good bye scotland

bye bye hills,bye bye lochs, bye bye house, bye bye my darling chickens, bye bye cows & sheep, bye bye veggie garden, bye bye friends @ Cromlix, bye bye friends @ Grangemouth RFC, bye bye constant rain, bye bye poo with a view, bye bye Cromlix, bye bye Scotland, bye bye UK. It is a little sad... but....

HELLO FREEDOM

here we go again.....

upp the hill we go

Leaving party

wanted to post a picture of this lovely card from Carol. Get the feeling it's hand made and will definetely hold on to this one.

As it's time to leave scotland I thought it would be fun to get a few friends together and have a leaving bash, something we've never done before. In the past we've just slipped off into the night. I had a great time and I think the others did too... It's times like this that I regret this nomadic lifestyle. But I hope that I will get a chance to meet some of these wonderful people again, one sunny day. And until then I'll at least have Newton Falkner to remind me of the Forsyth sisters:)

the chickens made an appearance

bye bye boxes

c u in sweden next week in sweden

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.