It's the Final Countdown.
- Becca Wilson
- Dec 11, 2017
- 4 min read
Helloooooo! The countdown has begun - to Christmas and to NZ.
As you know, this time of year is a busy one, and on top of that I've had a family wedding and it's only 4 weeks until we leave. Hence, the lack of blogs recently so I apologise for that. I wanted to give you a little update on what's been going on. I have been writing, but writing Sinterklaas poems rather than my blog, woops!
Scott and I have just got back from a long, busy weekend in Edinburgh. We were meant to be travelling down last Friday, however, due to Storm Caroline (sweet carolineeeee - she wasn't very sweet was she!?) LoganAir allowed us to change our flights to a day earlier (free of charge) so we made it down safely for the wedding. The journey was a little bumpy but I still managed to drink my complimentary cup of tea without any spillages. Anyway, we had a great weekend. We wandered around the Xmas Market (don't go there on an empty stomach - the aromas around make you very hungry), checked out the Blue Dome on George Street, sipped on red wine and ate smoked chilli and lemon toasted nuts in the Voyage of Buck (a very hygge bar in the west end), enjoyed two dinners out and attended a beautiful wedding in the Georgian House. Busy, busy, busy.
I managed to cook one meal for my mum - a roast tomato and red onion risotto with plenty of crumbly cheese. I think she was pretty impressed with how much my risotto has improved. We enjoyed two dinners out so I'll tell you a little about where we went. The wedding meal was in Banns - a vegetarian restaurant on St Mary's Street. The food there is always really good. Basically, all of the dishes are tempting and they offer vegan and GF options too. On the menu, a lot of the dishes have GF next to them. Just watch out, the dishes marked with GF or a V for vegan can be adapted so make sure you request for that. We went full out and had three courses. I started with the Salad of ginger spiced pear, walnut and polenta croûtons. It was very tasty and all of the flavours came together really well. Other starters included Thai fritters with broccoli and marinated tofu. I chose the Puy lentil shepherd’s pie with roasted vegetables for my main. On a cold night, it was the perfect dish. All of the mains sounded delicious but the Spiced quinoa, spinach, hazel and walnut courgette wrap with a rice arancino was the other dish that caught my eye. If you are a vegetarian or like vegetarian food, I would really recommend trying it out. The puddings are good too - especially the dark chocolate souffle.
The other restaurant is now a new favourite of Scotts. He hadn't been to Three Birds before and I had only been once in October. My dad was down for the weekend from Cromarty so we all ventured out and what a great venture it was. As I've mentioned before, all of their dishes are GF unless stated otherwise, which is so reassurring when you're out for dinner. I went for the Spinach polenta fries with pickled, roasted & salt baked beetroots, shallot, rosemary & Madeira jam, blue cheese, pickled sweetcorn & walnuts. Wow it's making my mouth water as I type. The food is of a very high standard and you don't need to renew your mortgage to dine out there. Perfect.
It was great being back in Edinburgh and Scott and I felt like we hadn't been away. We're back in Orkney now but I am heading back to Edinburgh in a week for the festive period then Scott will be down just after Xmas so we can enjoy NY in Edinburgh before we head off.
As I mentioned, it is now only 4 weeks until we start our adventure. A mix of emotions is going on but we are pretty organised now - we've attemped our 20KG pack, got all of our documents ready, I've ordered 12 months of monthly lenses and picked up a few last bits and bobs - headtorch, multi-tool and flight socks. When I say that we're organised, I'm sure there will be a few things we haven't thought about but that's the fun of what we're choosing to do. We've chosen to give up the known and are excited (and a little nervous) about what 2018 will bring.
I'm hoping to do a little more cooking during my last week up here and I know my mum will hope that I am doing all of the cooking when I'm back in Edinburgh. I hope I can share new recipes with you as much as I can, but you know what it's like when you're busy - you end up rustling up something you've made before. In my next blog, I would like to share where to find the best Xmas Veggie GF food so hopefully that will be useful.
That's all for now. Below are some photos from Edinburgh so feel free to have a peek. Cheers for now x gf v x
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