A place holder for tookiebuntendotcom. My main blog is over at http://tookiebunten.com or http://walkwithtookie.com
Was checking my feeds in my Google reader this morning and was flicking through the stories and noticed this. It's from Gizmodo's RSS feed. Don't know what you think but I'm thinking Google might want to sort out it's sponsored links algorithm. I've highlighted it in red to make it a bit more obvious. Personally it's just not right.
The last few days of really good weather has seen an explosion in the
salad planters. More days like those should see me picking the first
leaves quite soon. Looking forward to it.
Well that's @babybunten completed her first full week of eating
'solids'. Well when I say solids I mean baby rice, it's only slightly
thicker than her milk. We're getting there. Next up mince and tatties.
Spent a great day walking round ChatelHerault and it's park on Saturday which includes the ruins of Cadzow Castle. It's the first time I've been to the park and I was impressed. There was tons to do. Play parks, plenty of open spaces and a museum to boot. I never had a look round the museum, far to nice a day for being inside.
I'll go back at some point when the weather isn't so good and have a look about the museum.
The picture above is of the Duke of Hamilton's hunting. Very nice for a hunting lodge, would love to have seen his palace.
The view from the front of the 'lodge' is impressive. The vast majority of Lanarkshire/Strathclyde laid out in front of you. Not that you can see from the photograph but you could see as far as Ben Lomond and the Trossachs. You can also see the Duke's mausoleum way down in Hamilton itself.
We also took a walk across the river Avon and the gorge via the Duke's bridge over to Cadzow Castle. It's a ruin. Not much to see either. It's fenced off and covered in scaffolding as you can see from the photographs.
Hopefully the reason for all the scaffolding is that they're making it safe so you can walk around it. However probably not but the castle is now owned and managed by Historic Scotland.
Above is the far wall overlooking the gorge down to the river. Would probably be a great view if you could get over and have a look. Especially as your higher up the gorge than the Duke's bridge.
Not much to see here just the scaffolding, it would be a good idea for Historic Scotland to put up a few more information boards. The information up at the castle is scant to say the least.
However I had a great day out and about in the park.
Been messing around with Hipstamatic on the iPhone. I really like this app and some of the effects that it creates. In my opinion it's the best photography app for the iPhone. If you know of better or disagree let me know.
Salads are going well. Just watered them again. Still no sign of the
French beans. However the garlic had now sprout. It's all good in the
salad corner.
Took delivery of these today and can't wait to try them out tomorrow
at work. A lot of people have been raving about them and they've had
good reviews.
Thought I had better try and balance out my meh review of Belhaven's St Andrews Ale. I felt bad and they are a good brewery. I remembered a couple of weeks ago drinking Twisted Thistle IPA (Indian Pale Ale).
I also remember tweeting that it was my new favourite but couldn't remember if it was brewed by Belhaven or not.
You can see the tweet on this link, http://twitter.com/tookiebunten/status/12655296544
However I managed to find the photograph that I had taken. Luckily I'm a bit sad and geeky like that. Much to my joy it was by Belhaven, so nice one.
What it says on the bottle:-
A stunning India Pale Ale (IPA), don't think that Belhaven's Twisted Thistle has anything jaggy, spikey, prickly or otherwise pain-inflicting in its nature. Quite the opposite. Your taste buds will tingle with pleasure after a sip or two of this golden nectar. A real treat from our master brewers in Dunbar.
What I think:-
To me it's not an IPA in the true sense but that doesn't stop it being good. It's a cracking beer and my taste buds do tingle, so much so I'll be buying more tonight. Can't give it a better recommendation than than.
You can find out more www.belhaven.co.uk/row/belhaven/twistedthistle.php
Had a great night. Dan Reed was first class. A very talented and
humble man. It was great being in his company and hearing his tales
along with his music.
Tonight, from about 8pm I will be spending the time with some my best
and closet friends in the company of Dan Reed. Intimate, live and
acoustic, in a living room. Back in the home town, Cumnock.
Will be keeping an eye on this. Looks like a really good open source alternative to Facebook where I get to control my privacy settings.
I watch with interest.
About to fix the tumble dryer, again. It's not heating up any more
because it basically thinks it's over heating. It's not.
Went and spent an afternoon on Saturday at another National Trust for Scotland (NTS) property. This time it was the turn of the Museum for Rural Life in East Kilbride. It's an interesting property, split between a, as the title would suggest a museum. This houses loads of items chronicling the development of farming and rural living through the ages.
The other part, if you can call it that, is a working farm with a small dairy heard that gets milked daily. The farmhouse is also a great example some fine Georgian architecture and the interior and the rest of the farm is of the 1950's era.
The farm is about half a mile from the actual museum building and can be reached by walking along the footpath or my getting the 'farm train', basically a carriage being pulled by a tractor.
Plenty of animals to see, like the big Clydesdale horse. You can also see the dairy heard being milked, most days, that's around 3pm.
If your not interested in farms or rural life in general then this is not the place for you but if you've got kids of a young age they'll love the farm with all the animals.
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Watch on posterous
At ibrox for the final game of the season finished 3 each against
Motherwell but the most important things the presentation of the
league trophy, for the 53 time. A world record 53 time.
It all started with taking a photograph of an early birthday beer and posting it on my twitter account, tookiebunten. Well it was my birthday after all so I treated myself to a lunchtime beverage. It was your everyday bottle of Miller; Genuine Draft, MGD. Yes it's an American import but a favourite of mine. All in all a good way to start my birthday.
Well after that as a gift I received more beer, if you don't know me better you would think I had a problem and my nearest and dearest were fuelling it!
This got me thinking how many different beers and lagers were out there? Well google doesn't know and it is one of the oldest prepared beverages dating back millennia. Sad I know but I'm a bit of a geek.
After that disappointment, I like to have the facts, people. I wondered how many different types, flavours, styles, nationalities of beer were freely available to me. The only criteria was that I had to be able to walk in and buy it over the counter. Lets face it in this day an age I can go on the interweb and get anything from anywhere.
Well the quest started. However it may not be accurate as I don't think I took photographs of every bottle of beer but you can see from the slideshow above I gave it a very good go! Lets face it, I'm human and sometimes I forgot.
One thing I really wish I had done was take notes or at the very least written down my impressions of each beer that I could have tagged on as tasting notes. I'm now starting up a new posterous to go back and re-visit the beers and write up my thoughts. You'll find it here Beering Around The World. Also gives me an excuse to drink more beer, not that I need one.
Well I'm now full circle and it's my birthday again so that was my year in beer. Here's to another. Cheers
Years since I've had to do anything like this, and it's not even for a
bicycle. I'm repairing a puncture in one of the rear wheels of
@babybunten's pram.
That's me been and marked my X on the ballot paper.
I won't dare tell you who to vote for, all I will say is, DO vote.
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Just a quick update on some of my planters. I'll start with the tall
planter in the corner. I planted the French beans in here, no sign of
anything.
