4 Years

Four years ago we got married. As if by magic, today I have four massive spots on my face!

We decided to celebrate (our anniversary - not the spots) by going out for dinner at an old haunt of ours, The Raj in Edinburgh. It was quite a long time since we had been there and they have done the place up a bit, as well as changing the menu. Still, we had a couple of really good curries before heading to Favorit in the city centre for coffee. It has also been done up since the last time we were there, but they still have coffee and they still have chocolate brownies so we were happy.

Next, we went to catch up with an old friend at the cinema, this time using free tickets courtesy of Coca Cola. That friend was none other than Mr Will Ferrell and it was great to see him again! We went to see his new film Step Brothers and I have never laughed so much in the cinema in my life. I think this is his funniest film so far, but please, do not rush out to see the film on that recommendation alone. Unless of course you want to see a bit more Ferrell for your money than you’re used to, because lets just say it’s a bit ruder than his other films and probably has more swearing too. Anyway below is a trailer which is rated as ’suitable for everyone’ if you want a little taster:

Once we stopped laughing we made our way home via Corstorphine and guess what we saw by the side of the road? … A badger! He was just foraging away, looked straight at us when we slowed down the car to look at him, and then he shuffled off into the bushes. It was pretty cool.

Catherine

A Monster Munch

I’m working at home for a while today, which means I had the pleasure of having lunch with Catherine. We decided to relive our student days and have a Greggs. Believe me, you can’t beat the feeling of skipping out of a lecture on Karl Barth and nipping into Greggs for a sausage roll on the way home - sheer bliss!

Anyway, here’s C tucking into her scran:

Having munched her sandwich, she pounces on a doughnut

Not content with the doughnut, C MUST lick the paper for any traces of cake left behind

A gulp of coffee to wash it all down

Then the realisation hits that there’s no more food to be had!!

A.

Scran, Books and a Grumping Hamish

I’m off work for a few days, so since Catherine had to go into the office to check Monthly Record proofs, I decided to go in with her and browse the FC bookshop. As always I ended up buying a couple of things. (As an aside, Catherine claims to have often ’stalked’ me many years ago, when I worked in Wesley Owen in Inverness, popping in frequently pretending to need books. If you ever read this Charles, be assured that my interest in the FC bookshop is purely to do with buying books!)

I bought the following which look interesting: The Schaeffer one is a present for my Dad.

After my shopping spree, we stopped in at the Haugh Inn in South Queensferry for lunch. The food’s good in there and cheaper than most other places in the town. Catherine had a bacon cheeseburger, whilst I munched my way through scampi and chips.

The Haugh Inn

Now we’re home, I intend to chill out and read this afternoon. There were so many books lying around the house that Catherine allowed me to buy some more bookcases to house them all in.

New Bookshelves!

Hamish looks at home, doesn’t he? He’s in a grump though, after reading Driscoll - too liberal and ‘far-out’ for any teuchtar gorrilla apparently!

Hamish In A Driscoll-inspired Grump

A.

Rotten Egg

This evening I did some baking for the church cafe which is on every Saturday morning. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, some cherry and marshmallow and coconut slice (aka 14s) and a chocolate traybake which I like to refer to as chocolate chunk.

14s

I saved the cookies until last as they are the most time consuming. I don’t have electric beaters so it takes a while to cream the butter and sugar together, especially when I forget to leave the butter out of the fridge so it’s as hard as a brick. Still, they didn’t have electric beaters in the olden days and people baked back then so I battle on!

After I had successfully creamed the butter and sugar, I added the vanilla essence and then started to mix in the egg. Suddenly the delicious smelling mixture did not smell so delicious - in fact it smelt absolutely disgusting! I sniffed the remainder of the egg which I had beaten in another bowl and sure enough there was a very suspicious odour emanating from it. I checked the egg box and confirmed that the use by date was 17 August so I cracked open another egg and it seemed to be absolutely fine. Typical. I had cracked open (what I hope is) the only rotten egg in the box and chucked it straight into my cookie mixture. I had to start the whole creaming process over again - and I now have the arm muscles to prove it!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Anyway, I have learnt my lesson and will now always smell the egg before I go adding it to any other ingredients. I have also tested the finished results of all of tonight’s baking (just to make sure) and can confirm that they are fit for public consumption tomorrow.

Chocolate Chunk

(By the way, I am aware that some of these photographs have appeared on our blog before. Don’t worry, I am not serving up 8 month old cakes! I just didn’t bother taking photographs of tonight’s efforts seeing as they look pretty much the same.)

Catherine

Big Phil

Tonight, as we went to buy our tea, we bumped into a celebrity! Normally I couldn’t give a monkey’s about famous people, but this one is different, it was Big Phil!

Phil Scolari

No, not that one!! This one:

Big Phil Cunningham

He was in Tesco shopping for his chopped tomatoes - what exciting lives celebrity lead eh?

Andy

Freebies

We’re just back from a cheap night out, courtesy of The Times, Cafe Nero and Mars Incorporated. Let me explain …

On Saturday there was a “buy one get one free” voucher in The Times for Pizza Express. As we still haven’t really been to Tesco since we got back from holiday, and because we are still in holiday mode, tonight seemed like a good night to use it. We paid a visit to the Holyrood branch where we each ordered our favourite pizzas (Andy = American Hot. Me = Pollo ad Astra). We had originally planned to head next door to Beanscene for coffee afterwards but we were starting to really question whether we had parked legally so decided to move the car and find somewhere else for coffee instead. We ended up in Stockbridge where there is a Cafe Nero branch, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had a loyalty card which only required one more stamp before a free drink could be claimed - bonus!

Following our lattes (and ok, I’ll admit that I spent the money saved by the loyalty card on a muffin) we headed to Cineworld at Fountainbridge where we used two free cinema tickets that I had managed to collect after munching through 8 big bags of Maltesers, Revels, M&Ms and Minstrels. We went to see the new Batman film, The Dark Knight. I quite enjoyed it because having watched all the original films numerous times throughout my life, it was interesting to see an alternative take on the characters, and also get some more of their backgrounds (although I was slightly disappointed not to learn much more about Batman/Bruce Wayne who almost seems like a minor character this time round). And I’m going to come out and say it … I definitely don’t think all the Oscar talk surrounding Heath Ledger’s “Joker” is justified.

I think that was all the freebies we got tonight. Oh wait a minute - I almost forgot about the free parking at Cineworld (definitely legal that time).

Catherine

Culinary Delights

We all know that I like to eat so I thought that my first post about our trip to Lucca should be about the food!

So many flavours, so little time

The first thing I noticed upon arriving at our fantastic apartment was that it was located directly opposite an ice cream parlour. For some unknown reason we didn’t get round to sampling the ice cream until we were about 3 days into our holiday, so in order to make up for lost time I went twice a day from then on! The chocolate flavour was an instant favourite of mine so I always chose that one and sampled various other flavours alongside it like panna cotta, pistachio and plain old vanilla. They were all delicious.

Every morning when we woke up, Andy’s parents would already have been out to a nearby bakery where they would stock up on pastries. My favourite was a custard cream filled croissant which was dusted with icing sugar - a great way to start the day.

An empty plate in Baralla (and also how I would look if I had a bowl cut!)

The original plan had been to make use of the excellent kitchen facilities and mainly eat at the apartment, buying produce from the local shops. However, it was soon evident that the shops were far more expensive than the restaurants and cafes. We often ate lunch in a little café on the corner of Piazza San Michele which served a beautiful ravioli dish for only 4 euros. Andy and I ate out one night at a restaurant called Baralla where he enjoyed another bowl of ravioli and I chose guinea fowl with a semolina type accompaniment – it was far nicer than it sounds! For dessert we both had a chocolate and ricotta torte which was just unbelievably good. This plus drinks was such a good price that we went back there on our last night with Mr & Mrs P. Unfortunately we were let down by the food not being quite as good as it had been earlier in the week, and a very long wait when the waiting staff seemed to forget about us for a while. Saying that, the place seems to have a good reputation as both nights a constant stream of folk were being turned away because there were no tables available. So, if you are ever in Lucca it might still be worth a try!

Mention must be made of the one meal we did eat at home. Mr P prepared a fantastic dish of roasted vegetables, potatoes and beef which was actually better than what we ate at Baralla on the good day – but as already mentioned, much more expensive so it was not an experience to be repeated.

You can’t go to Italy without eating pizza of course and we did that a couple of times, but I think for the first time ever I preferred the pasta dishes. I would honestly fly back to Lucca tomorrow just for some more of that 4 euro ravioli!

And finally … I had ploughed my way through the various menus keeping my eyes peeled for any mention of calamari (also known as squid). Reason being, that on my only other visit to Italy about 10 years ago I had my first encounter with the creature and loved it. This time, on our last day, when trying somewhere new for lunch I noticed that the day’s special was a calamari risotto. I ordered it immediately and it was delicious. If you are squeamish then look away now …

Calammmmmmmmari

I think that’s everything food related for now. I’ll try and write again soon with details of some of the things that we actually did!

Catherine

Lovely Lunch

Last week my Auntie Catriona and Uncle Alan spent a week in Thurso with my mum and dad - the first time they have been to visit for about 13 years!! (Talk about naming and shaming … ) This week they are in Edinburgh and today they took me out for lunch.

Uncle Alan and Auntie Catriona

We went to The Hub which I think might be fast becoming my new haunt. I was there with Jeni last week - so it seemed fitting to return with her parents - and had realised how nice and competitively priced it is. For example, if you order a muffin (which I am prone to doing) you don’t just get a muffin thrown down on a plate in front of you, you get a muffin beautifully presented with cream, a raspberry and dusted in icing sugar. All for under £2!

Anyway, it was really nice to catch up with Catriona and Alan. They were also able to deliver a bag of clothes to me from mum (she’s lending me some items which should hopefully be well suited to the Italian climate) as well as some little gifts from my parents recent holiday in Ireland … Yummy chocolate fudge for Andy, and a yummy looking candle like one of the ones below for me:

I haven’t tried to eat it. Yet.

Catherine

A Day Off

The office was closed today, and Andy had the day off too, so we decided to get up reasonably early and head in to Edinburgh for some shopping at our favourite shopping centre, Ocean Terminal. The plan was to get some clothes that will be better suited to the warmer climate in Lucca. Despite being armed with a list of items I was looking for, I only came away with one top, while Andy got a bagful of items in the Debenhams sale without even trying!

After getting up so early, our shopping trip was over by lunchtime, so we stopped for some food at Orocco Pier in South Queensferry on the way home. We had been there once before for my birthday 2 years ago and we’ll definitely be going back again. It’s a really nice place with great views, and the food is good too! The highlight for me was the creme brulee dessert followed by a Rocky Road Mocha. And to be honest, the sausage and mash I had before that was not far behind in the highlight stakes!

The cool surroundings (and a hint of the view) at Orocco Pier

Well, I would bore you with the details of the hoovering and weed killing that I did this afternoon but luckily for you Mary Queen of Shops is just about to begin on BBC2 so I have got to go!

Catherine

Life Changing

Wow, life will never be the same again! I’ve just discovered the most amazing biscuit ever; KitKat Cappuccino. If you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely time for a break!

All Kinds of Awesomeness!

Andy