Category: Journal
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Emotional attachment to a place and good bread
Have you ever felt an emotional attachment to a place or even a landscape? A feeling of belonging when you go there even when you’ve never been there before? I feel that way about Scotland and to a lesser extent, England. It puzzles me a bit because the environment I grew up in was so…
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Growing your own food
Climate Café no.5 was on in Aberdeen last night. If you live in Aberdeen I highly recommend this series. It’s an initiative of Aberdeen Climate Action, a community organisation for which I’m a volunteer, and we are spreading inspirational messages to encourage our communities to tackle the problem of climate change. Inspirational is absolutely the…
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The Beast from the East
We haven’t been as badly affected as other parts of the country by the extreme weather. We’re close to the sea which always helps to moderate the temperature but we also haven’t had the huge snow drifts they’ve had elsewhere. No one is panic buying food and it hasn’t been particularly cold. That said, we’ve…
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VPud – vegan black pudding
I tried the world’s first vegan black pudding this week. It’s made by a firm in Lancashire called The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company. It was delicious! It’s made mostly with oats and pearl barley, two of my favourite foods. They use beetroot to give it a deep red colour. It’s very easy to make:…
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Minecraft and pubic hair
I’ve never paid much attention to where my site’s traffic comes from until recently and now I’m intrigued by the amount of search engine traffic I get for an old Minecraft post I published in 2014. Google Webmaster tools shows me all the search terms people use to find my site. The top 30 search…
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Don’t eat my muffin!
Daniel left this note before going to school this morning: It says: Dear Dad and Mum and Elizabeth, make sure you save a muffin for Daniel. I have not had mine yet. That’s not entirely true. I made a batch of twelve muffins yesterday and he’s already eaten two of them. This will be his…
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My 10 minutes of radio fame and Ballater
Yesterday I had the very great pleasure of being on BBC Radio Scotland’s Out For The Weekend programme, which is on Friday afternoons. They called me earlier in the week to see whether I’d be interested to come in and talk about my petition and I said unequivocally, yes! It was just a short 10-minute segment…
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Australianisms
A couple of months ago Elizabeth started watching Zumbo’s Just Desserts which is an Australian reality TV cooking show. She loved it. I was amused by all the questions I got after she’d watched an episode, “What’s a bickie?”, “What’s an iced vo-vo?”, “Is Arnotts a real company “, and even (gasp), “What does Aussie…
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Internet Shopping Fail
In wishful anticipation that a lot of people will turn up on Saturday wanting to sign the petition for a bike path on Union Street, I bought some clipboards on Amazon yesterday. The only problem is that I accidentally ordered A5 clipboards instead of A4. Now I’ve got 6 of the damn things and they’re…
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Socks
Some mid-winter sock-shine from Sockamore. These were a free gift from the Swedish-based sock company. They have a pattern to suit every mood. Vibrant socks for the jovial, animal socks for the beasties, and intense socks for the philosockical.
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The mighty River Dee
The River Dee is looking particularly beautiful today. I’ve never seen it with so much ice, not this close to the harbour. Much of Scotland has been blanketed in snow over the past week except for Aberdeenshire. We’ve had crisp, dry, cold, but sunny days. If I can’t have snow then my second choice is…
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Scots Wha Hae
It’s that time of year again when the kids have to learn a poem at school for Burns Night which is the annual celebration of Robert Burns. The first year we arrived here Daniel was very disgruntled about having to learn a poem by heart. “Why do I have to do this”, he asked, “What…
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I am not a cyclist
This is a cyclist: This is me: A cyclist has special clothing for cycling, a helmet, an expensive bike, clip-on shoes, and they travel fast. I, on the other hand, cycle slowly, I don’t wear any special clothing, and I’m terrified of those clip-on shoes cyclists wear. I ride my bike in regular clothes. I…
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Scottish Gaelic
The kids have started watching cartoons in Scottish Gaelic and I’ve been encouraging this because watching cartoons is a nice way to learn a new language. Gaelic is the original language of Scotland after the original original language, Pictish, became extinct. I’m not sure what came before Pictish. Gaelic is one of three official languages…
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Is healthy food expensive?
I got a huge bag of fresh fruit and veggies (and a bottle of sweet chilli sauce) from Sainsbury’s today and I was amazed when it only came to £14.39. Here’s what I got: Afterwards I ducked into Holland & Barrett for some vegan junk food and it was surprisingly expensive at £25.93. It’s not…
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In love with Scotland
I love Scotland so much it hurts. I love the accents, the landscape, the humour, the climate, the weather, the people, the culture, the local produce, the animals, the plants, the traditions, and even the music. Who doesn’t love a highland cow or the fields of purple heather that blanket the hills in autumn? There’s…
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It’s Veganuary!
I’m a bit late with this post because it’s already the 5th of January and Veganuary is upon us! If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution then try going vegan for one month. It doesn’t have to start on the 1st of January. You can start at any time. When you sign up on…
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New Year’s walk up Mither Tap
I woke up this morning determined to climb a hill. I pitched the idea to the kids first. Me: Would you like to climb a hill today? Elizabeth: Ok, sure. Daniel: Will there be a cafe? Me: No. Daniel: Then I don’t want to go. Me: We could take a picnic? Daniel: No, thanks. Me:…
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Birthday activity list and happy Hogmanay!
Elizabeth is 8 today and to celebrate her big day she’s put together a list of activities for us to do: We found it interesting that she put “open presents” as one of the last things to do today. She has opened a couple of present already this morning but all the rest she’s chosen…
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