Banana Muffins

Hi Kai,

Today I made Banana muffins, or rather am making while I'm telling you about them. There are in the oven right now and will be ready and warm and yummy in about 10 minutes mmm mmm mmm. I like cakes and muffins my favorite kind have icing on them but too much icing isn't good for you so the ones I'm making don't have any. I'll let you decide which one you want to have first.

Lots of love Dad.

Buckie Thistle

Hi Kai,

I live in Buckie and this weekend the local team won the Highland League, I don't support Buckie but as it is my local team I thought you may like to know. Most towns in scotland have thier own football team, either in the league or like Buckie non league. People in scotland love football. Buckie wear green and white hoops like one of the famous teams, Celtic. I support Aberdeen they play in red and play in the premier league.

Nessie

I Don't really have a nice picture of Nessie but then again nobody does.
Nessie is a monster that lives in Loch Ness about 60 miles from where I live she or maybe he has been there for 1000's of years or maybe it's her great great great grandchildren. Loch Ness is deep and long and must have plenty of places to hide as no one has really seen whether Nessie exists or not but they keep looking for her. Maybe you'll be the one to find her.

Lots of love Dad.

Cormorants, I think.

Hi Kai,

Today I was near the cliffs in Portknockie and I saw lots of black seabirds nesting there. I think they were cormorants but I wasn't too sure. This is a picture of cormorants though. There are lots of types of birds that live near me, but I had never seen any cormorants in the garden. They aren't like gulls that I see everywhere. There is also a little black and white bird I like, its called a wagtail. It's called that because it often stands and wags its tail up and down, but it's not a seabird it lives everywhere not just at the coast.

Lots of love Dad.

Findochty

Hi Kai,

Today I went to Findochty. I walked there from my home which is about 3 miles away. Its a small village but has a nice harbour with lots of boats. There must have been nearly 70 boats there. Can you count to seventy? Grandma works for the lifeboats, they help people at sea. Your Great Grandad loves boats, I think he must know everything about them!

Lots of Love, Dad.

Hi Kai,
This is a picture of a clock with a sheep on it. The reason I want to show you a picture of a clock is because tonight in Scotland the time changes. very early in the morning, or maybe very late at night, the clocks will go one hour forward. We do this to make the amount of daylight when most people are awake to be longer. It has been done for almost 100 years. It also makes some people complain because they get an hour less in thier bed if they have to go out to work! I don't know if you change clocks in South Africa, but here we do it twice a year, once on the last Sunday of March to move them forward and then we move them back on the last Sunday of September, very close to your birthday.
Can you tell the time on a clock? This is an analogue clock and there are two types of clock. The other is called digital. A digital clock shows the numbers in a row like 10:10 and the analogue goes around in a circle like the one here. There 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour and each number on an analogue clock is 5 minutes. There are also two hands on a clock a big hand and a small hand. The big hand means minutes and the small hand means hours. So if the big hand is pointing to 4 and the small hand is at 2 that means it is twenty past two. Can you tell me what the clock would be like when it is your Bedtime or your lunch time?

Lots of love, Dad.

Apples Bananas and lots of others

Hi Kai,

Today I went shopping and bought some apples and bananas. I hope you like fruit they are tasty and good for you. A fruit is a plant that contains seeds but some fruits are called vegetables and it can be confusing as there are so many. Because there are so many I wondered if there was a fruit beginning with every letter of the alphabet. So I started making this list. I didn't find them all but I wonder if you know any of the ones I missed. These are some of my favourites, I bet you won't try all of them!


Apple : There are apples everywhere most are either red or green. I like the green ones better than the reds. The green ones tend to be sharp tasting and the red ones sweet. Your great grandad has apple trees in his garden but they are cooking apples so I make turnovers with them.

Banana : Bananas are great they have thier own packaging. I prefer them when they get brown spots.

Cherry : Cherrys are small and red. They are sometimes sweet and sometimes sour.

Dragonfruit : There really is a dragonfruit! It has bright pink skin and has white flesh and black seeds inside. It tates a bit like custard.

Fig : I have never had fresh figs but I have had dried figs. Sometimes people dry fruit so it lasts longer and that it doesn't go to waste. I like some dried fruit but others I prefer fresh. There is also a type of biscuit called a fig roll. That has dried figs as a filling.

Grape : Grapes come in different colours from green to dark red and black. They grow in bunches on vines. There are lots of Vines in South Africa but not many in Scotland.

Gooseberry : There is a fruit called a cape gooseberry because it was famously grown near where you live. I think I knew it as a Chinese lantern as thats what people thought it looked like.

Honeydew: A honeydew is a type of melon I like melons. When I was young we rarely had melonsso when we did it was a special occasion. I like eating them because you could use your hands and then the juice could go everywhere!

Ice Cream Bean : I have never tried this and don't know much about this I only added it here because I missed a fruit with E and with H and wanted to add it beacause I liked the name and wanted to add something with an "I"

Jam : Okay so Jam isn't a fruit but it's another way of preserving fruit. It's sometimes called jelly or preserve or conserve, but I don't know the difference between them. My favorite Jam is Raspberry.

Kiwi - Kiwi's are a little bit bigger than an egg but are green and hairy on the outside. Some people think that they should be eaten like a boiled egg by cutting off the top and using a spoon to eat the inside.

Lemon : Lemons are very sour they are not nice to eat like an apple or an orange but they are nice to add to cakes and recipies and lots of people add them to drinks.

Mango : Mangos have a big stone in the middle. Some people turn them into hedgehogs before they eat them. To do that you cut them in half then remove the stone. Then you score the flesh in squares and then turn them inside out so that it looks a bit like a hedgehog.

Nectarines : Nectarines also have stones in the middle, they are a bit like a peach that doesn't have any hair on them or a big plum.

Orange : There are lots of types of oranges and lots of names for them, I thinke that they are called lemoens in Afrikaans and they are called naranjas in spanish. They are squeezed for juice or made into marmalade. I used to eat them at half time when I played football.

Pear : There are lots of types of fruit beginning with P but the pear is my favourite. But I like pineapples, plums, peaches, papaya, passionfruit, pomegranite and pawpaws too.

Quince : I have never had quince but it looks like a pear and is famous in a poem called the owl and the pussycat

Raspberry : When I was a child we grew Raspberries and Strawberries in our garden. There is something special about growing your own food and eating it when it is ready.

Starfruit : A starfruit is strange because when you cut it it is shaped like a star. It tastes a bit like an apple and an orange and a pear all mixed up.

Tomato : A tomato is really a fruit but it is strange because it doesn't taste like the other ones I've mentioned here. An Irish Rugby player once said "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" quite what he meant by that I don't think anyone really knows. Tomatoes are used to make pizza, lasagne, soup, and to flavour and be the base of thousands of other dishes.

Watermelon: Watermelons are green on the outside and red in the middle, they are huge they have black seeds in the middle so you have to be careful when you eat them but i dont think there is anything better than a nice big slice of watermelon straight from the fridge.