Scottish: hi my participant number is f c five two p one please call stella ask her to bring these things with her from the store six spoons of fresh snow peas five thick slabs of blue cheese and maybe a snack for her brother bob we also need a small plastic snake and a big toy for the kids she can scoop these things into three red bags and we will go meet her wednesday at the train station

Scottish: hello my participant number is f c five two dash p two please call stella ask her to bring these things with her from the store six spoons of fresh snow peas five thick slabs of blue cheese and maybe a snack for her brother bob we also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids she can scoop these things into three red bags and we will go meet her wednesday at the train station

Scottish: so when you were growing up what was your favorite game to play

Scottish: i actually enjoyed when we used to play hide and seek up near the mountains uh there was a lot of space to row the boat there was a lot of hiding places and we obviously knew the area do you remember when mom used to take us up there and let us run about mud

Scottish: that's right it's such an open space up there and there are so many tree there are so many trees and really cool hiding places as you say i remember playing down by the barn do you remember that little bridge

Scottish: yes i do remember the bridge the little stone one what a lovely place that was

Scottish: that's right we used to throw the stones in and see who could throw the throw the farthest over to the other side

Scottish: that's right i remember that little barn causing many havoc in our family i think

Scottish: i know i think that it's still there to this day although there was a lot of flooding up there recently so i'm not too sure how stable it is because i remember back then it was always a bit old and worn so hopefully it's still there i must go up there and see what other games did you like to play

Scottish: just liked swimming in the lake up there

Scottish: that's right that looks beautiful up there i remember we used to jump in as well

Scottish: that's right it was never too deep though never too deep that you couldn't enjoy walking about round it et cetera

Scottish: no that's true and do you ever remember when we got the little fishing rods and we caught those tiny little fish that had stripes on them

Scottish: that's right were they not baby tadpoles

Scottish: no i think that was at another time we we caught little fish and they were sort of a silvery kind of brown color they weren't much bigger than your pinky finger i'm not sure if you remember that that was quite a while ago

Scottish: yeah i think i do remember that mom used to let us look at them for a while and then throw them back into the water

Scottish: that's right we don't we didn't ever want to keep them well we did want to keep them as pets but mom would always say it's much kinder to throw them back in

Scottish: that's right do you remember we used to play football out there

Scottish: i do that's right and we used to use that big oak tree as the goals

Scottish: that's right yeah i think people still use that out there i've seen people recently up there playing football and they play exactly the way we did for almost twenty years ago

Scottish: that's amazing isn't the same space it's still used the same way but we have such fond memories growing up there and lots of generations will probably do the same

Scottish: absolutely it probably used exactly the same long before us as well

Scottish: that's that's true it's nice to know that they're preserving that area and not actually building any houses on it

Scottish: well not yet anyway

Scottish: no well i think part of it is protected i'm sure that has so hopefully they won't move on to that part necessarily but i know that there is a lot of um work going on up there to do with scottish water

Scottish: that's right i've seen that recently a lot of pipes going in

Scottish: that's right i think it's to do with the waterworks actually up at um near (())

Scottish: uh yeah i see i know where that is yeah well hopefully they get it sorted soon and they can leave it alone again

Scottish: well that's such a beautiful space update anyway talking of beautiful spaces have you got anything but for your holiday this year

Scottish: yes go to spain what of yourself

Scottish: lovely yeah we are gonna way to spain also but we're not going until the end of the year really we've got friends over there so we're going to visit them for christmas what about yourself you're going in spain

Scottish: going to alicante for two weeks

Scottish: that's great that's lovely there i've heard it's really really nice i haven't been myself but there it is beautiful and i've seen pictures have you been before

Scottish: yeah i've been before there are good lovely beaches over there you always get a good deal too

Scottish: mm did you get a good deal

Scottish: yeah yeah i got a good deal two weeks all inclusive in alicante what about yourself are you staying with friends

Scottish: we are yes our flights were quite expensive though but i think that's because of the time of year that we're going um i wouldn't have thought that they would have been that expensive but we were talking about six hundred pounds for um a week so quite a lot considering it's only for the flights

Scottish: six hundred pounds for flights that's quite interesting

Scottish: yes just for two people that's all

Scottish: uh is robson not going with you

Scottish: no he's going to be staying with his grandparents

Scottish: ah lucky him

Scottish: that's that we're going to have christmas altogether and then afterwards we're going over to see our friends for a while so it's been about four years since we've seen them so it'll be really nice to

Scottish: no it's long overdue

Scottish: ye yeah so it'll be really nice to get over there and see them who else is going away with you is it just you and loida

Scottish: yeah yeah me and loida it'll be a good time i'm looking forward to it it's been a long time since we went away i think i think when the last time we went was before covid i was trying to work that over um i think the last time we went was before covid and unfortunately we've not been able to go anywhere since

Scottish: that's a shame i think a lot of people are in that boat as well you know they've not been able to get away because of covid and various different reasons with working or not so a lot of people are really happy to be getting away again this year it makes a big difference to how you feel when you've got something like that to look forward to doesn't it

Scottish: well absolutely it changes your mindset completely i always want to have holidays booked and we've had this alicante holiday booked for some time but i think going forward we're probably gonna have to make sure that we have at least one holiday booked to look forward to and i have seen the covid rates are going up again this week but um hopefully that's just a a a um a blip in the road and we can we can continue on as normal

Scottish: absolutely i think it's going to be a bit like that you know throughout the year but probably will peak and then start to drop down again although i guess it just depends on what different people are up to you know lots of people are traveling again lots of people together for the jubilee so i think it just depends on the circumstances for certain people throughout the throughout the months doesn't it but because we're trying to live with covid now it's that way we have to just use your common sense and wear a mask if you have to go to the shops and if if you are positive and obviously if you're unwell you would just need to explain to your work i'm not sure how it works in terms of time off now and what your eligibility would be if it's just causes another sickness if you would need to have a sick note do you know anything about that then your guidelines to do with work

Scottish: no i don't know anything about it it's so hard to keep a track of it sometimes though um i don't doubt though that if it was to affect me i would find out and and do the right thing

Scottish: absolutely you remember that book that grandma used to read to us when we were young called the magic porridge pot

Scottish: yes i do a brilliant book a gre a great scottish book into the the bargain but she used to read it so well what what a brilliant book that was

Scottish: it was i i tried to find it recently at the library when i was there and i couldn't find it i asked at the desk and they didn't actually know which one i was talking about and i was trying to explain it and this storyline i knew it really well actually when i when i was thinking about it um but i did have a look on amazon and it was there so i've ordered it and it should be here in a couple couple of days but it was funny because i remember that it's really really well and it's funny the things you remember from your childhood doesn't it

Scottish: absolutely obviously there was five years between us so um you'll remember certain things that i wouldn't remember as much but i do remember the magic porridge pot getting read to us and again the grandma was such a great storyteller her and grandpa to be honest but um certainly they could read the book to keep us and captivated

Scottish: that's it i'm really looking forward to getting it because it'll give me some really nice memories of them

Scottish: yeah yeah

Scottish: i'll be able to pass on

Scottish: about nostalgia as well isn't it and the thing is as well you can you can um read it to robson and obviously then it becomes a you know almost pass down the the family as such

Scottish: well that's that i can try and recreate it the way that she used to tell it to us with all three voices and things

Scottish: yeah you'd be doing well it'd be as good as grandmother <laugh>

Scottish: ah well that's that's true

Scottish: uh experience experience is everything i guess it's

Scottish: yeah

Scottish: it's all it just learning these things and you know these we (()) things that stay in your memory i guess and don't get me wrong it's not something that i routinely remembered but when you mentioned it there i i knew straight away what you were talking about

Scottish: it's interesting isn't it because i haven't noticed that they've made a cartoon of it quite a lot of the old fairy tales have all been made into cartoons but that one's never been made into cartoon and it's such a nice little story so it would be so nice to be able to watch it as well

Scottish: yeah no i i would absolutely be um nice obviously if you have children um i'm not so sure it has a great selling point other than scotland though and

Scottish: mm

Scottish: maybe something that you know it's considered making up here but i'm not sure how popular is out with scotland as a story

Scottish: and that's a fair point actually thinking about it mm i did notice that they're remaking the movie of the little mermaid did you see that

Scottish: oh really is it a disney production

Scottish: i think it might be but it looks like it might be in real life you know more kind of real life as opposed to animated

Scottish: ah yeah disney are going in a a very different direction i think um so t to kinda moving away from the animated side of things uh not certainly being absolutely animated that they're starting to move away and you know diversify their their films (()) but that's been the last sort of decade or so they've been doing that

Scottish: absolutely it's it's quite interesting though how they're they're remaking these things and sort of bringing it into new era it's quite it's quite good i haven't seen

Scottish: yeah

Scottish: i haven't seen the beauty and the beast and i know that they remade that i've never watched that or the lion king actually i've not seen them

Scottish: no neither have i and loida went to see beauty and the beast though he said it was very good

Scottish: oh really

Scottish: it was the one with uh emma watson wasn't that

Scottish: okay no i haven't had the time to watch them yet but it's definitely something that i should watch because i i love that film as a young child i absolutely loved it

Scottish: absolutely do you remember we used to watch every single week modern lifes homeward bound

Scottish: that's right and i think with that movie it was really different for us because the animals talked remember so we we sort of used to think the animals really could talk and it was that sort of wonder of how did they make the animals do that you know it was i love that

Scottish: that's great yeah

Scottish: we even named our <overlap> cat after the cat remember

Scottish: oh what was the name of the cat again

Scottish: sassy

Scottish: yes that's right she was a great cat (()) can you believe she was twenty two when she died

Scottish: wow that's old my cat that i had just sadly recently had to be put down and she lived to fourteen so to think that she was a whole eight years older than her is crazy because sydney was really old she showed her age quite quickly you know after a while she was you could tell that she was old she just wasn't as spritely as she used to be so to think sassy was a whole eight years older than that as it was always <overlap>

Scottish: <overlap> for cats to believe

Scottish: that's right they can they they their health can rapidly decline sadly and it's a shame do you have any pets

Scottish: it's a shame i did have a dog however he also passed away unfortunately um he was only young he he wasn't even three years old and uh he suffered from epilepsy and he suffered very badly from it and he was medicated appropriately uh however unfortunately he um couldn't really live any longer and he was suffering more or less daily and after consultation with the vet we had to make a decision it's hard decision from one of the certainly one of the hardest decisions of my life but um an unselfish one i believe

Scottish: of course that's such a shame i'm really sorry to hear that i'm sure you had a very good life despite his health issues though

Scottish: i think he made the most of it and we tried to take him as many places as we could and give them everything they wanted or certainly not a dog can want anything but things that we think they would like and we try we try give but un unfortunately that's just life sometimes isn't it

Scottish: that's right do you think you'll get another pet then

Scottish: i think in due course we will possibly and it's tough right now because he obviously has you know it was only four or five months ago that he he passed away and you know it leaves such a void but what can you do you know you need to you need to move on at some point and maybe one day we'll get another dog i'm not sure i'm not sure

Scottish: sure in terms of me with my cat i mean we obviously had her for fourteen years since she was a baby and like we said before her health did rapidly decline quite quickly once we found out that she was unwell so we knew it was the right thing to do is to send her to sleep which was like you know uneasy thing at all because you don't want to lose your pet but you have to look at it from their point of view and what kind of quality of life they have so i think like you we probably won't get any more pets at the moment

Scottish: absolutely it's um it play such a massive part in your life and i i think you are almost kinda oblivious to that until you know they aren't there anymore and y you realize at the time when you you're looking after them that they they are such a massive part of your life but then when they're not there you realize just how big a part of your life they are and it's it's really difficult sometimes i think when they're not there either

Scottish: that's right we do the they're part of the family and when they're in your life for so long you just get so used to them being there so when they're not it takes such a bit of adjustment to get used to that

Scottish: well that's sad exactly on to happier things and have you tried any new recipes recently now

Scottish: i have actually i tried a really nice spanish potato and chorizo dish recently is that something that you like

Scottish: well that sounds really nice what what do you put in it other than the the main ingredients

Scottish: so i don't know if you've done this before but slow cooked chorizo is actually really really nice it it's you know sometimes when you cook it it can become a little bit tough

Scottish: yeah yeah

Scottish: so i slow cooked it with a tomato based sauce with onions and garlic smoked paprika and then i did the potato separately i chopped them all up parboiled them and then sprayed them with the frylight it's a bit healthier seasoning and put them in the oven and slow cooked the chorizo mixture on low for maybe around three hours or so and then basically once the potatoes were ready i took them out and poured the mix over the top and i just served it with couscous and some coleslaw it was quite simple quite easy and r r really really tasted so nice though it was lovely

Scottish: yeah and it sounds healthy as well actually yeah it sounds very nice sounds like something i would eat actually and tell me something did you cook the whole chorizo like as a whole or did you cut it up before you mixed um slow cooked it

Scottish: so i chopped it up um but i didn't chop it up too small because i didn't want it to to ove what would be the word go a bit tough you know sometimes when you o o when you have the chorizo it can do that so the bigger the you leave it the softer it becomes

Scottish: all right okay oh yeah about that mixture it's like a so is it just a whole chorizo you put in and

Scottish: that's right just chop it up maybe about two centimeters something like that into t two centimeter pieces and then just pop it in with the the tomato mixture honestly it was really really nice it was quite filling as well so i'm always trying to

Scottish: yeah absolutely it sounds it

Scottish: yeah i'm always trying to find new recipes when it comes to this time of year because i don't always feel like really big heavy meals you'll probably be the same

Scottish: i know absolutely it's the last thing you want is you know a steak pie or something like that you wanna have something that's that's um quite light and even more easy to eat and you know especially with the rising temperatures recently uh it's not it's not easy to to have such an appetite especially when it's um now more more more humid et cetera y you'd probably rather go for that well a mediterranean diet funnily enough

Scottish: that's right what kind of recipes have you been making recently

Scottish: well you know yourself i don't make a lot of things um loida tends to cook in this house but um really she made a nice uh tikka pasta recently

Scottish: all right

Scottish: really nice actually it was um it was roast chicken with tikka though it and and then uh all the spices et cetera but it was like a cream based pasta so it it wasn't too heavy though it was quite nice and especially the way it was made but um yeah i i i just want pasta i could i could live on pasta really

Scottish: mm yeah same here i i do love pasta i've ever told you about the recipe that i make and it's with a balsamic glaze so it's it's more like a sort of it's not like really saucy but it's more of a coating for the pasta and it's made with a bal balsamic glaze that's really nice it should be light as well and not very many

Scottish: you've not told me about that no

Scottish: not very many ingredients i actually used to always go to la vita restaurant and that was the pasta i would always get so i decided to try and recreate it during lockdown last year because we weren't able to get there <laugh> so i

Scottish: ah very nice

Scottish: yeah i found all the ingredients sundried tomatoes mushrooms good quality pancetta smoked or unsmoked whatever you prefer and some

Scottish: absolutely yeah

Scottish: toasted pine nuts and

Scottish: what was that pasta called again

Scottish: nonna pasta

Scottish: ah and what what was in it again was there any meat in it or was it just vegetarian

Scottish: it was good quality pancetta put that in it's really simple actually it's really really simple some garlic cook it all off and add it all together the balsamic glaze works a lot better than the balsamic vinegar because that's just a bit too wet it's too much liquid to to have to try and

Scottish: oh absolutely yeah yeah

Scottish: thicken it up a bit

Scottish: it's quite interesting it's quite interesting it sounds very nice actually

Scottish: it is it's lovely it's once you try it you'd be making it all the time because as i say it's really it's really fresh and really light and it's not too heavy because sometimes pastas can be a bit starchy you know like macaroni cheese i absolutely love that but it can just be so filling and heavy

Scottish: yeah

Scottish: have you ever tried the macaroni cheese from sugo

Scottish: sugo in the town

Scottish: yeah

Scottish: no no no i haven't try them um d do you know strangely enough i have never been to sugo i absolutely love paesano but i've never been to sugo

Scottish: wow you should definitely go they have all fresh made pasta it's delicious if you love pasta

Scottish: i've heard great things about it

Scottish: if you love pasta you'll love it there

Scottish: oh absolutely i've heard great things of it heard their ragù is very good as well actually

Scottish: mm i don't think i've tried that from there but it's been a while since i've had a ragù i do really like that at

Scottish: pasta is very good and it's really lovely this time of year we could try and get to sugo at some time

Scottish: you should definitely it's has really good reviews as well i haven't been to the pizza place though like you say is it paesano did you say

Scottish: yeah there's one in the town and there's one in the west end as well

Scottish: oh lovely

Scottish: it's very good it's very m make it obviously fresh for you and it's um it's lovely

Scottish: oh

Scottish: so good all sorts of different toppings on it et cetera um you can obviously mix and match and add things to it and take things off et cetera it's lovely

Scottish: really nice is it if the can you choose the different bases or is it all the same

Scottish: no you always it's just a um think it's proven sourdough over like forty eight hours or something like that but it's the base is so good honestly y you wouldn't want any other base if you tried that

Scottish: wow definitely something i'll try then you try the pasta one i'll try the pizza one

Scottish: i'll let you know how i get on <laugh>

Scottish: absolutely

Scottish: uh how's the macaroni there

Scottish: it's really really nice i it's really really nice i i believe it's f five different cheeses so it's really cheesy as you can imagine

Scottish: ah okay yeah yeah yeah i ca i can i can imagine