a confusion of cats

Such is the mouse problem here that every single gnawable item (bed linen, gas supply pipes, soap, sandals, chairs) has been well and truly gnawed; checking crockery for mouse poo is standard and only 2 out of my initial, 48 pea plants made it to maturity. I've been pondering the obvious answer of getting a cat and, after initial concerns about how a cat would stand up to the resident pine marten, fox, wildcat population, was starting to seriously ponder a rehoused farm cat. Events have since overtaken my gentle ponderings.

A week ago I was due to go the Tron Theatre with my friend Peter Hamilton (a dashing, dance-loving sherrif who knew my parents from student days). There was no answer when I arrived at his flat so I called the police who broke down his door and we discovered he had died in his bed. The sad drama was added to by his cat, Findlay who was left orphaned and very scared. So I have unexpectedly adopted a cat. An elderly indoor cat.

It looks like Findlay will be heading to Devon in September to satisfy my nephews' pet cravings but I still have to look after him for July and August ... whilst shuttling between Glasgow, Drumbuidhe, the Edinburgh Festival and with a jaunt to Marseille thrown in for good measure.

Up here in Drumbuidhe the fruit is bursting out all over and, having started dabbling with airbnb, I have my second lot of guests here at the minute with four more to follow. It turns out that none of them have read the description so they have missed the crucial information "boat access only". It's a steep learning curve for them but they are rewarded with one of the best views in Scotland and oodles of fresh cherries.

Midsummer

It's the longest day of the year which means I'm still getting used to going to sleep in the light and, when I wake in the morning, wondering idly whether it's 5am or 10am. I'm up at Drumbuidhe and struggling (as I have been these past 6 months) to get some constructive research work done. I've got plans of course (reading to do, a literature review paper to write, contacts to follow up on, conferences to investigate) but the lushness of summer always takes me aback. The garden is growing like topsy even if I did manage to get the potatoes mixed up. Alas the pests are also growing and the gooseberry bushes are being stripped bare by sawfly.  I picked off all the caterpillars and pupae I could see and then stripped the berries themselves (gooseberry jelly and basil & gooseberry sorbet) before I spray them with bug killer to try and make some dent in next year's sawfly population. I'm also going to give the potatoes a blast of bordeaux mixture which I found in the shed in the hope that we can stave off blight this year. Some fabulous bits of sunshine had dried the garden out so, although the current rain is a bit grey for midsummer's day, it's welcome nonetheless.

While I fail to get on with my research, N is up in the garden chopping down hedges with gay abandon. With both parents gone, I can now go about drastic remodelling of the garden with gay abandon and the much-hated leylandii hedge is the first bit to go. This may be my version of Campbell's continual urge to drill holes in things but, gosh, the garden looks better for it.

Of course cooking is my standard displacement activity and I'm already planning tonight's dinner (smoked mackerel, new potatoes and cavolo nero) followed by trfile using up the last wee bit of a fabulous cake that I made on Sunday.  The recipe is from Carol Kohll via the Guardian's recipe swap and it's moist light and tender as well as beautifully aromatic.  I made some minor changes because of stuff we had to hand (coffee grinder and olive oil).  We had it for pudding with cardamon-scented hot chocolate.



Cardamon Cake

3 eggs
300g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp seeds from cardamon pods
1/2 tsp cinammon
zest of one orange
zest of 1/2 lemon
350g self-raising flour
180ml olive oil
1tsp vanilla extract
180ml orange juice

* put salt, spices, rind and some of the sugar into a coffee grinder and grind till fine
* whisk remaining sugar with eggs for about 8 minutes
* add everything together and mix til smooth(ish)
* pour into large (lined) cake tin
* bake at gas mark 4 for 45 minutes

The recipe warned that the cake doesn't keep very well (hence the trifle) but that's unlikely to be a problem.

Theatrical Landlady

I seem to have drifted into a landlady-life without any firm planning on my part. There is a whiff of fate about it since caring duties (looking after J from 2005 to 2007 then C from circa 2010 to 2016) have a strong portion of old-fashioned domestic labour underpinning the new 21st century emotional labour. I can now change  bed in about 1 minute and whip up a decent hollandaise in about 5. Both decent landlady skills.

My lovely lodger G is back in residence in Glasgow and is far too polite to comment on the mild chaos in my flat as I struggle to get my kitchen back together. Up in Drumbuidhe I've put the fank on airbnb and had the first ever guests. They were charming although the £100 they paid and the lovely review they wrote did help to confirm their charm. I spent £115 on bed linen for their visit so I haven't hit on a cunning plan for untold riches but, still, it should help offset the running costs.

Of course I've still got multiple personas going on so last week was the Scottish School of Graduate Social Science Summer School (a fair mouthful even before I tried discussing the neoliberal hegemony over  glass of rose). Some great workshops but also a chance meeting with a Newcastle researcher who had a recently installed off-grid electrical system. He uses a propane generator which opened my eyes to the fact that there is an alternative to the diesel-hungry, over-sized, high-maintenance lister petter that we currently have. The genny has both a recurring overspeed fault and an inappropriate battery. I've been dithering about getting a maintenance visit since it's a minimum £500 per visit. Since a propane generator (silent! sits outside in its own box! easily stored fuel!) can be got for about £2000 it looks like that could be big step towards a new Drumbuidhe grid.

One of my other burgeoning personas is film festival curator following the success of the first Drimnin Sheep Film Festival. We demonstrated that extensive social media coverage doesn't make a blind bit of difference to attendance on the west coast after blanket coverage on radio five's film review programme failed to nudge attendance for 'Rams' beyond our standard six. I also proved that gorse flower syrup isn't really worth the effort but makes a pleasant enough cocktail with gin.

Gorse Flower Syrup

250g flowers
250g sugar
500ml water
Juice & rind of 1 lime & 1 orange

Boil the water and sugar together, pour over the flowers, juice and rind and leave to infuse overnight. In the morning, strain and bring, briefly, to the boil again. Bottle - adding a camden tablet if you want to store it unrefrigerated.

I made up cocktails with gin + syrup + lemon juice, lengthened with soda water and enjoyed over ice. They were very nice but more citrus than gorse.

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.

death & taxes

On the morning of Friday 16th January C died in his sleep. He was getting increasingly frail so I was going round to see him twice a day. I arrived at his flat just after he'd died.

C is survived by his brother and his two daughters. There was a private cremation the week after his death but I'm now in the throes of organising a great big party at Oran Mor to celebrate his life. Oh, and there's his obituary and cards to all his friends and sorting his estate. I'm tired and sad but doing OK.

My sister is another matter. She's very upset and, after a quick five days in Glasgow (the cremation was timed to fit in with her plans) she's back down in England, not taking my phone calls and seems to be teetering on the edge of a breakdown. I started off thinking that she had money problems since she keeps trying to get access to C's cash before probate but she's so out of control that I'm worried something else might be going on. It doesn't help that I listen to the Archers regularly and spend most of my time shouting at the radio for Tom, Kirsty, Fallon, Iain ... anyone! to see that Helen is drowning not waving.

In an appropriate twist, this week was also the deadline for tax returns. I did manage to get something approximating a return in with 4 days to go.

In less grim news there was a fine Burns Supper at Drimnin with music, recitation, a quiz and many fine words from friends of C. Sad stuff for those of us left but, oh, what a life!

a camera for Christmas

A key rule in relationships (well, my key rule) is that selflessness helps with sanity.  Expecting gratitude or even reciprocal gifts is a quick route to disappointment.  Especially if your boyfriend is an alcoholic.  For D's birthday I got him a lovely lumix camera.  For my birthday he got me, well, nothing.  Soon after that he told me to fuck off back home if I wasn't prepared to sleep with him (I wasn't so I did and life has been calmer and happier since) thus confirming that I wasn't ever going to get that birthday present.  All it took was a whiff of a PhD stipend and I decided that I could just buy myself a present if I really wanted it.  After much searching on ebay I tracked down another lumix in a charity shop being sold cheap since no-one knew if it worked or not.  After a bit of shoogling with a generic battery charger I got it up and working so I've started running around the damp Scottish hillsides experimenting with all sorts of gloomy colour schemes.

Heriot Watt University (where I'm doing my research) are short of space for research students so I've been given a university laptop on condition that I don't turn up to the university every day.  Since it's an hour trip to Heriot Watt that suits me fine but it does mean that I miss out on the camaraderie of colleagues.  Thankfully my boatbuilding course payed dividends again with not one but two Christmas parties.  The second one was a full-blown Christmas dinner for all volunteers, staff and trainees with food donated by Morrisons served on the workbenches.  I was trying to use up food before heading north and so I made an orange and almond cake based on Claudia Roden's classic recipe but with the added yumminess of a chocolate truffle icing (adapted from Julia Child's recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cookery).  It was eaten swiftly, enjoyed by all and much praised.  It's also very, very easy with most of the cooking time taken up by waiting.


orange & almond cake

3 oranges
6 eggs
250g ground almonds
250g sugar
couple of drops of almond essence (if available since sweet almonds don't taste that almondy)
1 teaspoon baking powder
~
100g plain chocolate
50g unsalted butter
grated zest from one orange and some orange juice

* simmer the three oranges for one hour, cut open to remove pips then purree the soft oranges, peel, pulp and all
* heat oven to 160C, line a loose-base 22cm tin with baking paper
* mix the orange puree, eggs, almonds, sugar and baking powder
* bake for roughly 1 hour (it varies depending on how watery your orange puree is) until a skewer comes out clean
* remove from tin and cool upside down on a wire rack
* melt the chocolate, butter, orange zest and juice together ... only stir lightly in case it separates and once combined leave aside to cool until it's spreadable
* spread icing on cake and serve at room temperature

rain

I was up in Drumbuidhe two weeks ago with C, attempting to fix the boiler but hampered by the lack of a crucial photocell (actually it's a thermocouple rather than the 'photocell' referred to in the manual but it's still crucial).  My lovely, but temporary lodger called me to say that my kitchen ceiling had fallen in.  There's just too much damn rain.

 I took this as a sign from God that I should continue with my planned trip to Marseille and get serious about the kitchen refurbishment I've been dithering about for ... ooh, ages.

Marseille was lovely (sunny, warm, filled with French folk and lovely food) and I squeezed in a walk through the Calanques, a visit to the MuCEM archive, an Olympique Marseille match, a deeply French theatre experience (Genet's Splendide preceded by his 1950 film Un Chant d'Amour) and much wandering round the Panier et al.

I arrived back in Glasgow to discover that C had been contacted by fraudsters following a visit to a porn website.  After much badgering by them, they managed to withdraw £2,000 from his bank account.  His bank refunded it but it's left him shaken, nervous about his computer and even more confised about passwords.  I got his macbook sorted out (remote access software removed, password restored and admin access removed from C himself) and he's agreed that a new (more expensive and more hip) macbook may not be the panacea he was hoping for.

While my kitchen is still (mainly) intact I got back to my standard of fasting for 2 days a week which I'd put on hold whilst looking after C and then sampling yummy French food.  I'm keen to avoid my mum's trajectory of weight gain, immobility and early death so it's a return to no carbohydrates and lots of vegetables which needs a but of ingenuity to stay interesting.  Although it's not particularly low in calories, this recipe is low in carbohydrates and did use up the odds and sods in the fridge leftover from pre-Marseille ...

gorgonzola custard

2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 oz grated gorgonzola
salt & pepper (the cheese is very salty so easy on the seasoning)

mix well and bake in a water bath in a low oven for one hour

The gorgonzola doesn't fully mix with the custard but it does taste lovely and is particularly good with bitter greens