insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Daniel turns 18 and gull rescue
Daniel turned 18 this week and when asked what he’d like to do to celebrate he said a walk in the woods with a picnic beside a waterfall. And so we planned the Kincardine O’Neill and Dess Waterfall circular walk for today. In preparation for a picnic I walked into town this morning to get…
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Dancing, hair and Dickens
Elizabeth got her first ever 1st overall trophy today in the intermediate section of a highland dance competition. She came 1st and 2nd in every dance taking 1st overall. She was absolutely thrilled. The trophy is massive and by far the biggest and heaviest one she’s ever got. I’m still having weekly highland dance lessons…
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Knitting with cables and photos from the weekend
Yesterday we went to Blairgowrie to have Elizabeth measured up for a new highland dance jacket at Piob Mhor, a shop that makes kilts and highland dance outfits. It was a gorgeous drive as Aberdeenshire is still covered in snow and the hills to the west were white. As we went south the snow gradually…
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Sledging at Duthie Park
I do love the snow. We had another snowy day today and Aberdeen is looking beautiful. We made the most of it and went sledging. There’s rain forecast for Sunday so it looks like it may disappear soon unfortunately. I got a video of a starling at the bird feeder this morning when it was…
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A walk in the snow at Tom’s Cairn
We woke up to a winter wonderland today. I immediately went out for a run in the snow, stopping many times to take photos. After breakfast we went for a hill walk in Finzean up to Tom’s Cairn. We haven’t done this walk before and I was a bit hesitant about an unknown hill walk…
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Happy birthday to Elizabeth and happy hogmanay 2025
We followed our tradition on New Year’s Eve yesterday which also happens to be Elizabeth’s birthday to go to the pantomime at His Majesty’s Theatre. It was excellent. We had particularly good seats this year in the 5th row from the front but this meant we got wet as in typical pantomime style one of…
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Finzean walk and shop
I think I’ve fully recovered now aside from being a bit snotty with a lingering cough. We made the most of a sunny, mild winter day today to go for a walk in the countryside. I chose Finzean because I wanted an excuse to visit the Finzean farm shop. We arrived at the farm shop…
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Christmas 2024
Merry Christmas everyone! I am feeling much better today and it has been a wonderfully relaxing day at home. We all slept in, opened presents, then went for a walk down the river with some friends. It’s been an exceptionally mild day today of about 12C. Then we had a late lunch of roasted vegetables,…
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Lebkuchen
I make lebkuchen in December every year. This year I modified the recipe slightly to make it healthier by reducing the amount of sugar and replacing vegan butter with olive oil. I try to avoid all seed oils these days but olive oil in small amounts is probably ok. This is the good thing about…
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Covid for Christmas
I finally got covid. I took a test on the weekend and the two lines appeared immediately. I haven’t had covid until now and was thinking I might be one of those super-humans who have no symptoms but it turns out I was probably just protected previously thanks to the vaccine. Ben got very ill…
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Street art, yule logs, and Christmas puddings
This week the local artist behind KMG painted the other wall on Deeside Way beneath Great Southern Road. She did the opposite wall for us a couple of years ago in 2022. I have always thought it would be nice to continue the theme along both sides of the path so this year we applied…
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Newton Dee pasta and parsnip soup
Last Saturday we went for lunch at Newton Dee. It has been a long time since I’ve been there and it was delightful. They had a good selection of cakes and I always enjoy looking at their crafts. I stocked up on goodies in their grocery store including this fantastic find of Newton Dee pasta…
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Sourdough mother, glasses and beets
When I first started making my own sourdough consistently a couple of years ago I used a starter bought from Hodmedod’s. I’ve been feeding and nurturing that same starter ever since. Recently I wondered how old it was, or as they say in baking parlance, “how old the mother is”. I emailed Hodmedod’s to find…
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Eat like a medieval peasant
I’ve just finished reading, or rather, listening to the audiobooks of the Shardlake Series by CJ Samson. They’re set in Tudor England during the time of Henry VIII and follow a hunchback barrister called Matthew Shardlake who reluctantly gets tangled in murder mysteries he’s forced to solve under request from Thomas Cromwell and later by…
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The season of Christmas markets has begun
It is the season of Christmas markets and we’ve been to two so far and counting. Last weekend was the Christmas market at Ardoe House, a Baronial 19th century mansion about 3 miles from Aberdeen that’s used as a hotel. It’s in a lovely picturesque spot beside the River Dee. The market was extremely crowded…
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Snowy Aberdeen and vintage tweed trousers
Winter has come to Aberdeen. I took this photo on my run on Monday. Since then it has snowed a bit each day. Here are photos from today’s run. We set our thermostat to 16C during the day so it sits at about 16C indoors. I don’t feel cold and if I did I’d just…
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A weekend in Angus
For the past two years around the time of Remembrance Day, Elizabeth has competed in the Forfar Highland Dancing competition. We make a weekend of it and spend a couple of nights in Angus and that’s what we did this weekend for the 3rd year running. The competition is always on a Sunday and takes…
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A weekend of gardening, cooking and theatre
Ben I spent a couple of hours this morning helping to plant 2000 bulbs at a local community garden along with some other volunteers. We managed to plant all of them and I look forward to seeing the flowers next spring. We saw lots of earthworms including this big specimen. Yesterday Elizabeth I went to…
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Photos of Lucille and Aberdeen
We never see our hamster Lucille unless we get up after midnight and sneak in for a peak. She’s very shy and only comes out when we’ve all gone to bed. However, today I freshened up her home and as part of that put in some new sprays which she loves. This enticed her out…
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Vegan cheesecake and autumn colours
Yesterday I made a raw, vegan cheesecake which is made with dates, cashews and fruit. No sugar, no cheese. Just whole plants foods only. It’s really nice and quite easy to do as long as you have a food processor. The base is made with almonds, cashews, and dates. The cashew cream in the middle…
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