Yesterday evening my sweet Kia and I went out for dinner with some of my colleagues. We tried a new place, the Raeburn's Bistro & Grill here in town. Here is what we picked from the evening menu: Orange, thyme and juniper marinated venison with buttered cabbage and vegetables, parsnip puree and white bean mash (Zeno); Seared breast of Gressingham duck, with duck confit potato hash, orange and rosemary sauce and glazed carrots (Kia). The food was good, but the desserts were a delusion. We tried the Chocolate Browne with orange ice cream, and the apple, pear and raisin crumble with mixed fruit ice cream.

Yesterday was a bit rainy, but not cold. Today just cloudy, with the sun coming out from time to time. We're unquestionably looking forward to Spring! In Italy, tradition has it that the last three days of January are the coldest of the Winter, and these three days are known under the name of Giorni della Merla (Days of the She-Blackbird). This name, according to a legend, comes from the fact that a She-Blackbird with her chicks found shelter from the big cold into a chimney, then they came out on February 1st completely black. So the Blackbirds, previously being white, were black since then. This legend also says that if the Giorni della Merla are cold, then Spring will be nice; if they are warm, then Spring will be late.

Time for a new recipe! We have made this today for the first time. Kia's found this recipe in a Scottish cookbook at the library. Kia's parents use rhubarb just to make jam, so we were curious to try it in this new way. We liked these tarts very much and we'll certainly make them again.

RHUBARB TARTS

Ingredients:
300 g puff pastry
flour, to dust
100 g sugar
100 ml cranberry and blueberry juice
450 g rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 10 cm lengths

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and cut out 8 rectangles. Lift them onto a baking sheet covered with nonstick baking paper (or parchment paper). Place the sugar and the cranberry and blueberry juice into a pan. Cook, stirring, over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the rhubarb and poach for 10 minutes.

Remove the rhubarb from the pan and arrange side by side on the pastry rectangles. Brush with a little glace from the pan and bake for 25 minutes, brushing with glace halfway through cooking.

When the pastry has risen and is golden brown, remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

I got this from Terry this morning, and I couldn't resist sharing it with you all! I'm still smiling with a silly face, LOL! This baby is so cute! BTW, that's exactly how I look and feel!

I am planning to spend some time this weekend cooking something sweet with my hubby. What else... dinner with a few friends, a well needed catch-up with the huge pile of e-mails I've been neglecting (shame on me!) and watching "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (Pomi d'ottone e manici di scopa) on DVD. What are you looking forward to this weekend?

Lately, every time I start writing an entry, I stop after a few lines because I have the impression of being talking about futile things in a time that is difficult for almost everyone around the globe. Worries are many and the hope in the future is less and less for many families that are struggling 'cos of this recession. It's quite difficult to see the "glass half full" these days. I'm so glad hubby has a job he likes. We also have a lot of love and friendship in our lives! I feel so blessed! I'm sure hubby does too.

Since Zeno and I could not enjoy the Celtic Connections in person, we are watching it HERE. Have a look, it's quite interesting!

The sun is coming up earlier (8:20 AM) and is going down later (4:42 PM), which gives us a lovely total of 8 hours and 22 minutes of sunshine per day. Well, sunshine… light! If it's not raining. Or too cloudy and dark. Or foggy, like this morning. It has been a bit warmer (7°C / 47°F) so I won't complain too much, LOL!

Have a good night, "see" you all tomorrow. Reading all your blogs is an integral part of my day now. Thank you for being out there…

Self-portrait (autoritratto). Just playing around with my camera…

Today is Burns' Night and the people of Scotland honor their greatest poet, Robert Burns. Burns was one of the very few who wrote in the Scots tongue. He was born on January 25th 250 years ago, and wrote his first song when he was sixteen. No doubts about it, tartan and kilts abound this night. It’s a fiercely patriotic night, and very entertaining. It is celebrated with traditional suppers: neaps (swedes), tatties (mashed potatoes) and haggis washed down with whisky. Before eating, bagpiper heralds in the entrance of the haggis and Burns' famous poem "Address To a Haggis" is read (you can read it HERE), then the haggis is cut open. At the end of the poem, a whisky toast will be proposed to the haggis. Often the supper is closed Crannachan, a dessert made from raspberry, toasted oatmeal and cream.

Just like bagpipes, rain, lochs and whiskeys, haggis is a true symbol of Scotland. But what is haggis? It is made from lamb's offal (lungs, liver and heart) mixed with suet, onions, herbs and spices, all packed into a skin, traditionally made of a sheep's stomach. Does it sound yummy to you? Many of Zeno's colleagues keep saying it's very tasty, but we did not try it 'cos we don't eat any dish made from innards.

An often told myth is that a "Haggis" is a small Scottish animal with one set of legs longer than the other so that it can stand on the steep Scottish Highlands without falling over.

You can listen to HRH The Prince of Wales reading a couple of Burns' poems HERE, and also surf around a bit to learn more about Burn's Night.

Today we took advantage of the sunny afternoon for a nice walk in town…

…and our usual grocery shopping. We also played "What's Your Price?". It's all about veggies and fruits this time. It's a great meme, we just wish more people would play along. Have a happy Monday and new week ahead. Sweet dreams everyone!

Our problems in sending and receiving e-mails are still going on. Besides, we also have problems with snail mail. Some of the Christmas cards we sent never reached the recipients. We also didn't receive some cards from our Italian friends. This is so annoying and frustrating!

Thanks for your suggestions about our "carpeting and shoes" problem. Unfortunately, our meters are not outside our flat (lucky you, Dru!), but inside. The electricity meter is located in the storage room, while the gas meter is inside a small cabinet located in the master bedroom (see photo below).

Our flat has a wooden floor, only the two bedrooms and the storage room have carpeting. That's why the guys that come to read our meters have to cross our bedroom and walk on the carpeting.

But we must consider ourselves lucky in comparison to some of our neighbors living in our same condo, because they have one of their meters within one their closets. The person who had the brilliant idea to place a meter in those places must be a genius! Some of our friends told us that there are also some apartments with carpeting in the bathroom and/or in the kitchen, and this is something we really do not understand.

BTW, we have nothing against carpeting. It's just that carpeting looks nice at the very beginning, but it starts looking old quite soon. We are not used to carpeting, though. In Italy most houses have terracotta/marble tiles on the floor, some have a wooden floor, but it's pretty rare to find a house with carpeting. If one day we will be able to have our "dream house", we want wooden floor everywhere.

Did it ever happen to you to have a song stuck in your head? It's happening to us with this song: It's A New Day (Will.I.Am). We've hear it for the first time on Dru's blog, and we keep humming this tune since then. Check it out if you haven't already, it's kind of catching! BTW, the name for this kind of phenomenon is earworm. You can read more about it HERE.

We were planning to go see some of the Celtic Connections, but we will have to wait till next year.

We want to wish a very Happy Birthday to our dear friend Suzanne! Tomorrow is your special day, sweetie-pie! Have a bee-utiful day with your beloved ones!

We had rain off and on all morning and it's still misty outside. I feel all dizzy and I'm shivering right now, patiently waiting for the hot tea I'm sipping to warm me up a bit.

Lately, I have been drinking more tea than usual. Coffee gets me out of bed in the morning and I always say yes to a cup of moka after lunch and dinner, but tea gives me comfort and keeps me warm during the day. I have my tea black, not too strong, with a teaspoon of honey. I usually prefer loose leaf tea to teabags 'cos teabags are generally made with inferior tea and don't taste as good as a freshly brewed pot of tea. But I've been using teabags most of the time since I got married. I always enjoy a cup in the evening with my husband, it's a great time to sit on the sofa and discuss our day. It's such a lovely part of the day! Taking the time to enjoy being together has always been important to us. We drink mostly everything (black tea, green tea, herbal tea…) but Earl Grey and Lady Grey are our favorite. Here in the UK a "nice cup of tea" seems to be the panacea for all ills. What about you? Are you a tea drinker or a coffee drinker?

Our problem with the bank seems finally resolved, but I won't celebrate till I'm sure of it. Better say good-bye now and maybe get another cup of tea and try to warm up! Have a great day and thank you for all your comments, I will try to blog-hop later. Oh, it's snowing now! How beautiful!

Just a short post while my sweet wife is preparing salmon fillets for dinner.

What a day today! When my sweet Kia and I woke up, the sky was clear and the sun was out. By the time we had breakfast, it turn all cloudy and it started raining. Around 11:30 the rain stopped and we decided to go out for a walk. We had been walking for just a few minutes when it started raining again and suddenly the cold rain turned into tiny stingy hail, but we decided to keep walking around. About 20 minutes later both hail and rain stopped and we walked a bit more under a gray sky, then we headed home. As soon as we got home, we took off our wet coats, put the kettle on for some hot tea, then looked outside from the lounge windows and realized it was snowing. Can you believe that? In a few hours we experienced almost all the possible kinds of weather. We sat on the sofa, drinking our cup of tea and enjoying the snow coming down. By the time we finished our tea, the snow had stopped. After an hour of gray sky, it cleared up a bit and we saw a beautiful rainbow.

Yesterday morning it was a bit cloudy/sunny and windy, but at least not rainy, so we went out for a walk and for a few errands. The temperature was around 7°C, but it felt like 1°C due to the cold wind. We also took the chance to visit the Abbey. The Abbey of Paisley is quite old, it has been built in the 1200s.

The colorful windows and the Celtic cross are what we liked the most.

And also the impressive organ which is one of the oldest and certainly one of the finest of the UK, according to the old guide.

Then we had lunch out. Our friends in Italy keep asking what kind of food do we eat here when we go out, so we decided to share this picture of what we had yesterday for lunch.

A lentils-and-spinach burger with chips and coleslaw on the side; golden scampi with chips and peas; chocolate sponge-cake in a bowl with hot custard; chocolate mousse topped with a strawberry. Afterwards, we went grocery shopping and on the way back home we had some rain.

We spent the rest of the afternoon helping my father-in-law in setting up Skype on his computer. Both yesterday and today we tried to make some computer-to-computer calls just to get him used to the whole procedure.

Time to go now. Dinner's almost ready. Have a nice week ahead you all!

Another gray, dark and rainy day here. I know I shouldn't complain since in Finland, where Jaana lives, the temperature reached -16°C / 3°F and it feels like -21°C. Brrrr, I think I wouldn't survive, LOL! Probably I have never been in a place with temps below -12°C.

This morning around 9:30, the rain stopped and I could enjoy a cup of coffee in from of the window looking at these beautiful colors...

Around noon a guy from Scottish Gas came to check the readings of our meters (gas and electricity) located in the storage room and bedroom. As you already know, I don't like having strangers coming in when I am home alone. And what I don't like even more is people walking on the carpeting with dirty shoes while we take off ours (and my parents did it too). It's not just a problem concerning our carpeting, I always feel uncomfortable when I go to someone's house and I have to keep my shoes on. I keep thinking: "Please, let my shoes be clean!". I had carpeting in my bedroom when I was a kid. But my parents decided to remove it after just one year. A bit 'cos of my allergies to dust, a bit 'cos carpeting gets dirty very soon no matter how hard you try to keep it nice and clean.

Next time the Scottish Gas guy comes I would like to ask him to take his shoes off, but I'm not sure if that might sound rude. What would you do? Any suggestion will be more than appreciated! Thank you in advance.

Yesterday, in Glasgow started a festival named Celtic Connections. It's a huge festival of Scottish music and dance. Unfortunately almost all events are already sold out.

Time for dinner, have a relaxing evening and a sunny Saturday. We will upload our "What's Your Price?" later tonight. TTFN!

Another bitterly cold but dry and partly sunny day, with top temperatures of 1°C /34°F. Tomorrow it should be even colder, with chance of sleet and snow. During the night temps just drop to -5°C / 23°F and when we get up in the morning our windows are all wet inside. We are not freezing, but we're not feeling really warm either. There's a definite chill in the air.

I had the chance to take a couple of colorful photos today. I like the first one in particular...

In the past few weeks hubby and I had fun creating our own Playlist (thanks Jaana for the idea!). We added mostly songs that are not on the radio anymore. You can find the link on the menu on the right.

Thank you Bente for your adorable blog award! You made my day! Can't wait to show it to Zeno! He will be very happy too.

I'm quite late in posting it, I've been such a slacker lately and I still have tons of e-mails to go through. BTW, I had a few problems getting (and sending) e-mails from Cris, Nanou and Sonia lately, it's so annoying, especially 'cos I don't understand what the problem is.

Oh, it's raining already, directly against my windowpanes. Well, have a good evening everyone, hubby just got home (all wet and cold, poor sweetie!) and we are gonna enjoy a slice of the yummy cheese we opened yesterday evening.

It's a Cheddar cheese produced on the island of Arran, which is not very far from where we live. Some pieces of cheese are placed on traditional oven baked Oatcakes produced on the same island. An oatcake is a type of cracker, made from oatmeal and sometimes flour as well. They are cooked on a griddle. Oatcakes are widely considered to be the national bread of Scotland.

Surfing the Net, we bumped into a shocking news: Wall Arch, located along the popular Devils Garden Trail at Arches National Park (USA) collapsed last August. We visited this park during Fall 2005 and enjoyed the view of many wonderful arches. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the Devils Garden Trail due to a lack of time, so we missed Wall Arch along with other beautiful arches like Landscape Arch (which we really hoped we could see). Someday, it would be nice to go back there and see what we couldn't.

These two photographs are courtesy of "National Park Service Photo".

It's a bit sad thinking that all the beautiful arches are but temporary features and all will eventually succumb to the forces of gravity and erosion.

This news reminded us that we didn't upload those pictures yet. So we decided to take this time to add some pictures we took at Arches. You can find them in our Photo Album (see link on the left) as usual.

As you can see, Arches National Park is a place hard to forget, with its wonderful views and fantastic colors that (especially at sunrise and at sunset) make a dramatic show. Sometimes, the simple things in life are the best!

Monday's weather did improve eventually. Around 11 AM the sun came out for a quick hello…

…but it turned cloudy soon after and started raining again around 5 PM, just in time for Zeno to get home all soaked.

Today it has been mostly sunny, but starting from Thursday it should be rainy again. Somehow the days had been getting longer (Sunrise: 8:40 AM; Sunset: 4:12 PM) without us taking note of it, probably because of the bad weather we had. After weeks of darkness falling in at 3 o'clock, light is now lingering a wee bit longer in the evening.

No news from the bank yet, it's quite frustrating. Well, time for bed, don't let the bed bugs bite! LOL!

I still find hard to believe it is 2009 already! I really don't know where last year went. It seemed to go by in a haze. I am hoping that this year will go a lot slower, LOL!

It's another one of those Scottish days you won't like to experience. It is really wet, windy, and dark. There are deep puddles everywhere, your umbrella turns inside out and it doesn't even do any good to use an umbrella because it rains sideways. Yuck! Still waiting for the sunny spells the forecast man on the radio keeps talking about, but nothing. I desperately need to buy groceries today, we don't have any veggies and fruits in the house.

Off to make myself a warm cup of coffee now. Thanks for being along for the ride and keeping in touch in 2008. Looking forward to more adventures and amusements in 2009. Till we blog again, stay cozy and smile.

Unfortunately we still have problems with the Royal Bank of Scotland. The branch where we opened our account in not very reliable. Well, to be precise: where "I" opened it 'cos the employee at the bank didn't add Kia's name on it as we requested. We went there once again on Friday to complain about it 'cos it's been 8 months now since we requested it for the first time. At the beginning of December they even told us that they had lost the copies they made from her documents and the forms she signed. Great job, indeed!

We spent way too much time on YouTube lately, but we are having a lot of fun. I want to share with you one spectacular video. If you are a fan of Michael Jackson's songs, I'm sure you are going to like it. Click HERE to check it out. There is only one guy (the one in the middle) and the rest are mannequins. He calls himself the Amazing Christopher. If you prefer The Beatles just click HERE. I think he is quite good!

Another thing we've done in our spare time is downloading and installing Skype. We've already used it to call my brother and some of our friends and we are now trying to convince my in-laws to use it too. Technology is amazing, for sure!

My sweet wife and I had a relaxing weekend at home. We had a lot of plans, but decided to postpone them to net weekend because of the bad weather. It's been rainy and windy since Friday night. Perfect days for curling up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate. The wind has been so strong today that we still hear the whistle in our ears. It's raining in my hometown back in Southern Italy too. Up in the North it's snowing instead. In Kia's hometown they got 35 centimeters of snow which is something that didn't happen in the past 15 years.

In the next few days we'll finally try to catch up with all your nice e-mails, sorry we neglected them for so long. Good night & sweet dreams.

Just wanted to let you know that we are still around. We were going to blog last night, but then we started watching "The Muppets Show" on YouTube. and we had a great time.

Anyway, we just wanted to wish all our dear friends and readers a very Happy 2009! We hope that this year you will achieve all your goals. Today is a very special day, it's "Make Your Dreams Come True Day". Take hold of your dreams and make them a reality! If you can dream it, you can do it. Well, at least it's nice to think so, LOL!

We'd like to welcome baby boy Shawn Michael and congratulate Mom Jules and Dad Michael! We are so happy for you both, guys, your li'l bundle of joy is so precious!

Have a 2009 filled with the joy of family, friends and love. Can't wait to share this new year with you! TTFN!