Spring and stuff

C's celebration went well: the daffodils bloomed on time; the stories were short and sweet; the grandsons read poems from Ogden Nash & Spike Milligan and 200 folk turned up to join the party. The organisation had inevitable messy bits, as one of my friends pointed out, organising a funeral is lime organising a wedding but you have to do it in two weeks. I thought that he grandsons, aged 7 and 9, were too young to speak at a large event (I was wrong, they were excellent) and my sister accused me of spoiling her memory of our mother by preventing her partner from playing his guitar at her memorial (I didn't). My mother's brother turned up from New Zealand and sulked a bit when he wasn't hailed as the family patriarch. I left for London after the party and picked up some evil southern flu which has left me poorly for a couple of weeks. I confirmed to the executor that my sister was going to take C's car before the party but she forgot to collect it (it's sitting at the Honda garage) and accused me of witholding it to make her life difficult (I didn't ... there's a bit of a theme going on here). As a sweet coda to the celebration, at least two of the guests got in touch with Galgael, which I'd mentioned in my euology, which provides training in traditional wooden boat building.

I'm now back to research with a long day at Heriot Watt where I went to the post-graduate research showcase and finally got round to setting up country by country data on energy assessment. Sorting out the estate winds its slow way along. The executors have managed to track down the deeds for C's Glasgow flat which, it turns out was owned jointly by my parents, this means my mother's estate will have to be adjusted before C's can be sorted. Hey ho.

Life at Drumbuidhe continues and, although I'm still coming across stuff that C has cut holes in (propagator trays, walls, windows, expensive machines ...) there is growing optimism that I will, eventually, manage to limit the amount of time I spend looking mournfully at machines that don't work. I'm starting small with the two chainsaws which I've brought down to Glasgow to see if they can be saved. I'm giving myself two years to tidy things (since Drumbuidhe has at least 7 vehicles, none of which work properly, this is not a trivial task) and sort out where and how I'm going to be based. I'm thinking seriously about selling my Glasgow flat and moving permanently to Drumbuidhe, renting a property in the central belt for work. Obviously, while this pondering goes on, the potatoes still have to get planted.

While I've been poorly and distracted, my kitchen renovation has been halted but I've dismantled enough of it to make cooking awkward so adventures in cuisine are limited to toast and yoghurt at the minute. When I got back from London, and while I was still poorly, I went to the Gardeners Cottage in Edinburgh with two of C's colleagues. Outstanding food even if I did throw up when I got home. One of the seven courses was wild garlic soup with ham hock and hazelnuts. To echo this I picked a stack of garlic from Casteal nan Con while heading south after potato planting. The quickest and easiest option is undoubtedly pesto. For this I used what I had in my depleted kitchen (sunflower seeds) and a present of pumpkin seed oil from C's Austrian colleague.

wild garlic pesto
* garlic leaves
* parmesan
* sunflower seeds
* pumpkin seed oil

Pulse everything together in a food processor (inherited from C) and use the fabulous green paste wherever a taste of spring is needed.

There is a bit of a sad memory attached to this since C became a bit obsessed with makig this in in final years. Last year the first workaway volunteer we had visiting told me that C had grabbed and shaken them when they didn't respond fast enough to his demands to help him make it. This meant that I couldn't leave C alone with the volunteers.