insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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A new dress
I haven’t been op-shopping for ages but had the chance to duck into a charity shop on our way home from the vegan festival today. I got this lovely dress.
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The future of food
Aberdeen had its first ever vegan festival today and we went to check it out. Despite being vegan for more than a decade, this was the first vegan festival I’ve ever been to. I’ve never lived anywhere that had such a thing. It seems ironic that my first vegan festival should be in the home…
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Who should I vote for?
Since we moved to the UK in 2014 I have voted in four elections: a general election, a Brexit referendum, a council election, a Scottish parliamentary election, and another general election next month will make five. We also narrowly missed out on voting in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 by just two weeks. I’m…
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The Trojan Slug
It’s frustrating to watch seeds germinate and then grow only to see them eaten by slugs a week later. In an attempt to outwit the slugs, yesterday I moved two trays of seedlings inside overnight and put them on our dining table. When I woke up this morning I saw telltale signs of slug dining: there were…
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International Festival
I have spent most of this weekend hard at work in the kitchen. The school had an international festival today and the mum organising it asked me whether I’d like to bring some vegan food. I was delighted to be asked and felt I had to put on a good spread as a representative of plant-based…
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Inside my greenhouse
It’s a lovely drizzly day today. I cycled to Newton Dee thinking I’d have the bike path all to myself but there were lots of people there – dog walkers, cyclists, and joggers. I love it when it’s overcast and I don’t have to squint. Squinting is annoying because it gives me wrinkles and somehow…
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Do animal rights activists care more for animals than humans?
Some people think that those who advocate for animal rights care more about non-human animals than human animals. That’s not true at all. The ethicist, Peter Singer, who wrote Animal Liberation back in 1975 thinks we rich people ought to donate 10% of our salary to the world’s poor. He gives around a quarter of his own…
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Cultural blindness
The following excerpt is from an article in The Times this week, Richard Dawkins: ‘When I see cattle lorries, I think of the railway wagons to Auschwitz‘. Is this what it was like, Richard Dawkins wonders, for ordinary people in Nazi Germany? “There’s a kind of laziness if you live in a society where things…
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Why does the Aberdeen city council think it’s acceptable for children to cycle in the bus lane?
This is the expectation on Union St because there is no cycle path. Children are wobbly on bicycles and do not always cycle in a straight line. Buses are huge compared to bicycles, especially children’s bicycles. Visibility is also poor for bus drivers. Children are slow cyclists and cannot keep up with traffic. Children on…
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A crochet hat
Our recent glamping holiday on a luxury bus was on an alpaca farm (pics here and here). I bought a couple of balls of the lovely yarn from the Bankrugg Boys and made myself a hat over the weekend. My hat: The yarn is a lovely natural colour and I’m so happy with how the it turned out. It’s much better…
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Single-function devices and other things
You know those times when you have a brilliant idea that you’re convinced everyone will love? But when you pitch it no-one else is remotely interested? Or those times you learn something new and it feels like you’ve always known it and that everyone else should also know it but you forget that most other people…
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The inconsistency of eating meat while objecting to abortion
For any woman having an abortion is a serious decision that she will only do if she has something quite important at stake. Whereas people who are prepared to go into the supermarket and buy some ham don’t need to do that at all. They could easily eat something else. They are supporting the pain…
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Hodmedod’s
Recently I discovered lentils and soya beans are grown in the UK and in the process I stumbled upon Hodmedod’s, an online store selling British grown beans and other products. I decided to give it a try and bought the big vegan box: Apparently carlin peas make a good replacement for chickpeas. I will whip…
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Stick insect abortions
I’m a murderer. I killed dozens of our pet stick insects yesterday with my bare hands, squishing them into green slime. I felt pretty awful about this and had nightmares last night about mistreating pets. I realise this self-imposed guilt is irrational because I frequently squish insects in my greenhouse. Why do I feel guilty…
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Vegan menus, radio programs, and strip clubs
Last night we went out for a pub meal at The Justice Mill on Union St in Aberdeen. It’s part of a pub chain in the UK called Wetherspoon; I like it because there are several options for me to eat and it’s cheap. They even have a menu especially for vegans and vegetarians – eat…
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A wood-fired hot tub
The wood-fired hot tub at the glamping bus is an absolute treasure. It’s made entirely of wood and looks a little bit like a giant whisky barrel. On one side is a log burner immersed in water. It takes several hours to heat up the tub but once hot it retains the heat for a…
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Glamping in a bus
I’ve got lots of bus photos to share today. First, the chicken bus again because I think it’s ingenious. Just inside the front door is a gate to stop the chickens from escaping. Also up front and where the driver sat is a good storage area for food and straw which provides handy access and protection from the elements.…
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Peeing in the driver’s seat
We are glamping in a bus and it’s heaven. We have our own wood-fired hot tub in a peaceful rural setting of wheat fields and rolling hills. It doesn’t get much better than this. Teetotal me even enjoyed a South African organic red with no added sulphur. This is my kind of camping. Here’s our bus:…
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La Dispute from Amélie
When I was in Madrid I stayed in an apartment with a Yamaha grand piano – what a luxury! I played it several times and when I returned home I found my own piano, which was previously a luxury for me, somewhat lacking. Everything is relative, I guess. Here’s my rendition of Yann Tiersen’s La…
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We’ve got an allotment!
About a year ago I applied for an allotment and just this week got the call to say there’s one available. Allotments are a very British thing. They have been around for hundreds of years, since Anglo-Saxon times, according to The National Allotment Society. In Victorian times they were handed over to poor people as a…
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