New Car

Today has been a non-work day, so I took myself off to Stromness to do some shopping, and pick up my new island car. A friend was getting rid of her old car which is now very rusty but runs well. So I have given it a new home. You can see it being loaded onto the ferry in today’s picture. It’s a little ladybird bug of a car. Though of course the crew decided it was a “Noddy” car and will no doubt keep asking after Big Ears…… My friend drove the car to the pier – I had never driven it, but it was a regular car – how hard could it be. Well of course much embarrassment as once the car was unloaded onto the Graemsay pier I couldn’t turn the ignition key. I swear the boys on the boat did something to it, because yes, I had to get out of the car and let “one of the men” sort it out. Much laughter and joshing about women drivers etc. Sometimes folk can be *so* predictable :-) And of course the island folk waiting at the boat had to peer underneath the car as it was lifted off and mutter things about the exhaust and rust etc. Anyway my little ladybird bug is now park proudly outside the house.

So not feeling like settling down to work this afternoon I decided to do some more “creating” in the kitchen. I generally only feel inclined to cook on days off, and so my bread supply was running low as I haven’t used the bread-maker for a few days. Today’s loaf is warming up nicely as I type – I’m trying a new recipe for raison bread. Quite a sweet bread which I’m hoping will be very nice for tea breaks and toasted. Earlier this week a friend also gave me a recipe for some “seedy” bread so I shall try that this weekend too.

And I decided more soup was called for as apparently there is a large storm approaching the UK this weekend and when that happens I always reach for soup – and it can easily be taken out of the freezer and heated up for a quick snack too. So today’s recipe was for “Sweet Potato and Orange Soup” – I’ve uploaded the recipe below. I found it on the web – it seems to be on a “gluten free recipe” site – I don’t have any dietary requirements of that nature but it sounded yummy enough to attempt. Oooh it was delicious though I say so myself. And I think I preferred it to the earlier Sweet potato soup I made with the coconut milk. This recipe is not as thick, and has a lovely mixture of tastes.

I like to have music playing while I cook and today I selected Michael Buble – I just love his voice, it is really smooth - like chocolate. However I probably contravened several health and safety in the kitchen rules trying to chop veggies for the soup wielding a sharp knife while dancing around to “Fever”. The cat wisely evacuates the kitchen when I’m cooking. So I can at least truly state that “no animals were harmed during the making of this soup”…….!