Rats!

I've been laid off.

I went out last night in Edinburgh with my now former colleagues to say farewell. I got a bit squiffy and left my camera somewhere. It's a shame as there were some nice photos of all the snow in Edinburgh.

I've known about the impending layoff for a while. I was hoping that with my glowing record of success in the pharmaceutical industry, I'd have a new job in moments. *sigh*

Now it seems that companies have stopped interviewing in the run up to Christmas. I'll have to wait until January to continue my hunt.

Old Favourites!

This is my favourite view of our place, tucked into a Scottish hillside.

This weekend is all about comfort for me. I made comforting foods for my family to eat, onion soup and lasagne. I served the food up on the most robust plates ever made, Corelle by Corning. The plates were wedding presents when The Man of the Place and I were married over 17 years ago. Sure there are a few that are showing signs of wear, but there are few broken. The plates lived through a lively family with kids who resented having to wash the dishes. Sometimes the dishes took the brunt of their resentment. Lesser plates are no longer in service. Though the pattern has dimmed over time, the Corelle plates are still plugging away. I think the pattern is no longer available so I can't buy the few items to replace the ones that did manage to break, but there are still plenty of plates to set the table, plus occasional guests.

We have had a rare, dry weekend. My family and I have been enjoying the fact that there is less mud in our lives these days. When the rain starts again tomorrow - naturally we can't have more than three dry days together, I won't be inundated with mud at the back door because the finishing layer of gravel is down. I wish we had done this YEARS ago! It looks so much better around here and (forgive me for repeating myself) there is LESS MUD!

New Gravel!

We've had a LOT of rain. It is official. This is the wettest year since records began. There has been flooding in the area as well. Our house is on a hill so we are in no danger of rising water but that doesn't mean that the ground hasn't been completely saturated!

The Man of the Place and I were sick to the back teeth of rain and mud. We can't stop the rain, but perhaps we can manage the mud a bit better. The drive and yard are getting new gravel.

First the ancient and crumbling concrete was scraped up and hauled away. Bits of the old cobbled yard, from the days when Whitelees Cottage used to be the location of a lumber mill (between the wars) Then a new sub-base of scrapings from our local quarry was dumped and leveled. Later on we will get nice finished gravel to make it all look lovelier.

Meanwhile in the house, the pets compete for the best spot in front of the fire.Polly has won this round.

I love having friends that own heavy machinery. Stuart has a JCB, Innes has a heavy duty trailer. Gamekeeper Mike doesn't own any heavy machinery that I know of, but he did bring me a couple brace of pheasants that were shot yesterday. I couldn't take Polly out for a walk yesterday as there was a pheasant shoot on. This little gift makes up for it!!

As I write this, our cat Julio is out in the tunnel, yowling at the pheasants. I think he wants to eat them . . . . sorry Julio.

Double Yolker!!

The girls have been in high production lately. We can't move for eggs!
I sell the surplus. In addition to selling the odd dozen, I give eggs to neighbours and friends. Fresh eggs always grease the skids. Our neighbours have been very good to us in the past. It is always nice to be able to return the favour.

The chicken run has turned into a quagmire lately. On the weekends when we are around to keep foxes away, I will let them out. The garden is resting and there isn't anything they can destroy this time of year.
Sometimes these chickens will jump up onto the window ledges. I love this picture. It looks as though the hens are saying, "Look they've got popcorn"!
One of the eggs I collected this week was considerably larger than the others. I knew that cracking this puppy open would reveal the elusive double yolker.
Yup a double yolker. It was a weird one though. The yolks were conjoined!

The Man of the Place's Moment of Stardom

I thought I'd do this whilst he is away for the weekend at a banjo playing course. . ..

Here is footage of my dear husband singing A Boy Named Sue during the karaoke night at the Marina Lodge, Marsa Alam. Thankfully footage of me singing Like a Virgin and Waterloo and a group effort of Blame it on the Boogie were not filmed. We (and "we" means me) were lamentable.

Watching the footage makes me laugh all over again. I will state that I am not laughing AT The Man of the Place, I am laughing because we had so much FUN on that holiday.
It is the mark of a good vacation when you smile and laugh as one goes through the pictures, wishing yourself back again.Me and The Man of the Place - both wearing great hats!

Looking through a window in the office, all I can see is dark. I know that on the other side of the glass it is raining and about 4 degrees. I can remember what the sun and heat of Egypt felt like and I miss it

Beautiful Boy

A couple of years ago three of us: me, The Man of the Place and the youngest boy went to Dublin. TMotP and the boy went to some REM event at the Olympia Theater. As I reached my REM saturation point a number of years ago, I went to the pub next door and nursed a couple of gin & tonics for two hours.

That was the year that we stayed in the horrible guest house with boogers on the wall and surly service.

It turns out that the camera crews were out in force at the theater. Footage created was later added into a video.

About two thirds of the way through the video is a clip of a lovely young boy. It's George

Here is the link!

http://www.remdublin.com/media/videos

He's older now but still as sweet.

4th Quarter

In the world of business, the year is divided into quarters. As of the first of October we have arrived at the final quarter of 2009. I've never had a year whizz by so fast!

The two costly and fun weeks in July went by like the blink of an eye. After enjoying proper heat and sunshine we came back to our northern home and unrelenting rain for the rest of the summer. From the end of June until September we didn't see three dry days together! I found myself just getting my head down and tackling things as they came. When the first dry days in September came along, we found ourselves looking up and being amazed that summer such as it was had passed.

With all the rain, the garden has suffered again. I swear this is the third vegetable patch in a row that hasn't done well. There were a few good lettuces earlier on and the cucumbers in the greenhouse did well, but everything else wasn't great. The potatoes got terrible blight and almost the entire crop was ruined. The rain melted all the sweet pea blossom and the mice at the peas before they could sprout. I did manage three small pumpkins. They're all a good cooking size. I find the big jack-o-lantern sized pumpkins are far too watery and tasteless for cooking. Two pumpkins are ripe now and one is still quite green. I will try to store them until November.

I may give up on the vegetable garden. I know that I'll change my tune in the spring. I'll get all optimistic with the warming weather and think that there is no way that we can possibly have FOUR rainy summers in a row.
The dog walking hasn't given me anything more notable than some fly agaric mushrooms with the tops nibbled by local rodents.

There have been a large number of owls in the area lately. Dusk around here has become a noisy affair. There are at least three tawny owls hooting their territories and a couple of barn owls peeping as they hunt. I wish I was better at owl hoot identification because there is a third owl species (similar to tawny owl but higher in pitch) that I can't figure out.

In the meantime, I cracked open my new copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and made a stunning boeuf bourguignon. Oh my! It was fantastic! It takes a long time to make, but if you don't hurry and start skipping steps, it is wonderful! Never confuse a difficult recipe with one that merely takes a long time to make. We had pot au chocolat for desert. The recipe called for 500 grams of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids). It was so rich that we had to serve it with ice cream. I think I'll modify the recipe to make it less rich for next time.