We are congratulating ourselves on a small but significant victory over inertia. At the end of last summer, the Real World Consultant donated some surplus props to the household – he had personally seen enough of them, having toured them round Europe in a truck for weeks on end – two potted date palms named […]
We were at a wonderful dinner party last night in the remote wilds of Strathdon, which is a very long way from anywhere else much, which broke up when we all suddenly realised that it was after one in the morning. Thus we were driving home in the very early — or late– hours; at […]
The German Guests got married today — due to the pressure of various business, we were not able to be present, but we have been thinking of them very kindly at intervals, and hoping that this late & changeable spring held still for the mid afternoon. Those of the blog community who met them last […]
Miss Dog entirely failed to cover herself in glory today. While I was otherwise engaged, and the sweet & patient lady who cleans up after us all was pottering to and fro, she scratched her way into a somewhat old and well ripened bin-bag and devoured rather a lot of whatever it was she found […]
We took Miss Dog out in the infinitely long Northern Scottish summer evening, and as we went towards the field, the Professor suddenly noticed a doe on the other side of the burn — maybe forty feet away, she had frozen, staring at us with huge solemn eyes. We stopped, and we all stared at […]
My Gamekeeper sat his last GCSE this morning, after which he was a free man. He celebrated this –– we were in Aberdeen doing the sort of stuff we get paid for –– by taking it into his little head to Help With The Garden in the afternoon. Unfortunately, his education has not included much […]
Many thanks to all the generous web-friends who have sent in trout recipes. I take the point about ‘just some butter and roll it up in foil’, but I am collecting recipes towards the day when the words ‘No! no! no! Not trout again! burst spontaneously from every member of the household, even Miss Dog. […]
I have just been sent the first copies of Early Modern Women Poets, the book I have been writing for the last ten years. It’s very odd to see it; some books are of their nature unfinishable and this is one such. It was more a question of declaring a cut-off point and sending […]
Well, Dearies …
We are now back from a week in North Germany. Mostly in Wolfenbüttel, where we found ourselves entirely surrounded by halftimbered houses and flowering lilac. One of those conferences where about half those present were old and valued friends, and moreover, the Professor and I had the use of a sort of rococo […]
The Apparitional Gamekeeper turned up this evening just before supper, grinning from ear to ear and holding out a two and a half pound trout, so fresh it had only just stopped vibrating. Plans for Dins were abruptly derailed; we had, instead, baked trout and a velouté sauce with chopped prawns in it, followed […]
The Professor’s cousin the Vigneron blew in from Spain via Edinburgh to catch up with this and that — en passant she told us the only amusing thing anyone has yet revealed with respect to the new pontiff — some of the less reverential denizens of the Italian yellow press have taken to referring to […]
I have just been tidying up blog comments. Does anyone out there know why 95% of spam currently relates to playing poker on-line? Who does play poker on-line? Has this become some kind of gigantic industry? I speak as one who has never played poker at all, anywhere; in fact my lifetime’s supply of interest […]
I posted a week or two back about the pony Magic and his weak pasterns (’The Wrong Sort of Feet’). To the great relief of all, the beastie has now been sold; and for a sum which seriously suggests that Kattomeat is not the immediate shape of his future. Our excellent neighbours have a […]
The Apparational Gamekeeper dropped by to tell me how his GCSE English had gone (okay, it seems) and also to tell me that the deer have between them achieved four fawns (they are roe deer I’m talking about, i.e. the medium sized ones with white behinds and small, straight horns. While by most standards we […]
The Canadian Professor has been visiting Vancouver, well known for being somewhat laid back. She was, unfortunately, not so much laid back as laid out — she tripped on the pavement and fractured her wrist. This necessitated a visit to hospital, where, being a Heroine of Labour, she continued doggedly working on the paper she’s […]