Flying Cat - October 2007

At the beginning of this Indian Summer, I sent the parental units out on a walk with digicam.They set off on what a friend calls the Big Loons Walk, which takes in the old waterworks, which most Stromnessians never understood the need to abandon. The burn at the top of the reservoir provided nine three-spined sticklebacks for Pond1, which have since shown their appreciation by breeding enthusiastically for several years. This walk always begins in the old industrial estate, ignoring the specially constructed foot/cyclepath which misses out all the interesting bits, like Ian's boatyard...



Eve and Frances at the boatyard

heading up Hillside Road

Lucky Shed

out in the country - feral black cat

"stop pointing that thing at me...right that's it, I'm off!"

the long and winding road...I've seen that road before...

Viv's uncle's shed

overflow below the old waterworks

steps up to the old waterworks

danger at yelda water

a favourite sign

let's not go that way...

accross a field of gold

ripe and ready

going back to town...busy posting box

Oglaby House

looking down Hellihole

Franklin Road...magic gate to another world

Franklin Road with hebe

going down Franklin

the best restaurant in town

Rosie has a scratch in Graham Place

the best wee gallery in the universe

Stromness Lifeboat - Violet, Dorothy and Kathleen

Ferry Road...model veg garden

Ferry road - the last journey of Girl Mina

Ferry Road, looking to Hoy - Girl Mina at a snail's pace

in the lorry park- this one's not dead yet

Rolling Acres - last resting place of the 'vigdis bòt'
If you've made it this far without snoozing, well done!

I think we can safely say, in true Edinburgh fashion, that we have had our tea. It's been an almost proper autumn, apart from the odd shrivelling wind that turned the rowans, their cousins the whitebeams, and the sycamores brown and crunchy before they could colour up. Native and Italian alders and ash are still summer-green and the more sheltered foliage is taking on traditional reddy-yallery hues.
I took fpu and digicam round the garden the other day so we could show all you out there in the far reaches of blogland that we do not inhabit a semi-polar wasteland during these equinoctial days. For we are truly temperate...at all times...

all this in October...it can't last much longer

no more water lilies this year

verbena bonariensis...'accent plant'

mmmmmmmmmmm the warmth of the sun on my fur...

the starlings have had most of them

but there's still some on the whitebeam

messy little sods!

the cleaning cupboard

honeysuckle

the iceplant cometh...into its own in autumn

the best policy...so they say (eg "Does my bum look big in this?" "Yes dear.")

fat hips on rosa

hosta

the oldest potentilla in Rolling Acres...it just gets bigger and better as time goes by...twelve years of floriferosity



many moos make light work...the Burnside milkers going to be relieved - and mist rolling over the Orphir hills.

abandoned farm at Yesnaby

working farm at Yesnaby

rosy fingered Dawn's cousin on the far horizon
Here's a wee philosophical Q from a curious cat. If people are dying in their millions from neglect, war, terror and famine, is it wrong of my parental unit in the Rolling Acres Comissariat to buy me and m'Marmalade Chum a smidgin, a soupçon, of stewing steak as a treat? Would my abstainence help those less fortunate, or not matter a whit? It would mean Fletts losing out on a few quid...I could always contribute the money not spent to a NGO, which will put it towards a massively inappropriate piece of machinery, which will then sit and rust under a far sky for want of parts/maintenance. And we'd all feel better. No, I tell you what, I'll have my steak adnd eat it. We'll put the loose change into the Lifeboat bottle - I know where that money goes...

A wild day of sharp showers and rolling clouds. Just the weather to take digicam up Wideford Hill and look down on the wee grey toon. (What else would a Stromness moggy do but look down on it?)
I wish someone could tell me what all these nasty blobs are. They keep appearing in the upper right of the pictures; I have taken fpu's best specswiper to the lense and it doesn't seem to make any difference...is digicam terminally ill? It's a worry.

rainbow and bodhrans...a typically enigmatic Dear Arts Cetre installation maybe...

rainbow in Kirkwall Bay and a sign...

the stage lighting's very good in this production

masts...shortly after this fpu got quite wet

then the shower moved on

looking towards Scapa beach

Kirkwall - Peedie Sea to the right, harbour to the left

the wee grey toon sees the light

looking west

Keelylang in the distance
The walk from Finstown up Keelylang is a good pipe-opener and reasonable going on a track up to the masts. Lots of wheatears (hvite erse - if Anne's back I bet she'll asterisk this!), nothing whatsoever to do with wheat...or ears, just a corruption of Old Norse. It's also good hen harrier country...not that any self-respecting kitty would tackle a hen harrier. However, I did have myself a very cute field moose the other day; fpu tried to take it off me, but I wasn't having any - off out the catflap faster than a ferret up a trouserleg! Then I got another last night and they were too quick for me. Trapped in the Sunroom of Eternity, I had to give in gracefully, while fpu deployed the patent voletube and returned my snackette to the wild. Oh well...you win some you lose some...

You might think, living on an island between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, we would be spoilt for choice of wet fish merchants. Think again. This is not a fervent piscean county: the last remaining wet fish shop turned into an organic meat (for those who can afford it) fish-in-vacuum-pack shop a couple of years ago.
I stongly object to having to buy fish sweating in a plastic straight jacket, in fact, I would rather buy it fresh/frozen from the Norlantean via the Deli (admittedly frozen also comes in plastic but Que faire? when the devil drives)
Here is fpu's favourite and enduring fish soup/stew recipe, remembered from an early Keith Floyd programme - on the Beeb of increasingly fond memory - which was scribbled down whilst KF did his stuff on a fishing boat:-
FOR TWO HUNGRY PEOPLE (who are eating nothing else)
One onion, VERY finely chopped - this is useful to the purpose

if you are anti-garlic, then, pauvre vous
2-4-6-any number of cloves of garlic - if you can get 'Really Garlicky Garlic' from Ecosse, so much the better - finely chopped.
about 1/2 inch of extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed pan
Sweat onions and garlic until soft but not coloured (about the length of a decent sized Bloody Mary. If you don't have tom juice, whizz a tin of whole ones in a blender - thick and deeply satisfying...and don't forget the Worcestershire Sauce)
Add one tin of chopped tomatoes or chop up a tin of whole ones.
Add fish stock to the desired amount. 1/2 litre-ish (oh who cares use yer heid!)
If you don't use a boiling haddie or the rigs from a real fishmonger and make your own stock, then it serves you right! Stock cubes are an abomination!
Simmer gently for perhaps half another BM, then add the fish which you have chopped meanwhile. A fillet of solid white fish (monk is good), a chunk of sea trout or a fillet of smoked haddock/cod (or both if you're feeling greedy), 6 prawns and 6 mussels and, if you have it, a handful of squid tentacles or a tube cut into rings.
When the base

is ready, add salt and pepper to taste and the fishes

DO NOT BOIL!!!
Simmer gently until the white fish has lost its translucency and serve in bowls

preferably with something like this (and bread to mop up)

and the end result should be this

Brought to you by Fanny Haddock, of course.