Unreal city

Edinburgh on a night of haar* - an unreal city. On my walk home from work I kept thinking of T S Eliot's 'The Waste Land':

'Unreal city,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed under London Bridge...'

Below, St Giles Cathedral on the spine of the Royal Mile.





The tower on the right is part of New College, the University of Edinburgh's Divinity department. Behind it, the lights of a student hall of residence.





Waverley Station, complete with camera-shake (sorry!).





Princes Street gardens and the looming shape of the Scott Monument.





* haar - sea fog

Recycling (3)

Not ours this time, but spotted in the 'area' (the front courtyard) of a New Town basement flat. Any guesses as to what it is? The curve of the red roof line maybe gives a clue? I'll post the answer in due course, but I'm sure it's not that hard.
Edited to say that I should have been more specific - I meant the red thing! The blue flower is a campanula that is something of a weed in Edinburgh, and particularly in nooks and crannies in the New Town.

Winter Sunset, Whitecaps Bay

Here's a recent sunset shot from Grand Portage. This was taken a few days ago, one of the best sunsets of this winter so far. Most of our sunsets this winter have been met with very cloudy skies but this one had a few patchy clouds, just enough to really help accent the sunset color. The temperature was relatively mild when I made this shot, but the wind was really strong off the lake, elevating the wind chill and making this shot a bit of a challenge. Even with my gloves on, my fingers had a good chill after shooting this blustery winter sunset.

New beginning

Getting totally forked on the weekend may be the catalyst for a new beginning.
My hybrid bike, which has toured in three countries, and which I haven't yet got around to naming is probably going to be replaced. I have had a quick search of possible replacement forks on the Internet, and they aren't cheap. In fact, when I consider the things I'll soon need to replace on my current ride (I've only changed a single gear cable in over 8,000km), it may work out cheaper to just buy a new machine and have done with it. The best news is that I have the option to rand sack the current bike and keep the parts that still have some value, some of which may be of some use in getting The Black Magic back to a standard at which it can be used for centuries.
I think there is a lesson in this incident. While my hybrid is (was) perfectly capable of handling dirt roads, it probably wasn't up to being consistently ridden to hell and back. If I apply the old 80/20 rule, I should be able to utilise the more robust frame and forks of The Black Magic and eliminate much of the wear on the new steed, which can then be used as a touring machine, handling the occasional dirt road, but predominantly riding sealed/paved surfaces at home. I may even restore The Black Magic to a permanent commuter role, so good has it's performance been this week.
Sometimes the darkest hour can be the catalyst for a new beginning.

• In other news, I'm getting a little tired of hearing/reading reports of road "accidents", hearing the police complaining about having to deal with so many of them, before reading the old "no charges will be pressed" line. Wake up. If the police are really tired of dealing with these incidents, they are the ones who are in the best position to do the most to stop them. How about actually enforcing the traffic laws? It's not bloody rocket science, but would probably halve the road toll within 12 months if it was actually supported by some magistrates who might actually apply the penalties written in law. Either way, if the police aren't prepared to do their job, they should resign and leave it for someone else who will.

Simple French Cuisine? Roasted Camembert with honey.

France is famous for the wonderful cheeses and Camembert is certainly one of the most famous.
Camembert is certainly a great cheese, just to eat plain with some nice baguette bread, but there is a great recepy we discovered with the help of Blandine and Olivier from Laurenan.
The original name of this simple but very taste dish is Camembert roti avec le miel, that litteraly translates: Camembert roasted in oven with the honey.
Here is the recepy.
Have a Camembert form with its wooden box for each guest.
Cut the Camembert as you see in the picture below, cutting the top of each form off.


Dig in the cheese so to make space for some pieces of apple you have already prepared on a side.




Put the apple's pieces in the cheese you have already prepared in the center of the cheese form.



Then put some good honey on the top of the cheese forms.











Close the Camembert forms with their tops.








Put just a little bit of water on top of the cheese so that the brown sugar you are going to put on top remains easily on the top of the cheese.








Put the sugar on top of the cheese.










Put the Camembert in the oven for then minutes at around 200°C.







Enjoy it with some toasted baguette bread!







This post would has been made thanks to Blandine and Olivier Le Cloirec from Laurenanwho prepared a fantastic Camembert roti au miel with local, organic and very tasty ingredients, and (most important) with great passion!

Read more posts on our pageVisit France.

Follow us:
-like our blog pageon facebookso that you can read our posts when we will update this page
-follow uson twitterso that we can tweet you updates-follow uson Google+1, clicking on the G+1 button on the right column of this page
-subscribe to our free newsletter:insert your email on the box on the right columnon this page, so that you wil recieve the updates by email (note that when you subscribe you will recieve an email from "feedburner email subscription" asking you to confirm your subscription. Remember to confirm it and be aware that most of the time your email's filters will consider the confirmation email spam and so to find it and reply to it you have to look on your spam folder as well)

Tomato Seeds

A few weeks ago Meggiehad a fantasticGarden Seed Giveaway. She was very generously offering some heritage seeds. I chose a variety of tomatoes - Tomato Carbon, which have won many taste awards in the last few years!

They arrived today - and I am thrilled and delighted.Thank you, Meggie!

We will get them planted and I'll let you know how they progress.I am really looking forward to the taste test!

I wonder how they will fareat this year's Village Show

We had a huge amount of fun last year,notching up far more successesthan we expected.

The trouble is that it puts the pressure on this year!

I am counting on these purple tomatoes to win at least one class.Thank you Meggie.x









PS. Check out Meggies seed list - newvarieties she is trying out this year.

Old? and new

This is my 'old' school, in Elgin. Old = built in 1969. I should say that it is not normally surrounded by barricades...
Below, the beginning of the new Elgin Academy. The old one is now too old. Next time I'm up in Elgin I'll take a photo of the real 'old' Academy, which needless to say has lasted longer than 40 years.

First Tomatoes by Variety

Experience has taught us to bring our tomatoes inside to ripen on the counter, picking them just as soon as they show any color. Anything left on the vine too long will be destroyed by birds and squirrels and bugs.
Philo & I shared two 'Black Cherry' tomatoes last week - guess they were the first little tomatoes of ... Here's what's on the counter right now, minus what we'll count as the first regular tomato- the larger 'Early Girl' at bottom in the photo was sliced for breakfast. (Click to enlarge the photo)

We've already lost a couple of green tomatoes to bird pecks - once punctured they tend to rot. That very green 'German Johnson' at upper right in the photo fell off the vine. We had a couple of 'Gypsy' peppers this weekend. A few weeks ago we had great hopes for the 'Mariachi' pepper, but it suddenly collapsed, much like the heirloom tomatoes 'Paul Robeson' and 'Green Zebra' did last year. This is a worry - and one reason the heirloom 'German Johnson' is in a large container instead of in the garden soil.
A couple of mystery squashes are developing small fruit - who will get them first? The squash vine borers, the critters, or us?
Edit Monday AM: Good thing some tomatoes were inside - something (probably a squirrel) attacked one of the few 'Black Krim' tomatoes this AM while it was still solid green -it's in the compost now. And another pepper plant collapsed.

COME AND HAVE A LOOK ROUND... TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

This church dates from the 11th century, the tower being the oldest part. The churchyard is woefully neglected - but still wonderful. The setting is just off the A16, in the tiniest of hamlets, Waithe.









This monument dates from the 14th century, although it was restored in 1861.

The setting is lovely, the churchyard is atmospheric and interesting with huge, ancient trees, the building is very attractive externally with nice stonework



Nothing to dislike so far?





So, why do I really dislike it? Well, step inside.

Ah, that's nice. According to the plaque it was 'restored' in 1861 by a loving son, in memory of his parents.





See what you think, and then I'll tell you what I think, and how this church building makes me feel.



Doesn't look too bad so far, does it?



Except that the 'restoration' removed all the medieval charm and replaced it with red bricks and Minton tiles. Beautifully done, but it looks like a very swish public lavatory.







Even the beautiful, original arches have been restored to within an inch of their history. Red bricks. Minton tiles. Sterile atmosphere.





I love old church buildings; places which have great atmosphere because they have been used by countless people.





Every now and again I have come across a church which has a bad atmosphere, a building which you really wouldn't want to be left in on your own. This building is not like that.





This poor building has no atmosphere. It feels bleached, free from 'germs', free from history.





Step outside and the churchyard engulfs you in gentleness, atmosphere, and history, it is unkempt but not scary.





I won't bore you with another church building for a week or two, don't worry! I just happen to find them fascinating.





Like any building, some are good to be in, others make you want to leave asap, or have areas that just don't feel right.





More of these things at a later date.

A few hours on the water with Justine

With Canoecopia over and a serious case of spring fever afflicting us, and Justine Curgenven visiting before returning home to Wales, we decided to get out on the water with friends Bonnie Perry and Paul Redzimski.

Paul and....

...Justine stayed warm with a little frisbee.

Justine seemed a little disappointed that there was no more ice on the lake. (She had seen our photos in an earlier blog post.) But that certainly made the put-in easier.

North Avenue beach, where we could now carry over exposed sand.

With the wind blowing out of the north, we paddled south along the shoreline to Navy Pier. It's calming to be on the water, with the sounds of the city muffled and so much open space around us. We always wonder how visitors like Justine experience our home marine environment.

As we rounded the Pier, Chicago's skyline came into view.

Paul explored the sea caves beneath Navy Pier.

We threaded our way through the remains of Dime Pier.

Realizing that we would have to paddle against the wind on our way back (and not to wanting to be responsible for getting Justine to the airport late), we turned around and paddled north.

Heading Northeast to the light house. We were the only people on the water.

We stopped to look at the remains of winter ice on the break wall.

We landed and loaded up, a little colder but certainly happier for having gotten out.