Denniblog

Three weeks until the start of summer. Time to make plans for our wedding anniversary. It is a big one this year, our fifteenth. Time stands still for no-one…
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For being Scotland’s smallest and newest city, Stirling certainly rocks.
Whatever else I may have to say about the place, musically it knows how to kick ass. Bob Dylan, REM, Van Morrisson et al. all have played at the castle esplanade up the hill (Van Morrisson kept the lights on in the castle until the sun came up - God I wish I could have gate-crashed that party…) and since 1998 the Tolbooth Arts and Community centre has held an annual experimental music festival, Le Weekend. it is on this week from 27th-30th May (almost La Semaine then!) and who knows, I might go. Then again perhaps not. I have just spent an hour in front of a mirror, cutting my hair (ever tried to do that in front of a mirror?). I hope that it will have grown out a bit in time for the BootsNall party…

Aahh asparagus…

At this time of year, from May to early June, I grow all nostalgic about my country of origin.
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It was a glorious day on the village green. Children ran past with rolling hoops, played with skipping ropes or cup- and- ball or spun diabolos. Well-dressed ladies milled around stalls which offered flowers, books, sweets, hats and toys and families picniced on the lawn under the lush chestnut trees.
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Stirling is a nest of thieves and vandals.

Tourists don’t notice it much because the city centre is peppered with CCTV cameras but where we are, literally around the corner, theft and vandalism rule supreme.
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Shock, horror - or at least open-mouthed disbelief.
The barber down the road, where I have gone for the last two years after finally weaning myself off my regular in London, won’t cut my hair anymore.
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Next Weekend, the village of Alloa, at the foot of the Ochills, celebrates its 150th anniversary of becoming a burgh.
As if that wasn’t enough, it is also the date for the CAMRA Alloa Spring Ale Festival
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It’s official! I will spend this entire summer in a lighthouse at Ardnamurchan point on the western-most spot on the British mainland - whale-watching!
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The stomach lining of ruminants, in most cases the rumen and reticulum (first and second stomach) of bovine animals, is a favoured ingredient in many of the world’s regional cuisines.
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Yesterday was a beautiful day: blue sky with fluffy white clouds, silky spring air and flowers blossoming in the baskets which were hanging from doorways in the neighbourhood.
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