June 4, 2013

Slacker! !

That’s me. .. been slacking of late. Must admit though, my mind has been rather filled with other non bloggable stuff, so please excuse me for not keeping the flow going. ..

Last weekend saw me “dropped in it” at work, my day shift weekend was turned upside down; No supervisor! And that means I get landed with the job on top of the jobs I already do… so needles to say, not best pleased! !! This combined with an unresolved matter involving a third party! Has me just about ready to be taken away by the men in white coats.

Monday
My sanity has been aided by focusing on a bit of conservation work in the form of meeting other like minded souls, held in Cambo village hall. We discussed things like funding for the future and where we are at present regarding the monitoring of red squirrel numbers in Northumberland, here’s a snapshot from one of our monitoring sites

Tuesday
And a well deserved day out to the beach, what can i say, a stunning little beach and deserted…

This is sugar sands near Alnwick where we always migrate to when at the coast, the journey took us further up the coast to Crasta for a bite to eat and to purchase some Kippers,smoked salmon and kipper paté from L Robson & son these chaps have been smoking Kippers since 1906 and have the reciepe just right.

our rest was the Jolly Fisherman for a pint and some rather nice food, although i must say the stottie was no where near an actual proper one, correct me if i’m wrong, a stottie is the size of a tea plate,anything smaller in my eye’s is a bun!! infact, here’s the definition …

Question: What is a Stottie?

Stottie is a word you will only really hear in the North East of England, the home of the Stottie or Stottie Cake.

Answer: Stotties are famous in the North East of England, particularly but not exclusively around Newcastle. The stottie or stottie cake as it is also known is a large, round, flat bread – sometimes as large as 30cm diameter. The word comes from the local ‘geordie’ vernacular ‘to stott’ ( bounce.Traditionally the stottie would be quite a heavy, chewy bread, but modern bread making techniques now produce much lighter cakes. The cake however does need to be solid enough to hold a hefty filling once split – egg and bacon being a particular favourite.Similar bread cakes are made in other parts of the UK but are known variously as oven cakes, oven bottom cakes, bread cakes.