Fish Van to Visit Kilchoan

Looking for fresh fish? The Buckie Fresh Fish van will start fortnightly visits on Wednesday March 15th. It'll be outside the shop between 2.30 and 3.00pm, and at the Community Centre from 3.00 to 3.30pm.

It's starting this service on a trial basis. To make these visits worthwhile, it will need regular support.

The Most Westerly Burns Night?

From Alasdair Thornton:

Around the turn of the century, celebrations of Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns, found their way along the Ardnamurchan Peninsula.

Details of exactly when they started are somewhat blurred, we do know however that Selkirk Builder Alan Tough (Toughie) was instrumental in setting things up and remains heavily involved to this day.

The first gatherings were held at Sonachan and moved to Glenborrodale Castle for the last couple of years.

Tickets were invariably scarce and to meet ever increasing demand the venue this year will be the Kilchoan Community Centre where, with the considerable help of the Community Centre Board, we hope to accommodate over sixty guests.

The Bill O’ Fare includes beer and cheese from the Isle Of Mull, May McNicol’s famous tablet, and award winning haggis all the way from Selkirk with an escort of 29 of Selkirk’s finest.

Songs, poems and traditional speeches are all planned with all proceeds from the tickets, at £20, going towards local community projects via the Community Centre.

In addition a raffle, for which donations are welcome, will be held and funds split between good causes in Kilchoan and Selkirk.

Tickets for the event, on 3rd February at 7pm, are available from the Steading Holidays Office in Kilchoan.

Soup

After yesterday's frost, a different winter arrived this morning. When last night's band of heavy rain met the residual cold air it turned to snow on the hills. Down at our level, it's been dark, cold and damp all day.

But winter does have some pleasures, and one of them is home-made soup, best enjoyed after a morning's walking in the hills.

This is a vegetable soup, one which gives us particular pleasure when, even in December....

....all the main ingredients are still coming from our own garden. The most surprising garden product this year was one entirely grown and nurtured by Mrs Diary - the garlic. We didn't expect garlic to survive in the wet summer we've just had, but some cloves stuck into a rather unpromising bed almost two years ago suddenly woke up and proved us wrong.

I can at least claim some credit for the excellence of the vegetable soup. The recipe comes from a book I gave Mrs Diary over 50 years ago when we were courting. Unlike modern recipe books, it has no pictures, few fancy ingredients, and no TV celebrity author - just good, wholesome recipes.