*Living in Scotland, a place known for its love – nay, worship – of homey baked goods, fresh fruit scones are not common. Actually, in all the twenty-something years that I have lived here, I have yet to encounter one. I’m assuming someone here makes them, maybe sells them. But I don’t get out much. …
Add a twist to your flower garden When people think of gardening for produce, they often think of planting tomatoes, root crops, and maybe some fruits. If they ever do plant flower gardens, they’re often just for decoration, to be able to have fresh flowers for the living room vase. What people often forget, however, …
I’m having a bit of a rough day. Relatively speaking. Although I am sitting here with two purring cats vying for attention (read: my lap), what I really want to do is go for a wee lie down. Maybe have a wee cry. Do you ever feel that way?
To mangle the well-known quote from 18th century diarist Samuel Johnson: “to tire of Tuscany is to tire of life.”
People who aren’t on Twitter often deride it as merely a vehicle for transmitting useless everyday minutiae. I won’t deny that use of Twitter; I myself have been known to snap and tweet ‘interesting’ pictures of ‘novel’ breakfast ideas and of my hens eating pasta (thank you if you have retweeted any of them). But …
Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love* – a description of coffee by cunning and eccentric 18th/19th century French diplomat, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (pilfered from urbin.net) Over on the right, underneath my smug-looking face (I can’t smile straight), I mention the fact that sometimes an off-message decadent …
