My Few Previous Days

This is what my last post was really intended to be about. Much more mundane and requiring no thought whatsoever. My 'average day' tends to involve getting up and abluting and footling about with a mug of hot water and lemon and eating my breakfast of banana, blueberries and muesli (possibly with some Grapenuts) whilst checking emails and so on.

I then try to go for a walk in the woods in the Castle Grounds in Stornoway followed by a coffee in The Woodlands often with friends. Then I'll do what I need to do in Stornoway before home for lunch. The afternoons and evenings are varied well beyond 'average'.

In pictures the following has been part of life on Lewis this last week or so.

Last Saturday my son and daughter-in-law's home village of Grimshader had it's belated Novemver 5th bonfire night:

My son, a very keen cyclist, decided that one of the bikes he had made as a project was perfect for a child seat. Brodie absolutely loves it.

My daily drive into Stornoway involves driving over the 'spine' of the peninsula on which I live. This photo is of a heavy shower right over the top of Stornoway where I was about to walk. As it happens when I started on my walk the rain had disappeared and the sun had emerged.

The autumnal woods in the Castle Grounds were basking in glorious sun.

A couple of days ago I finished baking the last of the six Christmas cakes I've made over the last few weeks. The new oven in the new kitchen has been the best thing I've purchased for a long time.

Talking of the new kitchen I fitted a blind  this week.

This morning's sunrise over the Scottish mainland as seen from my kitchen was a mixed bag of snow showers and brilliant sun:

My garden pond was frozen over which is very rare here just above the sea

Now it is almost time to think of Christmas.

A Day of Sport and Wallpapering

I'm not a great sports follower but today has been a sportfest so far as I was concerned. I wasn't able to sit down and plonk myself in front of the television because I was wallpapering the newly installed kitchen. I don't have a choice either because my visitors start at the end of the week until mid September. 

Today was the day for the final of the Cricket World Cup between England (their first final for 27 years - a title they have never won), the British Grand Prix, the final day of Wimbledon, and the Tour de France. All are available on UK free-to-air television. Four of the rooms in my house have televisions but I can't be in more than one at a time.

Prioritising seemed as if it could be a challenge. So I decided to have the cricket on the television  in the kitchen until the Grand Prix and then after it I would watch the Wimbledon simultaneously on an iPad. I recorded the Tour de France highlights. 

As it happens that  decision was inspired because the tennis and the cricket were cliff-hangers and the British Grand Prix was actually interesting for once.

The cricket World Cup Final ended in a draw which had to be decided by a Super Over which ended with a win for England by 1 run.

The Grand Prix was won by Lewis Hamilton for the seventh time making him the most successful winner of the British Grand Prix in its 70-year history. 

Djokovic beat Federer in the fifth set after it had gone to 12 games all in the final set and had to be decided by a tiebreak making the final set 13:12 to Djokovic.

I have no idea what happened in the Tour de France.

However I did get the kitchen lining paper hung which just leaves the wallpaper and the painting to be done before next weekend. Oh. And the kitchen re-filled with everything I took out which is sitting in the garage in boxes.

A Whim or Getting Excited Over a Kettle

My kettle/jug was showing signs of structural weakness.  The plastic was beginning to split, was discolouring and had little patches where it looked as though the plastic had got too hot.  That wasn’t very good in an appliance that was not more than a few years old even though it had been an inexpensive purchase at the time.

So I popped into the local electrical shops to see what was on offer.  Have you any idea how many types of kettle there are now?  Trillions.  As I was surveying the array in our local Hydro Electric store I asked which was the quietest.  A chap busy unpacking the latest consignment replied that most of the modern kettles were quiet.  At that moment I realised hat you never ask a man questions like that.  So I asked Maggie.  She knows about these things.  She explained that they were all 3kw rapid-boil kettles and were noisy – except for one which was ‘quiet boil’ technology. So it came down to looks.  Needless to say the most aesthetically pleasing in my book was also the most expensive.  So after I had decided on a mid-priced one.  Maggie stood there waiting for me to change my mind.  How well she knows me.  But it is a beautiful kettle!

The Kitchen

Having spring cleaned the kitchen and got rid of quite a lot of its contents I decided that the ceiling had to be painted. The walls would be ok for a while and I certainly wasn't going to re-paper them. Pat wasn't convinced by this and thought that the kitchen would be brighter if the walls were painted too. So one day over the weekend I decided that two coats on the ceiling and two on the walls was the main task of the day. This is the effect which had the added advantage of giving me a wall on which to hang the two batiks which had hung in Andrew's hall.

Kitchen Gadgets

When I cleared out the utility room I got rid of quite a few 'surplus' kitchen gadgets. By 'quite a few' I means dozens. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I started clearing out the kitchen drawers a few days ago. Here is a selection of the things I found:

And there were more! Now there are fewer.

I use a lot of pepper but....

Actually there is justification here. The mill on the left works brilliantly as does the metal one in the centre (which works on a completely different principle to most mills). The salt works too. I think CJ and Dave have used it. Norman next door finds it too slow and prefers the old fashioned salt cellar. And I thought I'd already thrown away the ones that didn't work well.

I like spatulas.

This is a neat little selection from the 'middle drawer'. I couldn't get any more to fit on the (very large) chopping board for the photo.
And the greatest of all these is.....

My New Zealand pickle picker.

If only I could convince myself to make pasties these would be really useful. I assume. Has anyone ever used one?