Friday's Happy Fill Ins

Welcome back to the fill ins which are hosted by Ellen at 15andmeowing.com and Lorianne at Four-Legged Furballs who provide the prompts in bold and the rest is by me.

1.Happiness is being married to my best friend.

2. Ten years ago, I never would have pictured all the changes that have happened in our lives including leaving the NHS and moving to live in the north of Scotland.

3. Time spent with animals is the best medicine. More specifically time spent with cats, but I love all animals and of course I couldn't miss out Bramble Jelly, our lovely puppy dog.

                      Princess Cookie Cat                              Lord Rocky Horror & Bramble Jelly

4. Most people don’t know that I love an over the top disaster/action movie. Think 2012, The Day After Tomorrow,  and the gorgeous Vin Diesel in XXX - I can watch these films over and over.

That's it today, so until next time, be good and stay safe.

Pamela & Ken
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Top Ten Thursday - The Circus

It's top ten Thursday time and we're going to the circus - thanks to Tamara at Part-time Working Hockey Mom for hosting this blog hop. As I haven't been to a circus since I was a child, I've decided to write about how our life is a circus, especially this week.

Let's consider the essential components of any circus:

1. Clowns - ours is one of those sad clowns that has his smile painted on upside down. My beloved had something wrong with his back so we ended up in Accident & Emergency - it took a lot of convincing and he wasn't impressed with all the waiting around.

2. Jugglers - The day Ken went to A&E I was due in at work and of course we had Bramble Jelly in the car as well. After walking Bramble my lovely colleagues sent me off to be with Ken and they took Bramble into work to be with them - I think she's turning into our mascot.

3. Clairvoyants - it's amazing how a person with medical knowledge can look at another person and, without any tests, say what is causing a problem. I had to do a lot of tongue biting when the "professional" told my husband that he'd had exactly the same thing in the past.

HOW DOES HE KNOW!!!

4. Bed of Nails - it's not a typical bed of nails but Ken decided to sleep on the very hard floor the night after his visit to the hospital to see if it would help him. It was very, very strange not having him in the bed with me. He only tried it for a night before coming back to the comfort of the bed.

5. Tightrope walker - balancing life when all I wanted to do was stay home and take care of my beloved is a little bit tricky. Thankfully my lovely colleagues are a great safety net underneath my tightrope and understand when I'm a little distracted.

6. Big Cats - thankfully real circuses no longer have animals, but our life has two big cats that create interesting moments in our lives. Princess Cookie Cat is still barely tolerating the newcomer, and Lord Rocky Horror is a little bit of a psycho, but in the nicest possible way. They do actually sleep in beds next to each other now without any growling or hissing from Cookie.

Princess Cookie Cat

Lord Rocky Horror

7. Strongman - my beloved is definitely a strongman in how he deals with being incapacitated, trying to do more than he should, but also trying to hide how much pain he has been in so as I don't worry.

8. Lion Tamer - Bramble Jelly is a great lion tamer, and if the cats start fighting, she runs in between them to break it up. She also wrestles with Lord Rocky and comes out unscathed - they're very funny together.

9. Illusionist - like Dynamo doing one of his incredible levitation acts, my beloved has improved and whilst I still think he should be resting more he's much better than he was.

10. Ringmaster - I'm claiming this title after the last week, but I feel I can hand that title back over to Ken now as he is much better at the job.

Hope you've enjoyed my interpretation of today's top ten - make sure you hop over to Tamara's Blog to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with. Hopefully I'll catch up with everyone's blogs over the next few days now that Ken is improving.

Be well.

Pamela & Ken
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Top Ten Thursday - Spring

It's May and the A to Z blogging challenge that took over April is done so it's back to normal blogging for all of us crazies that took part. It's time for top ten Thursday and today we're looking at all the things we love about spring. The top ten is hosted by Tamara at Part-time Working Hockey Mom - make sure you pop over and see what my fellow bloggers have come up with for their posts.

1. Crocuses - it really feels like spring is here when these colourful little flowers start appearing. I love how they look like a multicoloured carpet under the trees. The most expensive spice in the world, saffron, comes from a breed of crocus and in the language of flowers, the crocus represents youthful gladness. (Meaning of Flowers)

2. Daffodils - such a happy flower with so many variations. A bunch of daffodils in the home brightens up the gloomiest day with their yellow cheerfulness.

3. Lambs - one of the great joys of the journey to work and back during spring is watching the lambs and all their antics. They jump and climb and play and just look adorable.

4. Cherry Blossom - a short season of gorgeous flowers and when the flowers are done it looks like there is confetti all over the ground.

5. Calves - so cute and beautiful at the same time.

6. Gorse/Broom - spring is when the highlands turn yellow (or Xanthic as I posted about previously) with gorse and broom all over the place.

7. Wildflowers - I love seeing the different flowers that appear in the woods in spring, creating a haze of colour to walk through.

8. Highland Games - spring and the month of May sees the beginning of the Highland Games in Scotland. I love seeing all the traditional activities - dancing, bagpipes, strong men activities, and tug of war.

9. Warmer Weather - finally it's time to leave the coat and gloves at home and enjoy the fact that the sun has warmth in it again. Much better weather for getting out and exploring the fabulous old graveyards we often stumble across.

10. Sunshine - this one is purely for the cats. Princess Cookie Cat and Lord Rocky Horror are very happy that it's spring as they can find much warmer sunshine to lie in, and it's even better if that patch of sunshine is across the nice comfortable human bed.

What's your favourite thing about spring? Until next time, enjoy the warmer weather and the joy of natures rebirth all around us.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: Final photo that I have to share is the three brats in one photo - amazing.

Exploring Glenfiddich Whisky Distillery

Today we finally, after two years of living in the Highlands, went and did a tour of a whisky distillery. We'd been to Glenfiddich distillery before, just to wander around the grounds and have coffee and cake in their cafe so that was the distillery we chose.

The tour took roughly an hour and a half and was very interesting. The statue shows the founder William Grant with his wife.

William Grant built the first buildings of the distillery in 1887 with his sons and daughters and the original building is where the cafe now lives.

We got to see all the different stages of the distilling process and the buildings are very warm and there is a very strong smell in the air, varying depending which part of the process is going on.

These barrels are huge, and some are recycled as houses at Findhorn Eco Village (Previous Blog Post).

This is just the top bit of the barrel, you will see the rest shortly.

A bubbling cauldron of whisky in the making.

This is when we went downstairs and you can see the rest of one of the barrels with our very informative tour guide beside it.

These are the stills that complete the process of making whisky before it is put into casks.

Whisky selfie - we weren't allowed to take photos once we were down amongst the stills.

At the end of the tour there was a whisky tasting of three different aged whiskys. Ken doesn't drink so we got a mini bottle to replace his tasting, and despite really hating the taste I thought I would give it a go and see if my taste buds had changed since the last time I tried it. My first memory of trying whisky was when I was a nurse in Tasmania, and an elderly gentleman who was in hospital for Christmas wanted to share a drink with me - thankfully I got to pour, so mine was mainly water, rather than whisky. How times have changed, as I don't think that would be allowed these days. Even though it tasted awful, I'm glad I did it as it made him smile.

The whiskys were 10, 12, and 15 year old malts.

Guess what - I still really hate the taste of Scotland's national drink.

This is a picture of William Grant, his wife and some of their children.

The stag is the emblem of Glenfiddich and the word in Gaelic means valley of the deer.

Each year the distillery hosts Artists in Residence and some of the art they create is dotted around the site, whilst others are hidden away in private rooms.

This is the great fireplace in the cafe - we had to go in and have a drink and a piece of cake to get the awful taste of the whisky out of my mouth.

I loved these door handles going into the shop - very intricate and tactile.

The shop sells all sorts of things apart from whisky, and they also have a section where you can bottle your own.

A tiny little Bramble Jelly sitting in front off the stag antlers made out of waste wood by one of the past artists in residence.

Family selfie - it only took a few attempts to get us all almost looking in the right direction.

We hope you've enjoyed this visit to a whisky distillery, and until next time, I'll leave you with this really interesting fact - there are over 20 million casks of whisky maturing across Scotland.

Pamela & Ken
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Friday's Friendly Ramblings

It's the end of another week and time for some fill ins that are set by Annie at McGuffy's Reader and Ellen at 15andmeowing.com - why don't you come and join us. The words in purple are the prompts that are provided and then the rest is me.

1. My favorite president is Nelson Mandela because despite his 27 years in prison he was a beacon for peace and reconciliation in South Africa. During his years in prison Mandela completed his law degree and I'm sure this helped him in being able to debate the rights of all South Africans and be effective in his role as President of South Africa.

2. This weekend, I have plans to get my hair cut and my pink streaks refreshed - you can see a bit of the pink in the below picture. We'll see what else we end up discovering in our travels. 

3. I love how my beloved carries Bramble Jelly from the car to the house if it is wet so that she doesn't get dirty wet feet. It's very cute with her wriggling away under his arm.

4. I believe that we can all have an impact on the world around us, we just have to decide whether or not that impact will be good, or bad. Reducing our use of plastic, eating local food, eating less meat, turning the lights off more, recycling as much as possible, and so many more little things that can help look after this planet we live on. Earth Day 2018 is April 22nd and this years focus is very much on reducing plastic use and cleaning up the plastic waste that is polluting our world.

Until next time, we hope that you have a wonderful weekend wherever you are in the world.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: Our new little man, Lord Rocky Horror has settled in really well and has finally stopped inhaling his food for fear of someone else eating it. He's the cutest and friendliest little cat and we're so glad he's become part of our family.

A Balanced Hodgepodge

Middle of the week so it's time for the hodgepodge with the questions set by Joyce at the blog From This Side of the Pond. This is a great prompt based blog hop with differently themed questions every week.

1. Where do you go when you need some inspiration?

I love browsing through Pinterest, sometimes with an actual purpose in mind, but often just to see what's out there in the virtual world of ideas.

2. What's under your bed?

Sometimes there is a cat under the bed, but only when she doesn't want to leave the room when we want her to. There is bound to be dust under there, and my beloved has a box of things under there that don't fit in his bedside table.

3. Thursday, February 22nd is National Chili Day, National Margarita Day, and National Cook a Sweet Potato Day. Of the three which would you most like to celebrate? Is that likely?

Of the three options I would celebrate the Sweet Potato as I love them and they're such a versatile vegetable and so much tastier than their plain relatives.

4. What are you 'snowed under' with right now?

I'm not really snowed under with anything at the moment, though I am starting to feel the pressure build for doing the A to Z blogging challenge this year. I think I've finally decided on my theme, so now I just have to start writing my posts.

5. Tell us three to five things that make you feel balanced?

Am I allowed to say my beloved, my beloved, my beloved? No, okay I'll be good and say different things. My beloved is definitely the number one thing that helps me feel balanced, as he is the other half of my soul.

Cuddling one of our furbies is a great way to bring balance back and sometimes reading or watching tv can be a reminder that the world isn't as out of sync as it may seem.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

We are in the process of trying to integrate our new furby Lord Rocky Horror (cat) into our menagerie - it's a little bit stressful. Rocky has already put Bramble (Cocker Spaniel) in her place, which was quite funny as Bramble is so much bigger than our new little man. 

Bramble keeping a safe distance from Rocky

Princess Cookie Cat is another story altogether. She has got a constant growling hissing thing going on, to the point that she ends up coughing and growling at times. So far she has only lashed out a Rocky once, but we're making sure that we're always around when they're in the same room. They're living in different parts of the house when we're in bed or out of the house, as I worry what would happen without us here to adjudicate.

Rocky exploring his new home

What helps you to feel balanced? Before you go, make sure you pop over to Joyce's blog to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with.

Until next time we hope that all is good in your little part of the world.

Pamela & Ken
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