24 days left in Scotland

August came and went without making too much noise and all of a sudden it's september. It's almost as if the weather knew as well because this morning was cold, crisp and clear. Very autumnal and cosy but it's also making me look forward to NZ even more! With 24 days to go we've started preparing. Packing, eating out of the freezer and general daydreemin'.

And in mah lil' kitchen I turned a bumper harvest of homegrown tomatoes in to a relish bursting with flavour, recipe below, also homegrown onions and garlic (Mamma lagg marke till forkladet). Some of it will get wizzed up into ketchup and the rest enjoyed on sandwiched, pasta, potatoes etc. DELISH!

delish tomato relish

1 kg ripe tomatoes-quartered

2 onions -quartered

2-3 cloves garlic- sliced

1 cm root ginger- grated

1-2 chilies- de-seeded finely chopped

2-3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

a good glug of olive oil

pinch of salt & pepper

chuck it all in an roasting tray, drizzle balsamic vinegar and oil on top. salt & pepper. in the oven. 200 c. 45 minutes or until the tomatoes are brown and the onions caramelized. out. cool. bottle up. will keep for a week in the fridge and can be frozen.

Ben Nevis- The Hard Way

we were going up Ben Nevis but not the touristy way,

so we went off the beaten track

scrambling up steep slopes

the picture doesn't really show how steep it actually was

the picture doesen't show how knackered I really was when we got up to the ridge



we climbed up that (!)
The clouds cleared for a moment so we could be amazed at the view and see where we were going

we walked along the ridge, not at all as easy as it looks...
stumbled up to the top

and finally, a classic "camera at arms length" - photo

update

For those of you who've lost track this is what we're up to

This is the plan


* We handed in our notice on tuesday. Mrs E took it really well, she doesn't blame us and she's happy for us. It worked out really well

* We're working through our list of things to do before

* We've booked our flight to sweden (25 September)

* I take my exam 25 October

* We fly back to London for a couple of nights 27 October (hopefully catching up with people on tuesday 28 oct.)

* We fly out to NZ 29 October
* We have a bloody good time in NZ
* We fly back to Sweden (via London) 26 March 2009 and start our new exciting life.

Big Momma comes to Scotland

And of we went to the highland games to watch men in kilt throw things. It has to be said, Jodie was very excited...

smile and pretend you like the fishy fish...

confident at first

and then the fear set in....

at one point I was actually screaming "I'm going to diiiiiie" at the top of my voice which made us laugh any more and made it harder to hold on....

a new friend

meet my new nephew

Point of Stoer pictures

...emailed through by a lovely dutch man.
Harland and Colin monkeying around out on a cliff high high up.

is that indiana?

smile