Haggis, 'fantastic' yarn and Dr Scooby!

It'll be a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht!

Right I cannae guarantee the bright, moonlit night but it will definitely be braw because this is on the menu for dinner this evening...

Haggis, neeps and tatties!

(don't you like how my tartan material matches the packaging? I'm so anal!!)

I love haggis, no that is untrue, I love Macsween haggis. There are some minging ones (*cough* Halls) out there.  They even do an amazing vegetarian one well worth a taster.  I know some people are put off by it but I have been eating it since I was very wee, long before I knew what it was so it was therefore way past the point of stopping.  I was already hooked.  Growing up we always ate it on Burns Night and must now with my own family.  My Biscuits devour it and although we have it at other times in the year and in other ways, it's tradition to eat it tonight with neeps and tatties.  Cannot wait!

I also have this to show you, my new Mirasol Qina yarn, a gorgeous 80% baby alpaca/20% bamboo spun in Peru.  I have it in mind for a 'fantastic' animal project.  Can you guess which 'fantastic' animal it will be?

Have I said 'fantastic" enough for you to get the clue?

Hopefully I'll get knitting soon, so many projects so little time!

We also had a big drama this morning as Youngest Biscuit's bestest froggy friend Hardy had an accident.  Fell out of bed he did and broke his wee green arm.  First aider cub, Eldest Biscuit, set upon him with a Woody bandana and strapped him up while Youngest Biscuit sang him a lullaby to help him rest.  Poor Hardy!

His best friend Duff is keeping him company.

Unfortunately Eldest Biscuit started to annoy Youngest Biscuit with his, frankly lacking bedside manner, so a new doctor was requested. 

Dr Scooby!

One injection later and Hardy is off to the land of nod (I know his eyes are still open but trust me he is asleep) and a slight confused Scooby is waiting until he is paged again for his services.  I am on nursing duties of course.  I do not mind as Hardy once belonged to me.  I rescued [well bought] him from a pharmacist shelf twenty years ago and named him after the author Thomas Hardy, whose novels I buried my head in at seventeen feeling anguish over Tess and Jude.   Yikes!

I'm pretending to myself I didn't just write twenty years ago....

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Looksee what I just pre-ordered!

Tis just a wee bitty exciting but looksee what is coming out in March...

More decadent delights from the hummingbird bakery.  I love the first book and have praised some of it's beauties before, banana bread and chocolate muffins specifically.  I love the cookies, all squidgy in the middle.  I recently baked blueberry muffins from it too and they were the best ones we have tried and believe me I have tested many a recipe in the past.  Sure you have to check the website for amendments if, like me, you had an early print, but it is a wonderful book.

Happy, happy times ahead.  Salivating at the thought of seeing the many more images of cakes inside.  
Here's a taster...

 

all images from amazon.co.uk
 
Yummy!

Did I say I was excited?
If you would like to pre-order too, click here and you will be swept away to Amazon.

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Annoying phone calls and Scottish Gods!

We all get them and I'm sure you would agree how very, very VERY annoying they are too.  My particular gripe is how once you are done been spoken to like you are a right thicko, if you do assert yourself, i.e say no in a way that means the conversation has nowhere else to go, the other end hang up on you.  No more "How are you today Madam?" or "Hope you are having a good day/morning/afternoon/evening."  So rude and I'm not doing a 'Miranda' camp look to camera here. I'm feeling more of a 'Just been watching The Thick Of It and I'm Scottish so could really come over Malcolm Tucker if I wanted to
[excuse the rudeness of that 'not sure isn't true' line, I mean Peter Capaldi shouting, who isn't a wee bit turned on? And then there's Malcolm AND Jamie together about to burst vital forehead blood vessels.....breath]
and scream such vulgarities I'd sound like the speaking clock I'd be beeping so much and doing the Tucker face  [breath again!]  and generally acting like a crazy, mad woman mentalist'  
Alas, I am never rude even when I am asked if my husband would know.  I do tell fibs, saying things like everything in my home like windows, fitted kitchen etc are under two years old because I know if I say the real age it opens the door to offers.  Don't we all?
A friend told me, at Sky, having worked in the 'talking you in to staying dept' for years, the easiest way to cancel, and this is the most ridiculous thing ever, is to say you are moving to another country....they have nothing to say to that one apparently.  The mind boggles!  This particular friend admits to saying, when she receives annoying calls at home, her partner has died just to get people off the phone which I think is hilarious but could never say myself.
So today I stopped myself from swearing down the phone and abusing someone in a wonderfully horrific way.  I'm sure if it did happen I would be forgiven when I explained I'd had an afternoon of the Scottish Gods, Malcolm and Jamie.    [I wish!!!!]

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The 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge - Weeks 17-24!

Hey Check me out!

Mrs Organized I ams......so here's me feeling smug that I did indeed make a list of sorts of what week was what and indeed I forgot to photograph some makes (I am so so bad a remembering to photograph gifts before I hand them over!) and had to exchange a couple for baking...lots of baking then, but what is Christmas without lots of joyous mixing in the kitchen?

Scream if you wanna go faster!

                                        

Here we go!

Week 17 - stockings    Ickle ones attached to and i-cord, knitted up from a free pattern available at Little Cotton Rabbits from the amazing Julie, famed for her delightful bunnies.  I'd like to be her when I grow up.  If I knit for the rest of my days I shall never be as neat as her but I shall endeavor to try.

Week 18 - hot water bottle cover    Made up, could be better, say no more about it. My friend was pleased though...

Week 19 - pear brooch    Should be with it's partner of a larger needlebook [both designed by me] but like I say RUBBISH at taking photos sometimes.  A birthday gift for my mother-in-law.

Week 20 - wrist warmers    Another pattern I got from Julies blog, a joy to knit! Christmas gifts for two lovely ladies.

And...

Week 21 - door curtains    One of two.  I am very proud of these as they are "What I call" proper sewing and I've never done anything like this before, lined and everything!  Gave it a go without instruction and am still in shock they a) look like curtains b) work like curtains and c) are not skew-wiffy!!!

Week 22 - christmas cake    I've never made this before either as I don't like fruit cake.  Obviously I baked it a while a go [the best smelling cake I've ever baked] as a huge ten inch square to be cut up and shared out with family and had to as I felt something was missing from my life as someone who bakes not to bake one of these each year.  I admit to picking some of the fruit out as I eat it but it's very yummy.  I suppose if I was ever going to enjoy a fruit cake it was going to have to be a home made one.

Week 23 -  mini apple pies    After confessing my loathing of dried fruit it's no surprise at Christmas time I don't make mince pies.  These, my friends, are no inferior alternative.  Delightful 'pop in your mouth' melting, citrusy, yumminess!  From Nigella's 'before she became a caricature' Feast.

Week 24 - christmas cupcakes    Man how I adore these.  May well be my favourite cupcake ever, dense, chocolatey and slightly spiced.  I've made them each year since Nigella's Domestic Goddess book came out and constrain myself by not making them at any other point of the year.  You know traditions and all that.

Take a deep breath......lots more crafty delights planned for the 28 weeks left to do!

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 Here's to 2011 and I shall leave you with easily my favourite gift, given to me by a teenage boy.

A testament to what I am all about...

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Popping in and out again!

Having not managed to get on this laptop to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, I got my finger out and am popping on to wish you all a Happy New Year!

I hope 2011 brings you all joy, creative hearts, fewer hangovers and much cake!!!

With love, cupcakes and biscuits,

 ***** Ali *****

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Help Me!!!

 I have to go shopping for the second time this week.........with a husband who follows me around....children I cannot see for crowds and all because the Royal Mail suck and have forced me to shop in the High Street.  

If I could send them Ghosts of Late Post and Lost Parcels and a very scary one called the Ghost of Christmases Spoiled, I would.  In my world (where obviously I rule and can be utterly ridiculous if I choose) they should be forced to listen to Vogon poetry and have to endure non-stop soaps and reality TV.  Afternoon tea with Derren Brown with minging tea and dry stale chocolate cake whilst wearing braces, set in a hospital waiting room with awful Jeremy Kyle type shows on in the background and moany faced receptionists. Wet pants and a waiter who prods them repeatedly over and over and over and over and over until they beg for forgiveness, plead for their souls and wake up the next morning ordering me the biggest prize turkey from the butcher from a street urchin who happens to be passing. 

If I could I would.

Until them I shake my fist at them and boo like they're baddies in a panto and off I go.....

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What to do when...

...Mr Biscuit is wielding power tools in the kitchen, Biscuits are playing PS3 games and snow is falling (again!).

Eat chocolate and sew!

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"We've gone on holiday by mistake!!!"

Can you guess what happened?

Remember that cottage, our weekend getaway, our country idyll, that cottage that we decided to go in November instead of January in case we got stuck there because of snow.

Will it surprise you then that on Sunday we got snowed in, in that cottage until yesterday [Thursday] when we made our bid for freedom with the help of the local shepherd who indeed 'shepherded' us along the seven miles to civilization and boy did I leap out of the car to hug and kiss him.

I could write long passages telling of the stress, the loss of wages, the feeling of utter isolation, the hunger (I don't think I've ever gone so long without cake - Hubby and Father-in-law had to walk those seven miles into town and those seven miles back to get us food), the lack of radio or television so no idea what was going on in the world, my Biscuits missing the first day of advent and the joy of chocolate that brings, the fear of feeling so helpless and trapped but the worst, by far the worst was seeing snow as an obstacle and prisoner.  I tried to enjoy the bunnies bounding and frolicking about in the snow, the deer over yonder on the hill and the beauty of a snow laden countryside landscape but all of it was tinged with a desperate need to get out and home.  Wishing for rain to wash it all away and the desperation to see the gritter coming up the hill.  I love snow, love snow so it was horrid to feel negative towards it.

We were so lucky the owner of the cottage told us we could stay as long as we needed no charge and to help ourselves to the logs in the shed and the wine in the attic to which I cannot describe our gratitude but boy am I put off going away in the winter again and boy am I never paying attention to weather forecasts.  I don't ever anyways but on this occasion I checked all week, 'light flutterings and sleet' I read.  The locals up there knew it was coming.  How come weather forecasts seem to depend on where you get them?  I looked up the Met Office online for goodness sake!

Luckily the road home was clear all the way and considering how often since Sunday that particular motorway and the forth road bridge was shut, we were blessed with little traffic, sunshine and no snow!

I should be panicking at the time I've lost (homemade Christmas an' all) but I cannot.  What's the point getting stressed over things I can control when I just went through an experience where I had no control except how to react?  Feeling trapped had made me appreciate the freedom to choose I usually have.  It feels like I've been away from my real life for yonks and I'm so glad to be back.  I even spent all day cleaning and didn't complain once [shock!!]

*BIG SIGH*

 The irony is once having 'dug' ourselves out of the snow 'twa hoors awa in th' Glens' we had to dig ourselves into our house.

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