Author: minceandskirlie

Writer, poet, musician, and sometime IT professional in the North East of Scotland.
Health and fitness

Giving blood and training

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I gave blood on Monday. I’ve done it once before and I’m always surprised by two things. 1) How woozy I feel for the rest of the day and 2) how quickly the body recovers from losing a pint of pretty essential fluid.

While I was lying on the bed with my lifeblood trickling out of me to jeers from the nurse (my body was reluctant to let go of the red stuff on this occasion and the nurse had to hurry me up a few times) I asked a fairly innocent question: “How long should I wait to do exercise?”. And I received a simple answer “Oh you’ll be fine tomorrow. Are you a pretty serious runner?”. Her question wasn’t asked in a professional capacity to get further information which might change her first answer; it was just conversational. I told her that I usually run 12km with a club round Glen Tanar estate. That was pretty much the whole conversation. Continue reading “Giving blood and training” →

Thoughts

Before and After

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It’s really amazing what a difference learning to cook and regular exercise can make. My Mum recently found a picture of me from December 2005 when I was considerably larger than I am now! Continue reading “Before and After” →

Food and drink

Improvised venison and hazelnut spaghetti

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A while ago we were given a present of some venison lorne sausage. Normally I’d try to avoid the square sausage as an evil weegie creation that most people should avoid at all costs. Like Rangers fans. But as this was a gift I thought I’d give it a go and a bit of improvisation was in order. Continue reading “Improvised venison and hazelnut spaghetti” →

Food and drink

Homemade tapenade on freshly baked bread

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Here I go with another holiday inspired post! Don’t worry I’m sure I’ll get sick of these soon and return to normal service.

One of my favourite things that I brought back from Nice (part 2 of that report is coming soon by the way) was two jars of tapenade. Now I love anchovies, olives and capers and will happily take any opportunity to combine the three in some kind of food. Be that in pasta sauce or on top of pizza. Mushing them all up in a paste to spread on toast? That’s definitely a concept I can get into. Continue reading “Homemade tapenade on freshly baked bread” →

Recipe, Thoughts

Lamb with aubergine sauce

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Before I went on holiday I bought a new recipe book. I think I’ve built up a decent repertoire of skills and can execute a recipe pretty well now; especially after starting the blog almost a year ago. However there are a few things I really could improve. Like sauces. So when I saw someone recommend Michel Roux’s Sauces as being just about the perfect book on the subject I immediately added it to my shopping listk. Continue reading “Lamb with aubergine sauce” →