Chatiryworld

Six years

Yesterday Jon and I celebrated six years of being together.  Just like six years ago, it was a gorgeous sunny day so after I finished painting pottery as part of a friend's hen day, I got cakes and went back home and we ate them down at the beach.  Lovely.

Black Isle birthday

The other week we decided to book a night at our favourite pub, The Anderson in Fortrose, for Jon's birthday.  Going up to the Black Isle in February might seem like a bit of a risky plan when it comes to the weather, but once again, the sun came out and shone for us on holiday (with a few drops of rain for dramatic light). 

We got to Inverness (which, although I had a soft spot for it, increasingly feels like going back to 1993) at lunchtime, had a quick bite to eat in an organic cafe, and then took the bus over to Rosemarkie, Fortrose's sister village.  Many years ago I went to the lovely Groam House Museum with my dad, but this being the off-season, it was closed.  So we followed the coastline back to Fortrose, walking along the beach and round Chanonry Point.  We didn't see any dolphins but I wondered if there was some kind of activity happening as quite a few photographers were arriving as we wandered along to Fortrose.

We were warmly welcomed back at the Anderson and found ourselves upgraded to a four-poster room.  After taking advantage of the lovely bath to ease our aches and pains we settled down to a delicious dinner.  I had baked aubergine with spinach, pine nuts and smoked cheese from Mull and then we shared a slice of Belgian chocolate cake, which arrived with a candle in it, nice!  Jon tried one of the many Belgian beers and then some whisky whilst I did some knitting.  We both wished it was our local.

Our cheap train tickets meant we weren't leaving Inverness until about 5pm, so we decided to do a bit more exploring.  Off we headed to Cromarty, famous for the shipping forecast and being a former home of Kal (no blue plaques in evidence).  When I was a child and heard it on the forecast I thought it was a big, exciting town.  It's not, it's a lovely, pretty and peaceful village which reminds me a little of Stromness.  We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around and vowing to return again.

It was one of those restorative short breaks that came at just the right time, and it felt like we had been away for a lot longer than a night.  Fresh air, good food, sunshine after months of darkness and plenty of pretty houses.

Happy new year!

Hope 2011 turns out to be an amazing year for you all.  We're hoping to move house over the Forth and I personally am aiming to use my time more efficiently.  I often find myself getting annoyed because I've not done something (usually something nice, like read a certain book or something) because I have been faffing about online or just faffing about generally or even worrying about all the time that I have been faffing about.  I've downloaded swissmiss's Teux Deux (because if you're going to use a productivity app you may as well use a beautiful one) to help me with this. 

I've already been going through my sewing books and marking down things I want to make, that's another aim for this year, to make more from all the sewing books sitting on my shelves.  I'm choosing one project from each book as a starting point.  I also plan to knit more for me this year.

Who knows what else 2011 will bring...

Festive shopping guide

Every year I read lovely gift guides on lovely blogs and always think about doing my own.  But I don't because, er, I'm a bit lazy.  But this year I am going to do another sort of guide that I've often considered in the past: gifts made by my family and friends (some 'real life', some online).  So here we go:

First up, one of my dads, Hugh Leishman.  He's an excellent woodturner and made this little bowl for our wedding rings at our wedding ceremony.  If you're not lucky enough to win one of his spurtles from BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House over the next few Sundays, you can always buy one from him, contact him via his website to buy one direct (or something else lovely like a bowl or chopping board).  You can also buy some of his work from David Mellor (bread boards and spurtles, both at bottom of pages) who has shops in London and Hathersage,  and Twice (bread board and spurtle) who have a shop in St Andrews.

Still keeping it in the family, paintings from my lovely husband are available at Jon Nagl Art. Whether you like Scottish landscapes, still life or naked people, there's something there for you.  I don't want the landscapes to go, but I'd be happy if I knew they were going to a good home where they would be loved.

My friend Rachel makes beautiful bonnets and waistcoats for babies and small children at Up Wi' The Bonnets.  I've got a waistcoat on order for one of our little pals.

I've known Nancy through blogging and a shared love of Clothkits for a couple of years now, earlier this year she started selling her lovely goodies through Etsy at Nancy's Home Shop.  Whenever we manage to find a new home to live in I may have to treat the pegs to a new bag.

Elizabeth of Merlin Stained Glass and I used to live in the same halls at university, since then she's been learning about stained glass and makes some lovely pieces.  The milky colours of this piece remind me of Orkney sunsets.

Carolyn Waweru and I were at school together in Ilkley, she now lives in Hong Kong where she makes and sells jewellery in her spare time.  Don't let the distance put you off, she will post around the world.  I love grosgrain ribbon and never would have thought it would look so great in necklaces.

I blogged about Turquoise Bay Jewellery a few months ago, Joanna has made loads of pretty pieces in a variety of colours, so you're bound to find something to match an outfit.

Juliet Wilson is not only a fabulous wedding celebrant (she married us, hurrah!), she also makes gorgeous items from Harris Tweed over at Harris Tweet.  Love those stockings!

If I've forgotten anyone, I apologise profusely, I appear to be suffering from some kind of sugar hangover after going to a lovely Thanksgiving dinner last night and my brain is even less with it than usual.  Please send me a pissed off email and I will rectify the situation.  If anyone else does a guide like this, please let us all know in the comments, it's great to be able to support friends of friends.

33

So it was my birthday last week, another year older and all that.  Jon made me a cake from Nigella's latest book .  I had a lovely lunch with a friend I hadn't seen for ages, who made me brownies, loads of chocolate for me!  I got some lovely presents, especially of the crafty variety.  I now own a yarn swift and a sewing box to keep me organised.

The day before we got up early to view a house in North Queensferry, stunning morning, all cold and crisp and the Forth Bridge looked amazing.  Unlikely to go for the house though.

Thursday saw another birthday, or rather a yarniversary.  I've been going to the Tree Tree Knitting Group for several weeks now and it was their first anniversary of meeting in the Tea Tree Cafe.  We ate cake, knitted and swapped yarn.  There are several knitting groups in Edinburgh but I go to this one because it's straight after work and on the bus route home.  I've met lots of lovely people too.

On Sunday there was further craftiness when I took a sewing class at The Life Craft in Glasgow.  Although I know the basics of sewing, I have lots of bad habits and am a bit cack-handed so I'm trying to take classes to sort me out.  Jon came through too and we had lunch with friends, our littlest bridesmaid Emily was on great form and shared her ice cream with Jon.

Donation

Two weddings and a blocked drain

I think it's a good sign when you have to walk along the shoreline to get to a wedding, passing by a harbour and having time to sit on a bench and watch the boats on the Forth and the sun set.  We were at an evening do at the Forth View Hotel in Aberdour, Fife.  We plan to return there for a meal sometime, and more pottering around Aberdour, which is a gorgeous little village.  It's gone on our list of Places We Wouldn't Mind Living In.  The wedding was lovely: bunting, vintage crockery, toddlers running around, kids playing football, great music and a very happy couple.

We also went to a wedding on Friday evening, whilst Saturday's had a good countryside vibe, Friday's was more of a city do, again with great music and a very happy couple.  And about 5 billion breakfast rolls.

In between we dealt with a blocked drain.  A communal one, and probably not our fault, but as we found it we felt we should deal with it, as it was pretty much a biohazard.  Edinburgh City Council get a bad rap but they sorted it out very quickly.

5 years

Did you know that it was 5 years since the Make Poverty History March in Edinburgh?  We do, because we got together that day!  Above is a timelapse video of Princes Street, and below are some photos of the day courtesy of Flickr.

Jon wrote a post this morning whilst I was busy feeling dizzy, it's funny to read back and think of everything we've done since then.

One year on

It's really bizarre to think that a year ago this moment we were tucking into barbecue goodies at our wedding.  In some ways it feels like yesterday and in others more than a year ago due to everything we've done this year.  Time can be so strange.

This is one of my favourite photos from the day, by my brother Rory (you can see lots more here).  It was taken not long after the ceremony and before all the official photos meant tiredness had set in.  We had both been nervous about the ceremony, not because of the act of getting married, but in case one or both of us collapsed or completely broke down in floods of tears.  We didn't though, and it was well worth all the preparation and (what turned out to be unecessary) worry.  So here we are grinning with happiness.

We're off on a Highland jaunt for a few days, it's been very warm and sunny here in Edinburgh over the weekend, will we continue our run of amazing weather on our northern holidays?  Who knows!  In the meantime, watch this fabulous Elbow song, it was on our wedding soundtrack:

Nagglemas

Jon has declared his birthday, 25th February, to be Nagglemas.  Here he is blowing his candles out on the traditional Nagglemas cake, more commonly known as the chocolate cake in Cupcakes From the Primrose Bakery.  It's another rich, sweet and enormous special, too much for us two really, I'll maybe be less ambitious next year!  The Kitchen Aid and Magimix joined forces to make creating it a dream though.

We went for lunch at The Kitchin again, which was amazing, although this time a little too rich for me.  Still delicious, from my pre-starter pumpkin soup through a couple of different vegetable concoctions to the blood orange and rhubarb tiramisu.  I'm not really a fan of tiramisu but I kind of trust The Kitchin to challenge my preconceptions of what a dish should taste like, and this was gorgeous.

In the evening we walked through the rain to go and see Ponyo again, this time subtitled (so much better) at the Cameo, there was a real sense of everyone in the cinema coming out just feeling really happy.  Whilst the children there may have been young enough to be singing the theme tune out loud, I bet most of the adults were singing it in their heads.

Yesterday we went through to Glasgow to eat cake (lemon and chocolate from the Green and Black's cookbook , yum!) and hang out at Jon's sister's flat.  We went through earlier to catch Micmacs, but the weather conspired against us and flooding meant we arrived too late.  We'll see it tomorrow instead.

Happy new year!

I achieved all my aims for 2009: had a wonderful wedding and honeymoon without turning into a bridezilla, and got a new job.  This year's aims:

1) Visiting our friends in Brussels, probably later in the year when they've had a chance to get used to being parents.

2) Having another holiday in Orkney and getting Jon's wedding ring resized.

3) Improving our French to help with said trip to Brussels.

4) Making more preserves, especially elderflower cordial and tomato passata.

What about you?

Festive and seasonal

Here's our christmas dinner: vegetarian haggis, braised red cabbage, parsnip and carrot mash and roast Shetland blacks.  All made by Jon, although I did cut the onion for the haggis, but then also cut my finger so the scar from my last cut is going to be a wee bit extended.  But at least I didn't need to go to hospital this time.

Jon's mum wasn't able to come up and join us due to illness and the weather but we entertained his sister and we'll have a second dinner later this week.  There's also a beach bonfire party at my dad's that I'm looking forward to, but it would be nice to be able to see my mum and family at this time of year too.  So many parents, so many miles...

The snow has finally started to melt but here's some snowmen in our local park:

Yuletide

I made this yule log from Nigella's Christmas book today.  Gosh it's sickly! (Jon says that's a bit harsh but I don't think the cake heard me.)   Would using even darker chocolate have made a difference - I used Green & Blacks 70% stuff. The swiss roll bit wasn't particularly traumatic, I followed the instructions and it worked really well.  Not sure I'll make this again though, but will look out for a different recipe maybe.  I like to have a chocolate cake at this time of year as I don't like fruit cake.

Hope you're having a lovely time over the holidays, festive and seasonal greetings to you all!

Birthday nommage

Now, where was I before I got rudely interrupted by illness this week?  Birthday food, that's where!

Last Sunday we went all out on domestic god/goddessness (of the atheist variety, natch).  I set up the Clothkits toys to be having a little picnic for Emily to join in.  She was more interested in the Charlie and Lola colouring book but enjoyed eating the heads of the fairy cookies (they may look like angels and be from a christmas cookie set but it's still only November so that makes them fairies) and picking at the Lanarkshire cucumber and cherry tomatoes I got at the farmer's market.  The cookie recipe was from Nigella's Feast .

For lunch we put on a Big Spread.  Jon made sausages and chicken goujons from Rachel Allen's Favourite Food at Home .  I also made some hummous from the same great book.  Jon also made stuffed jacket potatoes (both bacon and vegetarian versions) from Nigella's Christmas and I made mini pizzas (own recipe) and sweet potato falafel from Leon.  As usual, we also provided blue corn chips (or black crisps if you're two) and Mr Vikki's chutneys to nibble on.

On my birthday we ate lunch at Henderson's Bistro.  Despite being a bit of an Edinburgh institution we had never eaten here together, although I've eaten at their restaurant many years ago and sometimes stopped at the deli for a cheap and filling vegetarian lunch to keep me going whilst shopping.  We shared the above mezze and then I had spinach pancakes and Jon had the Moroccan stew.  Both were delicious and we vowed to return, especially when we don't have a massive chocolate cake at home and can enjoy one of their desserts.

On Tuesday we went to check out the restaurant at the new John Hope Gateway at the Botanics.  It's lovely, gorgeous food in a gorgeous building.  I had the above stack of pancakes with fruit, yoghurt and maple syrup whilst Jon went for the full Scottish breakfast.  Stuffed, we went over to North Berwick for a walk via a quick look round the Mark Hearld and Friends exhibition at the Scottish Gallery.

And then my throat started hurting...

32 years

It's my birthday today, although I started celebrating yesterday when Emily and her family came round for lunch.  I got some Very Hungry Caterpillar cups and plates because I like them even though I'm 32  to amuse Emily.  She helped me blow my candles out and then dived straight in to the sprinkles on top. Jon made this amazing cake, you can't really tell how massive it is from the photos but if anyone wants to come round to help us eat it, you're more than welcome. (well, you know, as long as I know you in real life).  It's from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.

Today we had lunch at Henderson's Bistro, which was gorgeous.  I'll come back and tell you about the birthday food another time, we put on quite a spread yesterday.