Category: Journal
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Siliconing the bathroom
I don’t like mould that grows on silicon in baths and showers and doesn’t come off. I’ve tried vinegar, bleach, elbow-grease, baking soda, and regular shower cleaner but it stubbornly remains. In the past we’ve paid a plumber to come and remove it and reapply fresh silicon. But over time the mould returns and we…
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Pastries, broccoli, tartan skirt, and carrot lox
Foodstory Café in Aberdeen have started making sourdough pastry. Their sourdough bread is already well-known in Aberdeen for its deliciousness so we decided to sample the sourdough pastry, strictly for academic purposes. Foodstory is still only open for takeaways but not long now – they’ll be allowed to open fully at the end of this…
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Seal on the banks of the River Dee
On his walk yesterday Ben saw a seal on the banks of the River Dee and took these great photos and video. We sometimes see seals swimming in the Dee but this is the first time we’ve seen one sun-baking on the bank. This part of the river bank is quite busy with people walking…
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Snow in April
I planted sweet peas outside last month and whenever I plant out sweet peas in March it snows in April. Sure enough, the snow came on Monday and each morning we’ve woken to a winter wonderland. Here it is this morning. There’s more today than on Monday or Tuesday but it feels warm so I…
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Easter buns and the AstraZeneca vaccine
Ben had his vaccination appointment today and it was all very smooth. It was at the mass vaccination centre near the airport. There was no queue, he walked in, got the jab, then had to sit and wait for 20 minutes to make sure he didn’t have an allergic reaction. Ben said there were dozens…
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Back pain, rhubarb crumble, and spring dinners in the backyard before the snow comes again
I put my back out on Thursday lifting a box of groceries from outside the front door. It wasn’t a big box but it had squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes and lots of other heavy things in it. On Friday I was hobbling around like an old woman which was very poor timing because I had…
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Milk deliveries, mung beans, and AstraZeneca
We’ve been getting oat milk delivered in glass bottles to our home twice a week for a month now and we love it. The milk is made by Oato, a British business using British-grown oats. This week the glass bottles changed and have a message printed on the side. I find it odd that people…
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Ben got his vaccine appointment letter
Ben got his vaccination letter today! It’s for the end of next week. The appointment day and time is sent out to each person and you don’t have to do anything other than attend on the day. It’s very organised and methodical. They’ve been going from oldest to youngest and Ben’s group is the 50…
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A new crochet jumper
I made myself a jumper. The diagonal lines are deliberate; it wasn’t me stuffing up 🙂 I got the pattern on Etsy and it’s quite an easy one to follow and a relatively quick project. The daffodils are starting to flower here. Apparently Aberdeen has 11 million daffodils and I can believe it. They’re everywhere.…
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Pancake Sunday
It’s still lockdown here. We’ve been in lockdown since Christmas. I was sure back then that restrictions would be relaxed in January. How wrong was I? We have had to cancel our April holiday. This is the same April holiday we cancelled last year in April – we moved it to this April. Now we’ve…
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But when will they all get electric cars?
I never thought I’d say this but I do feel a bit sorry for the Royal Family this week. I haven’t watched the Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry and probably won’t. I think it’s inappropriate to share family disputes with an international audience and am puzzled why anyone would want to make already strained…
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How to hide chocolate from the kids
The kids have discovered our chocolate stash. We decided to find a new hiding spot but as we walked home from the shop with renewed supplies of said chocolate Ben wondered what we would say if the kids asked, “Do we have any chocolate?” Neither of us wanted to lie but we also didn’t want…
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The velvet dress and a tummy bug
When we visited Falkland in 2019 I found the loveliest vintage clothing store. In it was a 1930s silk velvet dress that I intantly fell in love with; however, it was quite expensive and when I tried it on I couldn’t quite zip it up. It seemed like an irrational decision to pay a lot…
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A week of public disagreements: Salmond versus Sturgeon and the Sussexes versus Windsor
I’m not really sure what to make of the Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon drama this week. From what I understand Alex Salmond was accused of sexual misconduct which occured when he was leader of the SNP (the party Nicola Sturgeon now leads). The Scottish government under Nicola Sturgeon led an investigation into the complaints but…
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The milkman returns!
When I was a child we had milk delivered in glass bottles to our front door. The milkman would come each morning, collect the empty bottles we left out, and deliver new full bottles of milk. It was a wonderful system that sadly became unpopular when I was still little. Today, for the first time…
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I’m next for the jab, AstraZeneca vaccine cuts hospitalisation risk by 94%, and the South African variant
People aged 40-49 are to be prioritised for the vaccine in the next phase which means I could be offered my jab anytime from mid-April onwards. This is great news and much earlier than I was expecting. The UK has now given 27% of the population at least one dose. The UK has made a…
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Ten years on from Christchurch – February 22nd 2011
It’s the tenth anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake today. 185 people died. I have written about my experience of the earthquake on this blog and so to avoid repeating myself I will simply link to that old post – my experience of the Christchurch 2011 earthquake. It changed our lives in so many ways. The…
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Moscow-on-Don
The Zoology building at the University of Aberdeen is being used as a film location for the film Tetris which is set in the cold-war era Soviet Union. They’ve been filming all weekend and closed off part of Tillydrone Avenue so we went to check it out. This is the Zoology building at the University…
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Vaccinate me, please!
Nearly a quarter of the population of the UK has now received at least one dose of the vaccine. This is great news and something we can all feel pleased about. Uptake of the vaccine has been very high at over 90% so far. This compares with a typical vaccination program in the UK which…
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Protecting birds from the cat
The cold-blooded killer brought a bird inside last week. I managed to rescue the bird and it flew away, seemingly unscathed, but it left behind a pile of feathers which it surely needed in the cold spell we had. I felt very guilty and bought some bird food which I put outside on a high…
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