Chatiryworld

Moving, not moving, leaving...

It's been an odd week, first we were moving and getting very excited, then we weren't moving, then we might have been moving and then we decided definitely not to move.  It was all to do with money and sums and mortgages and other really grown up stuff.  On top of that it was my last week in my current post (I start my new one tomorrow, hurrah!) and whilst I have really been wanting to get out, I will really miss the people.  So an emotional week too.  Here's some photos from our honeymoon in Cornwall, I'll blog about that another time, but just thought I should check in.

Food confessions meme

I've been tagged by Laura!

The Foodie Confessions Meme

IN THE KITCHEN

1. My trademark recipe: Pizza with halloumi cheese.  Probably shouldn't be called pizza at all, but I make a proper bread base and tomato sauce (as taught by my mum) and then add halloumi instead of mozarella.

2. Kitchen gadget or accessory I couldn't live without: The Magimix.

3. Biggest kitchen handicap: I'm crap at pancakes.

4. Dish/technique that I want to learn: Savoury preserves.  Especially tomato sauce like SouleMama does.

5. My top cooking tip: Don't keep tomatoes or strawberries in the fridge, they taste much better for it.

INSPIRATION

6. Favourite cuisine/food style: That's a really tough one, I love pizza and pasta so probably Italian, but not so fond of all the olive oil sloshed everywhere.

7. Favourite cook book: Another toughie, Leon by Allegra McEvedy has yet to fail.  Denis Cotter's books are pretty good too, not always quick though!

8. Favourite chef: Denis Cotter, Nigel Slater and Rachel Allen.  Sorry, can't reduce it.

9. Favourite food programme: River Cottage, there aren't many good cooking programmes on TV anymore.  I liked Rachel Allen's Bake as well.

10. Favourite food magazine: Although I think there are probably better food magazines, I haven't read them, so BBC's Good Food Magazine

11. Favourite local restaurant: Iglu

INTERNET FOR FOODIES

12. Favourite foodie website: The Kitchn

13. Favourite recipe search: BBC Food

14. Online recipe binder:Don't use them, but Mac Gourmet has revolutionised our cooking.

15. Favourite food blog: Orangette and Chocolate & Zucchini.

FAVOURITE RECIPES

16. Main course: I don't think I have a favourite but the vegetarian tagine recipe from Leon works brilliantly.

17. Quickie: Pasta with homemade tomato sauce

18. Soup/salad: Leon Superfood Salad

19. Baked treat or dessert: Chocolate and raspberry cake from the Chocolate and Zucchini book.

20. Self-invented (or adapted): Pizza with halloumi

Please feel free to do this meme too, but I'd especially like to see Jon's answers.  Or maybe i could just ask him, what with me being married to him and everything.  If anyone does put this on their blog please comment below because I'm nosy and would like to read it.  Or just answer in the comments if you haven't got a blog.

Notes

• The films Sleep Furiously and Sunshine Cleaning are worth seeing.
• Typepad has a thing where I can reply to comments by email and they also show up on the blog.  Doesn't appear to be working at the moment.
• Did anyone put my name down as referring them to lovely Liz Earle products?  I got some freebies a few weeks ago as a thank you for referring a friend but I have no recollection of doing this!
• Present and Correct have some interesting goodies in their shop.
• I have a new job.  I've known about it unofficially since April but only got proper confirmation and a start date right before the wedding.  It's still in library world and will mean there will be less ranting about serious stuff and possibly more ranting about buses.  I've been walking to work for the last 4 years but now I have to brave regular public transport in the rush hour again.

Moments

• Hearing our clarsach players (they play with my dad in Kilairum) rendition of the bagpipe music from Orkney Wedding with Sunrise by Peter Maxwell Davies.  Beautiful.
• My mum and family seeing our dear friends from Orkney for the first time since 1993, it was the only time I cried that day.
• Everybody giving Emily (The Cutest Bridesmaid Ever) a wave during the ceremony.
• Saying our vows and exchanging rings.
• Finally allowing myself to look at all our guests after our vows and realising there were a lot of tears.
• Jon whispering 'you're my wife now' after we signed the register.
• Walking back down the aisle, glancing up to the balcony and seeing the Book Trust staff who had sneaked in to watch the ceremony, they had big grins on their faces.
• Guests of all ages enjoying the bubbles we provided.
• Finally getting a photo of me and my siblings all together, the wedding day was the first time my brothers had met my sisters on my mums side.
• Our sisters all getting on like a house on fire.
• Two little girls who had never met before becoming firm friends (and getting me to read a story to them later!)
• Taking Emily for a walk around the bookshelves of the library at the Book Trust.  My dress was big enough to protect her from the scary giant ladybird toy, which several other small people were merrily hurling themselves onto.
• Guests wanting to snuggle up to my shawl.
• People being totally wowed by the cake.
• My dad's girlfriend's son asking me if he was allowed to take the books in the library home.  If only.
• Marilou presenting Emily with a picture book from Belgium.  She's probably a fluent French speaker by now.
• Walking up to Marlin's Wynd with Kal heckling the other wedding party who were coming down the hill.
• Gregor carrying a bin liner full of Tunnocks goodies up to Marlin's Wynd.
• Evening guests applauding us as we came down the stairs.
• Our sisters trying to sing a Girls Aloud song over the music, only to realise that said music was Come on Eileen and was more fun to dance and sing along to.
• Kal saying his goodbyes only to return a few minutes later having decided he didn't want to go home after all.  Yay!
• Lucien and Marilou recreating the video of Fat Boy Slim's Praise You.
• My cousin's 2 year old, Callum, dancing to Adam Buxton's The Hours song.
• Jon and I giggling when we heard the Adam and Joe pirate radio clips we'd inserted in the playlist.  It's unlikely anyone else noticed them.
• Kal deciding it was time to eat more cake, so went off in search of a knife, cut it up and handed a load out.
• Marlin's Wynd staff complementing us on the music.
• Al and Carrie dancing to Born to Run.
• Seeing people write masterpieces in our guest book - and then enjoying reading them all the next day.

Things I didn't see but would have liked to:

• Emily headbanging to the clarsach music.
• My mum and MM wanting to nip in to the PDSA shop between venues to have a look at something from Clothkits (retro version).

There's probably more, but these are the things that have stuck out for me the most.  It was a truly wonderful day and I am married to a truly wonderful man.

HOME: Blogging for Refugee Week

I will be blogging more about the wedding, honest, but like many other bloggers in Scotland I was asked to blog about home for Refugee Week.   I'm a person who places a great deal of importance on the idea of home, making your house a home, homemaking and thinking about different places that I have called home.

I'm also a person who's never quite sure where exactly home is.  On Facebook you are asked to put in your hometown, for most people that would be where they were born and grew up.  But how many of us were born and lived in the same place for the first 18 years or so of our lives?  I put Stromness (where I lived until I was 9) and Ilkley (where I lived between 9 and 18ish).  I've lived in Edinburgh for the past four years and also in several others places.

I've decided that you can have lots of homes, and that's fine.  My mum and Hugh's house in Ilkley definitely feels like home, my dad has only been in his house in Lower Largo for a couple of years but it feels like home, much more so than his last one that he lived in for years.  Jon's mum's house feels like home too.  Stromness is home, especially MM and DD's house.

And of course our home is home too.  We don't own it, and it's got too much of another person's furniture and stuff in it but we do our best.  It's cosy and comfortable, whether it's a winter night spent watching a film by candlight or a Saturday morning spent reading the paper as the sun streams through the window.  These days our home smells of lots of good food, although our small, interior and windowless kitchen is one reason why we are considering moving in the next year or so.  Over the past year we've stepped up with experimenting with recipes and food, and it makes home seem more homely, if that makes sense.  Our home.

Refugee Week 2009 takes place 15 – 22 June! This year Refugee Week Scotland is based around the theme of home. It might be a place, a possession, or a feeling.  What does home mean to you?

Back

I'll write more soon.  This great photo by our friend Marilou Guisset is of us all walking up  the Royal Mile from the Scottish Book Trust to Marlin's Wynd for evening shenanigans.  As we were walking up another wedding party was walking down (minus the bride and groom, don't they know walking is the new travelling-in-a-vintage-Rolls?) and Kal (pictured here on the left carrying the cake) took great pleasure in calling out 'Our cake's bigger than your cake!' and 'You're not vowing anymore!'  It was moments like that I want to remember most, and I'm planning on doing a post full of them.

If you'd like to nose at our official wedding photos by Kate Brandwood, please feel free to do so here.  I think she enjoyed taking some of the more amusing shots involving Jon and the boys, and the one of Emily's dad reading the book about taking drugs (there was a small library in the Book Trust that many people dived into), not something you get in most wedding albums but I like that's it's there.

Married

But way too tired to blog about it, plus I need lots of photos of the day to illustrate a post, so you'll just have to wait for a couple of weeks to find out more.  In the meantime enjoy some of our wedding cake, it's a baumkuchen from Falko Konditormeister.

It was an absolutely amazing day, love and thanks to everyone who came and our families for all their help.  Three of our friends didn't make it yesterday, Jill and her family were much missed but a big welcome to the world to baby Angus who decided to arrive a few days early.

We're getting married in the morning

This beautiful personalised boat is a gift from our friends in Orkney, we love it.

Yikes, this getting married business is tiring!  We're pretty much ready though, got the hall all decorated this morning.  Big thanks to Jon's mum for doing the driving and Ben and Stu for helping carry the drink.  It's been quite a week, Jon's muscle sprain turned out to be pretty bad and he got signed off work.  Fortunately physiotherapy has down wonders and he's walking much better.  Plus we had to co-ordinate repairs to the bathroom.

We decorated the hall this morning and are having a quiet afternoon/evening before the madness of tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll blog before we go away on Monday but if not, see you in a couple of weeks!

The faces of poetry

Jon and I currently feature on the homepage for BBC Radio 3's Poetry Season.  If that seems completely random, let me explain.  The photo was taken about 10 minutes after we got engaged and I titled it using a quote from Edwin Muir's The Confirmation.  This was one of the poems selected by presenter Mary Anne Kennedy for the season, and when someone from the BBC searched for images using the same quote I used as a title, they got our photo.  I thought the photo might appear on a page about the poem, rather than the general one as it's not really clear why we're there.  Not that it matters, we (and you) know why.

I am finding it very surreal that people start arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow for our wedding.  I'd blog more about it all but I'm finding it all pretty tiring.  Nearly there though when all our hard work will be worth it.

Meet Harvey and Lottie

My friend Jill is due to give birth a few days after our wedding - hopefully she and her family will make it along.  I've knit up Lottie from Rowan Junior to give if she has a girl.  I used Rowan 4ply Soft, I've made a few things in this colourway after buying it up in sales, now I have just under a ball left.  I believe it's being discontinued, which is a real shame.

Should the new arrival be a boy, he will be receiving Harvey here, from Louisa Harding's Natural Knits for Babies and Mums.  This is knit in some Jaeger Baby Merino, also discontinued and also from the sales.

My friend Liz is also expecting a baby, due in October, maybe Jill and Liz will each have a different flavour baby and then they can each have one of these cardigans.  If not, well more knitting then!

Bagpiping bride

Croila married E yesterday, Kal, Jon and I went along to the evening reception where we got to see the bride playing bagpipes.  More of this sort of thing.  And isn't that dress stunning?

Jon and I weren't sure we should make it as about an hour beforehand a leak from our bathroom was brought to our attention, which was causing the ceiling below (fortunately 'just' a passageway rather than in someone's flat) to buckle.  But we managed to find a reliable, helpful and value for money plumber who came and sorted what needed sorting there and then, and told us what else had to be done.  Phew!  Then Free Cat decided to camp out on top of the wardrobe and wouldn't come down whatever we did, so Jon had to wrestle down the suitcase Freeky was sitting on so I could pluck him up and send him on his way.  Little bastard.

We made it though, and Kal even managed to persuade me to dance the Virginia Reel with him.  Good times.

Electrabel advert

'Tis very pretty, and comes from the great land of Belgium.  Via Jon.

Taste Scotland

If you happen to be in the centre of Glasgow today you could do worse than go and grab yourself some free food at Tesco's Enjoy the Taste of Scotland event in George Square.  We were at the preview day on Friday and had a good time.  Here are my favourites:

Stockans oatcakes - best in the world
Blueberry and rosemary cupcakes at the Scotherbs stall.  They've added a few herbs to their range: purple basil, chervil and sorrel.
Really Garlicky Company, they've got some new dressings and relishes.  They also do the best garlic bread ever.
Rooster jacket potatoes - especially after a sugar rush from nibbles from other stalls
Tunnocks - yay! 
Graham's new range of ice cream. 
Simple Simon's Pies - I was never a huge pie fan but their vegetarian ones are the business.
Arran Fine Foods chutneys, never used to like chutney that much but I was obviously wrong.

I'm also looking forward to scrambling up some double yolk eggs.

Now we can get married

For the shawl, it is finished.  I've stopped feeling emotional about it now but it continues to amaze me.  Because it is knit from angora, which sheds everywhere, I've mainly knit it with the majority of the body tucked in a bag, so I hadn't really seen it properly laid out (apart from taking this photo, which I did very quickly before I went to work one morning).  Now it's blocked and I've been able to see how the patterns fit together, spot my little mistakes (!) and also enjoy not working on complicated lace whilst more and more bunny hair goes all over the sofa (going to have to take a clothes brush to the wedding to keep Jon's suit looking nice).

The pattern is Papay, by Orkney knitting designer Liz Lovick, and was designed with weddings in mind.  I would knit it again, but not in angora.  At the time I was so carried away with having an Orkney connection to the day that I saw beyond the practicalities and bought a load of Orkney Angora.  But if the chilly May weather continues I'll be very glad I made the shawl.

The Strange Scottish Winery

Jon's dad came up for the weekend and we went on a couple of adventures.  The main one was up to Perthshire to visit Cairn o'Mohr, who describe themselves as the strange Scottish winery.  We decided we wanted to get some of their sparkling (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) wines for the wedding toast, with some extra of the non-alcoholic stuff for us non-drinkers to quaff.

It's a fun little place, full of bizarre carvings and brightly coloured signs, and the girl in the shop was really helpful.  I'd love to go back to do one of their tours.  I hadn't realised that they have a hall for hire, which would be a great place for a wedding.  We looked at it wistfully then realised it was nowhere near as convenient as our venues back in Edinburgh which have useful things like hotels and public transport within walking distance. 

Other adventures included the now Baxterified Kathellan Farm Park and Shop (no time for the farm park though), Gullane for cakes and North Berwick for a good lunch and a look at Our Wee Planet Festival.  A good weekend.