Overkill

The distilleries I have visited:-

Aberlour, Balvenie, Benromach, Cardhu, Cragganmore, Dallas Dhu, Dalwhinnie, Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, Clynelish, Dalmore, Edradour, Glenmorangie, Glen Ord, Oban, Old Pultney, Royal Lochnagar, Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Kilchoman, Arran, Highland Park, Talisker, Tobermorey and Glenkinchie. 30 distilleries. That is too many.

Edradour is my favourite. See picture above.

All a bit Woolly

This is where I stayed recently in the Alps. It is a brilliant, brilliant place. Anyway...

I think I may have caught the knitting bug. It only started 2 days ago, but I am already trying to find patterns and lusting after yarns (and buttons too for some reason - I do like a good button). I was gifted with the means to start my quickly accelerating obsession on Saturday, by my very generous mother in-law. My better half meanwhile, was gifted with a 2000 piece jigsaw and now has his own jigsawy problems. The two fixations complement each other pretty well actually, and keep us away from our other addiction - the humble public house. Not bad for the bank balance either, which is seeing hard times.

Anyway, I began to knit fairly randomly, casting on a random amount of stitches (let's say between 20 and 30). Random. This took me about an hour. I don't think I'm a natural. Or maybe the self-patterning yarn confused me in it's fury of yellow, orange, turquoise and white. An interesting combination. Still it was free and it got me going. Several rows later my "square" got wider and wider and grew holes and got tangled. Several rows later again, a pattern emerged from the chaos that went before and then I became a very happy person indeed. Like finding that piece of jigsaw with a hairy chest and a tiny part of a flag on it.

Tenuous Top 5: Hot Liquid Things

In reverse order, my top five hot liquid things are as follows:-

5. Gravy. It's very tasty and meaty.
4. Baths. Cleansing, relaxing and they smell nice.
3. Hot Toddy. Whisky, honey and lemon heaven.
2. Lava. Scary but cool, though at 700 °C to 1,200 °C it is hot, hot, hot!
1. Tea. Tea is just more drinkable than lava and it makes you feel good.

Didn't make the list - geyzers and hot springs, coffee, hot water bottles, hot chocolate and curry sauce.

It is Thursday. I am on the sauce but I am good. I have work tomorrow but what was five days a week is now only three. This was to be expected but I'm a little disappointed. I will need to find alternative/additional work which is scary, exciting, nerve-wracking, opportune and brings out the indecision in me. But I will try to be bold, steady and decisive. I will try.

Still, I have been up to good things including: exploring my family tree (addictive), making mince pies (off-season), enjoying the Fringe (uplifting), being x-rayed and ultrasonographed (I am fine - see next item), discovering I have an accessory parotid gland (along with a quarter of the population), studying changes in planning policy (dull), enjoying Mardi Gras and Jazz on a Summer's Day (Edinburgh), on the Black Isle (wet), attending Dave and Kaki's wedding (good times), camping in Speyside (invigorating), supping whisky (nostalgic) and watching Desperate Romatics (desperate).

Oversized Sea Turtles & Erotic Displays of Apple Juice

Just your average Hammer film really. I've seen a few, mostly horror, but One Million Years BC and The Witches are the most recent additions to the list. I'm really not sure whether they are horror or not.
One Million Years BC. 'This is the way it was', apparently. Groups of dark-haired savages wearing extra-hairy waistcoats with their bums hanging out, are extra stupid and constantly try to kill each other and only eat meat. Meanwhile groups of blonde-haired slightly-less-savage savages wear slinky taupe numbers with their bums and tits hanging out, and like to paint pictures and eat vegetables. One of the former groups of people runs off after his reward for wrestling a pig in a pit is to be thrown off a cliff by his Dad (who incidentally looks like Bobby De Niro crossed with Eric Cantona). He manages to escape a truly terrifying jumbo iguana (above), only to be attacked by similarly disproportionate and scary sea turtle (below) and has to be rescued by Raquel Welch and her prehistoric hand bag.

With the incredible care they were taking not to misinform the viewer on the topic at hand, the groups of people have no language and resort to charades for most of the film. There is a narrator at the beginning but he disappears and after a while you are too busy being wowed by the very special effects to notice. Then a volcano erupts and natural selection favours only the one that ran away and the one that saves him. Everyone else is assumed dead and now they can start making a race that like wrestling pigs and like painting. 'This is the way is was'? I don't know what it was like one million years BC but I'm pretty sure this is the way it wasn't.

And so to The Witches. The scene pictured above has made the rest of the film pale in comparison, but then this scene wouldn't be this scene without the run up to it. What you see here is a supposedly scientifically-minded super-dyke wearing horns made of birthday candles feeding mud to villagers who have lost their collective mind. It must be magic. Or voodoo. Or something in the water. This is the latter part of the same scene involving erotic displays of apple juice, whereby the lighting of the candles on the super-dyke's head spontaneously causes the villagers to burst open apples above their heads, rub the juices all over their bodies and then rub up against each other. Obviously. If you don't believe me see below. For further explanation you should watch the film, it is amusing.

Tom & Barbara Would Be Proud

If Tom and Barbara were real people they would be proud. This year we are growing courgettes, baby sweetcorn and chillies (same as last year), plus lettuces, radishes, tomatoes and potatoes. And a bunch of herbs - basil, thyme, oregano, dill and mint (the bastard). Mint steals the candy from all my babies.

So on the herb front mint is going for it, albeit in a very scatty, unorganised and disruptive way. Dill was doing fine until mint came along. Basil is doing fine, though not as good as last year, and we have loads of oregano and some good stalks of thyme. In terms of veg things seem to be going okay. Last year was a bit mixed and while we had quite a few courgettes, we only had one unripe cob of baby corn from several over-sized grassy-looking plants. I don't think Scotland is the place for baby sweetcorn or any corn for that matter. We don't have a greenhouse. We don't even have a vegetable patch - just bags of dirt in a shady garden and a bunch of things in miniscule pots indoors. Anyway, like I say things this year seem to be going okay.

So, to our first crop of the season, the radish, that lovable little magenta brassica. Apparently, we are not good at growing them. From five plants we have one radish, pictured above. This is our punishment for having little faith in our shady garden and Scottish weather, and for not doing any research whatsoever. We only put one plant in our garden and this is it. It went from being a very sad and limp seedling into a bushy 20-30cm plant in such a short time that we weren't even sure it was the radish. It wasn't until I was out resuscitating our potatoes (not mouth-to-mouth thankfully) from their battering by the wind that I noticed a big pink thing poking out of the ground that I knew we had some degree of success. We ate it a couple of days after and as predicted it was rubbery and old, but also hot and peppery, just the way my new husband likes them.

Our second success is hopefully going to be with our 'Catriona' potatoes which have shot up pretty quickly in one of those bags which you just keep adding soil to. They have been growing pretty steadily since we planted them, until a week or two ago when the wind broke every stem. They were just coming into flower and although we probably should have supported them with some bamboo ages ago, I'm of the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it persuasion. Well, they broke and I fixed it. I've been out watering them today and checking they are still standing and whilst I was at it and I decided to have a root around in soil and see if I could find a potato. It took some digging, but this is what I found with it's "attractive purple eyes" just like the packet said it would. Now I'm wondering whether or not it's a waste of electricity to boil just one bite-sized potato. I don't think Tom and Barbara would like that.