a week back.

Well, it's been a week since we returned from our fantastic trip home and things are going well. I took my Gaelic exam, at least the second half of it, on Saturday afternoon and I think I did quite well on it. We went to a great church service at our church, New Restalrig on Sunday and enjoyed a nice walk through Holyroon Park, even if it did sprinkle on us a bit. We also went to go see Thor at the Omni Center, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not Oscar-worthy by any means, but it was a fun and humorous comic book based film to go see on a date with my husband. On our walk home I snapped this photo of the Duke of Wellington horse and rider statue with the Balmoral Hotel in the background.

Taken with my phone.

I've also gone on a cooking kick, where I'm not only making dinner pretty much every night, but also making lunch for the both of us a few days out of the week as well. I'm on this omelette spree right now. On the day of Laurel's wedding, Christal made the both of them (since they hadn't eaten all day, silly girls) an omelette with red bell pepper, spinach, and feta cheese--and I haven't stopped thinking of it since. Today I kicked it up a notch and added quartered plum tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and a hint of lemon juice, and boy was it tasty! I've also got this Moroccan Chicken Tangine recipe that I make quite often, and did again the other night. The spices and flavors of everything together is near divine. That cous-cous is simply a store-bought instant bag boiled with chicken broth and apple juice instead of water, with dried apricots, honey, lemon juice, and sliced almonds. It's absolutely delicious.

Also taken with my phone.

The days are lasting surprisingly long already. I suppose it's not surprising for someone who has lived here during the summer, but when there's still light in the sky at 10:45PM, and the sun starts it climb back into the sky sometime between three and four in the morning and you don't expect it, it's surprising. Up in the Highlands and Islands in midsummer the sun never really completely sets, it's what's called the 'summer dim'. I honestly quite like it as one who loves sunlight, even muted grey sunlight, coming through the windows of whatever room she's in.
It's nice actually, where I was walking to my fiddle class at 7PM in near darkness only a few months ago, now I walk home from my fiddle class in plenty of light and usually able to observe a brilliant light show by the dazzling sunset. Case in point, last night:

Also taken with my phone, though I wish I'd had my DSLR.

There's nothing quite like a spectacularly bright and colorful ending to a drearily cloudy and drizzly grey day is there? Well, Edinburgh sure knows how to do that right.

I'm still plugging away sifting through books and articles for my dissertation, and it's going well, but nothing of substance to really report, other than how lucky I feel to be writing a dissertation for which I must read old Scottish tales and examine Celtic beliefs and deities relating to animals among other things.

Oh, and happy birthday to Josh Foreman and Rachel Foreman Courser!

Caitlin