It was yet another spectacular Easter: sunshine, good food and a smattering of broken-down vehicles.
The long drive to Drumbuidhe (minus the Corran ferry so about 10 hours door to door) helped with the perspective and the arrival of the Wintles and Pulhams in sunny Morvern provided plenty to do. The holiday was filled with beachcombing, bottles of wine and banter - very jolly. After the family hordes had left there was a lovely final Sunday lunch (slow-braised pork belly with soy sauce and rowan jelly) with Hugh and Miranda Morris. After the slightly frenetic pace of a full house in Morvern, the wedding weekend in Glasgow was very quiet: a long lunch with Sonya Hancox, cupcakes with Peter Hamilton and blissful shopping in Waitrose.
The flight back to Benbecula was delayed (broken plane) but beautiful and I made it to the last film of the rather worthy Ecofilm festival, Wasteland. I arrived back to grim discussions about the Comhairle's architecture department, missing my mum and sad. I found myself very tearful during Monday's gaelic class and I'm still feeling rather fragile. Thankfully all the physical stuff's in place so I still managed a clamber up Ben Kenneth (280m) on Saturday and Ben More (620m) on Sunday followed by a rather extreme bit of paddling on Culla Bay. I'm off to Drumbuidhe again tomorrow with fresh-baked chocolate brownies and four gaelic CDs. I can't provide gaelic recipes yet but the classic brownie recipe is:
125g butter
125g chocolate
2 eggs
250g sugar
150g self-raising flour
Melt the butter and chocolate together. Whisk the eggs and sugar then fold in the flour and melted chocolate mixture. Bake at 180C for roughly 30 minutes and revel in the squidgy yumminess.
