I managed to make these rolls in just over an hour the other day – albeit with the aid of a little modern technology.  .  Either use a 500g bread mix (I used Wright’s mixed seed) or make a basic mix yourself (500g strong bread flour, 320ml warm water, 1tsp fast acting yeast, 1tsp sugar, 1tsp salt).  Put it in the bread maker and set it to ‘Pizza’ – I think most bread makers have  this setting – on mine it mixes the dough, kneads it, and then proves it for about 30 mins, but doesn’t bake it (the overall time is 45 minutes).    While this is happening, heat the oven to fan 200C, grease a baking tray, sprinkle a large dinner plate with flour and beat up an egg into a cup.

As soon as the bread maker is finished, tip the dough out and quickly divide into 8 pieces.  Shape them into rolls and put them on the floured plate.  Turn the microwave to 10% power (or defrost if similar) and cook for 4 minutes (keep an eye on them during this and be ready to turn off quickly if it looks to be actually cooking).  The rolls should be risen a bit after this – they will rise more in the oven.  Brush quickly with the egg and sprinkle with some seeds.  Slam in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes or until brown and sounding hollow when tapped.

This really works as you can see in the picture – they also tasted very nice.  They were also absolutely huge – much better risen than my usual method of making them.

But down at house/loch level the daffodils are struggling into bud and a few crocuses are coming out around the front door (they have a struggle to survive because the squirrels keep nipping their heads off).

A hundred miles south of here where my Mum lives, spring has definitely arrived as per the photo she sent me this morning.

But here in the highlands winter lingers a bit longer – it is not unusual to see snow on Bheula at the end of April.

We have a lot of creature activity at the moment (badgers, pine marten and a mated pair of roe deer – plus the frogs and accompanying heron of course) but unfortunately we had to move the feeding area closer to the web cam so that we could take advantage of the new high resolution camera – which means we can’t see the feeding area out of the window any more.  However we have plans to put another camera on the side of the house, plus bring back the one near the pond (on our new high strength outside wireless network).

These were some of the views… This is a great medium length (8m) walk and all on good paths – a fair bit of uphill though.

Although it was so cold today – I am still seeing some signs that spring may be on its way. Crocuses and narcissi are struggling to poke their green shoots through the ground and yesterday R and I heard a woodpecker hammering in the woods. Still plenty of time for heavy snow and storms though – I learned not to count on spring arriving early here the year before last when winter came back with a vengeance in March and killed all the blossom on my fruit trees.

Sure enough, it arrived on Monday and with it came the rain. We went from days like this – sunset on Sunday.

To days like today – view of the loch this morning.

Actually R is tempting fate buying something that can’t be used in the rain – we could now be in for a year like our first one here when it rained every day without fail between October and March.

I’d put a bit of leftover roast pork out for the creatures, and just after 5am the fox found it. It was just starting to munch on it when a white streak shot across the screen – it was one of the cats but too fast to see which one. The fox fled for its life. Two minutes later the camera activated again with Schrodi sitting on the stone where the meat was – so I guess the victor was him. So the fox is terrified of the cats, presumably because although he is larger, they are in their home territory. He couldn’t have been that scared though because half an hour later when the cats had gone he was back to finish his dinner.

We had another wonderful creature night as always seems to happen when we get a mild one in winter; pine marten, two badgers and the fox. Plus there were deer crashing around in the trees when I was out making a bonfire this afternoon.

The picture is of the fox just before Schrodi swooped in.

This was the snow in the afternoon.

And the next morning – when of course he would have been fine to get back to Glasgow.

It all looked very pretty – we have yet to experience a cold winter while living here – so maybe this year will be a re-enactment of 2009/2010

Suffice it to say that when we got onto the foothills, it started to rain and the wind was up.  R had not brought his waterproof trousers and was already looking thoroughly miserable.  So rather unwillingly on my part, we gave up on the mountain and walked to Loch Sloy instead.  

Since the 1930s this is essentially a hydro system with a large and sinister looking dam across it.  There was an access tunnel with “strictly no access – danger of spalling”.  As the gates were open, the area had obviously extensively been used by sheep, and we didn’t know what spalling was, we took our chances on it, and walked through to look at the loch.  It was all rather dreich and looked like the sort of place Deep Ones might hang out so we didn’t linger and went back through the spalling tunnel again.

R took this very creepy looking panorama of me on the dam “To the dark castle then she came…”

Now I am home I looked up spalling and apparently it is flakes of rock breaking off – as far as danger signs go “falling rocks” might just be more effective.