Tag: photos

  • Siliconing the bathroom

    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…

  • Pastries, broccoli, tartan skirt, and carrot lox

    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…

  • Snow in April

    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…

  • Cross-country skiing on Deeside Way

    Cross-country skiing on Deeside Way

    It snowed a bit more overnight last night and Aberdeen put on a brilliantly crisp and sunny day for us. Rather than going for my usual run around the park I decided to try some cross-country skiing on Deeside Way. A few years ago we all got some cross-country skiing gear from the second-hand sale…

  • Sunshine and blizzards

    Sunshine and blizzards

    Aberdeen put on a beautiful day today with bursts of sunshine mixed in with intermittent snow blizzards. It was a perfect day. There’s more snow on the ground than I think I’ve ever seen in Aberdeen in the almost 7 years we’ve lived here. It’s lovely soft stuff that makes brilliant snowmen. We all had…

  • Shopping by bike and cat photos

    Shopping by bike and cat photos

    Last weekend I cycled to Nature’s Larder to get some supplies. It’s a wonderful whole foods shop on Holburn Street. What I love about cycling is I can park right outside just a couple of metres from the door. You can’t do this with a car as there’s no on-street parking in this part of…

  • A dream come true

    A dream come true

    Today was a good day. It has long been a dream of mine to ice skate outside in a natural environment and today I ticked that off my list.  Aberdeen has had several days of sub-zero temperatures, freezing the water in lakes and ponds. We found what is really just a puddle of water on…

  • Prince Albert’s Cairn

    Prince Albert’s Cairn

    I love Sundays. This is the one day of the week when none of us is working and there are no extracurricular activities to take children to. We like to spend our Sundays walking in the hills somewhere in Aberdeenshire and perhaps because there’s a bit of royal mania with the latest release of The…

  • Christmas Fair at Crathes Castle

    Christmas Fair at Crathes Castle

    We went to the Exclusively Highlands Christmas Fair at Crathes Castle today. It’s a food and craft market that runs every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas at different locations around Scotland, usually castles. They sell only stuff that’s made in Scotland which especially appeals to me so we go every year. This…

  • A walk at the Finzean watermills

    A walk at the Finzean watermills

    We went for an amazing walk and picnic today at the Finzean watermills. They’re quite tricky to find because the road doesn’t appear to have a name (it’s referred to as an access road for the Forest of Birse) and there’s no obvious postcode for the mills, so print and follow the directions on this…

  • Glasgow in autumn

    Glasgow in autumn

    We’ve come to Glasgow for the weekend to submit biometric data (fingerprints) for our permanent residency application. We’ve been waiting to do this since March when everything closed down. The centres began opening again in June and we’ve been waiting patiently for Aberdeen to reopen but as of this writing it still hasn’t. Every month…

  • I broke my phone and photos of the autumn colours

    I broke my phone and photos of the autumn colours

    My last blog post I wrote and published from my new phone when I was out and about in town. As I walked back home, tragedy struck when I dropped my phone, smashing the screen. I had bought a spigen phone case for it because these had always protected my iPhone very well but they…

  • Potarch Bridge

    Potarch Bridge

    We visited a lovely bridge over the River Dee today called Potarch Bridge which is about 40 miles west of Aberdeen. It was built by the engineer Thomas Telford in 1811-1813. This is the same Thomas Telford who built the Caledonian Canal and many other bridges all over the UK. I do love an old…

  • Loch an Eilein and Landmark Forest Adventure Park

    Loch an Eilein and Landmark Forest Adventure Park

    We’re back from our holiday in Aviemore and although we were sad to leave it’s nice to have decent wifi again at the very least so I can see all the photos we took. It’s also nicer to view them on a big screen. My new Samsung phone has a brilliant camera and so we…

  • Half my life

    Half my life

    I’m 45 today. If I’m lucky enough to live to 90 then I have lived half my life. I hope I’m still riding my bike at 90. You’re only as old as you feel or, as Groucho Marx once said, “You’re only as old as the woman you feel”. I heard another quote recently that…

  • Samsung S10+ phone

    Samsung S10+ phone

    Last month the home button on my iPhone SE stopped working. It’s just over 4 years old now. If you have an iPhone you’ll know it’s impossible to use without a functioning home button. Fortunately I discovered you can install an assisstive touch app which will let you access the home screen without using the…

  • Colours of spring

    Colours of spring

    Everyone should have a trampoline. They’re wonderful things for every age. I like that I can get cardiovascular exercise similar to running but without the same impact on my joints. Ben took these great photos today. The colours in the background are so nice. In spring when the leaves first open they’re a light almost…

  • A night to remember at the Fife Arms Hotel, Braemar

    A night to remember at the Fife Arms Hotel, Braemar

    This is going to be a long post with lots of photos so apologies in advance. We’ve just had a magnificent weekend in Braemar staying at the luxurious Fife Arms hotel. It’s quite a contrast to our recent glamping adventures and definitely opulent but worth every penny. I’ve been longing to spend a night at…

  • Lunch at the Queen’s house

    Lunch at the Queen’s house

    Last time we visited Loch Muick it was so windy we had to shout at one another to talk. We haven’t been back until today. We checked the weather forecast first to be sure we wouldn’t face another gale but I’m beginning to suspect Loch Muick and wind are two words that always go together…

  • Scottish reindeer, Cairngorms

    Scottish reindeer, Cairngorms

    We visited the Cairngorm reindeer herd near Aviemore today.  Reindeer are native to Scotland but were hunted to extinction by humans a long time ago. They were reintroduced in the 1950s to the Cairngorms and there’s now a managed herd of 150 of them. They cap the population at 150 because that is all the…