Even more snow

It’s still snowing in Ullapool and I still have the lurgy. At least I’m warm and cosy, and I think I’m getting a bit better apart from my wheezy, rattling chest and sore ear. The road from Ullapool to Inverness varies between “passable with care” and blocked by snow, but we won’t be heading home until Sunday when it should all be clear. 
James is being particularly pleasant to me as I recover; last night he found a French film on some obscure television channel for me to watch and today he brought in potato scones for lunch. The French film was Maigret Se Trompe and was excellent, one of a series of 1990s Maigret films made for television starring Bruno Cremer. 
The trouble is that I’m currently a bit wary of going outside. You would think that a healthy walk around the village would be beneficial to a chest infection but every time I have done so (about every second day) I feel more wheezy and out of breath when I get back, and my ear gets sorer too. Maybe it’s the cold air - the temperature in the north of Scotland is due to drop to -16 deg tonight!  

Snowy and Lurgy

The weather has continued to be cold, with snow showers and icy pavements. Despite having at least a dozen woolly hats at home in Cambuslang I had neglected to bring even one of them to Ullapool, so today James kindly spent £4 on a sparkly purple beanie hat in the Woollen Mill sale. Despite the name of the shop there is no wool in the beanie; it is 99% polyester and 1% metallic thread so no sheep has been near it! It feels very cosy, and also necessary because I have developed a bad cold which is lingering annoyingly, particularly in my chest which is rattling, my stuffy nose, and strangely my right ear. James also got me a hot water bottle yesterday which I have been holding against my ear. 

So because of this horrible cold I have been having an enforcedly quiet time here in Ullapool. I have encouraged James to enjoy himself, go for walks etc but I feel bad for not joining in. This morning we were surprised to see Calmac’s new ship, the Glen Sannox, sailing along the loch outside our window, heading westwards. This ship is currently nearly seven years late after many problems, both technical and financial, during its build. It is also way over budget (from £97 million to more than £400 million so far) and doesn’t even fit Ardrossan Harbour so it will need to sail from Troon to Brodick instead until Ardrossan Harbour is upgraded - which will be years away. And apparently the liquified natural gas that it runs on (as well as marine gas oil, a low-sulphur type of diesel) is not even as eco friendly as promised. It was up here to conduct crew familiarisation trials before starting to take passengers to Arran, and needless to say more technical issues were found, however I think that they are determined to start service on 13th January.

Pulling Mussels from a Shell

The snow continued during the night and we woke to a winter wonderland, with the village and mountains clothed in a snowy blanket. We walked around the village in the afternoon and enjoyed the snowy views. We watched the seagulls at the harbour to see where they were finding mussels to drop onto the pier to crack open, and realised that they grab them off the wooden legs underneath the pier at low tide. Then they fly around a bit with the mussel in their beak before choosing a good place for the big drop, and swoop down to feast on it. As we walked back to the cottage the sky over the Summer Isles was an amazing dark grey-blue and violet; James said that it looked bruised and I think that’s a very good description. 
In the evening we watched a film called “The Killer” starring Michael Fassbender; it was a sombre but quite compelling thriller and we enjoyed it. The reason that I wanted to watch it was that it was being filmed in Paris when we were there in May 2023 on a street on the Île Saint Louis. I could see that some of it was filmed in a street near the Panthéon but I didn’t really recognise the streets that the main character then raced through on a motorcycle. And I didn’t see any sign of James and I strolling along in the distance! 

The Northern Lights welcome 2025

It has been a delightful start to 2025. I still have a very rattly chest cold but I decided to accompany James on a walk around the village to get some fresh air. The village was very quiet and the few people who were strolling around were all wishing each other a Happy New Year. The weather was sunny, in a window between the rain and sleet that began and ended the day, and the sea was very calm and the mountains looked beautiful, dusted with snow. When we were walking on the pier a Norwegian fisherman on his ship called down a New Year’s greeting to us. We walked along to the creel Christmas tree and then found that the Ceilidh Place was open for lunch (about the only place in the village that was open) so we popped in for coffee and fruit scones before heading home. 

Later on there was a bright pink aurora borealis in the skies above the village which seemed like a rosy welcome to the New Year. And later still the sleet turned to snow for a little while and lay rather prettily on the garden. A good start to the year.  

Farewell to 2024

Well here I am sitting by the fire in Ullapool all cosy with Tom and Floof while James makes his delicious asparagus risotto for tea. It’s wet, wild and windy outside all over Scotland and when we drove north yesterday we saw that the rivers were very high and flooding the fields, especially the River Spey at Kingussie. I have developed a very chesty cold so I’m glad that we decided not to go to this years Ceilidh in the Village Hall, and I’m looking forward to a quiet evening, on this my 62nd birthday. All three of my lovely sons have been in touch to wish me a Happy Birthday. 
It has been a good year in many ways for me personally, however there has been sadness for some of my family and friends whose close family members have died or are very ill. We had a great ski holiday in January with Heather and Ewan which proved to me that my skiing days are not quite over yet. We have had several really good trips to London and we stayed in Ally and Cat’s beautiful flat for two of them. We took the Eurostar for the first time and had a couple of sunny days in Paris which were great fun. We went to some fantastic concerts and plays both in Glasgow and London and have more planned for next year. We accidentally followed Sir Ian McKellen home to Limehouse one night which was very amusing! We went to France and Belgium on a wonderful holiday with Davie and Chanel, and a trip to Islay and Jura by ourselves. We went our annual visit to the Royal International Air Tattoo in Fairford and had a superb week in the Cotswolds. We visited Jenn and Russ at their gorgeous house in the Dordogne and they were marvellous hosts, showing us around the area. Davie and Chanel bought their first house, in Uddingston, and I’m thrilled that they are living only three miles away from us. They have also got a clever and cute little cat called Skye. My grand-cat. We spent lots of time in our cottage in Ullapool, the most ever, almost a third of the year at 110 days. Then in October into November we visited Jamie and Kerry in New Zealand, met their enthusiastic and good-natured Dalmatian puppy Whisky, my grand-dog, and celebrated their engagement with them while we were there. We also had an idyllic short break in the paradise that is the Fiji Islands. 
And the final tally for James’ steps this year is 9.77 million! A record for him and an amazing achievement. 
So let’s hope that next year goes well for all of us; not just family and friends but the rest of humanity, because as John Donne wrote 400 years ago this year: 
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

Cooking at Twixmas

Twixmas is a name I heard recently for this strange time between Christmas and New Year; it’s no longer Christmas but it’s not yet 2025. We often have a Reid / Anderson meet up at this time of year, and that is what we had planned for today. However the best laid plans gang aft agley as Robert Burns reminded us, and about twelve days ago Christine suffered a detached retina, which has been treated by laser and she needed to rest lying on her side for ten days before finding out if it will need further treatment. So we decided that it would be easier for Christine if we all travelled to Dunlop, but since I didn’t want her to be on her feet cooking all afternoon I offered to bring the meal. And this all worked very well. Yesterday I cooked a beef stew in the slow cooker, and a spicy bean stew for the non meat eaters (Cat and me.) I also made an old favourite for dessert; chocolate charlotte. This afternoon I packed everything into two big shopping bags and after collecting Davie from Uddingston the four of us set off to Dunlop. Cat very kindly helped me to find what I needed in the kitchen and also introduced me to the delights of a proper AGA cooker, which is very different from anything I have used before. I felt as if it took us ages to get the easy starter (smoked salmon and blinis) onto the table because we were heating up the constituent parts of the main course at the same time, but actually we were only twenty minutes later than I had planned and the others were all very happy chatting in the living room. Once the meal started it went extremely smoothly and everyone said that they enjoyed it. I had been worried about the beef stew which wasn’t quite thick enough, but James told me privately that while not perfect, it really was fine. It still didn’t look or smell as good as Ewan’s Tuscan beef stew though. No stew could. The spicy bean stew was very good (in my humble opinion!) and I served it with grilled halloumi which went with it very well. Euan and Gerry both tried some of it after their beef stew. The chocolate charlotte went down well too and then we had the cheeseboard, with chutneys on the side. I was so pleased that it had gone so well; Christine is a brilliant cook and I didn’t want to let the side down! It was a friendly and fun evening in great company. 

Festive family time

Yesterday, Boxing Day, would have been my Uncle Bill’s 85th birthday. He was such a good and pleasant man. We had lunch at Abigail and Graham’s with Janie, Julie and Robert and we raised a toast to him. It’s nice that Davie, Chanel and Ally can spend time with my wider family and we had a really fun afternoon. The age difference between me and Janie and Julie seems less and less as the years go by and they are excellent company. 

We watched the new Wallace and Gromit film in the evening with Ally. I have never watched any of the previous ones, I just never fancied them, but I found it to be ok. It’s a much loved animation so I must be missing something. 

Today we went to Alex’s funeral. It was a good and very fond service for a much loved man, and I felt sad for Heidi and the family. Later we watched Gavin and Stacey: The Finale which was brilliant and a fitting end to the series. The day ended with James and Ally drinking whisky and us all chatting; I enjoy this quiet time of year.