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Off to Orkney
Back soon. Don't do anything too exciting while we're gone.
Blossom (not the TV programmes of the 90s)
Sunshine in the city today, so I had my eyes tested and Jon ventured off to the Western General to get some drugs for his cough, which is more than a cough and involves things like bronchial spasms and asthma. He should be ok though, just rotten luck it's right before we go on holiday on Friday. I'm a bit worried about the lovely weather and that it's going to totally turn right over the Pentland Firth on Saturday morning and we'll have the crossing from hell, as my family and i did in 1993 and as you can see, I haven't forgotten it. However I'm pleased to hear on the grapevine that Northlink doesn't sail if there are the slightest ripples and it is a bigger boat than the one on the ill-fated 1993 trip. I'll be keeping an eye on this page, but maybe ignorance is bliss.
Boris Johnson?
Boris Johnson? For goodness sake people. And 900 people voting for this idiot in Leeds? (Via Amateur Ramblings.) We might not come back from our holidays in Orkney and just wait for it to become part of Norway again.
In other news, Jon has a very bad throat/cough thing and can't talk, so we are communicating via our friend Emily's baby signing. Trouble is, we only know 'where is it?' and 'bird' so conversation won't be great unless I keep hiding things behind birds. Knowing Emily, she's probably invented her own more sophisticated version of sign language whilst bored for five minutes at nursery.
Right, I'm off to the garden centre.
Religion, or lack of
Friendly Atheist posts about a new study that states that religion comes about to promote social bonding and exists because we have imagination. Fascinating stuff.
Edinburgh's Friendly Humanist linked a while back to a post by Greta Christina on dealing with difficult times as an atheist. I think she's summed it up brilliantly.
And mediawatchwatch finds that anything not Christian in the media apparently promotes secularism.
Finally
I began knitting this cardigan/jumper back in October and finally finished it today. I had aimed to finish it for christmas as I wanted to show Jon's mum when she was up, as she gave me the book the pattern is from, Scottish Inspirations, plus some yarn money. But she'll be up another time and can see it then. It's the first time I've knit a lace pattern like this, previously lace has been reserved for scarves and shawls. At first this took a bit of concentrating but after a while I knew the lace pattern off by heart and just needed to think about the shaping.
The pattern is Wrap Cardigan by Sarah Dallas and I knit it in Rowan Scottish Tweed 4ply. I had thought about knitting it in Jamieson & Smith yarn as this would be cheaper, but last autumn Jenners yarn department had a massive sale resulting in everything at 50% off. So I managed to knit it in the yarn that was intended.
Although this is a pattern for a wrap cardigan I kept wondering how it fastened. The front pieces didn't seem particularly long and there were no buttons. The model in the book is very thin and manages to tie the front pieces together. I was unable to do this when I first put the cardigan on (fits everywhere else and is even a little loose), so i just sewed the fronts on to make a wrap jumper. It's shorter than I would have liked, making it a little less flattering but nevermind. I love the colour and it will keep me warm on chilly evenings.
It's been a gorgeous day here, I had our washing out drying for the first time this year and the flat feels fresher for having the windows wide open. We went for a walk around Craiglockhart Hill this morning and discovered that Evening News map + me = not going quite where we wanted. But it was still good.
Hope it's been sunny with you.
Tasting Scotland
Thanks to Jon having friends in high places, we got to go to the press preview of the Enjoy the Taste of Scotland in Glasgow today and sample some yummy food, as long as we blogged about it. So here are my highlights and recommendations:
A few of our favourite producers were there, such as the Really Garlicky Company. They used to come to the Edinburgh Farmers Market but due to rising costs (plus they are based in the Highlands) they don't do this anymore. Shame, because we miss them. You can however get their products in lots of independent food shops (and Peckhams and Harvey Nicks). Their garlic bread is possibly the best I have ever had and the garlic sparkles with freshness. You can try some yummy carrot soup at their stand, and if you're really lucky, a Government Minister (who now has slightly less scary hair than before) will come and meet the storeholders whilst you are taking photos of their carrots and therefore unable to see her and get out of the way.
Oleifera produce rapeseed oil in Northumberland, this is a great oil for me as it is lower in saturated fat than even olive oil so I can use it with less fear of throwing up, yay! In the past I've used it in place of extra virgin olive oil but now I have some more I'll probably use it more in cooking. I do like my roasted vegetables but can never be too generous with the oil.
Tunnocks was the first stall we hit when we got there, Jon being a fan of the teacakes and me being a fan of the packaging. Did you know that they have tours around their factories every Tuesday evening, and these are booked up around a year in advance?! We got some of their dark chocolate wafer bars to take back, hopefully we won't feel the effect of these too much now we have the Wii Fit...
Stockans Oatcakes are the King of Oatcakes in my opinion, although you can try others at the event if you must. Made in one of my hometowns of Stromness, Orkney, the thin ones are my oatcake of choice and I can often be caught nibbling on one at work. Not so easy to find in England, I used to stock up whenever heading north when I lived south of the border.
The JG Ross stall has a giant buttery and the strawberries from Good Natured Fruit are particularly yummy, although they have brought them in from the Netherlands as it's a bit early over here for strawbs. If you want to try some delicious bread head over to the Dobbies stall for goodies from the Tapa Bakehouse, must pay that place a visit some day. And Scarletts Honey is always a winner in our house.
There are plenty of other goodies to try but being a teetotal vegetarian I can't tell you about them. Definitely worth a visit even if it all seemed to be geared around Tesco suppliers, only fair as it's a Tesco event though.
Sunshine!
Was it Spring with you today? It was here, I went to Perth in the morning for a meeting and snapped this on the way back.
We booked a photographer for the wedding at the weekend. We had been thinking of doing the whole 'relying on friends who will be there who are good photographers' thing but other people had said it was worth getting a photographer to ensure you do get photos you want. After going through the Scottish Wedding Directory's lists and shrieking at the costs of those photographers we finally found Kate Brandwood through Gumtree. She has extremely reasonable charges and is also good, some of the ones we found that were within budget were about the same standard as me. And I wouldn't dream of charging people to photograph their wedding. We still hope the budding photographers in our friends and families will be snapping too, there will of course be a Flickr pool...
You may have noticed I've been saving lots of Scandinavian links and tagging them with 'honeymoon' recently. We were thinking of doing Skye in luxury style but are now planning an adventure. We're still at the 'wanting to do everything going completely over the top' stage in our plans but by the time it comes to it hope to fly to Bergen and then make our way back home on the train, stopping at different places for a few days here and there. Exciting!
Home library
Well here I am linking to the Torygraph, but they have got an interesting article about people creating home libraries. I look forward to the day we can have a dedicated space for our books. Via Boing Boing.
Sew good
How cool is this video for Architecture in Helsinki? Never heard of them before but couldn't resist checking this out after reading about it on Craftzine. Embroidered animation and a catchy tune.
Architecture in Helsinki - Like It Or Not from helsinkids on Vimeo.
Slowly, but surely
The wedding shawl progresses. Sometimes I get in the flow and want to just knit loads of it, but I stop myself to lessen the chance of mistakes. I've already had to redo a couple of rows. The really fiddly bits haven't begun, but I will practice on spare yarn for those bits!
In other wedding news, we met our celebrant yesterday, who is lovely. I think between us all we will come up with a pretty good ceremony.
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