Live Paste

Health/Eco/Lifestyle

Scotland

The very hungry shark

by

It’s midnight and I’m just back from dinner. It was a lovely night out on the Black Isle. No light pollution out there so there were a gazillion stars. Plus there’s always an assortment of dogs around at the brewery. Tonight I counted three Jack Russells, two spaniels (one of whom was excellently named Daniel) and a pointer.

I so miss having a dog – I spend way too much time sighing over the Australian Working Dog Rescue Facebook page – but for now I get my fix patting the brewery hounds, without all the faff and hairs of owning one myself.

In case you’ve never had reason to stare at a map of Britain, I must tell you that the Black Isle is not actually an island. It is a peninsula. A mere appendage. When my Aussie friend Jason discovered this he said, “Scotland… built on lies!”.

At the start of the year I made a pact with my friend Jennette to write a blog post every week for eight weeks, OR ELSE. If one fails to write a post, the other scores ! We used Stickk.com to make it formal. I’m chuffed to have made writing a habit again, with huge credit to Jennette for spurring me on. I’m not worrying about quality right now; 2014 is the year of Project Consistency (but apologies to you). I made it all the way to the eighth week… before wilting tonight, at the final hurdle! Here I am at 12.30AM feeling delirious and cursing my slackarsery.

I went through a period in primary school when I would constantly whinge to the teacher, “I’ve got nothing to write about”. It’s actually there on my Year 4 (4th Grade) report card, something along the lines of, Shauna needs to stop whinging that she has nothing to write about and get on with her writing.

Then I went through a prolific phase when I could not stop writing. There were such gems as The Very Hungry Shark. It was all about a very hungry shark. It kept following a fishing boat everywhere and the sailors were getting worried. But the captain knew the problem was simply that the shark was very hungry. He came up with the solution of throwing the crew’s breakfast scraps overboard each morning for the shark to eat. Apparently this shark thrived on egg shells and bacon rinds. THE END.

In other news, the exercise portion of Project Consistency has been pretty good. On a recent morning walk the Ness Islands were flooded after mega overnight rain. It was lovely clear water and I saw three herons. THE END.

Flooded islands

flooded2

Scone update: We went back! It was quiet this time, and the scones were still warm from the oven. And delicious. And the size of a toddler.

Almighty scone

Almighty scone

The Ghost of Roderick Dhu and a new Pointless Project

by

After joking about it in the 2013 Review Thingo, I’ve decided to make 52 Whiskys In 52 Weeks my new Pointless* Project. It’s just the logical thing to do…

Gareth in the wash room

  • Geography – Living in Inverness I’m surrounded by Highland distilleries. The famous delights of Speyside are a short drive away. Orkney and Skye are mere weekend trips now. It would be rude not to explore!
  • Cheap thrills – I don’t plan on buying bottles of the stuff so I’ll need to be crafty. Distillery visits = free tastings, sometimes even multiple ones. There’s local whisky shops and whisky events. Gareth has a modest collection that I can exploit. If I get desperate towards the end, there’s always miniatures.
  • Glamorous moments – I’ve budgeted in a monthly bar visit. At Christmas a client took us to the swanky Caley Bar at Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hilton. I said to a colleague, “Wouldn’t it be great to be the kind of person who hangs out in these places on a regular basis?”. Later I thought, what are you waiting for, woman? I’m not getting any younger so I’m scheduling in decadence, dagnabbit. Every now and then I’ll get dressed up and go somewhere fancy for one drink. At my slowass rate of consumption I can make a dram last for hours. Gareth, you can come too but you may need to upgrade your hoodie.
  • Sensory workout – I like the infuriating challenge of figuring out what’s going on when tasting whisky. So far it’s very much like the Perfume Project… “I know that smell… what the bloody hell is it?”. Wonder if I’ll get any better at it over the year?
  • It’s fascinating stuff – the history, the unpronounceable names, the mystery & myth; the marketing BS… it’s intriguing and I want to learn more.
  • Marital harmony – Gareth developed an unexpected interest in whisky during his MA Brewing & Distilling course (he had come for the beer). So it’s fun having something we’re both interested in. Try as I may, I can’t get jazzed about homebrewing or mountain biking!

The rules

  • The whiskys must be single malt Scotch whisky. No blends or foreign stuff.
  • Just to assure you that I won’t develop a problem – I don’t have to drink a whole dram for it to qualify as Tasted. A sip or two is all I need to make a verdict.
  • Tasting notes to be entered into swanky new spreadsheet (surprise, surprise)
  • Champion whisky to be declared on 31 December 2014. So none of this “winding up the project a year after the deadline” malarkey this time.

The story so far

I’ve tried a Lagavuillin 16yo and a Clynelish 14yo from Gareth’s stash. His parents got us Historic Scotland memberships for Christmas (free entry into all HS properties) so this past weekend we went to Dallas Dhu historic distillery near Forres, which promised a free dram at the end of the audio tour.

Dallas Dhu distillery

The distillery closed down in the eighties but it’s well-preserved Victorian goodness is open as a museum. There were shades of Scotland’s Secret Bunker with the creepy mannequins dotted about…

Creepy mannequins

… and the free dram was a blend, derr. We should’ve thought of that; they’re hardly going to give tourists a splosh of their ye olde single malt which now goes for hundreds of quid per bottle.

Roderick Dhu dram

But it was all totally worth it for the audio visual extravaganza at the end. While sipping your dram you get to watch a history of whisky as told by the ghost of Roderick Dhu. With stunning 1980s special effects, he pops out of the bottle like a boozy genie to impart his wisdom. Once you’ve got the lowdown he whizzes back down into the bottle bearing his name and beardy visage. If you’re ever in Scotland and want a side of cheese with your whisky touring, be sure to add Dallas Dhu to your itinerary!

Rhoderick Dhu

* Pointless = as in having no point, i.e. for the pure fun of it and not being about work and serious stuff.

Back to the bar

by

Moving from Fife to the Highlands has been like moving from Oz to Scotland, in miniature. My brain wandered down the same path as ten years ago:

First stage – running around like a mad chook securing employment, with a cloud of self-doubt lurking overhead. You suck! You have nae skills! Get set to live in a cardboard box, CHUMP! 

Second stage – frazzled by all that putting-oneself-out-there, giving in to urge to hide from the world in my tracky dacks and eat chocolate.

Luckily I recognised the pattern in early November and deployed the same solution as I did in 2003: lift heavy objects!

I was digging the river walks, but my exercise was missing the RARRRRR Factor. Walking generates feelings of zen and goodwill, but I wanted to generate some badassery!

Initially I thought I’d join a gym, having sold off my dumbbell collection due to lack of space at Chez Nessie. But then I randomly found a personal trainer who was not only very affordable but a big fan of ladies lifting heavy weights. And she’d linked to a Stumptuous article on her Facebook page, the very website that got me hooked on weights way back in 2001. She had to be a good egg!

And she is. I’ve had weekly sessions since the start of November and I feel bloody awesome! She has proper weighty weights with the chunky bar and big plates; it’s all very She-Ra. And there’s boxing gloves and pads too, so we can extract the very last of my energy with a final flurry of punches.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier! I get to do the kinds of exercise I love most, but customised to my dilapidated knee situation. It took a bit of budget shuffling (I became obsessed with budgeting this year. Anyone else? Is that too dull of a thing to write about!?)  but it was so worth making a priority.

The heavier the weights get, the lighter I feel. I’m daydreaming of doing a pull-up someday. And that optimism is spilling over to other areas of life. I didn’t notice how ordinary I’d been feeling ’til I started feeling good. POW!

(I realise this is a random rubbishy kind of post but I just want to get back on the writing wagon!)

Loose ends:

  • After four months inside, Mother-In-Law Mary left hospital at the end of October to continue her recovery at home. She is an absolute champ!
  • The Bed Bits never surfaced. Methinks I chucked them away in my downsizing frenzy. But I called the manufacturer and they’re are sending us a “Replenish Kit” with all the bits. The fact that it has a name shows I’m not the only dickhead who has done this!

 

 

Two weeks with Vitamin D

by

We’re back to default grey and miserable today, so I’m not jinxing anything by mentioning out loud: the last two weeks were… sunny.

It started with the Edinburgh Marathon Festival weekend. I’d warned my visiting Up & Running pals to expect hypothermia, windburn and/or bad hair for the race, but the blue skies made a fool of me.

Victoria Street, Edinburgh

While I was on cheer squad duty, Gareth lounged in the back yard for six hours listening to the England v New Zealand cricket test. It was cool and windy, so he had a hoodie on his top half, but he’d unarchived his shorts and sandals for the bottom half. This was the result:

g-feet

“So I guess my theory that wind blows away UV rays is unfounded,” he said, “Besides, it’s your fault for leaving me at home unsupervised!”.

London

A sunny midweek followed, then I went to London to visit my sister and go to the Cybher blog conference. It’s in its second year and there were some great sessions, but the absolute highlight was randomly meeting three brilliant ladies: hilarious Caitlin from How To Play House, knitting maven Helen from Curious Handmade and photographer Kirsty Barton. I want to frame Kirsty’s business card… check out the eyes on the wee dog!

Business cards from Cybher

The next day I finally met the magnificent Sas in person for breakfast and yammering on. She is the bees’ knees and I grinned like a goof all day. #gingerpower

sas

(Photo nicked from Sas.)

Back to Scotland for another sunny mid-week, including an impromptu drive to Anstruther…

Anstruther fish and chips

… then on Friday night we spent an hour cleaning the BBQ (untouched since the “heatwave” of 2010), an hour waiting for it to heat up, then twenty minutes incinerating our dinner.

Summer BBQ

Finally on Saturday Gareth and I worked at the Farmers’ Market. He’s been helping out a local brewery lately, so we manned the stall while the brewer was on holiday.

Are you the farmer?

We made a pretty good team. He handled the beer chat and tastings while I handled the dosh and made sure the beer labels were perfectly aligned on the shelves. I recommended beers to unsuspecting locals as if I actually drank the stuff. We only had one moment of deranged, panicky flapping when we had a sudden run on gift packs and neither of us could work out how to fold up the boxes. We ended up selling all but four bottles! Score.

You may be scratching your head at this indulgent photo fest,  but you must understand the rarity of two consecutive non-grey weeks. Now the clouds are back and I’ve got nowt but freckles and memories…