Snow in March - nothing new there then!

Well, I am snowed in! It's a moorie caavie (Shetland for blizzard) outside, the schools are shut and the roads are white. But as I work from home, I am stuck in the office, so rather than do paperwork, and it's far too cowld to go out to the shed and make bears, I thought I would update the blob!
The dog's are loving it! As Rob is home from the school, they are all outside making a snowman.

So, what's been happening. I am still on the Spring cleaning, we currently have a skip sitting outside the house, it arrived on Monday, but so far the only thing in it is a whole lot of snow, as it's been too cold to fill it. We are going to clear out the basement of all those things that have gathered with the usual excuse, 'well it might come in handy some day', that day has come and it's going out.
Me man's 40th birthday is fast approaching and I am completely stuck for a present, what do you give a 40 year old? He has already booked his present to himself, a long weekend in Venice with me, me who hates water and is scared to fly - well that should be fun then! Big Sis called this morning with a birthday present plan. Now, unlike most folk reaching 40 me man actually wants a party, but there are so many other things on that weekend, Brae Up Helly Aa, Charity sponsored walks, etc etc. that there would be hardly anyone left to attend, so she came up with a plan which I am still mulling over, it's a big one! and to top it all off she has just called to say even if I go with her suggestion I still have to have a party, the thought of my cream living room carpet with lots of feet on it - I don't think so!
My decorating has come to a bit of a standstill, I got the kitchen and dining room decorated and am waiting on blinds, curtains and cushions to arrive from Big Sis, then it will be complete. Then there is only one room left to do, our bedroom, but that's a case of stripping out all the walls and re-lining, which is quite a big job, so we'll maybe leave that one for a little later on.
So it's looking like I am going to be stuck here all weekend as my little Citroen is a bit crap on snow, so I may even add another update soon.

New Year Spring Clean

Me Man has been on about tidying up the laft for a while now and thought we would get it done last Saturday, but having only got up at lunchtime and then being invited to big Sister's house for food and gossip (copious quantities of both I might add), I only arrived home at 6pm (with a Chinese takeaway), and well anyone with a life knows that on Saturday night you certainly wouldn't be tidying up the laft!

So Sunday, it was! We started, and the usual things went through my head, 'what the hell was I thinking', 'why did I keep that', 'did I really think that would ever come in useful again'. Around 4 hours later, I ended up with an ultra organised laft (well you have to keep some crap on the laft, isn't it the law!!!), a car full for the Charity Shop, another car full for Harry Hay's auction room (I'm sure he'll be delighted to see me again), and about 6 black bags full of rubbish for the Essy Kert (we did try to burn the paper stuff, but with only a small barbeque and a force 9 gale blowing we decided it wasn't very practical).

Monday arrived, and Rob went back to school, me Man went to work and I thought I'd better do some sense! so I went out to the shed, thinking I would start work, but instead, spent the whole day tidying up the post Christmas mess! and in between all this the phone rang, with a very nice lady from Channel 4 TV, who wanted to know if I would be interested in taking part in Wife Swop!, my exact words were (after I picked myself up off the floor), 'god no!'.

So, all in all, it was a funny old day, I wonder what delights await me in the shed for the rest of the week!

New Year

I found Reestit Mutton at the fabulous Globe Butchers (www.globebutchers.co.uk) in Lerwick, still haven't actually done anything with it yet, but will try Soup soon.

New Years Eve saw us on a whistlestop tour of the West Side, but first we had a lovely beef/pork roast dinner at the in-laws (it's a Shetland thing, you can't just have one meat!). So after a lovely dinner (alcohol free for me as I was driving), we set off to Semblister to see Peerie Sister and family (she was most disappointed that me Man didn't have his kilt on for the occasion), then back to Whiteness just in time to see the New Year in with Rachey & Billy, we then made our way back to Burra to the in-laws, who were still up and with a few bottles of rather nice Bubbly chilling in the fridge, so I made up for the drink free evening and at around 3.30am, tottered down the road to our house with the remains of the last bottle of Pop, by now I was actually wide awake, so sat back and watched Still Game and ended up going to bed around 4.30am.

New Years day began in the late afternoon with the aroma of Honey Roast Duck wafting through the house (I told me Man I was off duty and he would have to make the dinner), and at around teatime we sat down to a beautiful dinner of Duck, roast parsnips, carrots, tatties, creamy mashed tatties (you can never have enough tatties), stuffing and chipolatas (yes I know they don't really go with Duck, but they were from the Globe and they were soooooo good).

Monday came around and I decided that I would have an alcohol free night, but we had to have a bottle of wine with the leftovers from Sunday, and then thought the bottle of Taittinger champagne I got from me Man might go down rather well (but that would be it), so we put on American Pie (the first one, hadn't seen it in a while), and at 3am after another 2 bottles of bubbly and another 2 American Pie films I fell into bed and vowed that there would be no more alcohol, well at least till the weekend!

Festive soup

Go into any Shetland kitchen at this time of year and you will find a large metal pan on the cooker which contains some kind of soup, traditionally made on reestit mutton (salted, cured yowe) and including, onions, tatties, neeps, keel and carrots.

Now I am not a big fan of this (too salty) and it could also be because I am a bit crap at making soup and various other dishes, it doesn't help that I am plagued by a family of wonderful cooks. And yes I know soup is one of the easiest things you can make, Billy (he of the 24 hour, hunder weight o tattie soup marathon), but I am really just not that good at it. So, I decided to give it a go, first to get the meat, and I decided on ham (or smoked hough, ham joint, have to get the terminology right) and I did get a lovely bit from the Globe butcher (simply the best butcher in the world, ever!), it also helped that it came vaccuum packed. I knew what had to go in the soup but wasn't sure in what order, does everything go first, or do you boil the meat first, so I did what anyone would do in that situation and phoned Rachey (I would have phoned Mam but she was in bed with th sickness and didn't think she would appreciate talking about food). I boiled the meat with an onion for 2 hours as instructed , tasted it (a bit like hot water with oil on top) and again, as instructed added stock cubes (what would this world be without stock cubes, it doesn't bear thinking about) to give it a taste, and do you know I had already bought ham stock cubes in anticipation and they come wrapped in baby pink foil - brilliant! So I added the rest of the ingredients and cooked for a further hour and would you believe it wasn't actually that bad, and quite tasty once I added the ham from the hough thingy.

So I will head off to town tomorrow in search of reestit mutton (I'll be bloody lucky at this time of year) and I shall attempt to make real tattie soup.

Now there's a new years resolution, to make soup (wonder if Billy would be willing to give lesson's?, I promise not to make fun of him and his soup making).

See you next year.