Friends, Family & Catalan Food

Sat 23 & Sun 24 Feb
Since we had to visit our dentist in Glasgow (after 3-4 years of no check ups things were getting a bit urgent!) which is on the same road as my parents’ house, afterwards we popped in to see my family and stayed for lunch. As it was a Saturday the nephews had descended on mum and dad for their weekly dose of entertainment including pool, Xbox, computer games and DVDs. I ended up with Ruben on my lap watching Tom and Jerry which I never liked very much even as a child! I caught up with my sisters, admired Ruben and Dan’s new haircuts, Kate’s new car and Matthew’s increasingly longer hair while Michael did his PC advisor best on my dad’s and Sarah’s laptops. We had to leave in time to get back for a party in nearby Bridge of Allan at Roser’s flat.

Above: My nephew Danny aged 6 with new funky haircut in his favourite T-shirt.

Above: My wee sister Kate holding her youngest boy Ruben aged 3 1/2.

Roser is from near Barcelona in Catalonia and after Ailsa’s Burns Night the Catalans had promised to return the favour with a Catalan dinner party. In one of the photos you can see the Catalan chefs including Toni who is the winemaker who provided the amazing red wine at the last party.

Almost all the food was prepared from scratch which was pretty impressive-even the quince jelly! All the guests had been asked to bring wine or other drinks and so most people brought at least a couple of bottles meaning that we had more wine bottles than guests! There was some lovely cava which, of course, is a Catalan drink.

Above: Amazing home-made Catalan food before we demolished it including yellow cards describing the food in Catalan, Spanish & English.

Catalan food and drink menu in Catalan & English:

(to be completed)
Escalivada - ?

Codonyat amb formatge de cabra – quince jelly with goats cheese

Esqueixada de bacalla or Brandada de bacalla – salted cod with beans

Empedrat Olivada –olive tapanade

Espardenyes -?

Truita de patates –tortilla (Spanish omelette)

Truita de carbasso – tortilla with courgettes

Pa amb tomaquet –bread with tomato & olive oil

Embotits: pernil salat, llonganissa, xorico, sobrassada - ham, sausages, chorizo,
---
Coca de poma –apple cake

Torrons –very sweet bars with nuts

Pastissets de Tortosa -sweet pumpkin in pastry
Cremat –rum, coffee beans, lemon peel, cinnamon & ?

Above: Some of the chefs explaining the menu- left to right Roser our host, Sonia, Toni, Montse and Clara.

For a special warm Spanish cocktail called ‘cremat’ we used a whole bottle of rum which was donated by my dad – apparently my nana used to have a drop in her coffee and this was a left-over bottle she hadn’t used- I’m sure she would have approved of us putting it to a good use! We begged some coffee beans off the hotel bar over the road from Roser’s saying it was for a Catalan ‘dessert’ and that went in too!

Above: Toni setting light to the 'Cremat' cocktail which contains an entire bottle of dark rum.

One of the Catalan contingent brought Catalan music and we tried out a traditional dance which was very slow and apparently popular with elderly Spaniards! I then tried to persuade everyone to carry on dancing to Abba and Amy Winehouse with no success :-(

As it turns out, a number of the Catalan people come from the same village near Barcelona and only met here by accident- seems a bit of an odd coincidence that they should all have ended up in Stirling!

Apparently there is a Catalan tartan which you can see here:
http://www.tartanstore.net/tartan/Catalan-1992-Olympics-Modern/64803? For some strange reason it is not very popular with male kilt wearers!

The next party is going to be a Latin American evening hosted by Jennifer from Venezuela and Nicki who lived in Guatemala for a few years - we've been promised there'll be salsa dancing!

Above: The morning after the night before- Charlie yawning on his favourite spot- my pillow!

The next day I went shopping for new specs since mine got trodden on. I spent hours scouring the opticians of Stirling for the second time and eventually found a pair I liked but as there was a special offer on where you could get a second pair free or reduced I then had to find another pair…. (Michael liked me in a pair of ostentatious Dolce & Gabbana framess but I absolutely hated the stupid diamante spangly logo on the arms)! I ended up spending almost £300 on 2 very similar pairs and then going home and realising I’d wasted my money - in all the 8 years I’ve been wearing specs I have never used my spare glasses! Shopping with a hangover is not a good idea! Anyway, after some persuasion and tenacity on our part, the shop agreed to refund me for one pair bringing the cost down significantly. I can’t believe how expensive a nice pair of specs is now!

Yoga & Cruachan

Yoga heaven
When I first started yoga about 10-11 years ago a friend at university introduced me to an Iyengar class in Partick and pretty soon I was going to 3 classes a week (including one on a Sunday morning- that’s dedication for you)! When I first started I couldn’t touch my toes, I could barely arch my back and my ankles were so stiff I found kneeling & sitting back on my feet agony. But despite the pain I enjoyed it so much I persuaded my younger sister, my then boyfriend and my mum and dad to take it up! It’s taken quite a while to improve my flexibility but I am now able to do the wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana) (involves lying on your back then pushing yourself up on your hands and feet into an arch) which I did for the first time since I was 10 years old a month or so ago – I was ridiculously pleased with myself!

I haven’t been able to practice yoga solidly since I first started it. When I moved to Ipswich it was a yoga desert – there wasn’t an Iyengar teacher within 25 miles and the classes I did try were disappointing (arm wafting / miserable teachers). I did find a good teacher in Stortford but I fell out with her when she cancelled 2 classes then refused to reimburse me for them!

By chance, I was talking to a new colleague at work and she told me about an Iyengar teacher in Stirling and I went to her class for the first time on Thursday night having already done an hour of yoga that day at uni (she is part of the same yoga group as my first teacher from Glasgow). So all together I did almost 3 hours of yoga that day and was knackered! I really felt it in my muscles on Friday –ouch!

The teacher Lyn was a bit eccentric – there were 2 Carols in the class who she calls Little Carol (who was quite short) and Big Carol (who wasn’t particularly big). I had to try and keep a straight face when she started shouting out things like ‘Good, Little!’

It’s been a while since I’ve been to class where the teacher uses the proper Sanskrit names for the postures and some of them I couldn’t remember so I had to watch what everyone else was doing - Mukta Hasta Sarvangasana had me wondering (freehand shoulder stand, in case you don’t know either – looks weird, pretty impressive, but I can’t do it! Kind of looks like someone’s dropped you on your neck and you’ve stayed there). See 2nd row of yoga postures in the piccie!

Hiking boot hell
Thursday night is late night shopping so I came home early and popped into town with Michael to try to buy him some proper hiking boots in preparation for Saturday’s hill walk. He said he’s not going to spend money on something that has had zero design effort put into it- I pointed out that hiking boots are never going to be a thing of beauty! The only vaguely pretty boots were £150! So no new boots and sore feet!

Hill walk up Cruachan, East Loch Lomond –Sat 9 Feb
We arranged to go on a hill walk up Cruachan, a small but steep hill of 536 metres, with ‘GRUFF’ the young person’s walking group based in Glasgow. I got told off by a colleague at work for mispronouncing Cruachan (the emphasis is meant to go on the ‘Cru’ part not the ‘ach’) but who knows how to say even half the place names in Scotland!

Moody light over Loch Lomond at Inversnaid

We left home at 9am expecting to arrive at the meeting point, the Inversnaid hotel, by 10.20am – with Michael McCrae behind the wheel we arrived at 10am half an hour early (the ‘Oh Shit’ handles were well used, Vanessa). What didn’t help was that the rest of the group were all late and so the walk didn’t begin till 11am – not the best start!

West Highland Way by Loch Lomond

The road to Inversnaid appears as a thin line beside Loch Arklet on the map – that’s because it is a single track rough road with passing places (which we needed to use cos 3 coaches full of ‘Lochs and Glens Tours’ oldies passed us leaving the hotel – I’m not sure how they got there on such a narrow road)! The views on the drive made us feel like we were really isolated, far from Stirling and could’ve been back in New Zealand. The route took us past the Lake of Menteith and all these Lochs: Ard, Chon, Katrine, Arklet and finally to Loch Lomond. We passed by a wee place called Stronachlachar- try saying that with a mouthful of haggis!

The hotel overlooked Loch Lomond which I hadn’t realised was so big and stretched such a distance from Ardlui in the north to Balloch in the south. For all you fact junkies, it’s 24 miles long with the largest surface area of any fresh water Loch in the UK! It even has almost 40 islands on the loch one of which, Inchmurrin, has a hotel on it that Sarah worked in when she was a student. (I seem to remember someone telling her one of islands had wallabies living on it brought back by from Oz some eccentric landowner)!

There were about 20 people in the walking group, more than I expected, of varying levels of fitness. We started off on a stretch of the West Highland Way along the lochside. It was really mild and I was starting to regret wearing so many clothes (5 layers!) but I needed them at the summit. The way up used a rough road so was fairly easy but steep and then we were off road in the boggy moss and peat (not a tree in sight) which was harder work and slippy.

Caterpillar of GRUFF walkers going up the hill

There was no rain but no sun to speak of either so although we got an idea of the great views from the top I’m sure they’d be absolutely spectacular on a clear day – you can see practically 360 degrees and see several lochs and other mountains. There was even a small loch near the top which if it'd been a nice day you could have had a swim in!

Michael at the top of Cruachan getting blown in the wind

Me at Cruachan Summit

We coped well with the walk and kept up a good pace although Michael’s ankle is a bit sore and swollen today from where he slipped a couple of times. We walked around 7 miles and it took 4.5 hours taking it easy. I remember being the last one up the hill and the last one down when I went hill walking aged 17 with a bunch of people from school – either I’ve got fitter or my companions have got less fit!

We didn’t see any wildlife on the mountain except for 2 big ravens hunting for rabbits. Funnily enough the only exotic wildlife we did see was by the side of the busy A84 in Stirling where a buzzard was eating its catch! (I think the large birds of prey we have seen near the castle and the park are buzzards). Unless you count 2 long-horned goats grazing outside the hotel as exotic!

Michael didn’t really enjoy the group walk experience cos of all the hanging around in his wet jeans in the cold wind waiting for the slowest people to catch up, but you have to go at the pace of your slowest member. It’s certainly a totally different experience to just the 2 of us going together and pleasing ourselves if we want to stop and take photos etc. I like the fact that someone leads the walk (and reads the map for you!) so you can go to places that you wouldn't necessarily know how to find yourself, so I might go again.

Snow & Mountains

Jan 31st, Inverness. This week I had a day trip to Inverness for work - I took the first train from a wet and cold Stirling rather earlier than I normally like to get up (it was still dark for God's sake)! By the time the train had reached Pitlochry (60 miles north of Stirling) there was a lot of snow falling so I was a bit concerned that I might not get home that night (I did, although a bit later than expected). There was snow all the rest of way until, magically, it disappeared as we descended into Inverness- the locals say the city has a unique micro-climate, maybe it's true (although it was bloody freezing)!

On the way we passed through amazing countryside particularly the Cairngorms National Park where I was lucky enough to see 2 herds of wild deer (not sure if they were red or roe deer) and 3 to 4 pairs of startled black grouse flying up from the heather - apparently there are only 5000 breeding pairs left in the UK making them on the RSPB's 'red list'. They make the funniest clucking sound when they are scared (obviously I couldn't hear them from the train but you can listen to them on the RSPB website http://www.rspb.org.uk/). The wildlife and scenery was definitely the highlight of the trip since the actual workshop was uninspiring and not worth the 6 to 7 hour 300 mile round trip!

Feb 2nd, More hillwalking

Inspired by our walk last weekend in the forest park we decided to try a different route this time and headed for Strathyre Forest near Callander (it's still part of Queen Liz Forest Park which covers quite a large area taking in Loch Lomond too). It wasn't snowing in Stirling but by the time we had reached the hills there was a thick covering off-road which pleased Michael who loves snow (although he'd forgotten his gloves)! Luckily I had packed my style-icon woolly hat and scarf!

View of Ben Ledi with cottage & manky caravans in foreground

The directions on the website said we should turn off at the signpost for the Strathyre Forest Cabins which we found without too much trouble. After parking the car we walked along a road to see 3 ugly static caravans outside a cottage which weren't exactly the 'forest cabins' we had been expecting! We realised a mile down the road that we hadn't actually reached the cabins which were very impressive, large, wooden-built houses, not manky caravans! I quite fancy staying in one!

Me in Peruvian hat at waterfall viewpoint on Stank Glen walk, Ben Ledi

We decided to do the Stank Glen walk which is 3.75 miles and supposedly takes 3 hours (it only took 1.5 hours in the snow so the Forestry Commission are definitely over-generous in their estimates of walking time). It's on the eastern slope of Ben Ledi (Gaelic for Hill of God, apparently) which is part of the Trossach Hills. Stank has nothing to do with stinkiness, by the way, but means 'pool'. Apparently many years ago some people drowned in a pool covered in thin ice when following a funeral route over the mountain to a church.

Yay - I reached the top!

The views were gorgeous even though the snow clouds meant we couldn't see too far into the distance and we decided that we rather like being able to get out to do something outdoorsy so close to home even in winter. (If you live in Scotland and stay indoors in bad weather you will almost never go out)! The path doesn't take you to the summit but it gets near.

Michael looking cold at the highest point of the walk

We were wondering, when does a hill become a mountain? Apparently there's no agreement over how high a hill has to be before it's called a mountain although some sources say over 2000 feet (610 metres) qualifies as a mountain. Anyway, Ben Ledi's usually described as a mountain, so there!

We've caught the walking bug and are planning to join a young person's drinking, I mean walking group (under 40s only) if we can get Michael some decent boots and I can persuade him to get some thermals! Since we have been doing a few short and not too difficult walks we are hoping it won't be too much of a shock to the system to go on a 'proper' full day hillwalk right to a mountain summit .... The group's guidelines said we had to take a survival bag which put me off a bit. (What's a survival bag anyway? Like a body bag...)?

My Everyday Views

Despite having been born and brought up in Glasgow a mere 30 or so miles away, I had only ever been to Stirling on a handful of occasions (twice that I can remember) so I was very pleasantly surprised at how attractive it is- so I thought I'd share some piccies of Stirling with you, I took them all this week.

The commute: I now take about 20 minutes to get to work by bus instead of the 1.5 hours each way into London it used to take. I could walk to the uni in 40-45 minutes but that'd mean I have to get up earlier! I do intend to cycle there when it gets lighter for longer...honest!

Views from the bus stop where I wait in the morning- seriously! The old bridge across the Forth, now only used by pedestrians.

Another bus stop view: the 'new' bridge and the castle on the hill (the cream one that looks like a house)!

The Office. For some reason I have been given an office of my own- either I am going up in the world or I was a nightmare to share with (I originally shared with 3 other people which was cosy)! It does look rather like a white cell, as a colleague kindly calls it, but it's all mine!

View from my office window - ok I have to stand up to see it but I know it's there! It's of Dumyat (Dum - eye -at) Hill, which we climbed the other weekend, peeking out from behind the offices opposite. In April every year a bunch of odd people race up the hill and some others do it regularly for fun! The uni buildings are not so lovely, unlike the setting, having been built mostly in the 70s (the one below is more modern).

The lovely campus and wildlife of Stirling Uni - I saw these cygnets durnig a walk round the loch during my lunch break, there are a lot of resident swans and ducks and a heron. I also saw a cormorant which is a regular visitor but it was too far away for a clear shot.

A campus view- bloody lovely!

There are 2 lochs on campus and large grounds including a small castle, a golf course, tennis courts, football pitches, swimming pool, cinema, theatre...

Sunshine & Forest walk

I thought it was time to experience a bit more of the wonderful Scottish countryside so we drove the 20 miles to Queen Elizabeth Forest Park by Aberfoyle along the narrow country roads (slightly faster than I would’ve liked…). The temperature today was pretty mild around 9-10c with only a few spots of rain – we even saw some sunshine (I took my Peruvian hat but it stayed in my bag). See http://www.forestry.gov.uk/qefp

There are loads of marked walks in the forests – we decided to try the Highland Boundary Fault Line trail (they have marked where the actual fault line is- more memories of O-Grade geography). It’s supposed to take 3 hours to go 4 miles- it only took 1 hour 15 minutes, either we’re much fitter than we thought or they were a bit generous with the time estimate (the latter seems more likely considering how quickly I got out of breath)! It was very steep on way up but had a more gentle winding slope on the way down- we should’ve done it the other way round! The nice weather meant we got a pretty clear view from the top. Before coming back to Scotland I had forgotten how beautiful hills and mountains are!

View from the top from the conveniently placed pinic bench

They’ve built an adventure park for adults/ big kids in the forest - the Go Ape trail – with Britain’s longest zip slide (I have some nephews who'd love it!). Sadly it wasn’t open for the season yet - we were planning to go back to try it out but at £25 per adult, maybe not! We did consider flinging a scarf over the wire and going for it!

I was hoping to see some red squirrels or deer but I think we were too noisy. There are also ospreys in the forest but the visitor centre was shut so we couldn’t find out where to go to see them (although they usually keep the nesting sites secret so people can’t steal their eggs). We have, however, seen some interesting wildlife since we moved here including red kite (reintroduced after persecution), kestrels, bats (including one in the corridor at work), weasels and deer. I think we might have seen a pair of eagles too near the castle, but they could have been some other large bird of prey.

Tree covered in lichen and mosses (looks like snow!), Queen Liz Forest Park.

It’s not getting dark now till after 4.30pm - yippee. (This is my first Scottish winter for 7 years and Michael’s first ever so we are watching its progress with interest).

Flood update! The River Forth has gone down quite a lot now and is looking less likely to flood. Neither of us has lived this close to a river before (30 feet away) and it’s a bit unnerving!

River still rising

The rain stopped today so I was able to go out and take these photos before it started up again. The photo above shows how high the river is getting against the 'new' bridge.

Our next door neighbour told us that the river came up to the bottom of his driveway in December 2006 and that the neighbours a few doors down have only just moved back into their house after it was flooded a year ago. They think that the opening of sluice gates up in Callandar to the north contributed to the high water level (let's hope they don't open them again).

At the lowest point on our road the water has reached pavement level.

Below is the rowing club on our road which regularly gets flooded- you can see they've had to evacuate their basement of canoes (we might have to borrow one!).

Michael is glued to the Flood Watch website....

River Forth Rising & Burns night

After a night and day of heavy rain the pedestrian underpass into town is flooded and the river opposite our house is rising worryingly high...
The storm damage to the trees in front of the rugby club happened a few weeks ago when the wind also blew the roof off a local primary school and overturned a lorry on the M9. Apparently the rugby club across the river from us was badly flooded in December 2006 - it is very close to the river as you can see. This is part of the view we have from our house - sometimes it's so misty you can't see the hills at all. The view is always changing.
The photo taken from our garden shows how close the river is and how high it is getting- might be spending the weekend evacuating our belongings from our one-storey bungalow at this rate! We've been assured by our letting agent that the house has never flooded before (and they never lie to us- ha ha). You can just see a hazy Wallace Monument in the background of the photo.

Burns' Night Supper
25th January was the birthday of Robert Burns so we celebrated a day early at a friend's house in Menstrie with a meal of a huge haggis (traditional and vegetarian - no prizes for guessing which one I had but Michael wimped out and had the same as me!), a good single malt Scottish whisky (Clynelish) and a fantastic bottle of red wine from Catalunya (so smooth - called Abadal), 1 of around only 4000 bottles made per year, courtesy of one of the guests who is a wine maker from near Barcelona (NB it's true what they say about not mixing grape and grain!).

A photo of our host Ailsa slicing the traditional haggis - mm, look at that lovely sheep's stomach- you can see the veins!

It was an international gathering of several Catalan people, Scots, English and Ghanaian people. Our collective effort at reciting Ode to a Haggis was amusing but not as good as this one from YouTube, which very handily also provides the modern day translation: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3kzYaIphbzU

We Scots thought Scotland was doing quite well to have 2 main languages (English and Gaelic) however that paled in comparison when we heard that Spain has 5 official languages and Ghana has about 45! One of the group from Barcelona knew far more about Scottish history and literature than we did cos he lectures in Scottish literature at the university - it turns out our romantic ideal of Burns as a poetry-wrting farm labourer wasn't exactly right since he did actually go to university! It takes a Spanish man to come and teach us!