birthday – Donich Website

R’s Official Birthday

donich_admin — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 20:25:06 +0000

R’s birthday is 29th December. As you can imagine, this is not the best date to have your birthday. The weather is always awful, everyone is away, and the idea of having yet another set of rich food and drink between Christmas and New Year is not appealing. Last year I wanted to take him away on holiday for a few days – but that week is prohibitively expensive because obviously everyone else has the same idea.

So I got to thinking that if the Queen can have an official birthday – why not R too. So this Sunday is R’s official birthday and he will be having some surprises. Of course even though it is June the weather is almost bound to be awful as it is a weekend and I am planning something special.

Happy Birthday Mum

donich_admin — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 18:53:05 +0000

I made my Mum a special meal for her birthday today. We had brown shimps with bread and butter, a seafood ‘melange’ (monkfish and assorted seafood in a tomato sauce topped with cheese), and a rather nice (even if I say so myself) chocolate and raspberry cake.

Back to home and the healthy regime shortly – I will very kindly refrain from bringing R a slice of the cake home with me….

Happy Birthday R

donich_admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:59:53 +0000

It is R’s birthday today. I won’t say which one – but as we have been together for twenty years come 2015 it would be fair to say that he may now be considered middle aged. There also may be a clue in the picture of the bottle of wine which I bought for him last year.

I hope you have a great birthday and a happy year ahead R….

The R on the cake is done in stars because R is my star (and also to be honest because I forgot to buy candles).

More Birthday Fun

donich_admin — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:01:29 +0000

I suppose I was quite lucky that my birthday was on a Tuesday this year because it meant that I got to have a second go at it on Saturday.

N and R came over and we had a little bonfire night party with birthday fireworks supplied by N and materials for the fire supplied by everyone who has left us with a lot of packaging material in the last year. I made barbeque food (steaks, sausages, burgers for R, corn on the cob, mushrooms etc) but I cooked it inside. The original idea was that we would then eat it outside, but as it was drizzling with rain by that point we just ate it at the table. Washed down with champagne it tasted pretty good.

I also got my presents from my Mum and Dad – a nice T-Shirt, a music box, an onyx polar bear and (best thing) a beautiful little porcelain clock with swans on it from my Dad. It is one of those intricate, fascinating things I could spend hours looking at. So I can’t think where to put it – part of me says ‘place of honour on the mantelpiece’ and another part of me says ‘shut it in the china cabinet before the cats get it’.

Happy Birthday

donich_admin — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 07:05:15 +0000

To me – I won’t say how old I am – but you can work it out if I say that my first visit to Lochgoilhead was as a baby – and that would have been in 1967

We lived in Balloch then, and believe it or not I was so Scottish sounding that when I moved to Carlisle at aged three, no one could understand a word I said. So I may sound English now – but I was born in Helensburgh and have lived all my adult life in Scotland – so I am going to consider myself an honorary long time resident of Argyll.

High Tea

marionmccune — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:20:26 +0000

I tried an experiment for my Dad’s (84th) birthday and made a traditional Scottish ‘High Tea’. For non-natives – this is a sort of combination between afternoon tea and dinner. You have a simple but filling cooked dish, followed by a variety of baked things (largely of the sweet variety). It is eaten about 6pm instead of (you couldn’t do as well as!) tea and dinner.

So I cooked…

For my Dad and R – fresh haddock shallow fried in (homemade) breadcrumbs with chips (made from scratch and deep fried) and peas.
From my Mum and I – salmon (it had to be the red tinned stuff) salad (bits of it from the early garden crops).
All with homemade bread and butter.

Then we had a mound of griddle scones, still warm from the pan and served wrapped in a tea towel.
Rhubarb pie (some from the garden but not enough to fill a pie yet) with cream.
Eccles cakes, strawberry cream sponge cakes, jam tarts, chocolate éclairs.
Simnel cake.

This should have all been washed down with tea. But as it was a birthday and R doesn’t like tea – we had some champagne instead.

Not food for every day but for a treat it was very nice even if I say so myself.