Ae Fond Kiss

This week has been a real celebration of all things Scottish. We started the weekend with a delicious Burns' Night Supper at our lovely local, The Pheasant, where Alex laid on a veggie haggis especially. (What a superstar!) It was absolutely delicious and such a treat. I've never really developed a taste for whisky, which is a shame as there were two on offer for tasting, but D was very happy to help me out with mine, even if he did regret it a little the next morning!

Sunday morning saw us hit the road on an epic journey up to Glasgow to spend a week with D's family. It turns out that you can get an awful lot of knitting done in seven and a half hours and after a bit of a knitting marathon, my colour block cardigan is now considerably longer. I sort of wished that I'd had one smaller project on the go so that I could've had a finished object by the time we got up the road, but it was good to make some progress on a couple of bigger things, and I really got stuck into Olive on the way back down. 

The week started with a gig at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with celebration of the life and work of Michael Marra, one of Scotland's finest songwriters, with two of D's favourite singers putting in an appearance. I must confess that I wasn't familiar with the work of Michael Marra before the music started, but there were some brilliant songs and amazing musicians. Pat Kane and Eddie Reader were everything that D had hoped for and I had a thoroughly Scottish evening!

We continued our time off with more celtic delights, including such greats as tattie scones and the legendary macaroni pie. We took a road trip up to Oban along the beautiful lochside of Loch Lomond, visited friends in Dunshalt and took a glass or two with D's family. On a trip to the West End area of Glasgow, I visited a very lovely knitting shop called The Yarn Cake and invested in some delightful Drops yarn to make some suitably snuggly mittens (with thrums) and a pair of legwarmers too. We stopped off at a great restaurant called The Hillhead Bookclub on our way back into town for a really tasty lunch before a spot of culture at The Lighthouse and a mooch around the shops. It was hard to leave, but so nice to be back home, and we brought back a substantial amount of Scotland home with us in the shape of five kilos of Marshalls macaroni. (Well, macca is the national dish, you know!)

Currently reading a selection of non-fiction which I picked up on my travels north of the border and which I hope will inspire me to get my act together in opening a new Folksy shop. (I just have to decide what I'd like to make and how I want to sell it - minor points.) I'm also unable to put down Gold by Chris Cleave which, if his other books are anything to go by, is going to be a bit of a tear-jerker. Lastly, I leafed through a copy of the Polpo cookbook while staying with friends and there are definitely some recipes that I'm keen to try out. Think I might have to invest in my own copy next payday.