The difference between the English and the Scots is...

While the English commentators were happily comparing Andy Murray's expected win to 1966, we Scots were hiding behind our sofas, scared to look in case our interest might hex the boy and make him lose. Why are we like this? We have had it beaten into us since the cradle - "don't get too big for your boots now!"

Today Andy shook off the national curse, and played his wee heart out. Next year he will win for sure.


More Firsts





Someone asked me the other day if I am still collecting Firsts. In a way I am and always will. One first this week was the harvest of my first time growing beans. They were delicious steamed and served with local venison stew and redcurrant sauce (another first - last years redcurrants were enjoyed by the crows).

Unfortunately my garden is dripping with produce waiting to be picked and I am off on holiday for two weeks. My house sitters and garden waterers will have a great feast while I am way.


Classic moment of the day

Just spotted - a car with driver and passenger who looked as though they had eaten all the pies and were searching for more. Emblazoned on the car side "Want to loose weight? Contact us" I think not!

The Good, The Bad and The Privileged

The story of Molendinar Family Learning Centre.



The Eco Flag flies above flowers donated earlier in the day by a local gardener.


I have been working this year with a group of mothers at the Molindinar Family Centre. The Centre is situated in Blackhill in the East End of Glasgow. Wikipedia describe Blackhill as "developed as a council housing estate in the 1930s. Most of the new development was designated Rehousing, the lowest grade of council housing intended for those cleared from Glasgow's 19th century slums". In the last decade the estate has been rejuvenated and the Molendinar Centre is one of the many success stories of that rejuvenation.

The Centre has a three large nurseries and a parents room. In the past year they have successfully worked for, and been awarded with their Eco Flag. I have been working with the parents to grow vegetables and herbs and the nurseries have been growing flowers. Tyres and boxes have been painted by the parents and a couple of weeks ago we planted them up.

When I arrived last week I found the lot had been vandalised. I was told that some youths had rampaged the outside area and thought it would be fun to destroy this hard work. The children and the mothers had cried when they saw the damage.

The Evening Times reported the incident on Monday. When I arrived yesterday the scene had transformed. Flowers bloomed from every corner of the Centre. Local residents had turned out in force to donate money and flowers to repair the damage.

This is an example of how the actions of a few callous youths can be overturned by the kindness of the community. I have no doubt that community will win in the end.

It has been a privilege for me to work in Blackhill and I am looking forward to working with them again in the future.

Glittering Prizes

The Proof - Monty Halls' Wilderness on the left, the MOD on the right

A visit to Applecross last week was a welcome break. We found a few changes since last there. The pub, always busy, is over stretched with the increase in traffic since the BBC invasion. What hasn't changed is the MOD's proximity to Monty Halls wilderness paradise and the stunning scenery.

We will go back in November for the unedited local weather, a decent seat in the pub and a chance to chat with the locals once they emerge from their summer hideout.




Food Miles

At the beginning of this year I claimed I would reduce my food miles and I now realise that I haven’t reported any of the things I have been doing.

I am lucky to live in Scotland. Here I have almost all I need within our borders. And Europe is so close that I can almost get away with buying the rest from there.

Here is a list of all the things I have changed this year;

All flour from Aberfeldy Mills
All honey from Dalmiur
All eggs local
All cows milk local
All meat local
All fish Scottish (our local butcher sells fish purchased weekly from Pittenweem)

I now buy only Scottish cheddar, soft cheese I make myself but I have still to get into the practice of doing this weekly. Parmesan from Italy.

I try to only buy Scottish fruit and vegetable, preferably from the farmers market. The big exceptions are bananas and lemons, I can’t do without bananas, but I qualify this by buying only Fair Trade – the lemons I’m still working on.


My garden is now beginning to bear produce so I am buying less and less as summer progresses. All my herbs are home grown.

The wine we drink is either home made or French.


One acquisition to the garden is Champion the Bean. The Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow are currently running an exhibition called This Land is your Land. Part of that project is to give plants away to anyone happy to look after them. I took Champion. They also gave me two chilli plants which I called Cayenne and Abel. The bean was unhappy in its pot but is now thriving in a whisky barrel in the company of an Italian bean and a butternut squash.







Champion the Bean on the right of the barrel. The plastic tub is the beer trap I put out to give the slugs a happy time and keep then off the beans.





Glittering Prizes

Congratulation to James Kelman on winning the Scottish Book of the Year for Kieron Smith,boy. I finished the book last night and can confirm it as a worthy winner.

This novel uses a unique voice to chart the life of a small boy through the ages of five to twelve in post war Glasgow. I heard James Kelman discuss the book a couple of months ago where he stated that this is a book for women to discover how fraught with danger a little boy's life is. The story is touching, heroic and funny. It has been described as Kelman's best book yet.

Capercaillie and Cateran

It isn't every weekend that you share a stage with an international supergroup and then follow in the footsteps of marauding clans and cattle thieves. Not to mention the realisations that I am becoming addicted to Britain's Got Talent.

The weekend began at the Fintry Music Festival. The traditional music group I am a member of, Get Reel, was asked a while ago if we could support Capercaille. Unlikely you would think but a fact. Under the able instruction of our tutors Mike (Malinky) Vass and Barry (Spad)Reid we learned three sets to perform. This was our fifteen minute happening.

Karen Matheson passed through our rehearsal area back stage a couple of times and gave us smiles and hellos. I think she probably felt sorry for us as we screeched and droned.
At 8.00pm on Friday night we walked out into the stage in front of the packed hall of Fintry Sports Club and played our wee hearts out. The audience clapped along and gave us a massive applause. The Capercaille show was pretty fine too.

I have heard the bookings are now flooding in.


The Cateran Trail

I found a flyer in a magazine about a new walking trail in Perth and Angus. The circular trail starts and finishes in Blairgowrie. It follows the paths that the Caterans used and takes about five days to complete. Colin and I only had a couple of days so we opted for short sections.

The first section was from Bridge of Cally to Blairgowrie. The track takes a high route over the Cochrage Muir and give the walker wide landscapes of clean ploughed fields and up close and personal access to the many nestling birds in the area. At one point we were surrounded by lapwing mothers flapping over their youngsters, while the fledgling flustered round ground nests wondering what all the fuss was about.

We completed the section in a couple of hours and caught a taxi back to the Bridge of Cally Hotel where we enjoyed a well prepared and presented meal.

The Dalhenzean Lodge B&B, just up the road, was clean, comfortable and gave us the biggest cooked breakfast I have eaten in years. It was just the job to see us off on our next trip.

This time we opted for a variation on the Cateran trail so we could enjoy a circular route. This route took us past Loch Beanie where a fledgling oystercatcher was chirping and birlin in circles like one of those wind up toys you see in Chinese markets, the only difference was this little bird never ran out of spin.

Part of the walk took us on road but it didn't spoil the enjoyment too much. The thousands of lambs we encountered brought back to mind that age old puzzle - Why do such cute lambs turn into ugly sheep? It isn't right somehow.

One lamb made friends with us, I was tempted to stick him in my rucksack but in the end sent him back to his mother.

One lamb trying to make his escape

Welcome Babey Boy

Yesterday was a big day in my life. A wee babey boy was born at 8.30 in the morning. He is my first grandchild and I am bursting with pride. I was over in Fife yesterday visiting a very tired Mum and Dad and a very contented little boy. I wont say any more otherwise I will turn into a cliche sprouting idiot.

Poor Neglected Blog

The Clutha Vaults - The only place to be seen on a Friday night in Glasgow.

I can't believe it is almost a month since I last created a post. I have been delivering four new courses into the community and the preparation and teaching time have elbowed everything else into the background.

The courses, Excel, Kitchen Gardening X 2 and Creative Writing, are all going well. I am finished with the Excel and one Kitchen Gardening this week and hope this will free up some time to push me out into my own garden and reintroduce myself to my novel.

But it hasn't all been work. Colin won a weekend for two at the Jury's Glasgow Hotel and we thought we would combine it with the Bob Dylan concert.

We came into town on Friday night and had dinner at an old style Glasgow restaurant. It was at one time the place to be seen. We had eaten there before, on Valentine's night, but like all Valentine meals, we were disappointed. This time would be different, I was sure.

But it wasn't. I was served over cooked scallops to start. They were no match for the succulent fresh beasts dished up at the Applecross Inn. There they are so fresh you pass them on the way in still sloshing about in the fisherman's bucket.

The main course of swordfish wasn't too bad, but it wasn't that great either. The most startling thing about the restaurant was the clientele. They all looked like gangsters; old guys trying to impress young straightner-straight-haired women. It was a bizarre experience.

We needed brought back to earth, so we went for a drink in The Scotia Bar, an old Glasgow institution. A live Blues band was belting out many decibels, but a couple of old guys in the corner told me The Clutha Vaults, across the road, was better. And it was. Another live band was playing, this time seventies and eighties rock. Before I knew what was happening I was up on the floor dancing with four women from Pollock. They don't make pubs like that anymore.





After that Saturday night at the SECC could have been a let down, but Sir Bob came up with a show. He played a mixture of old and new material and his band were excellent. I hate Bob Dylan's new staccato singing style, but it was an honour to see what was billed as The Poet Laureate of Rock.





Congratulations to Carol Anne Duffy on becoming the new Poet Laureate. Let's hope she will continue with the excellent work Andrew Motion began with the Poetry Archive.

Chill out time

Eilean Shona - Scotland in miniature

Colin and I have just come back from a week’s holiday on Eilean Shona, a wee island off the west coast of Scotland. The ferry (small rubber dingy) picked us off the mainland at 5.00pm on Saturday, we were walked to our cottage and left to enjoy the peace. We had enough food, drink and books for a week.
Eilean Shona is a sort of mini Scotland. It has some reasonable hills to climb, a diverse international forest, lochs, fine walking, history, wildlife and a fabulous white sandy beach.




The Perfect Red Cottage

The island has a number of holiday cottages. We were staying in Red Cottage which was up a hill on the edge of a forest. There was so much storm damaged dead wood lying around we were encouraged to have a camp fire, which we delighted in doing most evenings.



Afternoon tea at the cottage

Being a mad recycler I was keen to keep the rubbish we produced and left behind to a minimum. The new estate managers, Rose and Ali, had told me that they hoped to create a vegetable garden. I asked if they had a compost heap for my vegetable scrapes, not yet but they had something better. Three pigs who were employed as environmental rotivators, churning up the vegetable patch and grateful for anything you threw at them.



The Three Composters


We failed to see the promised wildlife of pine martin, otter and sea eagle, but we did manage to see deer and grey seals and plenty birds. And we brought some wildlife back with us; the walk to the beach had us wading through some pretty long heather. As a result of this heather bashing both Colin and I have been plucking tics out of our skin ever since. I thought April would have been too early for Scotland’s nasties, but apparently not.



The sun sparkled beach - was it really April? Yes, that's why I still wore my hillwalking boots on the sand


WWF Earth Hour

Just because I was on holiday did not mean I forgot a very important appointment. At 8.30pm on Saturday the 28th of March, Colin and I sat in our wee Red Cottage and watched our wood burning stove glow while we turn off the lights for an hour.


Earth hour - check out how the rest of the country spent the hour