One for the children

When can I learn to cook?  A plaintive call across the dinner table.  But not from Girl Urchin, oh no, for she’s quite happy with mixing bowls and beaters and licking chocolate spoons; no this was her brother.  He’d been more than a kitchen assistant for his sister’s recent easter cake – and I’m in big trouble for not getting a picture of that one and a recipe down for you.  Not content with making a cup of tea and putting milk on his cereal, he’s looking to do a bit more.

Chocolate Butterfly Cakes.  A good place to start, and one that involves some finger-licking bowl cleaning.  It also comes with more trouble for your host as the accompanying picture here is straight from the book.  There is a photo of the end result but it remains in the camera, which is now heading off to the Northern Wastes, leaving a period of quiet reflection here at Grasshopper Towers.  And they’ve taken the cakes with them.

Anyway, let’s start with the list of the necessary:

8 tbsp. soft margarine; 100g caster sugar; 150g self-raising flour; 2 large eggs; 2 tbsp. cocoa powder; 25g plain chocolate, melted; icing sugar for dusting.  And for the filling 6 tbsp. butter, softened; 175g icing sugar; 25g plain chocolate, melted.

And the instructions, ideal for your average 10 year old who of course weighs and measure precisely:

Put 12 paper baking cases in a muffin pan, or 12 double cases on a baking sheet.

Put the margarine, sugar, flour, eggs and cocoa in a large bowl and, using an electric hand whisk, beat together until just smooth.  Beat in the melted chocolate.  Spoon the mixture into the paper cases, filling them 3/4 full.

Bake the cupcakes in a pre-heated oven, 180c/gas4, for 15 minutes or until springy to the touch.  Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make the filling, put the butter in a bowl and beat until fluffy.  Sift in the icing sugar and beat together until smooth.  Add the melted chocolate and beat until well mixed.

When the cupcakes are cold, use a serrated knife to cut a circle from the top of each cake and then cut each circle in half.  Spread or pipe a little of the buttercream into the centre of each cupcake and press the 2 semicircular halves into it at an angle to resemble butterfly wings.  Dust with a little icing sugar before serving.

On reflection it might be best to make your cream slightly thin and to play with a piping bag – spreading thicker cream with a knife proved tricky.  But the end result was quite delicious and I suspect they may not survive the drive north to be proudly presented on arrival.

It doesn’t end there though, for I’ve had an assistant with the soup and the rolls.  Scraping the carrots needs a bit of practice but we’ll have him peeling the tatties before long.  Bread-making too is a longer project, after recoiling at getting the hands in and getting mucky.  But anything to do with weighing and measuring is fun; as is cutting the dough into rolls.  Measuring out the spices for the soup proved much more up his street than chopping the garlic.  Thankfully the soup and rolls have been left on the kitchen table, and I can guarantee there will be none left when they return.

One day we’ll have a meal prepared and presented by The Urchins, jointly and collectively, without squabbling, and packed with flavour.  All we’ll have to do is clean up the debris, after scoffing the goodies of course.  And at this early stage I’m pretty sure we’ll be well fed.

Can you imagine

… walking out on to a stage, and being faced with this:

Now imagine those seats were full of people, the balconies too.  I exaggerate, there were only perhaps 400 in the stalls, and another couple of hundred upstairs.  Those on the balconies were the other performers, musicians, singers.  Now imagine you were ten years old doing that.  Daunting stuff.

But not so for the boys and girls of Gael Music Folk Academy.  Off the bus they came, with their harps and their fiddles; flutes too; and a banjo; and a handful of melodeons.  Two groups from Gael, together for the first time as one.  East Kilbride meets Carlisle.  They had rehearsed in groups, but nevert together, never even met, and there was no warm up time.  Back stage, listen to the first two acts then on, and play.

This was the second of three sessions of the Music For Youth North East Festival, at Sage Gateshead.  Stage One.  The Big One.  Four Thousand Seats.

First up was a brass band, from Egglescliffe School.  I glanced at the programme.  Egglescliffe had a huge role in organising the event, funding it.  And they had four different bands and choirs playing.  If the brass band were anything to go by this is some school for music.  Their Theme From Red October was simply mesmerising.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re playing at again at the MFY National Festival in the summer.

Follow that, thought I.

Our session had three choirs, along with brass, funk and folk.  So a group of assorted folkies, stopping short of the Aran knits, were perhaps a bit ‘off the wall’ in such a gathering.  But they played their wee hearts out.  Logan Water gentled the audience to silence, no need for the backing track, time kept perfectly; Kendal Ghyll went off nearly without a hitch, warming them up.  Common Ground to finish, superbly.  They know that one so well.  Must surreptitiously record it and use it as a ringtone.

But what got me, and I am a tad biased, was Boy Urchin, though I did have an eye for many others.  The harps draw the eye, and the ear, driving the group on.  Have you ever listened to a harp, no really listened?  And half a dozen of them together? For the most part he was hidden from my view, but glimpsed from time to time through a fiddler’s bowing arm.  Oot and in, oot and in he went, as one might expect, fingers dancing up the board, rolls and folds and chords.

He’s no stranger to playing in front of folk.  But generally he keeps his eyes down, no contact whatsoever.  At the school recently, a wee solo piece, his eyes never left the buttons on his box.  That in itself is unusual, for one who invariably practices with eyes glued to Pointless, the occasional glance at the musical score in front of him.  Didn’t want to make mistakes, his defence.  Audiences before have included family gatherings, school chums, or even public performances at their home base in EK, or at Biggar’s Corn Exchange.  he’s happy to play, just don’t look up.

Sage One was just a wee bit different, and so was he.  For he smiled, eyes lit up, eyes up.  And he revelled in every minute of it.

Now this festival is a superb event, with three sessions through the day.  And each session is professionally critiqued.  We had Damien Harron and Jennifer Martin on duty, and quite some task they had.  At the end of the session a representative from each act joined them on stage to hear what they had to say.  The feedback from the pros was brilliant; constructive, helpful, encouraging.  The boys and girls on stage were presented with the notes made on their performance, and a certificate from the day.  The audience loved it, and their tutors and leaders beamed.

And who did Luke Daniels send out there from Gael Music?  There were none more surprised than I to see Boy Urchin waiting to lead the six acts on stage, smiling all the way.  By the end of the session there was hardly a dry eye in the house seat J31.  Wonderful stuff.

 

 

Three Wee Gems

Dappled sunlight far above; below black waters gurgled.  I was encased in sandstone, thick with moss, ferns gripping resolutely to every crevice.

We had found ourselves at Crichope Linn, after a short walk through woodlands.  It was the sort of walk where you wished you had insisted that shorts and sandals may not be ideal for young explorers.  One of those where brambles and wild roses stretch across the narrow path; where, though trampled rarely it seemed, the ground remained soft in all seasons, churned in places.  It is the type of place you keep an eye open for the flash of a kingfisher above the burbling burn, but never catch one.  Above, something shrieked.

At the Linn the water sprites come out to play, in dark pools, under fallen trees, and in those caverns where the light from above catches some of the tumbling waters, but not all.  30m deep, if you take the path to the oak and beech trees above you might never know what lies beneath.  But over the centuries plenty did.

Walter Scott put John Balfour  there in Old Mortality.  Of the etchings scratched into the soft sandstone one may have come from Burns.  Covenanters hid in a cave in the Killing Times.  The Elf’s Kirk has been broken up for building stone.  It is a place of magic.  And the water sprites play on.

Just down the road we stopped at another of Burns’ haunts, the much over-looked Ellisland Farm, where he tried in vain to plough the rubble, to gather apples, and where his Bonnie Jean brought the children of the marriage to nine, and more beyond.  We wandered the river walk, where the words of Tam O’Shanter first took shape.

Ellisland is rammed full of memorabilia from the days of the bard; days brought to life by our resident expert.  A herd of cows came over, much to the delight of the children.  But it was Burns and his life that held them more.

We touched briefly on more of the Burns trail in Dumfries, before chancing upon our third wee gem on the homeward leg, the long way round.  The Raiders Road is open through the summer; 10 mile or so of dirt track and hard-core, through the forest, along the banks of the Black Water of the Dee.  There is an Otter Pond, something never to be resisted.

This is a very special place and those good folk of the Forestry Commission, busy harvesting the slopes around, have laid on facilities, from parking to picnics, barbecues to washrooms.

And out on the black waters we watched and we waited.  But the only movement was of the ever-increasing circles of the raindrops and the birling of the midges, the occasional fish rising for supper.  It is though a place for children to play, rain or no rain.  For the waters are shallow, tumbling over flat rocks, layered between the banks, upstream and down.

But the only otter was cast in tablets of stone, replacing a bronze effigy nicked some years ago.  It is another place of magic, though we were perhaps too early in the evening to hope that the otter just might come out to play.  And so the only otter I have seen in the wild remains a memory from Jura, despite the quest continuing.

But it was a Grand Day Out, water sprites, otter strikes, and Rabbie.  And they were all picked out from Peter Irvine’s Scotland The Best, though we really need to update our 1998 edition.  Where next, one wonders….

Permission

… to come aboard skipper?

He might be regretting replying in the affirmative, though I had thought the lower ratings might just be piped aboard when the Captain was present.  Maybe he saw how much luggage they brought and feared a voyage to some far and distant land, instead of a day’s jolly doon the watter.

Mind you he didn’t do too badly from the deal, with the decks being swabbed until near worn through, and, more importantly, his nearest and dearest not turned into a vomitarium.  And he witnessed the first ever albatross on the Clyde Coast since Gene Saracen’s hole-in-one at The Postage Stamp back in 1973.  Some of us are old enough to remember it well.  It might have been an eagle, the Saracen one that is.

Oh yes, The Urchins have taken to the ocean waves, and dragged their parents with them.  We survived.  Sundry ferries plied their trade from shore to shore, and we managed to miss them all.  Squalls chased their way up the estuary, on both shores, yet we stayed dry.  Clouds hid the hills from view, yet the sun shone.

And when the sun shines on eryngium it thrives.  And so it was with novices at the tiller of Sea Holly.  From the north shore at Rhu we tacked our way (see, getting cocky and technical now), down to Kip, south and west, against the wind, through the lumpy bits, without even getting prickly.

The rain bounced through the night, wind was forecast, heaps of it.  Stomachs churned at the thought.  But again the day was kind, and the weather gave the lubbers a wide berth.  And so back to Rhu, wind astern.

The pride of the Clyde, the old Waverley paddled by, blades churning, brave souls on deck waving.  There might be a picture of that one to come.

That was great, will we still be in time for swimming club?

And we still had time for fishing, though Boy Urchin had his first experience of watching absolutely nothing take an interest in his hook.  And Girl Urchin scrubbed again, finding a gene that must have skipped a generation.  Maybe one day she’ll iron.

Anyway, that albatross.  We all saw it.  Swooping past, feathers ruffled, eyes on the waters below.  Big bill, black-tipped feathers, yellowish head clear for all to see.  Related to boobies, it says on the wiki-tin.  Of course it was a gannet, and it wasn’t an Urchin who called it otherwise.  More a howler than a booby, but my lips are sealed.

Twelve hours earlier I wasn’t even thinking of going along, after another day of fast following a night of, well you really don’t want to know.  But the ante-dote for stomach gremlins and hernias, for reactions to medication, has been found, alive and well on the waters of the Clyde.  Take one bouncy boat ride, then get yourself a haggis supper.  It soaks up everything that rumbles down below.  Might need another one tonight, for the remedy doesn’t seem to last long.

But huge thanks all round to Favourite Uncle, and to the star of the weekend, Sea Holly.  Even managed to pinch the skipper’s picture.  But there’s new crew in training, and they’re off school for at least another six weeks with little to tempt them away from their bad habits.  What a blast.  Maybe auntie will come along too…

 

Pride Rocks

As promised, more weddingalia.  On the steps of The Piping Centre in Glasgow, just a few of the very happy, smiling faces.  Sorry about the dark glasses.  Even the sun came out to play.  But it was a very special day.

Only once do we get the chance to witness a first marriage of our offspring.  FirstBorn it was who had us all done up in our finery; nerves shredded; emotions on overdrive.  It was a wedding that marked not just personal progress, but that of an entire nation.  And the gathering loved it too.

The happy couple were jubilant; beaming, endlessly.  Far too spooky that they shared the same birthday, and the same name – the same first name that is.  So here they are:

The ceremony itself was beautifully led by celebrant Helen Singleton from the Humanist Society of Scotland, a body close to my own heart.  The Piping Centre did us proud, chucking us out into the sunshine whilst the function room was rearranged for the feasting.  And it had all been planned and arranged by the boys themselves.

The audience loved it, with laughter and tears, and cheers and tears.  Oh and there were tears.  Even some of the women shed a few.  Joyful, truly joyful.

On a personal level I was thrilled to meet up, after far too long, with many old friends.  I had carried memories this past 20 years or so.  And in my mind those faces were stuck in the 90s, aging not a jot, much like myself you understand.  But here they were, all of a sudden with children of their own, or blossoming with life’s years.

And in the midst of it all there was The Prodigal, back from her travels, and looking terrific.  Oh yes, there were emotions of all sorts, in that hall.  And Girl Urchin is desperate to have her big sister back.

The feasting over, speeches too, it was back out to the sun whilst the room was readied for the music and dancing, as tends to happen at these events.  And amongst all the proud parents and aunties and assorted hingers-oan, there was none so proud as the old father-of-the groom, and I know the father of t’other groom felt exactly the same.

What a fantastically wonderful day; perfect in every way.  Thank you Scotland for letting this happen.  Thank you everyone for the happiness that filled the room.  And huge thanks to those who did all the work in making it so.  Emotions wrecked again, believe me.

That’s ma boy

OK we all agree, he has his father’s good looks.  And we know that purely because his mother kept hers of course.  Anyway, for the first time, Boy Urchin, in all his glory, first time in the kilt.  Good eh?

I bring this to you out of sheer pride.  And I break my first golden rule of putting photographs of children on the net.  But here he is.  Jumped at the chance to don the kilt he did, and he’s keen to do it the traditional way, go commando as he would say.  But I’ll have my work cut out to do something with the Horrid Henry Hairdo.

There is a reason for the finery.  A wedding is about to take place.  And I’ll have more to say about that one, more pride, much more, before too long.

So no footy this weekend, other than a twitter feed and a mi-fi box in the sporran.

A funny thing happened, on the way to The Forum

Don’t titter I say, oh no, don’t titter, says he pulling down the hem of his toga, adjusting the laurels to a jaunty angle.

It was one of those rare days, the rain chased away as the sun took over.  The Urchins were back from their jolly to the Northern Wastes, and the school holidays were disappearing fast.  On the way to The Forum we had a wander round the park.  It was a place we used to visit regularly, in a bygone age, with buggies, toddling, after a morning at nursery perhaps.  More recently there have been school trips to Dean Castle Park, but as for me, I could barely remember the way.

We said hello to the animals, the deer and the donkeys, ducks too, piggies and goats.  Then we wandered round another path, most certainly a new one for me.  Round through the woods, muddy underfoot, the river rushing past, brown and foaming over the boulders.  There was activity high above.  We saw the crow first, then the squirrel.  Branch to branch, tree to tree, over the path and down the trunk, the crow still hard on his tail.  Such fun, for one of them.

Anyway, The Forum.  It was lunch a few weeks back that put me on the trail.  The Accountant was buying, and Equi’s finest vanilla was on the menu.  We were in a venue I once knew well; waited a year or two for membership actually, thirty years or more ago.  Those were the days when social clubs were busy, all week, thriving, throbbing.  And on match days the rap of dominoes on the table lets you know the game’s murder, or the rain’s worse.  In good times that magnificent Scottish Junior Cup has pride of place in the trophy cabinet.  But what was once the social club that supported Pollok FC is the club’s no more.  Lok’s Bar & Kitchen is for a different market altogether.  Equi’s.  Yee-hah.

And as I was dipping my teaspoon into the third scoop of vanilla, mine host was telling me of another of Scotland’s Italian ice-cream families; singing the praises he was.  I hadn’t heard of it; and it was only a few miles from home.

So after leaving the park we headed off in search of Varani’s, which turned out to be right on one of my regular grocery routes.  Straight from the 30s. all wood panelling high counters.  Icy Lemon Fanta for Girl Urchin, in a tub; Oreo Cookie for Boy Urchin, cone.  But there’s only one way to put a new ice cream to the test.  Single nougat, the house vanilla.

Top Five quoth she; Equal top in his eyes, with his favourite Dutch outlet.  It’s a subject we’ve discussed before, ice cream, some may recall.  And I’ll be back at The Forum, to try again.  Unusual vanilla, sepia tinted as if it was doused in Madagascar juices.  And not the usual creamy affair from our other Italian outlets.  The jury’s still out, but it’s on the grocery route.  Try, try and try again.  It’s my duty.  I’ll let you know.  Though I may not get round all 48 flavours that were on display.  And I didn’t see any pistachio; not this time.  Someone has to do it, just for you.  Don’t titter.

Black Shadow

It was intended to be a short break, stretch the legs, fresh air, break the journey.  With a third consecutive dry and calm day the outdoors was calling.  Signs of spring were all around, the birds singing at last.  And in the fields the lambs had finally been let loose, to bounce and frolic and suckle as lambs do.  We had our first spring lamb a few weeks back, slow roasted with more than a dusting of eastern spices, but that’s another story.  Now they’re out in the fields for all to enjoy.  Lipsmacking.

I digress.  We found ourselves in a park, vaguely familiar.  I had been there before, once, and I put the time to be somewhere in the late 70s.  Gradually memories started to come back.  Hot summer day, possibly a picnic?  Maybe three girls, and me – I was the one that had a car – but the details were long since gone.

Anyway Castlebank Park, Lanark.  Hidden away beneath the old part of the town.  And the town is old, 12th century and more.  What was once a fine baronial pile now hosts flats.  But the location is the same, with steep banks down to the Clyde, far below.

Boy Urchin and I had a wander, and soon were skimming stones and making splashes.  The river was moving swiftly, and the banks suggested a recent five foot drop in water levels that had seen them expand by twenty feet or more in places.

I want to go back to that walk through the woods, in just a few weeks time.  It will be alive with primroses, carpeted with bluebells, which just happen to be a certain person’s favourites.  There are rhodedendrons between the trees.  And the trees grow tall and straight, reaching for the light far above.  The slopes are steep, but the path zig-zags down.  The upper stretches are terraced and the local garden club is doing what once the estate gardeners would have done, being creative on walled steps.

We descend through the trees and the sounds of the river rise to meet us.  Above, a woodpecker is busy, unseen, tapping away in busts.  There is great tit, and crows circling.  Then the river takes over.

The Clyde chugs away for over 100 miles, and we were nearer source than sea.  Not far away The Falls of Clyde, a SSSI, brought the waters down from the higher ground, and marked the end of the run for the salmon and the trout.  Too steep, too far, even for them.

And as we ploutered on the banks, putting off the wheezy path back to the top, a shadow passed overhead, silent, wraith-like.  It flew upstream, not 20ft above the broiling surface.  It had all the appearance, to my very untrained eye, of a heron on the hunt.  But it was black; all black.

I can only think it may have been a cormorant on the wing.  Those wings are more familiarly seen hung out to dry on some salted and barnacle encrusted rock offshore.  We were some distance from those shores, some flight upstream.  And even if the cormorant had followed the crow, some way from the nearest shoreline.  Was it a cormorant, or a wraith heading for Mordor?

We’ll be back for the flowers soon.  Wraith or no wraith.

 

 

An ear worm

Did you hear it, the other day?  Brilliant it was, to wake up and hear it, to listen.  That was when I realised that the night had not been filled with familiar noises.  There was no percussion of rain and hail playing out on the window; the slates on the roof rattled not; and there was no whistling wind finding gaps in the window sealant.  The old coppiced willow outside the window creaked not; and the hedging could not even raise a rustle.  It was The Sound of Silence.

And it was the same again the next morn, after a day of calm.  But it was too early, for the moon and the snow worked a trick of the light, and dawn was still a distance away.  The trudge to the office belied the calm, for the snow lay thick and deep, piled up against walls and doors, adding half a foot or more to the roof of the car.

This is not what you want on a Saturday, especially a Junior Cup Saturday.  There was no chance of the pitch being clear, the terracing safe, or the opposition bus getting out of Cumnock.  Game Off.  Bugger.

In time we began to think about getting out.  Was the road open?  Some work with the wheelbarrow, a shovel and a path well trodden from the grit bin up and down the hill should work.  The old barrow was more like a sieve, leaking as it trundled on it’s flat tyre, the metal  disintegrating as the salt did what salt does.

We needed wheels turning on the road, working the grit in, spreading the goodness.  The car made it down, and back up again, winter tyres doing what once four-wheel-drive laughed at.  Yes, we can go the to the stables.  Game Off.  Bugger.

For it is Saturday, and Girl Urchin is taking a break from drama club, and trying her hand at riding.  Well, she’d been once; and was going back again.

But there was a problem.  Having made the hill passable, with grit and tyres, up came a tractor, shovel down, a makeshift plough.  But it didn’t make the top, and blocked the road, engine seized.  We had a problem.  Game Off.  Bugger.

Another tractor, chains attached.  We’ll pull it out, free-wheel down the hill.  But it was not be.  Brakes seized too.  Immobile.  Stuck.  And time was passing.  I was summonsed.  To do what I knew not.  And the bacon rolls were ready; a slice of xmas cake to follow.  Tools.  The garage.  Snow shovelled away from the door, and there she sat, miserable.

It was the first thing I saw, the bike, the flat tyre.  It must have been that last fateful ride, the icy one.  Farmers flailing the hawthorn hedges.  Puncture.  And Murphy’s Law, the one of Sod.  It was the back wheel of course, the one with all the gear mechanism and the manky chain stuff.  Sod it.

Anyway, back to the tractors.  Nothing doing.  And Murphy’s Law again, for up the hill comes a snow plough, intent on clearing the road, being paid for it.  Three heads to scratch, round immobile tractor, and riding lesson time drawing ever closer.

We could get out the other way?  The plough driver agreed to come in from the other end, our escape route.  Two and a half miles, ploughed , clear-ish.  He left a rumble strip, the whole way, of tractor tyre ridges.  But the winter tyres were just the job and we made the main road, and we made the stables.

Up, down, up, down, and trot to the end of the ride.  Go large.

The whole script came flooding back.  I could spot the flaws without thinking; those toes pointing down; the beasts doing as little as they were allowed; each corner being cut by more and more as the experienced leaders were followed by the novices and the lazy.

The years drifted away; back to when Saturdays were all about riding and not football.  She looked like The Prodigal, sitting there, concentrating, red cheeks in the gloom.  I know where this is going to lead, and soon it will be body armour and chaps, and horsey smells.  But it doesn’t look like we’ll need to worry about allergies, about rheumy eyes and runny nose.  Maybe we’ll not need to worry about nights in hospital and concussion, though there will be falls.  Bloody Murphy again.

No more ponies; you heard it hear first.  But just maybe sisters will find one another.  And all I heard was The Sound of Silence.

 

Gie’s Ten Guitars

Stuck at home, slaving over a steaming broth pot, pummelling the dough endlessly, and making sure dinner was served just as they all walked in the door.  Still I could have been at other chores, filing in the office, or getting muddy with the molehills, but it was a warm kitchen sort of a day.

The soup came along fine, spoon just about standing straight as it cooled.  The bread was freshly risen defrosted (from last week’s batch).  And the meat was resting, before being attacked with the carving knife.  But where were they?  Dinner was to be served at 1.30, and ten minutes more had gone.  The tatties were past being boiled to perfection, and the peas, well…

More time, the meat more comatose than rested.  I’ll need to carve, to pour the sauce into the jug.  It was a fine piece of ham, and, cooked in vanilla maple syrup after a dusting with dark brown sugar, some apple slices round the side; it was looking and smelling just fine.  The cats were gathering, but where were The Urchins, and their mother?

While I was left with the chores they were off to play their guitars, the weekly lesson.  Mind you they do get another pluck at the strings, at school.  Girl Urchin had surprised her teacher by playing that old Andy Stewart number about Donald and his troosers.  He hadn’t taught her it, and neither had the Sunday tutor.  She did it herself, after learning the notes in her weekly glock session in class; then plucked out the same notes on the strings, in the right order, at the right tempo.  I hadn’t heard it being practised at home.  How did she do that, several folks mused.

The door opened, and in they came, with the gale and the hail hard on their heels.  The cats were still sniffing around the cooling meat.  Time to serve.

We got a Distinction, she grinned, waving a certificate in the air.  Exam results, from the previous week.  Boy Urchin too,  though singularly unmoved he was.  It was easy.  But first music exams, Distinctions for both.  The talent, it has to be said, all comes down the maternal line.  But the pride is shared.  There are times when they just take your breath away.

We’ll get then down to Sauchiehall Street yet, a bunnet on the ground for the change.  I might even sing along…