore that when the previous night this same sense of smell helped avert a serious disaster. I kept reassuring myself it was just the left-over smell from the previous night but then when I shut my eyes my […]
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