Thursday 30 November 2017

BUTTERNUT SQUASH LASAGNE

I found something in our local supermarket, Waitrose, which was quite new to me: 'lasagne sheets' which are, in fact, butternut squash which has been thinly sliced in large whole 'sheets'.

The packet is in the left hand corner above.  I simply made lasgane as I would normally and substituted the sheets of butternut squash for the pasta sheets.  QED!

This is the dish going into the oven.  The cayenne pepper I sprinkled on top was a mistake ... far too hot for my liking!  (The jar came off the boat.  I spend my life trying to use up these items I find stuck in the cupboard at the end of the sailing season!)
 * * * * * * 

Meanwhile ... Ellie and I make cupcakes








 



Tuesday 28 November 2017

YOUTUBE NOTIFICATION ABOUT INAPPROPRIATENESS: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

Last week I received an email from You Tube saying that they had removed a video from my Playlist as they deemed it "inappropriate".

Uh-h-h-h...? Excuse me? What are you talking about?!!!

The following screenshot is the letter about the offending video.  

 
The offending video apparently is a film of the book 'Riddle of the Sands' which, as Wikipedia states:

"The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book ... is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television."
It is about a man's adventure in a sailing boat off the Frisian Islands (coast between The Netherlands and Germany). I must have looked some part of it some years ago and saved it to my computer.  There are a dozen or so film versions of it on Youtube.  I don't even know which video it was as it is no longer there.
 
Not even knowing what a playlist was and not realizing this video was on it (along with Beethoven and Bach videos) I did my best to over-ride rising panic and got on to Google to figure this out. 

Whose criteria operates here? I can tell from the email that it comes from USA as it begins with "Hi....".  I have learned that spam emails always begin this way so I simply decided it was spurious and didn't touch it. I did not delete it either as I wanted to keep the email for reference.

A couple of days later I got a second email ... actually 3 emails, i.e. same one triplicated.

They thanked me for appealing against the decision  ... I had not .... stating that "after further review, we have determined that your Playlist doesn't violate our Community Guidelines."

I am still none the wiser.

* * * * * * * * *


It reminds me of an image I had taken down off this blog in a post of November 21, 2013.  It was the symbol which was used by a right wing German movement lead by a man whose name begins with H.  I posted a photo of a Rudyard Kipling book and this symbol was embossed in gold on the front.  It is a sacred Hindu symbol in the form of a rotationaly symmetrical arrangement (a cross) with four equally spaced legs of identical length each bent at 90 degrees in a uniform direction to create a pattern akin to a four-armed spiral.

It is still there with all of the images removed.   Doing a search on this site using word 'Kipling' brings it up as well as '4 legged symbol' word.

M-m-m-m .... interesting.  It is almost exactly the same time of year that these events occurred.


 



Sunday 26 November 2017

NOVEMBER COLOURS

We had a lovely dinner party with old friends from our wedding of 50 years ago.   At the last minute I decided to make some gluhwein (gluvine).  I tried some pre-made 'mulled wine'. The first, which was Marks and Spencer, was so sweet I decanted it back into the bottle for another day when I need a sugar boost. 



I am rather partial to Fitou wine so I simply poured a bottle of that in the pan. Ilona added sliced mandarin oranges and I threw in some almonds à la Christina Bell. Excellent!
I said to John MacLeod when his and my glass kept needing to be refilled:  "There's a terrible problem of evaporation in this part of the West of Scotland!" to which he quickly replied " Yes, it goes up into the atmosphere and comes back down as rain!"  Ha, ha!  I liked that! 


When planning our dinner I couldn't resist an impulse purchase of a (small) bottle of Mateus Rosé wine.  As we served this at our wedding in 1967 in Drumchork Hotel in Aultbea I just wanted a trip down memory lane.  Indeed, we all recalled that how this wine was the absolute height of sophistication in the 60s!

However I read on Wikipedia:
The Mateus brand has declined. In the UK in 2002 the wine was re-packaged and relaunched in a deliberate ploy to capitalise on 1970s nostalgia, although the wine itself had already been made less sweet and slightly more sparkling, in response to modern popular preference for slightly drier wine.

I tasted it: absolutely no flavour nor sparkle. Thumbs down. (However I still like the shape of the bottle!) 


These flowers have been on the window ledge in the cold 'garden' room for 3 weeks.  They were part of a large bouquet I was given at our final Bearsden Young Fiddlers Concert November 4th. The early morning November light on them today was lovely.
 These are the colours of the above photo that I wanted to capture.


An example of early morning light is best demonstrated in this painting by Norwegian artist Johan Christian Clausen Dahl


Ilona brought a lovely selection of her own preserves plus her own willow tray that she grew and wove. Also included was genuine Isle of Skye sea salt which is made using a polytunnel as a 'room' for production.



We received lovely cards and bottles of wine.  One card came from 'John'.  It turned out we have a secret admirer in the form of the young man who helps our next door neighbour with her garden.  If he had signed his last name I would have picked up my error of thinking it was from 'oor ain John' (who I thanked by mistake!)

Which reminds me Christmas is coming. Every year we always get one... always just one... card which is signed 'Mary' or whatever.  After much scratching of heads we always conclude: we simply do not know who it is!






Wednesday 22 November 2017

LOVE, CECIL

There is a new book out about Cecil Beaton, the photographer. Author is Lisa Immordino Vreeland.


He photographed all the great and the good as well as historical events.  Museums are full of thousands of photographs.



He talked about photographing Marilyn Monro:  "With the possible exception of a Scottish landscape there has seldom been such an ever-changing subject for the photographer."  Indeed!

Ever changing landscape photos from my files:

Kilmardinny Loch - John Albiston
West of Scotland - John Albiston

Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan



Galloway

Kyle of Tongue, North of Scotland


Local:  Milngavie this week taken from our local supermarket carpark looking east at 4pm




Friday 17 November 2017

OUR 50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

We were married 50 years ago today.  I came to 'do Europe' and stayed! 



We were married in Gairloch, Wester Ross in the north of Scotland where Iain's parents lived. Although Iain's  parents spent their working life in Glasgow they retired back to the highlands and settled in the place where Iain's mother, Barbara  MacLeod, nee MacKenzie was born and raised.  Iain's father, Donald MacLeod, was from Achiltibuie.



  Left to right: Iain's mother, his father and then my mother, Margaret Booth.

Iain's sister, Iseabail, and I leaving the house 'Conival' for the church.  We were married in the Church of Scotland which is located opposite the golf course in Gairloch.

 I was given away by Iain's uncle, Kennth, father of Eleanor with whom we are still in touch.

Iain's friend Tom Morrison attended the wedding along with 59 other MacLeod guests.  Tom and his wife Joan, also at the wedding, will be joining us next week for a celebratory dinner.

Left to right: Iain, me, our Best Man John MacLeod, Broadford in Skye and Iseabail.  They will be joining us next week for dinner too.

My mother and I

The ceilidh after the meal at the Drumchork Hotel, Aultbea which was run by Iain's mother's cousin Helen and her husband Johnnie MacLean.

 Celebratory toast.

Iain making Iseabail laugh at the meal.  Of note is the Mateus Rose wine we had at the meal ... all very 1960s!

Today, while in Waitrose buying a little something for our evening meal I actually found some Mateus Rose!   I just had to buy these small bottles ... a trip down memory lane! 

The wire birds are something I have had for years. I brought them out thinking that the day could not go by without some sort of statement....

However... when looking for the wedding photos above, mostly taken by John Scott* at our wedding using his ordinary 1960s camera, I came across the following:

It is a Bible that the minister who married us presented at the completion of the ceremony.


M-m-m-m ... just as well I opened it up!  Look at the date!

____________________________________________________________________

* John has been in touch today and sent his best wishes and some photos including the recent one of Gairloch above.  John absolutely saved the day for us with these coloured photos as the photographer obtained for the occasion did not produce the goods for whatever reason.  The black and white photo at the start is one that we took a couple of weeks later at a studio in Glasgow when Iain rushed out in his lunch hour and I took along my (borrowed!) bridal gown.

Wednesday 15 November 2017

A CULTURAL SHIFT OBSERVED

Sexual harassment has been in the news a lot.  It is usually women speaking but it must be said that it affects men as well. Just ask any Scotsman wearing a kilt!

Women of my generation all have stories.  This article saw me nodding my head in agreement all the way through ... right to the very end! 

SEXUAL HARRASMENT 

Newspaper article by Suzanne Moore, The Guardian, October 22, 2017

I didn’t grow up in Hollywood. Far from it. But I did grow up a girl, and I remember. Because who can forget? We are in the park. Someone has “told” us about a funny man at the bus stop. We don’t know what this means really. We are 10. He comes over and starts chatting. He unzips his trousers and gets his penis out. We stare for what feels like a long time. Screaming, we run away. Next day he is outside our school and we are not sure who to tell because we think we shouldn’t have spoken to him.

I get a Saturday job in a supermarket. It’s great. I start off on fruit and vegetables, with the ambition of moving to cold meats. This means I have to go to the backroom to get sacks of potatoes. The owner of the supermarket is always in there in the gloom. He puts his hand up my skirt.

“Don’t go in there on your own,” say the other girls. I don’t want to lose my job so I just try to avoid him, but he catches me telling customers that there are no more potatoes.

A teacher at school praises me because I like poetry. He is wild and alternative. Sometimes we just roll dice to get marks, he says. He talks to me about painting. He asks if I will go camping with him for the weekend. Just me and him. He doesn’t believe in official school trips. I am 14 and a half and I excitedly tell my mother. She gets herself dolled up and goes into school, finds this teacher and shoves him up against the wall. “If you want to interfere with her,” she says, “you have to interfere with me first.” I am mortified. Interference is my mother’s word for sex.


At 17, I leave home and hitchhike everywhere. This is iffy and I know it. Conversations swerve uncomfortably. Sometimes they lock you in the car. In France, I make one lorry driver drop me and a friend off after he starts talking about porn. We jump out in the middle of nowhere. He starts wanking. “What shall we do?” says my friend, panicking. I have a brainwave. “Let’s just eat our sandwiches.” The man’s erection wilts despite his frantic efforts.

Such “luck” runs out soon after. I get raped. That happens. Anyway, I was taking a risk, wasn’t I? All that “on the road” stuff I was into? Well, it’s different for girls.

In another crappy shop where I am selling cheap diamond and sapphire rings to excitable girls and their disinterested boyfriends, the manager is a “groper”. We all hate him and sometimes he brings his wife in. We decide to tell her. Somehow, though, none of us dare.

The Yorkshire Ripper is in the news. It’s scary. A bloke exposes himself on the way back from the pub. “Come here and I will bite it off,” screams my mate. I envy her boldness.

In the basement flat I am living in, someone is pushing porn through the letterbox and watching us. The police say there is nothing they can do unless he is caught doing it. He breaks in and takes all our letters and photographs. Everyone says that we are lucky we weren’t there. We move to a towerblock. We come home one day to find “Prostitutes” spray-painted on the door.

As I become more politically active, I become aware that anarchists and communists are as likely to harass you as any other man. This is only really a small disappointment.

In the US, though, I meet another woman who fights back. She is a waitress in the club in New Orleans where I work. When some creep says something to her, she picks up the candle in a jar on the table and pours the hot wax over his head. She is immediately fired.

By now I am becoming an old hand at dealing with sexual harassment and I apply to college, a polytechnic, at the age of 24. All is going well when a member of staff decides to exploit his power over me. “The thing is,” he says, “I have a wife and a mistress but what I am really looking for is a girlfriend.” I never have another meeting with him.

At eight months pregnant, I find men are still whispering sexual threats in the street. By the time I have my eldest daughter in a pushchair I live in an area where there is a lot of prostitution. A man stops me with a tenner. “I don’t mind the child, love,” he says, gesturing at my toddler.

Actually, though, life is good. I work on a magazine where men think feminism is talking to you for hours about problems with their sperm count. I have a flat and a baby, and then I get a job on a newspaper. Now surely I am in the safety of a middle-class world where women are taken seriously. However, there is inevitably one guy who touches up women as they bend over the photocopier.

I start writing about some of the big sexual harassment cases, such as Anita Hill. It’s a concern. The editor calls us all together. “Dreadful business, this sexual harassment,” he says. “I am glad it doesn’t happen here.”