September 2021 – Scribble & Scran

The Watched Apple

Scribbles for the weekend #7

I’ve been pleasure delaying for weeks, could almost say months. In direct view of the kitchen, down at the bottom of the garden is one of our apple trees. It’s only produced about six apples this year so I’ve had my eye on one particular one and then to my horror yesterday morning just before breakfast I saw it there lying on the grass. I didn’t have time to go get it there and then and made a mental note to go get it and then completely forgot! The trip over to Glasgow and meet my son after his first two weeks away was more important.

As I walked down the garden, I wondered if I’d beaten the wood lice. They take really well to the other tree’s windfalls and I’ve lost out to them a couple of times. Thankfully as I turned the apple over I found only a mild skirmish and internally shouted yes to the skies. It’s the little things!

This morning the apple sustains me, a post run fuel boost and a pre late breakfast as I take my other son to his Sunday game of soccer. I so enjoyed it, more in a Cookie Monster way than in a mindful way. I tell myself I have five others to do that with, which I’ve plucked from the tree so as to not lose out.

My son was so pleased to see us that it brought so much to the weekend. I’d made a beef cheek stew and batched it up for him, along with some brownie (man I can’t believe how much butter and sugar goes into a brownie).

Took him to the supermarket and set him up again for the weeks ahead where he asked me about cooking fish and potatoes. I’m no expert, and it’s one of those moments where your adult-child has lowered his guard for help that you just want to treasure the moment. Without getting too technical we looked at what was on offer from the counter, salmon, haddock and mackerel. We went for a piece of mackerel. Later when we got home a picture came through. Pure gold for the day.

On the writing front I wrote a little about September as a month which has more morphed into Mid September……I’d been playing around with it for weeks and with last weeks coffee share as the inspiration I’ve managed to pull something together that I’m happy with.

The week has flown by in general, I try and capture my creative side, an use my will power to do some exercise first thing otherwise my day will be filled with back to back teams calls and no energy to do anything after that. By Friday my head is fried so the late autumn sun is a tonic for the soul not to mention the apple that I got to take a big bite from.

I hope you all had a good week and finding those moments to take good bites from and thank you for the coffeeshare.

The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Natalie the Explorer that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.

Coffee and the Forth Rail Bridge

Scribbles for the weekend #6

Today our coffee is by bike, the sun is shining, one of the nicer days of the week. It’s a T-shirt kind of day. The last of the years sun, the warm September days that should be bottled in order to carry them through into winter. There are people swimming in the sea, the usual noises of children playing on the periphery. The tide is in and the sound of the waves crashing over the sand is a tonic for the soul.

Portobello beach front meets a number of demands, a clash of cultural differences. Kim Wilde the ‘Kids in a America‘ blasts out the small arcade which feels like a small part of the 80’s wrapped in a bubble, outside an upmarket coffee van tapping into the coffee culture. Further down the promenade next to the boat huts is the beach house café serving great food, great cakes and where we pick up our scone to go with our flasks.

From here we cycle along the promenade towards the old port area of Leith and the north Edinburgh cycle route which is just a brilliant network of disused repurposed railway routes. Our ultimate destination is iconic Forth Railway bridge taking in the village of Cramond along the coast and through the country grounds of Dalmeny House. A 30 mile or so round trip which my wife called out as one of her best ever days cycling.

We make it back in time to catch the last of the days sun in the garden, a small beer and a gin and tonic. So if you prefer that to your coffee, your welcome to an aperitif.

Dinner this evening…. Sea Bass, picked up from the high street in Portobello (a wonderful little fish shop) served with samphire, warm mixed grains and z’atarr roasted squash.

The apples are starting to fall from the tree in the garden, a clear sign they are ready for the taking and with my son having a pal staying over a perfect opportunity for a crumble without feeling too guilty or eating too much as there is an extra teenager needing the fuel! Apple and Rhubarb. An excuse to use the spoils in the garden.

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Staring into the muesli

Monday and I want to press the reset button, start the week as I mean to go on. Managed to remember to put my watch alarm a good few meters away from the bed so I would have to get out to turn it off.

Reset, means doing that exercise that I said I would, that 10 mins of yoga before doing a 3k run round the park and writing a few things as I have my coffee and start what feels like a new term. This weekend we hit the milestone of depositing child number one at University and even though number two been back at school a couple of weeks. It definitely feels like we can now crack on as a three.

Started my week with a bit of James Clear and the 2 minute rule. I listen more than watch in the morning as I do my exercises and this I think encapsulates showing up.

Scribbles for the Weekend #5

tomatillos

The veg box brought us a little bag of tomatillos, amazing tomato like balls of green wrapped in delicate little green paper lanterns. I’d never seen these before and fortunately the bag came with a recipe, a green chilli and a bulb of garlic to make a salsa. Using the lime and a little sugar to dampen the acidity of a diced onion and then blitzing in a food processor. Very refreshing, zingy flavour.

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Piano started again and although I’m not thrilled at having to do scales I feel alive and excited about the fresh start. The teacher has made me feel better than I thought I was and given me a renewed confidence that as an adult learner my efforts will be rewarded.

We’ve had a mixed bag of weather, a mini little heat wave and the wasps nest that I can see from my study window has been going crazy with activity. Sometimes makes my stomach turn and then there are moments where I have to marvel at the runway to the entrance and how they just get on with it.

The main activity of the house has been revolving around the boy and his imminent departure to University. As some folks read this we will be no doubt have dropped him off with his PC, a new wok (with a lid), a supply of staples on the food front and I mustn’t forget the lasagne in the freezer! There will no doubt be a tearful goodbye as he starts a new adventure and I mustn’t forget a good podcast for the drive home to take our minds elsewhere.!

I’ve put my thoughts on playlists down into another post and if you’ve ever wondered how to create a spotify QR code, export the playlist itself the links are there.

It’s going to be odd just the three of us in the house and the signals have already been given that I need to cook less! That fourth portion eater that we count on to hoover up the calories is going to be missed. Menu wise we haven’t got much planned, I think we’ll all be in shock.

Hope you have a good weekend, and thanks for Coffee.

Playlists and how to export the list, create a code

‘To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one’ – Nick Hornby – High Fidelity

My dad would spend ages making a holiday tape, vinyl to tape, balancing the left and right signal, putting the needle in the right groove, not creating too much of a gap, taking the tape out, using a pinkie to just nudge it back a few seconds. A complete distraction to packing or getting organised for the trip!

Some 40 years have passed and I can remember some of dads holiday tapes, a mix of Peter Frampton, Bob Marley, Olivia Newton John, Charlie Dore and the haunting Pilot of the Airwaves brings back so many memories. Especially of an old Ford transit parcel van that my dad converted one summer. We camped on the beach and I’d sit in the front and watch the ships go by on the horizon, no phone or tablet to keep me entertained.

For some reason, that craziness before a trip and I can’t fathom out why was passed onto me. Perhaps it’s those memories that spur me on and I usually have to create some kind of play list for a big holiday or a life event. The odd tape still survives merely labelled ‘Mix Tape’, no inlay card so definitely mine. The Honeymoon mix is amazingly labelled so easy to scan through. There’s a stack of minidiscs that I can’t bring myself to throw out and a few silver disks in the CD drawer with only a couple of words to give the listener a clue as to the event they were recorded for (Germany 2006, France 2004 and York).

In one way I’m thankful it’s a lot easier today to make a playlist, who has time for putting needles on the record, turning it over and finding the right circular grove and queuing it up. Although because it’s so quick it’s easier to break the unwritten rules. The art of making a great playlist is lost in the mists of time. That or I am over romanticising the whole thing and it’s just a bunch of songs to express a feeling. I’m thinking about the rules of never repeating the artist, sticking to the right amount of songs that will fit onto the media you are using. Can you imagine being constrained to 30 mins each side and adding a new song in at the start means re-recording the whole thing. A play list can be however long you want it to be now, it self-documents and tells you how long it lasts for. You’ll even get suggestions of what to add based on the list itself although these sometimes can be a little dubious!

The latest life event that called for a great playlist was for my son going off to university. Spotify our family choice and a simple gift that wouldn’t load him down too much, doesn’t need a tape, minidisk or cd. He’d have nothing to play them on anyway….which just blows my mind! My plan then was to create a track list of 10-15 songs or so. Give a node to Guardians of the galaxy and call it Awesome Mix 1. It still felt impersonal and too easy, so decided I wanted to make a flyer and include with it some thoughts and best wishes on a good luck card.

Creating the physical playlist was easy but the end to end process of sticking to 15 songs hard. I’d keep remembering songs and it was way too easy, to find them, add them, and take them away. I found myself going down memory rabbit holes, and had to ask myself what was I trying to do here. I just wanted him to hear some good tunes that his dad liked, back in the day and one or two were from his childhood at the time. In the end I settled on about 22 tracks and then it came to trying to export the text.

Turns out it’s quite hard using Spotify itself to export the text of a playlist in a way that you can use for editing despite all the drag and drop stuff I came across . Thankfully I came across SpotListr which enabled me to create a comma separated file in seconds. Which I then brought into excel and then formatted as a table. I then transferred this to PowerPoint, on a page that was sized for my printer paper. I then added a few photos, and a little text.

You can also create an album type cover for the playlist at Spotlistr Cover. This will work as cover art for any playlist provider.

Over the lockdown period we tried a couple of restaurant boxes, one of them provided us with a specific Spotify QR playlist code. Just click on search, use the camera and bish bash bosh…..the playlist is there. It wasn’t quite the ambiance of the restaurant but a wonderful touch in providing some music where the choice had been made and you just had to listen. This gave me the idea of creating the code, and you can do this here Spotify Codes. This creates another little image file that can be added to the powerpoint slide.

Create an Export: SpotListr

Create the Cover: SpotListr

Create the Code: Spotify Codes

Scribbles for the Weekend #4

Apricot Pie

September crept up on us this week, and it’s starting to feel dark when the alarm goes off.

Prom night came and went and I’m left reflecting where the time has gone. It felt like yesterday when I put on a black tie and went hunting for adventure. Amazed at the young man who stood before me and was more than happy to help with his tie. It took me a couple of goes since it’s been a while living at work.

Success in the kitchen included an open apricot pie made with wholemeal flour. The vultures came and went and even a request for it being made at their birthday a good eight months away. To say it was a keeper is an understatement.

The small roast shoulder of lamb from organic Combe Farm worked well in a one pot of potatoes, carrot, parsnip and fennel. Slow cooked for a three hours, the fennel wasn’t in a good state towards the end so while the meat was resting it got blitzed into a gravy…or the word velouté feels more appropriate.

The polenta/corn meal eat downtown continues and I found a new technique of roasting from Anna del Conte. It went well, so much left over though, which got fried and used for lunch with salad.

This weekend has a bit of a BBQ instore, the boy has got his pals round, another fair well with friends (I do not remember this build up!). The usual burger and grilled veggies, a peanut butter cheesecake and I’m planning to get the pancake balls machine that we brought back from Denmark out. Hopefully there will be leftovers! Definitely planning to get a slice of that cheesecake!

Younger brother is quietly getting on with things in the background, trying his best not to rock the boat. The house is emotional as we work through our last 8 or so days together before university starts.

Hope you have a good weekend, and thanks for Coffee.