The sweet smell of…

Here we are, it’s the weekend again already. These four-day weeks are difficult to get a handle on, I can tell you. And how can it be the end of February already?

Mr L wants to celebrate this weekend – we had the letter from the bank, notifying us that our house will belong to us on Monday, when the final £100 is paid off the mortgage.

As good a reason as any to push the boat out, just have to remember to use the fuel injector cleaner I been meaning to flush the boat engine with.

We discussed briefly last night the potential for finding celebratory ingredients on the island. Mr L’s vote was cast in favour of Haggis-stuffed Beef Olives, if we could find any.

We set off for the shops after breakfast, calling at Sinclair’s first (no Beef Olives). After Sinclair’s, I wanted to divert and take photographs of the big waves that I could see in the distance but we appeared not to be on the same wavelength and my hints fell upon closed ears. As we drove into Lady, I could smell a nasty burning smell. Mr L could smell it too. He got out of the car at the Community Shop and sniffed around, declaring it to be a “local” emission, perhaps from J’s woodburner… I felt uneasy, mainly because I had not previously mentioned to him that the car was smelling hot when I went to Spinning on Monday. I popped the hood and he looked beneath. No smoke emanating from anywhere obvious but what I did see was the rat droppings on the engine cover. The sweet smell of roasted rat poop. Oh, my.  I just hope the wee varmint has done no damage to any wiring…

We went in to the shop  and found no Beef Olives. What we did find however was a pair of duck breasts and some beautiful Queenie Scallops. I picked up some black pudding and an apple and I think we may now have our celebratory meal covered, as Mr L intends to reprise his Champagne Jelly triumph of New Year’s Eve. We also purchased some nice wood-smoked ham (I’m making Bagels this weekend) and a pack of those lovely Donaldson’s  Merguez Sausage .

The island was looking gorgeous when we drove home (without attendant smell of burning) and the tide was out-ish. I thought I would pop out with Nell and my camera for a while once the shopping was put away. It’s the end of February tomorrow already and I am short of images for the Changing Seasons, especially as I was allowing for the local Photowalking Group’s February outing to provide me with some material. The monthly outing has once again not happened and I think that the time may have come to allow it to die its natural death. I’m all out of energy for geeing people up to take their turn in organising outings.

Of course by the time the shopping was put away and my coffee was drunk, it was raining. I have a day and a half now in which to capture something worth sharing. ARGH! I’m going to be spending most of that time making dinner and drinking bubbly.

And now I need to rummage in the freezer and see if I can find the Black Cherry Sauce left over from our wedding anniversary meal. If I can’t, I shall be needing a backup plan.

Oh, Denali is growing  – about one third completed and a whole 66 row pattern repeat done. I think that I shall run out of yarns C and A, the Hoopla and the Wigwam. Not good.