insignificant ramblings of a 50-something woman
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Balmoral Castle in winter
It was a stunningly beautiful day at Balmoral Castle today with clear skies above a crisp, frozen landscape filled with the colours of nature. The temperature may have got up to 0C. I’ll let the photos tell the story.
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Honka Hut in the Ballochbuie Forest
We went for a lovely walk in the Ballochbuie Forest on the Balmoral estate today. We love these forest walks as they have a nice mix of forest, waterfalls, scenic views and beautiful old bridges. Today we added a new destination with a visit to the Honka Hut which was a gift from Finland to…
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Cinderella
We went to the pantomime on Boxing Day this year, which is a break from tradition for us as we usually go on New Year’s Eve, but we wanted our visitors to experience it too. The pantomime in Aberdeen at His Majesty’s Theatre is always excellent but it was particularly good this year. We’re very…
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Christmas 2025
I’m a day late this year. Usually I post on Christmas Day but we had a full day of activities yesterday and I didn’t get around to it. I have family visiting from Australia and France so it was a full house here with lunch followed by a walk in the park, gingerbread house decorating,…
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Elephant Session live at the Music Hall in Aberdeen
We saw Elephant Sessions perform at Aberdeen Music Hall last night. They were AMAZING! I have to confess I didn’t feel like going out and I was doubly annoyed when we got there at 7pm only to find out they weren’t starting until 9pm. Why don’t they put on the ticket that it starts at…
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Elizabeth singing How Beautiful are the Feet and Christmas food for health
Last week Elizabeth sang How Beautiful are the Feet from Handel’s Messiah at a charity Christmas concert in Aberdeen. She did marvellously! She’s been having singing lessons for about 18 months after asking me out of the blue one day whether she could go to lessons. I didn’t even know she could sing but she…
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Day 2 in London
Our second day in London started with more walking. Elizabeth and I wandered around before her school trio officially started at Somerset House for ice-skating. First we walked through a little park next to the Thames called Victoria Embankment Gardens. It was a lovely oasis in the middle of lots of tall buildings and bustling…
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An adventure to London on the sleeper train
Elizabeth and I are back in Aberdeen after a little adventure in London. She had a school Christmas trip there yesterday so we decided to go for a couple of days to have a look around. To add to the adventure we went down on the Caledonian sleeper train and it was pure luxury going…
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My second highland dance exam
I did my silver highland dance exam today. This is something most students do at age 9 or 10 so I’m only slightly over the hill. I dance with the Pam Dignan dance school and I think it’s wonderful that Pam gives everyone, young and old, the opportunity to dance, perform and sit exams. I’ve…
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Wholemeal pastry and a new prebiotic from M&S
I made wholemeal pastry over the weekend and it turned out pretty well. I made it with wholemeal spelt flour, olive oil and water – that’s it. It was impossible to roll out into a perfect shape but you can cut off the jaggy bits around the edge. Half of it lines the bottom of…
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It’s beginning to feel like Christmas
I’ve been trialling different recipes for Christmas with the hope of creating something absolutely scrummy that even hardened meat-eaters will enjoy. Last week I tried making a vegan wellington based on this recipe in The Guardian but with cauliflower instead of squash since my fussy family don’t like squash. It turned out really well. First…
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The Cat Dimension
Elizabeth is taking an EPQ subject this year which stands for Extended Project Qualification that’s equivalent to half an A-level. As part of that she’s chosen to code a game called The Cat Dimension which takes inspiration from our cat Victoria. This weekend she created the graphics for the cat using Victoria as the model…
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Snow, St Andrews, and foxes
We started our day today with a lovely train journey through snowy landscapes to visit Daniel in St Andrews. We’ve had snow in the north east of Scotland this week which has made everything very pretty. I took this next photo at Duthie Park yesterday. Here are a couple of photos from the train today.…
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Re-wallpapering the lounge
Last month I wallpapered the chimney stack in our lounge room but I wasn’t happy with the result. I did a poor job – it wasn’t straight – plus I didn’t really like the pattern. Today I did it all over again and I’m much happier. I could have tolerated the previous pattern had I…
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Elizabeth’s choreography for Elephant Sessions
Elizabeth danced her own choreography at the Forfar annual choreography competition yesterday. She chose the song Colours by Elephant Sessions who are a Scottish indie folk band from the highlands and who we’ve seen play live a couple of times now. We’re planning to see them again next month. Her dance had to be less…
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A bespoke pharmacy to control blood pressure
Did you know that the key to controlling your blood pressure lies not with prescription drugs but with a tiny microorganism that lives in your gut? I did know about this but wanted to understand the mechanism and it turns out to be fascinating. There are trillions of microorganisms living in our gut including bacteria,…
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Halloween murder mystery dinner
We went for a murder mystery dinner for Halloween last night. There was no requirement to go in fancy dress but dressing up is the fun part so we did. Ben is Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth is Little Red Riding Hood and I’m some random Victorian lady, maybe Mary Watson if I have to choose someone.…
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Pigeon post
As regular readers will know we had Peggy the pigeon living in our laundry for about a week and a half. Initially I thought she had a head injury and just needed a quiet space to recover but I turned out to be quite wrong. I contacted New Arc Wildlife Rescue just north of Aberdeen…
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Elizabeth on stage at the Lemon Tree with Breabach and SC&T
Elizabeth joined the SC&T Youth performance group at the start of this year and my only regret is I wish we’d discovered them sooner because they’ve provided so many fantastic opportunities for her to perform. Over the summer she played at the music hall with Capercaillie, last week she played with SC&T as the supporting…
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Peggy the pigeon
When Ben and I were walking down to feed the foxes last Tuesday night – yes we’re still feeding foxes – we found a pigeon sitting in the middle of pavement next to a busy road. Pigeons are usually up high on a perch somewhere at night time so this was a clear sign something…
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