Well, I finally got a shot at one – with the camera!!

And here’s my pheasant:

I was finally able to get a lovely picture while I was visiting friends near Leeds. We made a trip to Harewood House while we were there, and that’s where we found this old boy just hanging out along a path.

We enjoyed the Med and the pool, spending the majority of the holiday there. Here’s a pic from the casbah in Hammamet.

But we also enjoyed the desert. While we were in Tunisia, we spent two days of trip exploring the country. I believe I’ve seen 75% of that country now. We even spent a night in the desert, under the stars in tents! Pretty nice, I think.

The trip took in El Djem, a well preserved coliseum, and then went on to show us some cave dwellings and places which were Star Wars. We also took in a camel trip, which Paul and I opted out of, but Paul did get some nice Camels for me.

The best part was seeing the sun rise on the Sahara. Yes, yours truly was up at 4:30 am in order to see the sunrise at 10 past five in the morning. And it was worth it. Check it out:

Isn’t that beautiful?

Our trip in the desert ended that day, seeing a beautiful oasis featured in The English Patient.

It was a good trip overall, lovely weather and much more to see than anticipated. There are even more photos in the gallery, if you’d like to gawk a bit more.

The Angel of the North is a large piece of sculpture that is just off the A1.  We’ve driven by this piece of art a couple times, when we go up to Scotland on the route that takes us past Newcastle. We don’t normally go this route, so I’ve only been by once or twice. The weather has never been particularly good, or we’ve been in the frame of mind “must get to Dundee,” so photographing it has never been foremost in our minds. This time, however, we made a special stop to capture Flat Stanley in front of this artwork, and a quick pic for my blog. So, here you go!

We had two options at our disposal, take full advantage of being in Scotland and find a good pub, or take advantage of being in Scotland and do some outdoor activity. So, we decided to go on the Three Brethren Walk, a walk up a big hill with three cairns at the top. And boy was it something.

Here’s the view down the first hill in the walk that we went up. This was a wooded area and there was a stream running along side this road. Once at the top of the hill, the scenery changed slightly.

The hill leveled off and there was a nice bit of flat space to walk down, with a nice stone wall along side it. The landscape opened up here as well, and the ground gradually sloped upwards.

And another scenic picture of the heather and the inclined walk. Not to mention the sheep. There were sheep all over the place, and I can’t tell you how many pictures of sheep I have. But there were lambs everywhere as well, so I think the excessive photo taking was justified. The landscape here just continued in a similar way, with more and more heather (the dark bit on the hill in the distance). And the path became increasingly rougher and steeper.

And after the last arduous bit of the walk, we were greeted by the three brethren (cairns) at the top of the hill and a glorious blue sky. Once up there, we took a break and had a look around and enjoyed the view.

And what a view it was, too. Overall, it took us about 3 – 4 hours (we didn’t time it precisely!) and the walk was around 9 miles long. What a great walk, apart from the wet foot. But that’s a story for another day.

I might also mention that this amount of snow causes havoc over here. It’s difficult to cope in the South of England as they just simply aren’t prepared for this much snow. All of my trains were suspended this morning and buses also weren’t running so I have had the luxury of being able to work from home. As it’s still snowing here, it will be interesting to see how things are running tomorrow.

I can only guess what my trains will be like tomorrow morning.

Today, I’ve done some Christmas baking, with two batches of cookies. Tomorrow, the plan is to make a couple more batches of cookies and finish off my Christmas shopping, and then we should be all set for Christmas.

In the meantime, as things are still pretty quiet around here, I’ll leave you with another photo from Chatsworth. Maybe in another week I’ll have some nice pictures of Scotland for you!

Don’t you wish we all had sheep in our gardens to keep them looking nice?

Recently, however, I’ve been hungry for other types of pumpkin food. I don’t know why. I’ve craving cake, cookies, bread and even pumpkin pie cheesecake – which I’ve never even tasted! Usually I associate hankerings for food with homesickness and it’s settled by making something from my mother’s kitchen. However, I don’t remember my mom making anything other than pumpkin pie, apart from the occasional cookie. So, to satisfy my craving, I turned to the web, and found a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes from Martha Stewart. I then used a butter and cream cheese icing I found on this website here, which also used the cake recipe I had found!

Were they gorgeous? Oh yes, they were! They were very moist and delicious. The icing was also very tasty, although a little runny.

I had small, fairy cake cases, so this recipe made tons. It was with enjoyment Paul and I were able to take these in to share at work, with plenty left over at home to comfort us!