Scottish Folk.

Jimmy Buchan on the left, and the others are also the 'stars' of Trawlermen'. A BBC series which became a hit. Sailing out of Peterhead for days, weeks at sea, all to provide us with fish to eat. A dangerous, scary job. Jimmy Buchan has now gone into politics, although I do not agree with his political choice of party, he is a very nice man. A staunch supporter of this corner of North East Scotland - and its tourism industry.
We have a couple staying with us from Australia. They visited Peterhead Harbour and called in at the Harbour Masters Office to enquire where the boats could be seen, or where they anchored in the harbour. In Australia the series is a big hit.
Unfortunately the boats are all out at sea.
So then they get a guided tour of the building, then the staff get on the phone to Jimmy. He is collecting a new boat and will be back in port around 5 p.m. would they like to come back then? Doesn't that warm the cockles of your heart?
And now for something completely different..
Some years ago Mike and I stayed in a b&b in Edinburgh so as to be at one of our eldest daughters, now multiple, graduations.
I emailed them to ask if they had a room for us for the latest graduation.
Email back said they were to be away on holiday - but - we were welcome to stay the night, they would arrange for someone to let us in. Can you imagine anywhere else making that sort of offer?! Oh and yes the charge for the night would be well discounted.
Mike muttered about that being a busman's holiday, making our own breakfast, but he had a big smile on his face, same as mine, aren't Scottish Folk just wonderful.

Autumn 2010

The straight ridges of the cut oat straw.

Gathered up and baled.

Probably our last cut of the lawn grass, which goes to compost. The robins are back, where do they go in the Summer? And the geese, back in their thousands, filling the air with their calls.

Our guests last night were from Iceland. Never had anyone from there before. There are not many countries in the world now that we havent had a representative put their heads on our beds. Tomorrow night we have Australians. Checking the diary earlier I noted we seem to be busier in October than we were in August. And still getting enquiries.

Today was spent nursing my hangover from the wine in the barn session! But still managed to do the washing, ironing, making beds etc,etc.

Now having hair of dog.

Ducks away!

And off they go - the duck race. Each duck has a big black number on its back. So you know who's won.

Although it was a beautiful afternoon, sunshine, no wind. I preferred to remain in the barn, wood fire, wine and plenty of good crack, or is it craich, ah well good chat anyway. Actually it wasnt so much a preference as that I kept being cornered and talked at. By young and old. Take it as a compliment.

Unfortunately we had to leave before the barbecue, guests arriving - still havent (7p.m.)

More culture!

New Pitsligo Visual Arts Exhibition. Two days of it, Saturday and Sunday. Lots more pictures than the Buchan Art Competition. Quite a lot that were in the Buchan Art Competition! Lots of visitors, more than the BAC. But this exhibition has been going for some more years.
We also enjoyed the coffee and cakes at the villages community run cafe, The Four Cs. Which I cant for the life of me remember what the 4 Cs stands for. New Pitsligo was one of the planned villages following the Highland Clearance, there are many in this are, including our own village of Longside. New Pitsligo was and still is famous for its lace making. And indeed there were lace makers on the stage in the village hall, tatting away, whilst we viewed the pictures and photographs. There is also an art club which I am thinking of joining...watch this space.
I came home, got out my sketch books, dashed off a drawing of an orchid, then put it all away again. Ho hum.
Tomorrow we have a full house of guests. I spent the morning cleaning, did the bedmaking yesterday, tomorrow morning just to set up the courtesy trays and fill the jars with my home made biscuits. Pecan and maple syrup ones this time round, made yesterday. Hoping they arrive at a convenient time for us as we have a duck race to attend in the afternoon. Hoping the river has not burst its banks like last time it was planned, and goes ahead. Or abill?
What is certain it will be wellies, hats and gloves as we have a strong wind a blowing. And our guests tomorrow are golfers!

I'd rather be beachcombing.

Me and my grandson, Zach, on New Aberdour beach, collecting stones and looking at rock pools. Now back to ironing, cleaning, yawn, yawn. With the added 'excitement' of our entrance hall roof leaking. High winds and rain making things worse. We are midway through an insurance claim as the damage was caused by winds coming from an unusual direction and with great strength. Took us some while to get a roofer in to even quote. Meanwhile buckets catch the rain pouring in and the decor worsens. How long the plaster will last I know not. Not a happy bunny.

In amongst all this I have recovered six of the eight dining chairs. Two will have to be a different colour/fabric, but we mainly only have six out at a time anyway. Also made some new cushion covers for the seating area. All now a cheering rich red , warming to the eye. All downhill to Christmas now.

Buchan's Larder - from sea to shore.

Did you know lobsters were blue? I didn't.

Give us a kiss?

Harvesting the oats. Combine Harvesters are amazing machines. Somehow they cut the stalks and extract the seed (oats in this case), the straw bits are coming out of the back, later to be gathered up by a baling machine, and at a given moment as the tractor and trailer drive alongside the oats are dispensed into the trailer which takes them off to be stored, bagged or whatever. Wow.

It's hard work being a Grandma.

I did say, "What are you going to do when he gets to the top?"

Panic all round as there Zach is at the top and no way for anyone else to get up there to rescue him, so there they are having a conference......

But all was well - he was eventually lifted down. The picture that follows was before we got to the play park. We went to Macduff Marine Aquarium. Where some very large, strange looking fish came up to say hello. This one was some kind of shark.

The best ones, for me, were the wolf fish, unfortunately no picture.

The first day of the visit of my grandson, they all went off to St.Combs beach. I nursed my hangover from the night with the Hairy Bikers. Yesterday, another beach and I went too, to my friend Marina's favourite beach at New Aberdour. Again no pictures, batteries flat. But we all had a whale of a time there, lovely pebbles, lovely shells, spooky caves, rock pools, Zach could hardly walk after I showed him how to pick up pebbles - and put them in his pockets.

The hard work comes in as poor Zach's car seat and his small size disables him from seeing anything outside the car. How many times can you sing "The Wheels on the Bus" just to keep him entertained? Too many.

A Fun Night!

Had a fabulous evening on Friday. Free wine helped! Excellent food. And lots of laughter.

My photograph of the strawberry fields was displayed along with the other entrants pictures in one of the bars at the Waterside Inn. Apparently we all get invited to a do in October when the winner will be announced. Wonder if there will be free wine then!

Food glorious food.

Wednesday our Rotary met at one of our member's Indian Restaurant. In Fraserburgh. Best curry I think I have ever had. It was one of those efforts where you had as much as you wanted. The first round I thought that was it til someone told me that was just the starter.... I did manage the main although the Naan bread was as big as me, so I just had a wee bit. It was odd tho, it was sweet with fruit in and almonds.

Tonight it is the Buchan Larder's Dinner at the Waterside Inn. With the Hairy Bikers no less. Also Jimmy Buchan of Trawlermen fame. So I have been and had me hair done again. My outfit is harem black pants and a top which has butterflies on and black ankle boots. I took advice from a very trendy young lady in New Look. Didnt know they did personal shoppers. But now eyeing up the whole ensemble she was right, apart from the big black belt she wanted me to buy and wear "On your hips". Well I havent seen them in a while so passed on that one.

I will tell you all about the evening at some stage. The Waterside is one of the places we recommend to our guests. Never had a bad meal there yet.

I have been ready for an hour, Its exciting int it.

Visitors.

This young heron came slowly past my bedroom patio door, paused and looked straight into my eyes. (Probably looking at its own reflection?) Then stalked on. After I had unfroze I grabbed the camera and snapped it as it passed the duck pond, ducks sitting firmly on top of the water and glaring at it!
Later that day it was posing on the car park when our guests arrived. They thought it was one of those resin garden ornaments - until it flew off.

It could well have been looking for a frog to eat. We have never seen any frogs here until recently when one was seen in the duck pond, then one in the compost heap, and even more extraordinary in one of the toilets. Inside. I said to Mike, "Can you remember what you have been eating?"

Bed making, bread making.

The day job!
A couple are with us at the moment who have stayed with us every year since we started doing b&b. They are a bit late this year as they usually come in the Spring, but hospital appointments and new shoulder (new one on me) took precedence. So more like eighteen months since they were here. Her first words "Oh you've had your hair done."

Just had to swiftly hide in kitchen to have hysterics.

A weekend of culture!

Old Deer Village. The start of the week long Buchan's Larder Festival was the Art competition, with all the entrants exhibited in the church hall. This week of festivities used to be called the Fish Fest. But it was decided that as Buchan provided far more than fish, it would be renamed. Yesterday we therefore visited and viewed the amazing collection of pictures in all manner of medium. From collage to oils, watercolour, pen and ink, acrylics et al. The church hall was packed and on offer was also a fly cup and a piece. (Cup of tea and a bun.) Buchan's Larder!
Old Deer is a blow your mind away village. It is so lovely. The picture above does not really do justice to it. Not only that the house in the foreground on the left is one of our competitors! The Old Bank House does b&b. I would love one of the cottages here, all have colourful floral displays. Even the few new builds are in keeping with the style of the village. We drove home, the sun was shining, passing fields harvested, one felt totally at peace with the world. Within seconds the sky went black and there was such a clap of thunder the water in the duck pond shivered. The heavens opened and -well - back to autumn...

Cruden Bay. Totally different - both villages all within ten to fifteen minutes from Greenbrae. In opposite directions. Cruden Bay is home to one of the worlds best golf courses. It also has Slains Castle up on the cliff top, where Bram Stoker visualised Dracula coming out of a high up window and crawling down the walls.....It is also a delightful fishing village with small harbour and as you can see from the picture a fantastic beach.

Our friends Jill and Steve have Slains Studio and as part of the North East Open Studios, also on this week, were welcoming visitors into their home to view their photography. Blew your mind away. (I kept quiet about my effort in for the Buchan Photography Competition!) Jill and Steve live in a fantastic double fronted cottage tucked up in a lane off the 'main' road to the harbour. The whole of the downstairs was displaying their photographs which were fantastic. But I have to admit it was their house which totally made me drool. Thick walls, stone fireplaces, okay the kitchen was in an extension, but it had a door and french windows out to a delightful garden. Woooo.

Hoping to visit more of the Open Studios this week.

On Friday it is the end of the Buchan's Larder Week with a buffet meal at the Waterside Inn. Speakers are the Hairy Bikers. Tickets for this event were sold out within a week of going out. Now I have a confession to make. I have never, ever, seen these two on t.v. or wanted to. But I just know the meal, buffet or whatever, will be fantastic at the Waterside. It always is. Plus I will get to see people who I like and dont get to see very often. So lots of hugs. Good food, and you never know I might just have got a prize for my artistic effort! And if I havent I shall be able to see my photo of Buchans Larder's Strawberry Fields on a canvas and displayed for the world to see. Doing my bit for Buchan culture.

Yet another make over....

Never stop trying! Thanks Angie!
This is moi off out to Rotary.
We had a visit from a couple from Western Australia, also Rotarians. It's one good thing about being a Rotarian. It doesnt matter where you go in the whole world you can get a free meal - just find out where the nearest Rotary meet and when and call in. Must try this when I next visit anywhere. In fact you could plan your whole trip away if you are canny. Quick we have to make it to Ontario for Tuesday.
Well some good news this week. Two of my nieces are pregnant and both due in March next year. For Lorna, it is her first and for Becky her second. Becky is rather special to me as she was about 3 when Mike and I got married and insisted on being on every photograph of us. In a pink anorak.There were quite a lot of raised, questioning eyebrows from some of my older relatives and you could almost hear "She kept that quiet."
We have had some more lovely people staying with us this week. In fact we have only had one night off. That was Tuesday. Tuesday we had been informed by the electric company our power would be switched off at 9a.m. till - well I read it to be 2.30p.m. It took us two hours to decide where to go, as there was not much we could do at home without any power. Then we couldnt find where we had decided to go. Called in at Turriff where it was supposed to be near and Mike went off to make enquiries. No-one had heard of the place, he said, so we went to Delgatie Castle for lunch and to see Joan and Donna, who we hadn't seen for ages. I asked them if they had heard of this place we were intending to visit and Mike began to go very red. Donna told us where it was. Mike said, "That wasnt what I said in Turriff, no wonder they had never heard of it." What do you do....? But then it was my turn. We came home - no power. Just about to pick up the mobile phone (our phone doesnt work when there is no electric) and just saw the letter from the electric company - 4.30 when the power comes back on, not 2.30. So sat in the dark and cold for quite a long time. So Mike and I were about equal on the senior moment.
Farming report.
Tractors hurtling up and down with square bales of straw. You will see from picture below that bales are normally round efforts. Square ones are for the covering of the carrots. Yes, the carrots are about to be swathed in straw, then black plastic, for the winter. Must get out and pull the ones that wont be covered. This must be the optimum time to stop the growth so they are still succulent and the right size for the supermarkets. Ergo any not being put to bed need to be pulled now. Still havent made the carrot cake, and I think theres still carrot soup from the last lot....
In between guests, trips out and shopping I have been working my way through the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin. Since Monday I have read six of them. Now you may think I have sat on my bum and read and done nothing else. Unfortunately, for me , I am a speed reader and can knock a novel off in one evening and that often during the adverts on the t.v.
I say unfortunately because I get really cross when I find I have nothing left to read. So - then I start on another author (just finished all the Jack Frost ones prior to starting the Rebus ones).
I have also found that if I like an author I prefer to buy the books rather than borrow from the library. This leads to many happy trips round charity shops and much phoning on the mobile back home for Mike to check if we have............Really should make a list.

Harvest Time.

And if you look at the picture below, you can just see how it was before. Before the combine harvester drove past my bedroom window followed by the tractor and trailer into which the barley grain went. Soon followed by the tractor pulling the baling machine. Clunk. Very large barley straw bale. (And this year I didnt wave at them all as they drove past!) Plenty of straw left on the ground for Mike to scoop up for our hens and ducks bedding. This year, apparently, the farmers have been using short stalked wheat and barley so straw is to be at a premium price. So we will be out there doing our bit of gleaning.

Across the road from Greenbrae is a crop we have never seen growing around us, oats. We still have the carrots to the left of us which comes in handy as quite a lot of seed went where the eventual mechanical harvesters will not go, so we have no problem with taking the carrots there. As it would go to waste otherwise.

We had a lovely couple in last night, from Edinburgh. Here for a relatives birthday knees up at the football club. I have never seen a man so tall - and we have had a few tall men - this one just had to be a rugby player. Like a barn door.

We are tootling along with the b&b, been turning away quite a lot, just taking them when we feel like it. Or they are returning. It is way too much effort and expense to take singles for one night. Particularly now when the evenings are cool and one has to put the heating on for them. The cost of that probably cancels out their payment. So, yes tomorrow night we have a single for one night, but he has been before, and will come again.

My friend who also has a blog said the other day that she was bored. Now that is quite a brave statement to make. Particularly for her who has major health issues. But I am going to join in. I too am bored. Since the people who made an offer on the house then disappeared, I have felt in total limbo. Wondering if they were coming back as they said they were still desperate to buy our house. How long do you hang fire for that? Til you are totally bored thats when. So outcomes the list pad. I have also been re-reading good old Anthea Turners Perfect Housewife and have made a start. My aim is to spring clean everywhere and sort out rubbish/charity/car boot stuff.

In fact its Harvest time.

Could this be a winner?

Me and my pictures of the sky! - On facebook I was invited to join Peterhead Photographers, most of them far better than me, with discussions about what lens, what exposure etc. All a mystery to me. I just have a basic digital camera.

However I was asked to put in one of my pictures for a photographic competition headlined "Buchan's Larder'. Sponsored by Shell, the oil people. So I did. Out of 270 odd I have been shortlisted and am in the final. My wee picture has gone off to be mounted on canvas and on one of those stretch board efforts. Wooooooo. Scary. Whether it wins or not, there then follows an auction of all the finalists pictures. Guess I will be buying my own photo back then! My picture shows the strawberry fields across the valley from our house, with barley growing in the field closer to the camera, from which they make whisky among other things. Oh and some weeds. The white panels(?) are the poly tunnels under which are the strawberries. There you go, Buchans Larder. And some sky!

Last night was Rotary. We had Fraserburgh and Peterhead Rotarians join us for the evening. Fraserburgh and us, Central Buchan, have joined together to send out these water purifying efforts to Pakistan. I was asked to take the photograph of the handover of the cheque from Central Buchan to Fraserburgh. (Why oh why do people think I am a photographer???) Usually after a glass or two I think wow and head out to press a button, if I am lucky its a memory I want to keep......if I am unlucky I delete it. But - official photographer for the Rotary? I think not. But I did what I was told to do. Then managed to use the computer to brighten it(what happened to the flash?) and remove the red eye. Hopefully it will be worthy enough to go in the local paper next week.....Didnt eat a thing. I have found I cannot eat and talk at the same time down to this breathing problem I have. Managed a few prawns, but during the meal I had the President of the Peterhead Rotary to entertain, on my left, and then to be ready with the camera. And to add insult to injury after I had took the ones for our club the President of Fraserburgh handed over his camera, far superior to mine and expected me to do a David Bailey with his. He seemed impressed when I showed him what I had done on his camera....I was impressed that I had found the right button which took the picture.

It was heaven to drive back through the countryside in the dark with El Divo as loud as possible and me joining in though I dont know what the words mean, and watching out for deer and owls. The former not to hit and the latter to go wow about. Neither of which I saw last night.

Today has been absolutely fantastic weatherwise. 31 degrees this afternoon, and apart from swatting wasps - heaven. Wasps, like the people up here, are really friendly, you wave your arms around and they go away. For a while. Apparently the wasps eat/chew up bits of wood and then feed this to the grubs that the Queen wasp has laid, the sugary stuff that comes off all this they, the wasps eat. Once she stops laying eggs, like about now, so theres no grubs, so no sugary stuff for the wasps they have to forage. Like a direct line to my glass of wine. Amazing the stuff my husband knows. I point out to the wasps that the Rowan Trees are laden with rowan berries - fruit= good for wasps.

Now Midland wasps are a different ball game. For many years I used to pride myself I had never been stung or bitten. Even camping on the West Coast of Scotland which is renowned for midges and severe bites I did not get one bite. However in the Botanical Gardens of Birmingham I was attacked by not one wasp but three, all on the underarm, the softest bit of flesh you could think of. The agony was indescribable. And those were mean wasps. They sort of flew backwards from me took aim and then - zap. The result of this was that on my return from Birmingham I took a wrong turn at the Spaghetti Junction and was heading for London instead of Tamworth. Engraved in my brain that trip. And the swelled arm.

Well - it has been a lovely day today. I think I could get used to being a retired person and not a provider of bed and breakfast. I did set up a room this morning and baked some biscuits, 'Wheat biscuits with a chocolate cover.' for guests at the weekend. And I went to the supermarket this afternoon. But I didnt have to do any of those tasks. Bliss. Then sat on my patio and watched the swallows, ignored the wasps, well I tried, and watched the butterflies, lots of Cabbage Whites and Red Admirals. Mourned the absence of the Painted Ladies and the Peacocks. In the sky were the helicopters bringing the men and women from the offshore oil stations, tomorrow will be the otherway traffic. Fed cats, talked to ducks, wondered why the hens are now refusing to go in their hut at night. Tried to sort out a mass of bulbs Mike has dug up, I cant identify them so stick em in landfill, it might just improve it....wonder whether I will stay awake long enough to finish the joint of beef, fennel and roast potatoes for our dinner.

Sometimes you think theres just too much.