Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Seventh

Sugary jammy dodger tpye thingy.

Second breakfast: Fruit and Fibre and orange juice.

Just watched a shark film. I don't know why. I am already awash in fears: heights, snakes, high speeds, what might be underneath my bed. Just last night, I had a nightmare about a snake. And now I have added more fear fodder to my consciousness. You would think I would learn...

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Sixth

Fruit and Fibre.

It occurred to me, whilst walking the dog in the dark this evening, that the torch I was using has been in use for as long as I can remember. That thing has been going since at least the mid-1980s. It's a big red number, called a Pifco I think. If you need a durable torch, I seriously recommend buying one of these.

When I was little, our Labrador Boo-Boo was always very insistent that she should carry it whenever we were out with her; so, for the first ten years of my life, I was used to negotiating the dark by torch-light that fell at a right angle to the direction in which we were headed.

Harry is too small to carry the torch; but that's no trouble, he has his own disco light -- a flashing blue and red LED light. According to the packet it's visible from up to one mile away.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Fifth

Home-made bread (toasted) with apricot jam and a pear

There were two slices of the above, but I devoured the first whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.  I proudly showed off my loaf to both my parents over skype. Apparently my need for parental validation has not improved much since the days of coming home from school waving some highly abstract potato-print offering. (Do you suppose schools are still doing that to Maris Pipers, and parents?)

In other news, the tumble drier man came last week, so naturally I have already shrunk one pair of (already slightly too small trousers).

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Fourth

Fruit and Fibre.

Harry (the dog) and I went walking and met a seal.  You can just see the top of his head in the photograph below:

There was a fresh dusting of snow and at no point during our one-and-a-half hour or so jaunt did I feel my toes. It was a lovely walk though.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Third

Fruit and Fibre.

I know the X Factor is odious, and they're endlessly thrusting largely talentless reprobates with ever-sillier hair on us, but I'm not sure the riots can really be their fault, can they?

"X Factor culture fuelled the UK riots, says Iain Duncan Smith"

Acually, while we're on the subject of the X Factor, I should just like to place myself in the "David Attenborough's rendition of What a Wonderful World for Christmas No. 1" camp... (This motion seems to have been doing the rounds on Facebook.)

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Second

Banana bread and apple puree again.

Well, we survived Hurricane Bawbag largely unscathed here. Had to put a rock on the lid of the compost bin and a bird feeder blew off its peg. Other than that, all is well. It was wild though. I'm amazed no trees have come down. Perhaps I'll find one yet. I hope not though. I don't like it when my favourite trees come down.

I still haven't entirely got over the loss of the Scots Pine that hosted our twig swing. That was a great swing, right out over a steep bank. When my sister and I were little, if we didn't maintain our momentum, we'd get stuck hanging out over the abyss (it felt abyss-like to a small person). Then we had two choices -- jump from a height into the brambles, or hope the other would fetch a parent...

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-First

Banana bread and apple puree.

I must say, all this breakfast numbering business is getting to be tedious. Pretty soon I'm going to exceed my numerical range. I think I may have to resort to a new titling system soon. Perhaps at the end of a year, which is coming around startlingly fast.

I'm entirely depressed after watching the last episode of Frozen Planet. And not just because I'll miss my weekly David Attenborough dates. The satellite images of the rate at which the ice caps are melting were just staggering. It's also deeply disturbing to think about the many countries clamouring to secure their claim on the Arctic while they wait for the ice to melt enough to permit the extraction of oil and gas. I think I ought to rig myself up to a giant hamster wheel and generate my own energy from now on.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Thirtieth

Fruit & Fibre and Apple Puree

I didn't eat all the puree, I promise. It doesn't look too tasty because I forgot to put lemon juice in to stop the apples turning brown, but it is quite yummy really and has no added sugar, so it comes with added smug (rather like a Prius/Pious.)

The temperature seems to be rising. This I know from the occasional thunderous cascades of snow sliding off the roof and scaring the living daylights out of the dog. Mind you, my dog isn't hard to scare. He doesn't even like the dark. I have to turn the lights on before I can coax him from one room into another.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Twenty-Ninth

Poached egg on toast.

I'm becoming quite the little fire starter up here near the Arctic Circle (well, we're 6 degrees of latitude off, but still).  Naturally I find it difficult to start any kind of fire without singing the Prodigy song. I say singing, but I really only know the first few lines. And I'm not sure that I'm at all twisted at all. Cold, yes. But not twisted. I don't suppose that lighting a fire in the grate where it ought to be constitutes "twisted fire starting"; but none-the-less, the song has lodged itself in my head like all the best earworms, and I can only shift it with a rendition of Build Me Up Buttercup -- the ultimate earworm-busting song.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Twenty-Eighth

Boiled eggs and soldiers.

It's inevitable really: at some point you are going to eat the coconut Quality Streets.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Twenty-Seventh

Oats & honey Special K and Fruit & Fibre.

The Irn Bru Christmas advert is back. Hurrah! How I love it. A fitting homage. I'm sure Raymond Briggs must like it.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Nineteen-to-Twenty-Six

No. 319: Two apples (nothing else to eat that morning); No. 320: Porridge;
No 321: Porridge again (same photo as I forgot to take one); No.322: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

No. 323: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes; No. 324: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes;
No. 325: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes; No. 326: Scrambled eggs on toast.

Oof, it's been a while. A week in fact, no, more -- eight days. Eight days in which I have become a self-employed person, attended a birthday party, virtually melted my skin off with mould-busting bleach stuff, and knackerd my hip shifting boxes. (My poor hip. I'd feel old, but actually this has been a problem since I was a teenager -- heavy lifting makes for two-to-four days of lameness.)

I am now ensconced at home, where the ambient temperature in my bedroom last night was a balmy 7.5ºC. I think I need thermal pyjamas. And an additional hot water bottle. Today I have been nearly drowned twice.  Once walking to and from the coral beach (horizontal driving rain, you are not my friend). And once streaking from the car to the co-op, a distance of no more than 30 metres: enough to entirely saturate my clothes, and fill my right ear with water. I'm toasting myself by the fire now though, so all is well.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eighteenth

Cinnamon oaties and apple and mango juice.

I had an excellent idea for a blog post at lunch time today, which naturally I did not write down, and have now forgotten. If I'd remembered it, you might all now be tittering away at some amusing anecdote or other. Instead, you must endure these, the ramblings of a girl who ought long since to have gone to sleep. Do not believe the time-stamp of this blog. It's well past witching hour. I shall never be beautiful on this little sleep, not without the aid of a great deal of warpaint at least.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Seventeenth

Cinnamon Oaties and tea (I didn't eat the whole packet, honest)

The baby polar bears on Frozen Planet this evening were so incredibly sweet it actually pained me. I really thought my heart was going to explode. The more I watch of this series the more sad I am that I'm not Lyra Belacqua and that Iorek Byrnison isn't my friend.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Sixteenth

Cinnamony cheat's/cheats' (are the cheats many or one?) porridge.

I got a new phone about four months ago, so naturally I have only made it as far as the D's in copying over numbers.  Mostly everyone I should like to communicate with has by now sent me a message, or phoned, and I have saved their numbers.

Every so often though, I get a missed call or a message from a number I haven't got saved. This tends to be a source of excitement, as it's usually some lovely person I haven't heard from in a while. You can imagine my disappointment then when today's mystery caller (I was driving so couldn't answer) followed their unanswered call with a text asking me to "check their straighteners were off." Given I live with a chap, whose name is in the D's, this was, alas, nothing more than a wrong number.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Fifteenth

Muesli and apple & mango juice again.

I have only four more days until my servitude with Satan ends, and then I join the ranks of the self-employed. I suspect this may translate to under-employed for the first little while, which brings me to wondering whether I am too old to give people orange squash bottle flower vases adorned with macaroni for Christmas, or perhaps painted boxes constructed out of cereal packets? Are these things only charming when offered by the under 10s? Thoughts please.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Twelve-to-Fourteen

No. 312: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

No. 213: Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and bacon.

No. 214: Muesli and apple & mango juice.

I very much enjoyed this assessment of the Snow White and the Huntsman trailer in The Guardian the other day.  I think I shall give it a miss. Though, I'm quite intrigued by Mirror Mirror. It rather pleases me to think that Snow White got up to more than housewife training during her time in the woods -- trumping Robin Hood it would seem. Apparently the Spice Girls' legacy lives on. All hail girl power (or something).

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eleventh

Toast with apricot jam and green tea.

No milk this morning, so I opted for green tea -- which is caffinated. I know this because my friend was once telephoned by her friend who had drunk eight cups in a row, not knowing that it was, to warn her not to do the same as he had severe shakes.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Nine-and-Ten

Doppelganger Special K with red berries.

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with apricot jam.

I wonder, after this bizarre exchange, how long it will be before Robert -- peculiar emphasis on words -- Peston will be invited back to PM:

Eddie Mair: Robert, thank you very much, it's lovely to see you.

Robert Peston: Well it's lovely to be back again. Why did you cast me out into the wilderness again? I thought we'd had the rapprochement.

Eddie Mair: Well anyway, we have to press on, thank you.

All very peculiar if you ask me. Here's the link: it's 35 minutes 24 seconds in.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eighth

Doppelganger Special K with red berries.

Oh my goodness, have just seen this in the sidebar of The Gruaniad: Spider Man is no more. Dear, oh dear, oh dear. Still, I suppose there's still Bananaman to keep us safe.  I am delighted to have discovered that Graeme Green and Tim Brooke-Taylor were the voices in the television series. (If you're interested in such things, I can also recommend a gander at Captain Planet's wikipedia page: you'll be amazed at some of the people who voiced characters in that...). And, for those of nostalgic bent, here's some Bananaman for you:

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Six-and-Seven

Bread, butter and honey.

French toast and bacon.

I wonder whether I haven't been a little remiss in not considering thievery as a money-making option. That's not to say I have a particular talent for it: other than some childhood raids on stores of sugary foodstuffs, my cat burglar potential has gone largely untested. However, what I do know is that I do not look like a thief. I regularly set off shop alarms (I am at a loss as to explain why) and yet no one ever suspects that the alarm going off is anything other than a fluke. I simply have to shrug my shoulders and move to open my bag before I am waved on by a security guard. Maybe it's the hair. Perhaps curly-haired girls don't look like larcenists.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Fifth

Mutant cinnamon and raisin bagel with apricot jam (it has no hole in the middle).

Tonight I go to bed full of smugness at having performed a ruthless wardrobe cull. The bags are in the hall. All I need to do now is make it to the charity shop/clothes collection bin without being tempted into granting amnesty to any "oh but I used to wear this lots" garments...

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and Fourth

Cinnamon and raisin bagel with apricot jam.

Most likely this is the only time I will ever write anything about FIFA, but amongst all the hoohah about poppy-wearing, I have to say I really don't know what they're so fussed about. I've never held on to a poppy longer than five minutes.

In all likelihood, the players will lose their poppies before they make out of the changing room. The few that make is far as the pitch will almost certainly fall off there. And given we live in these dark days of pin-less poppies, there's little danger of them posing any risk of injury.

Not like in my school days when one ran the risk of impailment if one wasn't wary about where one flung one's poppy-adourned jumper: I must confess I once sat on one... Still, the encounter wasn't enough to make me scorn prickly poppies. I was bemoaning their loss the other day when my father told me that in his day poppies were attached with wire that you passed though your jumper etc and twisted to keep them in place. Now that is a cunning idea: limited risk of being scewered, and harder to lose.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Third

A banana: the inevitable result of hitting snooze too many times.

This has been bothering me for some time... What on earth is the Twinings tea advert about? It starts out as some bizarre pastiche of a Winslow Homer painting, with some bedraggled woman taking out a row-boat in really not the right weather at all. After some agnsty rowing, she loses her oars, is rescued by some weird watery bird things that turn into massive bloody fish and finally washes up on a beach where she embraces a slightly less bedraggled version of herself... I have no idea what it has to do with tea. If anything it seems like an advert for PMT (though where's the appeal in that). Or some form of personality disorder.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-to-Three-Hundred-and-Two

No. 300: Muesli.

No. 301: Sesame bagel with damson jam.

No. 302: Fruit and Fibre.

The time of year when my feet turn into blocks of ice is nigh. I don't expect to feel my toes again until April. No matter how many pairs of socks I wear, or how many hot water bottles I tuck under my feet, they remain resolutely glacial for most of the winter. My fingers are generally similarly super-chilled too, which -- this evening -- may well make for a short post, as I am having a great deal of trouble striking the keys that I actually want.

Come winter time, my motivation to do the washing up often has more to do with a desire to feel my fingers again than any house pride.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Ninth

Porridge with brown sugar.

I think this may be my first porridge -- which is sort of incredible given I am rather fond of it, especially when swimming in cream (or at least full fat milk as it is here).

I've been Guy Fawkes-ing tonight at Dunvegan castle -- where we saw an amazing fireworks display. It's difficult to beat pyrotechnics reflected in a castle window.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Seven-and-Eight

Sesame bagel and damson jam.

Blueberry wheats and muesli.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bob Diamond's grilling on the Today program this morning. Huzzah for Eddie Mair. Huzzah for the Today program (except for the interminably long sports bit at around 8.30 -- boo to that).

Makes me proud to be a licence payer. Even if they do send me threatening, quasi-Stasi-ish notices about being "under investigation" despite the fact that I have renewed my licence.

Now that I think about it, the Stasi probably weren't in the habit of issuing red-letter printed warning notices about their "interest" in you...

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Five-and-Six

No 295: Sesame bagel with damson jam.

No. 296: Blueberry wheats.

I can't help wondering whether Germany and France are feeling rather like the ant in Aesop's fables to Greece's grasshopper amongst all this bailout furore.

I've never really liked that particular fable. Surely there must be some middle ground between singing all summer and slaving. Part singing, part slaving perhaps. We can't despise the grasshopper for being creative, can we -- even if he was a little financially short-sighted...

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-One-to-Four

No. 291: The kind of cereal I was never allowed when I was little; No. 292: Boiled Eggs in the amazing egg cup and soldiers; No. 293: Croissant and honey; No. 294: Forbidden cereal and blueberry wheats.

How's this for an eyebrow-raising blurb?

What's the most indulgent thing you've done for your pet – and does it beat buying it a pair of prosthetic testicles?

Strangely, three cat photos have graced the Guardian homepage today (as far as I have seen): the one accompanying this article, another illustrating an article on "how the recession is hurting our pets," and a mugshot of Beauty, the cat stolen -- Fatal Attraction-style -- from an MP's lover by his peeved wife...

Not sure what to make of this surfeit of feline stories.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Nintieth

Oaty, nutty smug healthy cereal from Real Foods.

Waking up to a still-warm hot water bottle is a pretty clear indication that you have not been asleep for long enough. Lately I've been yawning by on between five-and-a-half to six hours sleep most nights.

I've never been fantastic at going to bed at a sensible hour; it's often at 11 o'clock that I suddenly become efficient: writing letters, doing laundry, practising my cello (pizzicato so as not to enrage the neighbours).

It is not efficiency that's been keeping me up lately though. It is working for Satan. I think it's because going to sleep brings the next -- working -- day hurtling towards you. If you delay sleep, in a funny way, you delay work.

Tomorrow though is the day that I give Satan my notice. I'm rather looking forward to switching out the light tonight.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Ninth

Cinnamon and raisin bagel with damson jam, and a couple of plums.

If you can, you must watch the BBC's Frozen Planet. It is utterly, utterly captivating. Here's a little taster:



How I love David Attenborough. And penguins.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Eighth

Butterscotch pie and plums.

This evening, I walked past a man who looked remarkably like Wayne Rooney. I'm more than a little disquieted that I should be able to identify a man who looks like Wayne Rooney. That's the awful thing about c'lebs: somehow people you have absolutely no interest in knowing anything about sneak into your consciousness.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Seventh

Butterscotch pie (I know!).

Edinburgh has acquired its own Occupy movement. I first spotted them last week. I was sitting on the bus and I noticed a jolly-looking makeshift campsite in St Andrews square. There was a nicely lit-up tent and it all looked very civilised.

You can imagine my surprise then when I walked through St Andrews square on Saturday, as a ludicrous number of police milled about "keeping an eye" ( I presume) on a ragtag collection of entirely amiable, slightly dishevelled-looking people.

What is wrong with this country that we get completely hysterical about a collection of somewhat smelly campers pitching up in public parks to protest (entirely peacefully) against a system which props up the wealthiest one percent, whilst snatching much-needed services away from everyone else.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Sixth

Toast and tea.

I did not eat the soft toy. It belongs to my delicious goddaughter (whom I also did not eat).

I'm half-watching Troy instead of going to bed as I ought. I'd forgotten how entirely preposterous it is. Though, on the plus side, I've seen quite a lot of Brad Pitt's bottom.

Breakasts Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Four-and-Five

No. 284: Fruit and Fibre.

No. 285: Hog roast, cheese burger and hot chocolate.

Last night a friend told me about this wonderful C.S. Lewis quotation: "He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart."

Well, I certainly committed breakfast in my heart this morning. Though not with ham and eggs, but with - as you see -- hog roast, and a beef burger, and hot chocolate at the Farmers' Market.

It wasn't just me either. The lovely Miss Ferguson committed breakfast too. So it must alright.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and Eighty-Two and Three

No 272: Cinnamon and raisin bagel and a banana (munched at work).

No 273: Yoghurt and banana.

Dear lady at the bus station yesterday who went to the loo with three minutes to spare,

I did tell the bus driver you were coming. He was unmoved because it was "after departure time." I did think it was more than a little mean that he didn't wait, or indeed stop when you came running out, waving your arms. Please don't hate me too. I tried. I promise. I'm just not built for that kind of responsibility at 8.00 in the morning.