DARTH

I had hoped to bring everything up to date before we headed off on holiday, unfortunately time has got the better of me as I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to sort through photos instead of updating the blog. We fly down to London tomorrow evening and spend the night there before flying earlyish from Heathrow on Thursday morning. We are off to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia so will have lots to tell you all when we get back.

July usually means a trip up to Balado near Kinross for the annual drink fueled nonsense that is T in The Park and this year was no different, although this year it is likely to be our last (for the time being anyway). Cost does have something to do with it as T is notoriously expensive, but we also want a change of scenery and a different vibe for our festivals.

After last year’s fiasco with the shutting of car parks due to the heavy rain, the organisers decided to allow Thursday night camping - but only if you paid extra. We didn’t fancy it, and to be honest were glad we didn’t as the weather on Thursday was absolutely horrible, which didn’t bode well for the weekend - could we have another mudbath again this year? As it turned out the weather abated and as there weren’t so many folk camping on the Thursday the campsite or the approach didn’t get churned up like last year. That’s not to say it was the end of the rain, but it was not as heavy as last year. Last year we’d left later than planned, but still hadn’t been too badly affected by the traffic problems, this year to try and avoid having to queue too long to get into the car park we left earlier. In the end we still got caught up in traffic, but not for quite as long as last year, we didn’t know it but the real queuing was yet to come.

(more…)

Well it looks like some of the Tomatillos are forming. The last batch of photos, don’t show them though. Some of the tomatoes have also started forming in the past few days as well. I’ve lifted some more of the tatties to make way for some leeks that Mam started off, so I’ll be planting them up next week as well. Carrots seem to have done alright as well and have tried one just to be sure.

The reason for this brief update is that life has been rather busy round these parts lately and shows no signs of slowing down as we are off to another festival tomorrow. This time it’s down at Cropredy near Banbury and we are going with Graham. He’ll be on the first train tomorrow morning so we’ll pick him up from the station in the morning before heading south. The weather doesn’t look good with rain being forecast for much of the weekend - oh well the beer (apparently all provided by Wadworth) and music will just have to make up for it. I’ll get this place up to date next week when we are back.

The middle of June saw Graham, David, Adele and I head to the Assembly Rooms for the annual Scottish Real Ale Festival. Due to commitments over that weekend we opted to pop along on the first night of the festival, the Thursday for a change. This proved to be a fortunate side-effect of everyone’s busy lives as it there were a sensible number of folk there and not like a Friday when we normally go along, where you are fighting your way to the bar. Don’t get me wrong, it was still busy just not overly so. I’d looked on the festival website for the beer list prior to going along - just to get a head start you understand, there is a lot to choose from after all. Of course the beer I’d picked out for my first half pint (well I did want to try as many as possible) was the Raspberry Wheat Beer from the Black Isle Brewery, and boy was I disdappointed. Now as many of you will know I have a bit of a soft spot for raspberries, and when combined with beer, give me a moment while I wipe the drool from the keyboard, there that’s better. But this just didn’t do it for me at all, the raspberry flavour was just not strong enough, in fact I would go as far as to say it was non-existant which was a huge disappointment. Of course this minor setback was not going to prevent this intrepid beer taster.

Being a friendly lot, and not wanting to get hammered, it being a school night and all, we were sharing the various beers so as to broaden the taste experience without the after-effects. The next six (in no particular order) are the ones I bought.

• Clipper from Broughton Ales - this was a nice light, hoppy beer - most quaffable.
• White Lady from the Cairngorm Brewery - this was a Bavarian style wheat beer. Absolutely gorgeous this one. Now it helps I’m a fan of Bavarian style beers, wheat or otherwise. I think this was definately my favourite.
• Sommerled from the Fyne Ales - another light summer ale. Again very drinkable, not as bitter as the Clipper.
• Warlock Stout from the Houston Brewing Company - I don’t drink a lot of stout anymore, but like trying them now and again. This was not bad at all, although not something I would drink a lot of.
• Dark Moor from the Kelburn Brewing Company - another darker beer, although not as much as the previous stout. It did have slight fruity tones as indicated in the tasting notes and was very nice. Again not something I would have very much of, but for a quiet pint I’d definitely keep an eye out for it.
• Zetland Wheat Beer from the Tryst Brewery - again my fondness for wheat beer coming through in the choice of this beer. The tasting notes mentioned a banana aroma, and if memory serves there was a faint hint of this, although nothing compared to some of the proper banana beers - in fact I was little disappointed that the banana beer that Caledonian do wasn’t there. Still the Zetland was another fine example of a wheat beer.

So out of the ones I picked only really one I didn’t like and that was the one I was most looking forward to. Of the others I tried that Graham, David or Adele had bought, two stick out as being most excellent; Lemon Ale from Caledonian which as the name suggests did involve some citrus and Duchess Anne from Strathaven Ales which was another pleasant drinking summer ale. All in all another great night.

Enjoying the beer

Right, so this one has been a long time coming (as the Delays might say). Sometime ago, way back in the mists of time I mentioned that we were planning on growing some veggies this year. We knew there was no way we would grow enough to keep us going as our garden simply isn’t big enough. I suppose if we turned over the entire back garden we could grow a fair amount though. We’ve grown herbs indoors before, and last year tried to grow some tomatoes, but we think we were just too late in getting them started as they never came to anything. After much procrastination we decided on some tatties, carrots, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, couple of different types of chilli, tomatillos, pak choi, peppers, garlic, basil, coriander and thanks to my mother onions, courgettes and cucumber.

(more…)

My is it that time of the year again, yes Adele and I are off to T In The Park this weekend, although I suspect this will be our last TiTP. While I won’t be blogging live as I’ll be using an old phone, and I think I need to set something up on this here blog, I will be using Twitter (a mini-blog if you will). You can access my posts here.

I’ll post a full review in due course - it may not be next week as I’ll be working down in London for the week. I may get some time in the evening, but I suspect I may end up in the Patch. I do have an excuse for Thursday night though, as we are going out for a company meal after a company day. Adele will then be coming down on Friday and we’ll make a weekend of it. Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about updating you all about our growing exploits (we had the first of our own produce last night, some pak choi, and very nice it was too). I’ve been taking photos at various stages so I may run a set of teasers, although I probably won’t, I will upload them all to flickr though. Anyway best go and get the last of our bits and pieces ready for the weekend.