Happy Halloween

Here is Callum ready to head out to his school Halloween party. It has been a couple of years since he last dressed up for Halloween so the dressing up costumes were nowhere to be found - luckily when I was in Asda the other evening they announced 20% off all kids and adults outfits so picked up this skeleton one for under a fiver.

We don't really do Halloween - although there are a couple of not very scary pumpkins by the front door. And luckily where we live is a bit out of the way and I don't suppose we will get any trick or treaters knocking on the door. All the more chocolate fior me then!!

Sam is out too - even though he only returned from Edinburgh at lunchtime - he is with all his mates from the karate club having an after competition party - I should think they will all be dead on their feet!

Skywatch Friday

Series 4, Episode 16.

The groynes down at Findhorn Beach.

WKA World Championships 2010

Sam won a bronze medal in full contact sparring at the World Karate Association World Championships being held in Edinburgh this week.

I so wish I could have seen him fight - although to be honest full contact looks so brutal. They fight in a proper boxing ring and it does what it says on the tin - they can punch and kick as hard as they want but they must avoid hitting in the face area. They also fight bare chested which I am assured that just makes it hurt even more.

Unfortunately he missed his own medal presentation as he decided he needed sustenance and headed for the cafe - so they called his name but he was nowhere to be seen. Hence I have no photographic evidence of his hug achievement.

I will admit to bursting into tears when my friend rang me to give me the news - nothing can wipe the smile off my face this evening - and I can't imagine how he must be feeling.

Can't wait for him to get home on Saturday.

Team Kaizen are having a fantastic competition with the medal tally sitting at 19 yesterday and with more to be added today. Not bad for a small family run club in the North East of Scotland.

52 Walks With My Camera - Week 42

Sundays mean rugby training for Callum and for me it is either sitting in the car for an hour and a half with a good book and a flask of hot chocolate - or going for a short walk.

The nearest beach to Kinloss is Findhorn and it is a beautiful place to go for a stroll - which I think is why it has appeared more than once in my 52 walks this year.

I love these steps leading down to the beach - I must photograph them every time I visit!!
























Some driftwood lying on the beach.



I spotted this woman and her daughters racing down to the sea - the mother had on a bikini and her daughters appeared to be just in their underwear!! It was half ten on quite a chilly morning (I had on a fleece, padded bodywarmer and a scarf!) so they must have been absolutely freezing. Sensibly the son stayed up on the sands - fully dressed - building sandcastles. Nowt as strange as folk!!























Some seaside "treasure"




Some more shots of this beautiful beach.

Lets Eat Blog Hop

Welcome to the Lets Eat Blog Hop and you should have arrived here from Beverley over in North Carolina.

My chosen recipe is from my childhood growing up in very rural Radnorshire (in Mid Wales - now known as Powys but I prefer the original name.)

Welsh Cakes (picau ar y maen) are a traditional Welsh tea time treat made from flour, butter or lard, eggs, sugar and currants - not particularly healthy but where would the fun be if they were good for you?

I can remember my Mum making these and finally this year she taught me how to make them when we went down to Wales for a visit. But I'm afraid that whenever I make them in this house they don't stick around for long - but then again I am married to a Welshman so I shouldn't be surprised!

Here is the list of ingredients:

225g/8oz self-raising flour, sieved
110g/4oz salted butter
1 egg
handful of sultanas
milk, if needed
85g/3oz caster sugar
extra butter, for greasing

And the method:

Rub the fat into the sieved flour to make breadcrumbs as if you were making pastry. Add the sugar, dried fruit and then the egg. Mix to combine, then form a ball of dough, using a splash of milk if needed.




Roll out the pastry until it is a 5mm/¼in thick on a floured surface and cut into rounds with a 7.5-10cm/3-4in fluted cutter. I love mt set of pastry cutters from Lakeland - so much easier to keep clean that the old metal ones and they come in their own little case.





























Ideally you now need a heavy iron griddle but I use a flat bottomed frying pan. Rub it with butter and wipe the excess away. Put it on to a direct heat and wait until it heats up, place the Welsh cakes on the griddle, turning once. They need about 2-3 minutes each side. Each side needs to be caramel brown before turning. I always find I manage to burn the first few - but luckily has a husband who seems to like burnt offerings so they never go to waste!



Remove from the pan and if you want to you can dust with caster sugar while they are still warm.

They are delicious served warm - but have to be spread with butter and you have to eat them with a cup of tea.



(PS - thought I would show you the "burnt offerings" - in my defence I always find it hard to get the pan at the right heat to begin with.)
























Now you should pop over and visit Furrypig (it sounds rude using that name but I'm afraid I don't know your real one!!)

WKA World Championships

Sam left this evening to head down to Edinburgh for the World Kickboxing World Championships 2010. He and his fellow Kaizen team mates form part of Team Scotland and I am sure they are all going to kick ass - quite literally.

We are all so very proud of Sam to have reached this level - this is the culmination of about 5 years hard work and dedication. Some weeks - especially leading up to this competition he has been training 7 days a week and even during the 2 week tattie holidays he has been doing 2 hour training sessions in the morning and then going back to the club in the evening for his normal classes.

We had a bit of drama as they were about to set off though. Two 4 wheel drives were packed to the gunnels with kids and kit when one of them started to smell of hot brakes. Andy came out with the chap from next door (who just so happens to be a car mechanic) to have a look at it. It was discovered that there was no brake pad at all left on one of the wheels and the driver was told that she couldn't drive the car all the way to Edinburgh tonight. Another car was found but it couldn't fit all the kids and their bags. So the upshot of it all is that Andy has gone down himself (as luckily he managed to get his car back on the road yesterday) and has taken Sam and 3 of his team mates down the road. He will stay overnight in the hotel (probably on the floor in his sleeping bag!) and will travel back up tomorrow. But at least it means they will all be there in time for weigh in at 9am tomorrow morning.

We wish the whole team lots of luck and can't wait to hear how they have all got on.

Skywatch Friday

Season 4, Episode 15.

Red sky at night; shepherds delight,
Red sky in the morning; shepherds warning










So can this old weather saying actually predict the weather? This is what I found out:

To explain why we'll need to know why clouds sometimes appear red and how that may be used to predict the weather. Firstly, why do clouds often appear red in the morning and evening?

- Sunlight is broken into the familiar rainbow spectrum of varying-wavelength colours as it passes through the atmosphere.

- The blue/violet end of the spectrum is diverted more than the red/orange.

(This is the same mechanism that causes us to see the sky as blue incidentally, but that's getting rather off our point)

- When the sun is low in the sky, at dawn and dusk, sunlight travels through more atmosphere than at other times of day. The red wavelength is better able to go on a direct course and be reflected back off clouds, whereas the blue light is more scattered before reaching the cloud and is therefore less visible. So, we see the clouds as red as the light that is reaching them is primarily red.

...and how does that help predict the weather?

- The weather in the UK comes from the west, i.e. the wind is primarily westerly.

- The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

- If there is broken cloud in the morning we may look to the west and see red light reflecting back from the cloud, i.e. 'red sky in the morning'. As the clouds are coming towards us there must be a chance of rain, at least an increased chance compared with the cloudless period we had just enjoyed.

- Likewise for 'red sky at night'. If we see red clouds in the evening they will be in the east and have already passed us by, giving a good chance of clear skies and fine weather ahead.



These photos were taken from my back garden at silly o clock one morning last week. So glad I grabbed my camera as within 10 minutes this stunning sky scape had vanished.

Birthday Blog Candy

Just look what Sharon is giving away over on her blog - and it all to celebrate her 40th birthday.

52 Walks With My Camera - Week 41

This week I had more time on my hands as the boys are off school as it is the tattie holidays. Monday was forecast to be the best day weather wise and we headed down to Roseisle Beach.

We parked the car and walked through the forest to the bird hide - and were lucky enough to spot a red squirrel and it hopped across the path in front of us and then ran straight up a tree.

Callum isn't a quiet child unfortunately so I think his constant chatter probably scared off some of the wildlife (as well as sticking his head out of the windows!)- and he was determined to take some photos of the birds himself with my camera. We managed to find some birds that would sit still long enough to have their photo taken - but most of them were too quick for us.










This is why we have many photos of an empty bird table just like this one!!





Then we wandered off down to the beach - Callum enjoyed me trying to take photos of his shadow - and even he sat still long enough for a photo.


























We found some big oyster shells which are now out in the garden. And for once Cal didn't get his feet wet by jumping in the sea.






On the way back to the car we found some blackberries (which we ate) and some mushrooms (which we didn't.)

Not another certificate....

....to hang on the wall??

The other weekend Sam was awarded his first junior star on his black belt at karate. He gained his black belt 12 months ago and since then he has been working towards his first star. This involved another 4 hour grading which consisted of running, practice drills and competitive sparring. In order to get their adult black belt once they turn 16 the kids have to have got at least 3 stars on their junior black belt. These can only be awarded every 12 months.

This week he got his belt back after it had been sent away to get the star embroidered on it. He also got a framed certificate - but I think he is running out of wall space in his room to put many more up!!

And a week today he will be heading off to Edinburgh with the Elite Team Kaizen to represent Scotland at the world championships.

So are we proud of him? You bet we are.

Photo Shoot

Yesterday I spent some time with this little man - Arthur. His mum wanted some photos taken to match those taken of his sister Elizabeth taken at about the same age.

I must admit I was a little apprehensive as it is one thing to take photos for yourself when it doesn't matter if they are a bit pants - but quite another to take them for some one else.

He wasn't grumpy as his mum predicted but seemed to have an aversion to looking directly at the camera - even with Callum as my trusty apprentice who was pulling out all the stops with an assortment of hand puppets and noisy toys.

I took almost 270 photos in total but have managed to narrow them down to about 100 - all I need to do now is to edit some of them and turn them black and white, then put them all on a disc and deliver them at the weekend.

I do hope they are pleased with them - I think Arthur did a stirling job not to be distracted by the 2 dogs running around and the noise from the kitchen being ripped out in the room next door. They aren't as sharp as I would like them to be - but he was a bugger to make sit still long enough!!

Skywatch Friday

Series 4, Episode 14.

A shot taken from the car as we were driving down from Invergordon the other weekend.

Late Autumn Colour

There are a few splashes of colour remaining in the garden - the sunflowers are still going strong:






Can't remember what this little chap is called - but it stopped flowering ages ago - but the other day one solitary little bloom appeared:




The Virginia Creeper is starting to turn a beautiful red colour and is busy doing its job of covering the fence:






















And on a positive note the building site which we call home is starting to be wound up. There are 4 houses left to finish (2 of which have been sold) but the yard behind our house has to be cleared over the next few weeks as specified by moray Council. Hopefully this will mean an end to hearing diggers at 7.30am on weekday mornings and finding the road blocked by a large piece of machinery. This was my view from my craft room window the other morning - taken so as you can't see the portacabins etc. When they are all gone all I will be able to look out on is fields and trees - and one other house.