Category Archives: Food

Food and Festivity

Blog, Christmas, Food, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , , , ,

This week I’ve been out for two Christmas dinners! Last weekend, despite Storm Darragh doing its best to keep me home, I made a run for Yorkshire on the Friday. Mum had booked us a meal at the lovely Middle Studfold Farm on Sunday and I didn’t want to miss it. Middle Studfold is a farm where they do bed and breakfast as well as meals at weekends. Set in Ribblesdale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, it’s a gorgeous, stone farmhouse. The attached tearoom was tastefully decorated and wonderfully cosy.

We were soon pulling Christmas crackers and enjoying the Christmas music. I had chosen field mushroom with goats cheese as my starter and it didn’t disappoint.

Then came the traditional turkey with trimmings. The parsnip was particularly delicious, mashed and flavoured with horseradish and the stuffing has inspired me to experiment with adding chestnuts to my usual recipe.

I had to head up the road soon afterwards, but it would have been wonderful to have lingered over dinner and perhaps stayed overnight. I would highly recommend it for a lovely warm Yorkshire Dales welcome.

It was a good week at work and I revisited one of my welfare cases and found no further problems, so I was able to close the case for now, which was a good feeling in the run up to Christmas. Because of the way the algorithms are set up, there will be another inspection, likely within the next year, which is also good as we will be able to monitor whether the changes are continuing. I hope they are as it felt like a positive visit with real progress being made.

There was a second festive feast for me this week with A Novel Approach, the writing group I am involved with in Lockerbie. We’ve had a couple of mini writing retreats recently, which I have enjoyed enormously and now it was time to celebrate. I decided against the turkey this time, though everyone else’s did look very good. I had a beef collop on clapshot with a haggis fritter. If that all needs translating, a collop seems to be a slice of meat and the word is thought to be derived from escalope. It was circular and I had wondered whether it was from the cheek, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Clapshot is mixed potato and swede. The haggis fritter probably speaks for itself and it was all served with a whisky infused gravy, so there was a lovely Scottish flavour to the whole thing.

Regular readers might remember that I am using the Second Nature app, kindly provided by the NHS and despite all this food, I am still following it. The principle of having half your plate filled with vegetables, quarter with protein and quarter with complex carbs is actually quite easy to fit in with meals out. Even though I don’t follow it perfectly, it’s far easier than having to weigh everything at every meal and I have lost one and a half stone so far, but that is why there are rarely cake pictures on here these days. That’s not to say it never happens, but it’s now a rare treat and most of the time I vote for the healthier option.

Somerton House Hotel where we had our Christmas meal was also decorated. I love the whole build up to Christmas. It lends such cosiness to the darkest days of the winter.

And now I am at Valerie’s for the weekend. I fear there may be cake in the near future as she has proposed a visit to Fintry and a garden centre today. Last night I was greeted by various gardens and houses crammed with lights and illuminations and I was reminded of walking round the village at this time of year, when the children were young, searching out the “crazy houses” with their wonderful light shows. Yesterday evening’s soak in the hot tub with hot chocolate was a relaxing start to the weekend. Now I can hear people outside scraping ice from car windows, so maybe tonight, I will have the hot tub on ice experience.
Have a lovely weekend all and thanks for reading!

Tractors and Turkey Dinners

Blog, Christmas, Food, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Writing, , , , ,

Last weekend, despite the storm, a group of us gathered at Donna’s for an afternoon of gin tasting. My favourite was a Marks and Spencer Clemantine gin liqueur with bits of gold leaf in it, that had a light bulb in the base of the bottle so that it lit up with a kind of snow globe effect. Happily, we were pouring our own drinks, which is good for me, as these days I am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol and a taste really is enough. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise the bottle lit up when I took my photo.

As the light faded outside, Donna told us that the annual Christmas Tractor and Truck Run would be passing by in the early evening. It’s an annual event, started by farmers, in aid of the neonatal unit at the local hospital. Every year, farmers and truck drivers decorate their vehicles and drive them from Lockerbie to Dumfries. So at around six in the evening, we braved the drizzle and went outside to watch as what seemed like hundreds of agricultural vehicles trundled past. It was an incredibly cheery event and lots of the drivers had brought their children along, so it felt like a lovely family occasion. It was also a wonderful reminder of how strong the farming community is in our area.

I had booked Thursday and Friday off, so it was a short working week. I worked mostly from home as I had some studying to do for an examination in Veterinary Public Health, which I sat (and happily passed) on Tuesday. The main reason I had planned the time off was because I belong to a writers’ group, which had a mini writing retreat booked for Thursday, so on Thursday morning, seven of us gathered in the library in Lockerbie to work on our stories. I don’t often mention writing any more on here as it’s been so slow in recent years, but I am approaching the half-way point of a novel about a vet on the west coast of Scotland. It’s set in the lead up to Christmas, so I’m working on it more-or-less daily right now. I know, from experience, that writing about Christmas in May is oddly discombobulating.

Progress is finally being made on my rooms upstairs. This week the plasterer has been in most days and now, one of the bedrooms is really starting to take shape. It’s been very cheering to have him in the house. He’s obviously happy at his work as he plays music and sings along to it as he’s working, which Triar and ai have enjoyed. His rendition of How Much Is That Doggy In The Window was a real blast from the past! Later today, I shall go and buy some paint. It really does feel that things are moving along.

My car went in for its MOT yesterday and happily, it passed with no more work to be done. I had booked to go out for lunch with Donna, who drove out to The Boathouse at Glencaple, which is couple of miles outside Dumfries on the bank of the Nith. The setting is stunning and, with the winter sun being low in the sky, despite the clouds, there was a real golden glow over the landscape.

I had hoped for a Christmas menu and wasn’t disappointed. Having quickly convinced Donna that a sharing platter of festive goodies was the way to go, the waiter somehow or other managed to persuade us that what we really wanted was a sharing platter each! Despite the fact that it somewhat missed the point of being a sharing platter, we were soon tucking into turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets and sprouts, with cranberry sauce. We had to ask for more gravy, but the waiter was fortunately very obbliging. Of course, there was way too much food, so the eventual outcome was that I brought home a good sized box of leftovers, so yesterday evening, I had my first turkey sandwich of the year and today, I still have another full Chrismas dinner to eat.

And as a final note, I should mention that Triar has also been getting ready for Christmas. Every year, he gets a new Kong bear as a present. In the old days, he used to destroy these relatively quickly, but at six years old, he has learned the art of toy preservation. I was starting to be concerned that we might get to Christmas with Bear still relatively intact, but I should have known Triar was merely becoming a master of timing.

So thank you for reading. Have a good week all!

A Cosy Dales Weekend

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I had a lovely break down in Yorkshire last weekend. As I mentioned last week, Triar and I went down to Mum and Dad’s on the train. It’s getting dark earlier now, so it was lovely to arrive and warm ourselves in front of the fire. Triar’s rug was already in place and he was soon sleeping beside the warming gas flames.

On Saturday, we walked into town to buy food for Sunday dinner and on the way, I saw some small bedside cabinets in a second hand furniture shop. We went home to fetch the car and returned to buy them. Not that my bedrooms upstairs are close to being finished yet, but when they are, I now have somewhere to put the bedside lamps I haven’t bought yet!

After a fish and salad lunch (I stole some chips from Mum and Dad, but stuck to the Second Nature principle of ordering something a bit healthier) we went home. I had suggested to Mum that our main task for the weekend should be making Christmas puddings, so she had bought in most of the ingredients. We stopped at Booths (surely the cosiest of supermarkets?) and added some chopped roasted hazelnuts to the list, as well as the raisins that had been unavailable when she did her main shop.

I used my own Christmas pudding recipe (here) though as usual these days, I substituted the alcohol content for whatever was available at the time, which this year was spiced rum!

Everyone had a stir, then we left the wonderful spicy mixture in the fridge overnight, and Triar and I went out for a walk to enjoy the autumn sunshine. It was a stunning day. I had perhaps missed the absolute height of the autumn colour, but it was beautiful and I was glad to capture it before all the leaves had fallen.

Another evening in front of the fire and we watched some early episodes of Shetland on the TV, back when Perez was still in his cottage in the centre of Lerwick. Another sleep with Triar curled up on my feet, then it was Sunday. It had been a little cloudy overnight and there was a heavy dew, but no frost.

Triar seemed to be enjoying looking out as much as I did,

As well as steaming the Christmas puddings, I prepared a chicken and vegetables for dinner (which my parents eat at lunchtime) and we sat down early as Triar and I had a train to catch.

And then we were on the train back to Scotland, with a two hour wait in Carlisle, when Triar used his charm on everyone he saw to pass the time.

And showed off his favourite trick.

I’m not sure where I picked up the virus, or whether it was that chilly two hours in Carlisle that tipped me over the edge, but by the time I walked and drove back from the station in the evening, I was starting to feel ropy and by Monday morning it was obvious I’d come down with the lurgy. I’m now much better, though bored of coughing having finally succumbed to taking time off to rest on Thursday and Friday. Had I still been in Norway, I would have taken the whole week off, but I worked from home Monday to Wednesday and at least all my paperwork is now up to date.

Yesterday evening, Donna invited me round for pizza and some of Aldi’s Christmas range which, with Halloween over, they are beginning to launch. She welcomed me despite the coughing, for which I am very grateful. Today, Triar and I are joining Donna and Will and their dogs in a Doggy Field for a good run, so I’d better go and get ready.

Thank you for reading. By this time next week, I’ll be on holiday and preparing for our journey to Teeside. Hope you have a good week.

The Shetland Files

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I had a wonderful week in Shetland. It’s the first time I have visited. Years ago, I might have been daunted by the idea of an overnight ferry, but having travelled on two with Triar, almost a year ago, I was looking forward to it. I had booked a cabin as I wanted a good night’s sleep at the start of my holiday. I retreated there early and spent a comfortable night cocooned in a warm bed as the boat carried me north.

I walked to Lindsay’s house in the morning, where she had cooked me a wonderful breakfast. The house is lovely, warm and welcoming like Lindsay herself, and with an amazing view over the sea. It was at Lindsay’s suggestion that I had decided to go to the Wool Week festival, though my plans had evolved as I had contacted an old friend, who had invited me to stay on her croft on Whalsay. So Melanie joined us, just as Lindsay and I were about to eat and we left together soon afterwards, having arranged to meet Lindsay and the friends who were coming to stay with her, on Wednesday.

The last time I saw Melanie was in 1986. We attended a huge comprehensive school together and mostly met up in the music room and singing in choirs at Christmas concerts. What a strange feeling it was to meet someone at 55 that I hadn’t seen since we were 17, but wonderful all the same. Soon we were catching up on ancient history and all the years in between and it was a great start to my holiday.

She drove me to Jarlshof – an ancient dwelling place, where people had lived from about 5-6,000 years ago, right up until the 1600s. Ancient brochs were superseded by Norse longhouses when the Vikings arrived. Later there was a laird’s house, parts of which were still standing. It would take years to begin to understand the site, but it was fascinating to walk round, trying to imagine those primitive lives, huddling through the long dark winters, before the arrival of glass windows, central heating and electric lights.

We then went to the ruined St Ninian’s Church on St Ninian’s Isle – almost an island, but connected to the mainland by a “sand tombolo” – which is a sandy beach with sea on both sides.

As we headed towards the Whalsay Ferry, it started to rain and a rainbow formed over the landscape, which felt like an omen for a good week to come.

I expected to enjoy writing this entry – and I am as I had a wonderful week – but it struck me as. I paused to make coffee, that back when I left school in 1986, it was stupendously unlikely that I would have caught up with Melanie again. I liked her very much, but we had never been close “at each other’s houses” friends.

Back then, unless you kept up with someone’s address or landline, there was no way to keep in contact. I moved, because my parents moved, and then I went to university. I kept in touch with one friend – Sharon Dickson. We shared a flat for a year at uni. But other than that, it was unlikely I’d catch up with anyone else. If you moved, life moved on. You met new people, only keeping in touch with the closest of friends by phone or letter.

Though the internet is officially understood to have been created in 1983, that’s not something we would have heard of. When I was at school, most of the upper classes (there were 14 classes, each with 30 pupils in my year, so we were streamed) would not have taken “secretarial studies”. Ironic to look back at how that subject was viewed as secondary, as learning to type would have been tremendously useful.

After the internet became more widespread in the early 2000s, I had contact from two “early adopters” who got in touch through Friends Reunited, but until Facebook came along in 2004 (eighteen years after I left school) it was stupendously unlikely I would have accidentally bumped in to Melanie. We both left the town we grew up in far behind. So I guess I have Mark Zuckerberg and co to thank for the way things have turned out.

Having lived in various northern and remote places, I was interested to see what Shetland life was like. As I mentioned before, Melanie lives in a croft on Whalsay, one of the islands that is connected to the Shetland mainland by a ferry. Every time we crossed to the mainland, life was punctuated by that half hour journey.

The time we got up was related to which ferry we would catch. If you didn’t book the ferry, there might not be space and you might have to wait for the next. I was incredibly glad I was being driven around by someone who knew exactly how the whole thing worked, but that punctuation of life – ruled by the comings and goings of a boat – is very different from anywhere I’ve lived.

The croft itself was beautiful: a lovely warm home in that austere landscape, where trees don’t grow, but the sea is all around and the yellowing autumn grass was bounded by drystone walls. There were animals too: otters and seals in the sea, ponies, sheep and goats on the land.

As befits a croft, Melanie and her husband own about twenty sheep. Her husband has part ownership of a sophisticated fishing boat too, and as the week went by, I was privileged to share some traditional food, including a kind of stew of mutton chops, eaten with bannocks – scones cooked on a griddle, rather than in the oven, and also some of the fish caught from the boat. The mutton is served on the island at weddings and it was delicious. Melanie’s husband is a very good cook.

I took some photos of the changing light as the days passed and it was impossible not to fall in love with the place where Melanie has built her life.

Melanie, I and her friend Claire, went out to a few of the classes that made up Wool Week. There were so many of them, and I can’t knit or crochet, but Melanie booked three for us, the first stitching with wool, the second, felting and the third was called Weaving the Landscape.

I haven’t finished the stitching project. It was impossible to do so in the afternoon lesson. I brought back wool though and, if I can borrow an embroidery ring and needles from my mum, I may be able to finish it. The felting class was fabulous. We made otters, and though mine is not anatomically perfect, I was very pleased with my efforts.

Weaving the landscape was also utterly engrossing. It took me all day to create a tiny two inch cloth, but hopefully you can see how inspired I was by the sunset photos of rising mist over the lochan beside the croft.

We met up with Lindsay at the mart on Wednesday , where the sale of Shetland ponies was under way. After that, Melanie and I had lunch with Lindsay and her friends. It was a lovely relaxed occasion. Who could have imagined what 4,000 guineas worth of tiny horse looked like?

All too soon though, the week was over. The weather changed on the last day. I don’t know if you have watched the series, Shetland, but there is a shot in the opening titles, I think, where a small piece of plastic, caught on barbed wire, flutters frantically in the wind, This is my version of that shot! I think the sheets might have dried quickly, even though the temperature had dropped.

The boat was due to leave at five thirty in the afternoon, so I spent a last day with Melanie touring parts of the island. I bought souvenirs and ate the most enormous plate of cod and chips in a cafe in Lerwick.

All too soon, it was time to get back on the boat. I took a few, precious last shots as we sailed away from Lerwick, but my abiding memories are of the warmth of my welcome to the islands and my desire is to go back next year, and do it all again. Thank you Lindsay, for encouraging me to go to Shetland, and most importantly, thank you Melanie for a wonderful week.

Beetroot, Bees and Bindweed

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I had a wonderful weekend last week, with Valerie. Back when the children were young, I met Valerie outside a classroom door. Her youngest, Stacey, was in the same class as John. We were both newcomers to the area and she quickly became one of my favourite people. She looked after Andrew when he was a baby and none of the child minders in the village had space for him. We both worked nights, but when we had time, we used to go for lunch at Jimmy Chung’s – a Chinese restaurant that did a fantastic buffet.

Meeting up made me feel I had gone back in time. With some friends, even when you haven’t seen them for years, you can pick it up where you left off and it was like that. Effortless and joyful. There were some new things. Valerie has a hot tub and evenings in the water with a glass of red wine (thoughtfully bought by her husband, Charles) were a wonderful new addition.

We also visited the Kelpies, which are not far from where I used to live. I’ve seen them in photos before, so it was lovely to see them, and that also fitted in to the daily walks I am now taking.

Valerie still looks amazing, despite all those Jimmy Chung’s meals and a bout of long Covid, caused by working in the NHS, in the front line, with no PPE. I had more protective gear as a technician in a chicken slaughterhouse in Norway. The chronic underfunding of public services in the UK has been going on for many years now. I hope it changes. Treating hard-working staff badly is not a recipe for a happy and healthy workforce.

I was in Ayr this week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My colleague (Pilar) was duty vet and I was shadowing her. While I was there to learn, it was an instructive lesson. Monday was fortunately quiet, but the two queries that took longest to deal with were about primates and alpacas. She also was put under pressure by a very grumpy vet, who probably knew he’d done something wrong and was taking it out on our staff. It didn’t inspire confidence in me that the role of duty vet is going to get any easier.

I did have time to wander around Ayr though, which was interesting. It’s on the coast and there’s a tidal river running through the town centre. It no longer seems deep enough for ships: perhaps years ago it was dredged and deeper, but there are many signs that it was once a thriving dock.

On the town centre side of the river, over the old bridge, which is now used as a foot bridge, there are some new buildings, such as Marks and Spencer.

But on the north side of the river, there are older buildings that speak of sailors and ships and a different life for the town. These is the old bath house.

The seaman’s mission:

And while the oldest bar in Ayr still looks to be in use, the oldest restaurant seems to be falling into a sad state of disrepair.

I can be difficult finding good food in new places, but I happened upon The Stravaig while wandering in search of inspiration on Tuesday evening. They served me a wonderful beetroot and goats cheese salad, with pickled walnuts. It was properly delicious and I will definitely be going back.

I have been doing the Second Nature program, primarily to lose weight (I’ve lost 5kg/11lb so far) but the program encourages better habits and lifestyle changes, rather than concentrating exclusively on food and calories. There are articles each day and a theme each week. So far we’ve had Prepare for the Program, Reset Your Lifestyle, Nutrition – Focus on Meal Planning, Mindset – Develop a Positive Mindset, Exercise – Increase Your Steps and this week’s Stress – Start Deep Breathing.

While I think it is a good program, and hope I can stick with it, it has struck me this week that an awful lot of it is about managing stress. The obesity epidemic undoubtedly has a lot of causes, from too much sugar, high availability of fast food and so on, but as I have embraced trying to sleep better and get into different routines, it did strike me as rather sad that my life is indeed filled with stress that I have to manage, and always has been. I’m sure it’s true of a lot of people and perhaps the reasons for that should be explored. Working hours in the UK are much longer than those in Norway, for example. After three in the afternoon, I’ve already worked out I’m not good in front of a computer. Out in the field, I can keep going, but I don’t achieve more by staying those extra hours.

Living in Norway opened my eyes to the horrible work situation in the UK. I remember sitting in a hotel at breakfast, listening to some southern businessman pontificating to his friend about how he knew who to promote as it would be the person who stayed late and really put in the hours. Perhaps he should have looked a bit harder at those who managed to finish their work within the allocated hours and prioritized their home life over crawling up the boss’s backside.

I felt a bit smug sitting there, having escaped all that. Nobody in Norway thinks that way. And now I’m back and it hasn’t changed, but I am thinking hard about what I can personally do so as not to slide back into those attitudes. I’m not going to be able to change the civil service, but in time, I may be able to change my own pattern of working. Deep breathing is all very well, but it should be an add on in a healthy lifestyle, not a lifeline to cling onto to survive.

I will finish with some photos from Blackbird Lane. The hedgerow is filled with flowers and weeds and twined with different plants. I was struck yesterday by the bindweed, which is both pretty and efficient, though it achieves its height by strangling others. It isn’t just climbing through the hawthorn, but even engulfed a dead nettle and other flimsy plants. Anyway, they are all climbing towards the light and though it’s not been a warm summer, I still find new things there daily. The bees at the top of the page were there too.

Have a good week all!

Here and There, This and That

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One of the things I enjoy about working as a government vet is travelling to different places. It hasn’t happened yet, but at some point, I will be sent to do detached duty, where I can be sent anywhere in the UK to deal with any emerging notifiable disease. Even in my region though, I get around a bit. On Monday, I am going to Ayr to accompany a colleague on a welfare inspection. She has only been out to one such inspection so far and I’ve already done my three, so hopefully I can help her to do a good job.

I’m also going to be one of APHA’s vets at the Royal Highland Show next weekend, which is exciting. If nothing happens, it’ll be a lovely day out. It’s a long time since I’ve been, but it was always an enjoyable day out. If something happens that I have to deal with, it will be… interesting. Imagine how the day would change if we discover one of the animals is showing signs of foot and mouth. There are contingency plans, which I should get next week. I will make myself familiar with them and keep my fingers crossed that the most exciting thing to happen will be visiting the freshly cooked doughnut stand.

Not that I will be doing that. As I mentioned last week, I have been signed up to a weight loss program called Second Nature by the NHS. So far, it’s been very good. Its focus is on changing habits and not on counting calories, which is appealing to me. I can’t get on board with weighing out food for the rest of my life. It relies on encouraging exercise, eating more vegetables and cutting down on carbs, without cutting them out altogether.

I was meant to do lots of meal planning this past week, but bought pick and mix salad every day from my local supermarket, which handily is a ten minute walk from my office. In the evenings, Andrew and I have been using a delivery service called Hello Fresh. Both Anna and Donna recommended it, so we decided to give it a go. Each week, we select four meal plans, they deliver ready prepared ingredients, and we cook the food together when I get home from work. It’s been quite easy to modify the Hello Fresh meals to fit the Second Nature recommendations, so it’s all been very easy and I love not having to decide what to eat while standing in the supermarket.

I also signed up to an online service called Borrow My Doggy and this week, for the first time, someone new took Triar out for a walk. It did make me realise that he’s not the easiest dog to handle. He’s never been placid – quite the opposite. Also, I’ve not taught him very good manners on the lead.

It went off fine though. I’m hoping to find someone who would be able to take him at short notice if I have to go away unexpectedly for work, but I’m going to have to engage more to do that. I’ve just booked a holiday in November, so perhaps I need to concentrate my efforts more. Triar has never been in a kennel and I’m not sure I really want him to start now.

These are some photos from the bottom of my garden, which is running absolutely wild. The garden is full of insects and birds, which I love watching from my kitchen window. I made my way down the broken steps this week and was pleased to find that the overgrown roses have the same, wonderful scent that I remember from the roses in the garden when I was a child. So many these days seem not to have any aroma. “Stop and small the roses” is a good principle in life, I think. We’re down in Yorkshire for the weekend, so I’m going to start with a cup of coffee and take it from there. See you next week!

Cosy Lunch at Senja Roasters

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It’s a while since I’ve made a food post, as my friend Vicky pointed out in an e-mail a couple of weeks ago. I’m hoping to meet her in a few days’ time, so this one’s for you, Vicky.

There weren’t many choices on the menu, but that often goes hand in hand with excellence. Better to use great ingredients to produce a couple of incredible dishes than to try to do too much and dilute the effect. Both John and I chose Spanish meatballs with mash. It had a wonderful, rich flavour. The potato was topped with tiny pieces of crispy onion and the meatballs were given extra texture and taste with a sprinkling of chopped smoked nuts. It really was delicious.

Spanish meatballs with rustic mashed potato

Outside, the autumn weather was stormy, but as usual, it was warm and welcoming inside, with a wonderful view over the harbour at Stonglandseidet.

For dessert, we both had vanilla and lemon tart, to which I added a cappuccino. I might have preferred a slightly stronger element of lemon, but all in all, it still tasted as good as it looked.

Vanilla and lemon tart with cappuccino coffee

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. See you next week!

Submissions and Steampunk

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Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

This week has been very intense. So much so, that when I thought back and realised I had been to my first audit on Monday, it’s hard to believe it’s the same week. The long daylight hours are quite disconcerting, though they also mean that everything is growing at an enormous rate, so I’ll throw in a few pictures of all the flowers and undergrowth as I go along. The audit was in the abattoir, or at least in the meat processing plant attached to it. My colleagues Ann and Ronny carried it out and the areas that came under particular scrutiny were traceability and recall.

It was fascinating to see the planning and processes that go into ensuring that the meat that’s sold to the public can be traced, not just right back to an individual animal, but to the batch of plastic that’s used in packaging and the temperature range in the lorry that transports the product onwards. We also got to see mince being packaged, from the time they place it into a huge funnel, to it being arranged into individual squares in a grid pattern on a conveyer, which withdraws suddenly, dropping it into plastic containers which are sealed and marked. I hadn’t noticed before, but the packets are marked with the same oval mark, with Norge and EFTA and the individual number of the abattoir, that we use to stamp the meat itself when we examine it and pass it as fit for consumption. It was also interesting to see how cleanliness is achieved. We had to change our protective clothing multiple times as we passed through the different areas.

The writing whirlwind that started last week also continued. My agent is Ger Nichol at The Book Bureau and she is in Ireland. The contracts were signed last weekend and after about four days of intensive editing, she felt The Good Friends’ Veterinary Clinic was ready for submission. I will give you the blurb I sent her, though I’m not sure how much of this she uses, or whether she’s changed it for sending it to the publishers.

“The Good Friends’ Veterinary Clinic” is an exploration of the life of a recently widowed veterinary surgeon and how she deals with the consequences of a lifetime of putting her family before herself. I was aiming for a cross between James Herriot and Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax). It is set in rural Scotland and is filled with diverse women and their animal friends, from the partnership between receptionist Gail and her guide dog Beth, to butch lesbian, Mags, who loves her crazy mare, Strumpet, almost more than life itself.

Ger sent it off on Wednesday to ten editors at well known publishing houses, and now it’s another waiting game. There’s no guarantee, even at this stage, that it will be picked up, but this is way further than I’ve ever got before. The Hope Meadows series was sold to Hodder before I was involved and would have gone ahead with another writer if I hadn’t been chosen. This time the work is all my own, though if it hadn’t been for Lara Wilson egging me on through the pandemic, even though I was in Norway and she was in Belfast and Glasgow, I definitely wouldn’t have got this far.

The rest of this blog is going to be about Tromsø, where I spent Thursday and Friday at a Mattilsynet meeting for all the staff in our region. In particular, I want to rave about a restaurant we went to. Regular readers will know what a foodie I am and how much I love new restaurant discoveries, and what could be better than a real Italian pizzeria in the far north of Norway?

I must admit here that I didn’t have high hopes when I discovered we were going to a pizzeria. Pizza is very popular in Norway and (as in the UK) a lot of it is adequate but by no means exciting. Casa Inferno certainly looked pretty good as I walked in. It has a steampunk theme, with a brutalist style ceiling – all steel rods and exposed air conditioning pipes. Somehow, it achieved a very cosy feel. There were a few old things scattered among the copper lampshades and retro-futuristic decor. This gramophone on the bar was probably my favourite.

Box gramophone and Steampunk Bible book

We started with antipasti – selection of olives, various cheeses, hams and salamis and some most delicious red pickled onions. It was served on shared platters and looked great, though for once, I forgot to take a photo. It was the pizzas that were the real revelation though. It’s a long time since I’ve had a proper wood-fired pizza, created by an Italian chef. The pizzas were for sharing too, but by some miracle, the one that was placed in front of Konstantin and me would have been one of my first choices from the menu.

Autunno – a white pizza (no tomato sauce) with fresh mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, pecorino cheese, guanciale meat, onions and pine nuts.

The next pizza brought to our table was even more spectacular. The Inferno was quite literally, flaming hot.

Inferno pizza, literally on fire when brought to the table.

The Inferno had tomato sauce, spicy salami, olives, fresh chilli peppers, onions and chilli flakes. It looked even better, once the flames died down.

Inferno pizza, after the fire.

As we were waiting for desserts and coffee, I took a few photographs, including the steampunk weapon at the top of the page. It was only at this point, that I realised there was an actual wood stove for the pizzas. No wonder they were so wonderful!

The final indoctrination, and the realisation that this was somewhere I really wanted to come back to with the offspring, was with the dessert. I was going to order what I thought was a chocolate fondant, when Hilde pointed out that it was not actually chocolate fondant, but chocolate fondue. I guess chocolate fondue isn’t technically very difficult, nor is it particularly Italian, so far as I know, but it was certainly fun! And along with an espresso coffee laced with amaretto, it rounded off the meal very nicely.

Chocolate fondue with fruit and biscotti.

Casa Inferno Website.

Thanks for reading. Have a lovely week everyone,

My Norwegian Christmas – Third Sunday in Advent

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The third purple candle is now lit on the advent crown.

Not really a Christmas thing, but the sledge-like object in the picture at the top of the page is a spark, or sparkstøtting. As you can see, it has a handle at waist height and long runners behind the seat, so you can walk and push a child, or carry something. It’s not uncommon to see people taking them to the shops and around the town and children sometimes play with them on the road to our apartment. The pavements are rarely gritted, so sliding about isn’t too difficult. That said, at minus ten, there tends to be less ice and even though the snow is hard-packed, it often has powder on top. When the temperature rises above zero and it begins to melt, that’s when it is at its most treacherous.

The office is now filled with Christmas cheer. These three nisser look a bit more cosy than the one in the hotel last week. I was hoping to bring pictures of our Christmas lunch, but I ended up working elsewhere on Thursday. I did take pictures of some of the most common Christmas “biscuits” though. On the left are kokosboller, top right are pepperkaker and bottom left are havreflarn.

And this is risgrøt – basically rice porridge. This is what the nisser should be fed on Christmas Eve (Julaften). I had mine with butter, sugar and cinammon, but John tells me they eat it up here with spekemat – dried meats and sausages. One day I’ll have to give it a try.

As in the UK, there are lots of Christmas sweets and snacks in the shops. Many are marzipan based, with a particular slant towards marzipan pigs. There is also the delicious sounding Juleskum though, if you’re feeling brave. I also had to take a photo of a packet of salted caramel crisps. Salted caramel is lovely, but this is one of those moments when even I think they’ve taken it a step too far!

If you’re thirsty, the classic drink is gløg, which is a warm, spiced wine drink, a little like mulled wine, though there is an alcohol free version for children.

Alternative drinks include Christmas beers, made by all the bigger beer-makers and also Julebrus, which is a sweet, fizzy drink in either red or brown flavours. Mack is our “local” brewery (it’s in Tromsø) and it’s the most northern brewery in the world. As you can see, they make Julebrus as well as beer. The Julebrus here is different from the brands we used to buy when we lived much further south.

I’ll finish off with a few decorations. These are from a cafe we visited yesterday in Bardufoss. I was hoping they’d have some more Christmassy food, but nothing was leaping out at me, so I had a coffee instead, which was very pleasant.

And these are from my own Christmas tree. My mum sent me these tree critters, so they’re not actually Norwegian, but they are definitely now part of my Norwegian Christmas.

Very British

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Sunrise/sunset: 01:14/ 00:34. Daylength: 23hr

There has been a massive change in the weather this week. Until now, it’s been warm and sunny, on and off, but the forecast this week, courtesy of YR.no looked like this.

Not only has it rained a lot, but those temperature listings aren’t very accurate. I took John to the airport on Tuesday and noticed that the temperature was a rather chilly 5.5°C. I took a picture after dropping him off. The mountains were shrouded in mist and the river was a distant mirage.

When the mountain peaks emerged now and then, they too showed evidence of the chill in the air.

I was reminded of the weather forecasts in October and November last year, where they announced that the snow line was now at 400m, 300m, 200m and you could watch the gradual descent into winter.

I am very much better than I was. My blood pressure has returned to normal, thank goodness and I seem to be generally on the mend. I was back to work yesterday. I was afraid that I would be too tired, but I had a good quiet day in the office catching up and arranging things for next week.

Though I spent much of the week resting, Anna and Andrew offered to take me out for a Senja Roasters brunch on Thursday. How could I resist? I’ve been wanting to try the French Toast ever since I read the description and it didn’t disappoint. It was wonderful, filled with caramel flavours.

French toast , brown cheese and mascarpone whipped
cream, honey, roasted pears, and pumpkin seeds

Our trip did lead to one of those truly embarrassing British moments, however. Thomas is always telling me off for thanking him and I probably still apologise way too often, but this was one of those more toe curling examples. The lovely waitress was explaining to us that there was no cured ham for the Banger Toasts. Instead, they were substituting chorizo. I’m not sure where she was from, but I didn’t quite catch what she said at first. When it dawned on me, I said, in a rather loud voice, “Oh, chorizo!” About one second later, my brain caught up and I remembered that, of course, her pronunciation was almost certainly the genuine article. It was more an announcement of realisation from me than any attempt to correct, but it was one of those wonderfully cringeworthy moments I love to share with you all!

We walked down the track to my favourite beach afterwards. Happily it was between rain showers. Though summer is passing and the green has passed its vibrant zenith, Senja is still stunning. There are orchids and harebells, sandy beaches and misty mountains. And sheep with bells on. What could be more Norwegian than that?