Rosie, a photo by viralbus on Flickr.

We bought her on a farm in the Coatbridge area today. She was born on 12th April 2013 (so she’ll be one month old on Sunday), and she seems to be really lively and not shy at all.

So far she’s just exploring her cage, but we’ll start handling her soon.

If you’re interested, there are some photos of Rosie and her siblings on Facebook, and Phyllis has also created a whole photo album there.

Rosie will hopefully be with us for the next two years or so, so with a bit of luck she’ll live to see an independent Scotland!

Som jeg nævnte i et andet blogindlæg, havde vi forleden besøg af min søster med mand og barn.

Jeg syntes, jeg hellere måtte købe noget lækkert til aftensmad, når de nu var her, og de havde tilbud på svinemørbrad i Metro (eller Makro, som det hedder herovre), så jeg fik fem mørbrader til ca. 100 kr. i alt.

Danskere plejer at regne mørbrad for noget meget fint, men i mange andre lande regnes det for at være lidt for fedtfattigt, så jeg kiggede lidt i mine forskellige kogebøger for at få inspiration.

I “Joy of Cooking” fandt jeg så en opskrift på “Kentucky-fried pork tenderloin”, som så interessant ud, og det var den bestemt også. Her er den i fordoblet udgave (til 12 personer):

• 2 spsk sød paprika
• 1 spsk salt
• 1 spsk stødt sort peber
• 1 tsk hvidløgspulver
• 1 tsk tørret salvie
• 1 tsk tørret oregano
• 1 tsk sennepspulver
• 1 tsk stødt rød peber (hvad det nu så end er)
• 1400 g svinemørbrad
• olie
• mel
• 5 dl mælk

1. Hver svinemørbrad skæres i seks lige store stykker, og hvert stykke skæres næsten helt igennem, så det bliver sommerfugleformet.
2. Alle krydderierne blandes, og kødet marineres i krydderiblandingen i 30-60 minutter.
3. Kødstykkerne vendes i mel og steges 6 mm olie i 3-4 minutter på hver side.
4. De stegte kødstykker lægges på et fad og holdes varme.
5. Det meste af olien hældes væk, og mælken tilsættes. Det koges, til man får en god sovs. (Jeg var nødt til også at tilsætte kulør og maizena for at få et godt resultat.) Sovsen hældes over kødstykkerne.

Iflg. kogebogen kan man servere dem til morgenmad med scones, til frokost med boller, coleslaw og tomatskiver, eller til aftensmad med kartoffelgratin og grønlangkål. Vi spiste dem nu med coleslaw og bagte kartofler, og det smagte også glimrende. Selv Marcel, der normalt ikke er ret glad for svinekød (bortset fra bacon), var meget begejstret.

My sister recently visited us together with her husband and their daughter for a few days.

Bjørn’s mum is originally from Cologne, so he was very interested when he heard I had brewed a Kölsch clone, given that Kölsch is Cologne’s own type of beer.

They therefore brought me a bottle and a can of real Kölsch, and together with a bottle that Phyllis’s old friend Shona brought back from Cologne recently, we were able to conduct a scientific tasting of four varieties of Kölsch:

1. Gaffel Kölsch
2. Reissdorf Kölsch
3. Küppers Kölsch
4. Buchwider Bräu ε₁

The winner was the Küppers, but my ε₁ gave it a run for its money, whereas both Bjørn and I agreed that the Reissdorf and especially the Gaffel were much worse.

Technically speaking, mine is a “Wieß”, i.e., a cloudy Kölsch, so it was easy to recognise it from the way it looked, but otherwise the main difference between it and the Küppers was a slight hint of banana on the nose.

For a first attempt at brewing Kölsch, I must say I’m very happy to have beaten two out of three real ones.

We happened to notice that Ikea were organising a Santa Lucia and Christmas party on the 13th of December. We didn’t really know what it involved, but we decided to go along.

It was brilliant! At a cost of £5 for adults and £4.50 for kids (age 12 and under), you got a huge buffet with unlimited crayfish, herring, salmon, ham, sausage, meatballs, sausages, chicken, cakes, soft drinks and coffee and much more, as well as a small glass of snaps.

There were also games, an opportunity for the kids to make their own Xmas cards, and a dance floor.

My only concern about blogging it is that I’m worried Ikea might stop doing it if it gets too popular.

I’ve never happened to be there at the time when the rally takes place, but this year we were lucky enough to be there.

The cars drove through the village twice, once during the day and once at night. We watched the day-time race from the play-park which provided a good view, and the circolo gave the kids an ice-cream each.

For the night-time race, we decided to go down to Talla, although it meant not getting home till after midnight when the roads were reopened.

We found a rather good place to watch it on the pavement near the bridge, where the cars had to take a hard turn. Most of them managed, but one of them turned to the wrong side and nearly crashed into us — it was less than a metre from Charlotte when it stopped. Some other spectator recorded it for posterity:

On our way back up the mountain, we passed three rally cars that had crashed — rather interesting that professional drivers have so much trouble with a road that I’ve driven up and down so many times!

Given that the northern half of Europe (including most of France) has had abysmal weather for the past few months, while Italy and the rest of the Mediterranean have had beautiful weather, that turned out to be an excellent decision.

We have had full sun for 99% of the past fortnight (well, of the daylight hours anyway), whereas it seems likely it would have been closer to 1% if we had stayed on this island.

It would have been lovely to have stayed for longer, but the three big ones are going to France on Saturday, and I have work to do. I just hope the weather patterns will change soon!

The funeral of my father-in-law, Dougie, took place today.

The ceremony was held at Linn Crematorium at noon and was conducted in a very nice and personal manner by a lady from the Humanist Society Scotland, just the way Dougie would have wanted it. He was always very insistent he didn’t want “any of that religious shite” at his funeral.

Afterwards we went for refreshments at Cowglen Golf Club, where Dougie spent a very large part of his retirement, and the club had therefore put the flag at half mast in his honour.

There were lots of people at both events, as was fitting for a man as popular as Dougie.

In spite of the horrendous weather, I think the day was a beautiful tribute to the man and his life.

My father-in-law, Douglas (Dougie) Buchanan, passed away in the afternoon last Friday, the 11th of May.

He had been diagnosed with cancer a year and a half ago and told he only had a few months to live, so making it past his 69th birthday was quite an achievement!

Even so, we didn’t expect his death so soon. He was out playing golf less than two months ago, and the scans were good, so we had hoped he might have stayed around a little longer.

In the end, it was a stomach ulcer combined with a chest infection that proved too big an obstacle for Dougie, and he spent the last few weeks in Hairmyres Hospital (where parts of Ninety Eighty-Four was written).

I’ll miss him. Apart from being a loving grandfather (“Pumpa”) to my children, he was a fellow blogger, and like me, he was passionately in favour of Scottish Independence, proudly wearing the “Independence 2014″ wristband I gave him until he went into hospital. One of the last things he said was that something needed to be done about BBC’s bias. I wish he had managed to hang on until the Independence referendum — he would have been so keen to go and vote Yes!

He was always very helpful — we have put down a good number of laminate floors together, and he and Ann (his wife and my mother-in-law) wallpapered many of our rooms. He was also very good company and a great host.

He will be sorely missed by all of us.

Gyms are generally priced in a way that makes sense if you visit them several times a week, but if you like me just want to do fifteen minutes once a week, they’re horribly overpriced.

I spent the past week in Paris (or rather, Champs sur Marne) with Phyllis, Marcel, Charlotte, Léon, Anna and Amaia; I was working the entire week at a local company while Phyllis dragged the kids round Paris.

One day we noticed a tiny open-air gym on our way to the RER station.

It was tiny — just four machines — and made in cast iron painted yellow and green (see the photo).

For real gym aficionados, it would be useless, but I wish East Renfrewshire would put up equipment like this in our parks — I’m sure it’d be good for the general health and well-being!

Min søster og hendes mand, deres datter og hans to sønner besøgte os her i weekenden for første gang nogensinde. D.v.s., de besøgte mig alle for fem år siden, da jeg stadig var single og Ursula ikke var født endnu, og de besøgte os uden Felix og Theodor for 3½ år siden, men det var altså første gang, de alle fem besøgte os alle syv.

Det var meget hyggeligt!

De var her i tre døgn, fra fredag til mandag, og vi spiste traditionel skotsk mad og gik tur ved Loch Lomond.

De fire små legede utroligt godt sammen, og Léon og Anna blev bedre og bedre til at tale dansk til Ursula. Marcel og Charlotte var vist lidt overraskede over, hvor store Felix og Theodor var blevet, og omvendt!

Vi håber, de snart kommer igen.