Tuesday 20 November 2012

A Scottish Souvenir



As the clock counts down towards our relocation we thought that it would be nice to take something down to Framlingham with us to remind us of our six month stay in St Andrews. So we had a good look around town at the weekend and went into several of the excellent galleries to see what was on offer. At the excellent Fraser Gallery we both fell in love with this little oil painting Maiden Voyage by award winning Scottish artist Alice McMurrough. We've not seen any of her paintings before but we had the same feeling about her art as we did twenty years ago when we first saw an exhibition by another of our favourite artists, P J Crook. We had to buy it. I appreciate that a local seascape or landscape might be a more fitting memento of our Scottish adventure but we tend to prefer more esoteric pieces. We went through the list of thirty or more pictures that we've got in store and tried to work out where in Framlingham we can hang them. We certainly wont be able to show them all so it looks like eBay or an art dealer beckons when we're settled in.   



This one, The Race by PJ Crook, is one that we won't be getting rid of. It's one of our favourites and hopefully we'll find a good spot to hang it. We've missed our paintings in the caravan although we did manage to find a space for this super watercolour by St Lucian artist Xavier Llewellyn. (no he didn't paint a pair of hands and a camera in it).



It's not long before our super new fitted kitchen installation begins in Framlingham. We're very excited about the prospect of cooking in a big kitchen again. People have asked us how we manage with our meals in the caravan but the little gas oven is okay and we eat pretty well. 




The other day I cooked this pork and aubergine bake and tonight I tried one of the Nigel Slater recipes from his latest series. The home made beef burgers which use ricotta cheese instead of the usual breadcrumbs to bind the mixture were absolutely delicious. With capers, spring onions and rosemary in the mix, the flavour was amazing. We'll certainly be downloading more of Nigel's meals from the BBC website; they're extremely easy too.


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