I've just made a quadruple recipe of spinach and parsnip soup.

Spinach and parsnip soup because that's what was 'at risk' in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. A quadruple recipe because, of course, I screwed up and used four times as much of one ingredient and the resulting single recipe was overpowering so I had to go out and purchase more spinach and.....whatever......you're probably not interested.

Caireen went out to collect the young lad from where he's had an overnight and instead of writing my sermon, as I should, I was browsing around strange vintage recipes and I came up with this one. Its for Ham Shortcake with Pea Sauce.

Maybe another time.

We went for a walk along the Glencorse reservoir near my home in Penicuik this afternoon. My wife's dog Patch is part sheepdog. Which gave him the inclination to round this lot up and organize them into a proper flock. He required some disusasion. We were worried that we'd be plucking him off their horns like a marshmallow.

Adolescence has always been a tough row to hoe. No addition of earrings will ever make this veal calf look like a pirate.

In an age where the police wear black golf shirts to match their black trackpants, the Brownies wear yellow sweat shirts instead of proper berets, smocks and Sam Brown belts and clergy have their official pictures taken in Rugby jerseys it was good to see a little traditional solemnity on the streets of Edinburgh today. This horse drawn hearse was on its way back from what looked like a massive funeral in Liberton.

"Boy, my time ran out fast today. I rebuke that clock in Jesus’ name!"


- Quote attributed to Marcos Witt, pastor in an American megachurch

And while we're on the subject of 'Comin' through the Rye' (or in this case, Barley): Something caught Clio's attention in a grain field today and she was off like a shot.

While we're on the subject of foreign chipmunks: What with Homecoming 2009 and the beginning of the festival season in Edinburgh the streets are filling up with people from "elsewhere" whose grandmothers "were Scotch". I have yet to see my first Korean tourist wearing a Jimmy Hat but the streets are beginning to take on the atmosphere of a carnival.