A couple of months back, the Real World Consultant and the Arts Correspondent came by with a cast-iron urn to memorialise the fine cat Kitony (also known as the Doubtful Guest), who died here the Christmas before last after a long and gallant fight. We all put it in the wood on a rather temporary […]
We have survived, with reasonable credit and profound relief, a day which was added to our joint jobsheet some time ago shortly after the publication of that bloody book: we were required to show Old Aberdeen to a Very Gracious Personage. The trouble with Personages these days is that people are sometimes distressingly keen on […]
The Refugee Gardener shares my dislike of junking perfectly good plants, so it looks as if our policies are going to be filling up with refugees of a vegetable nature. He’s doing some work for a publically owned big house, and someone’s evidently had a theory: he turned up today with a peony, a briar […]
The main news of the day is that Miss Kit, who has been a bit under the weather, is probably all right. There has been plenty of weather to be under — today, for example, while sunny, has been remarkably cold with a knife-edged wind — and for some time, the little creature has been […]
We had occasion to call on the Laird of the Pink Castle this afternoon, and Mrs Laird, who is one of Aberdeenshire’s more notable gardeners, wandered in as we were all conspiring about this and that. The upshot of which –– like most good gardeners, she is generous –– was that I ended up leaving […]
The Refugee Gardener is deeply chagrined: his Accellerated Dahlia Programme (subtext, having perfect dahlias in time for the Turra Show, and entering them to surprise us) has gone pear shaped. My this year’s investment in dahlias which has been tucked up in compost in The Shed, has apparently rotted out of sheer bloody malicious […]
What with the combined efforts of myself, the Professor, the Refugee Gardener and Dr Brennan the Artist, the garden wall now boasts two layers of limewash. I have done something nasty to my lower back, which I very much hope is temporary. The wall is drying very slowly, since the concrete blocks of which it […]
It was only after I went to bed last night that I was struck by the ghastly thought, what if it was one of the Respectable Horses from the back field??? Two of the three being black, they would not have been visible. Fortunately all three were peacefully grazing come the dawn, and my mature […]
Quarter past twelve at night, I am taking Miss Kit out for her ablutions. Ms Best Friend is, I know, slumbering on the kitchen rug. It becomes more & more obvious that something large is sploshing about in the shallows of the burn some 10 feet below us, 20 feet distant. Sounds like a […]
I am moving about this evening with the mincing caution of one of Mr Hefner’s Bunny Girls. This is not because I am remotely likely to bust out of my drab and tentlike garments, but rather, is the result of a day spent lifting, heaving and hauling to an extent wholly incompatible with the preservation […]
We have been off line for a few days due to the enchanting presence of the Tropical Godfather, which ensured that the household had any amount of interesting things to do. These, as things turned out, included a trip to Cromarty, which we love, but it’s so far away that either you get up […]
Nothing went wrong with the Edinburgh mission, but last night produced a trio of peculiar accidents: I turned round holding a bowl of Bechamel sauce which somehow slipped and hit the floor, becoming a sort of cheese flavoured tsunami, and later on, I opened the oven door only to have it come off in my […]