Category: Journal
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Diabaig, Scotland
I must be a sucker for punishment because we went for another scary drive today. This time we took the road from Torridon to Lower Diabaig. Like the Bealach na Bà it’s also steep, narrow, and with hair-pin bends but marginally less scary and without the snow. It starts off with a drive around the…
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Lochcarron Weavers and Strome Castle
Yesterday was rainy and so we had a lazy day and pottered around Loch Carron. We spent an hour in the Lochcarron Weavers Shop. They have over 500 tartans and lots of knitted garments. This is my kind of shop! Daniel spoke to one of the shop assistants at length about Martin tartan. They don’t…
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The West Coast of Scotland
We’re on the West Coast of Scotland. It has been more than 20 years since I’ve been over this way. It’s only about 4 hours from Aberdeen which isn’t far, but it is too far to come for just a weekend which is what most of our trips are. Fortunately we all have a full…
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Highland dancing and trees
Elizabeth had her Highland Dance exam today and it went very well. Here she is before the exam. Her kilt was too long so I got some braces and hitched it up. That did the trick and meant that I didn’t have to attempt hem surgery which would have been a huge undertaking with all…
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We’re all quoting Shakespeare, every day, without realising
I’m reading Bill Bryson’s book on Shakespeare which is typical Bill Bryson and full of fascinating facts put together in an entertaining way. What is amazing for me is how much influence Shakespeare has had on the English language. I did not know this but around 10% of all quotes in circulation today are from…
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A Highland Dancer
Elizabeth has her very first Highland Dance exam coming up at the end of this month and her kilt arrived today. It’s a little bit long and I’m not keen to take up the hem because there are so many pleats at the back. Maybe I can put her on a stretching rack instead? That…
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More sledging bloopers
These were taken last weekend. All the snow has gone now and we probably won’t see it again until next winter. It was fun while it lasted. No one was injured in the making of these videos. Me speeding down the hill …. or not. Daniel speeding down the hill and falling off. Daniel speeding…
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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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