If you've ever won-dered how birds eat apples, this photo will tell you. They start pecking at the top and continue pecking downward until there is nothing left of the apple but the skin on the lower half, the bottom, the core, and the stem. Very efficient. Any worms they may encounter must be like icing on the top of the cupcake for them!
Can I whine? I certainly would be happy to be finished processing apples myself but it's just been one problem after another. To start with, I left my food mill behind when we moved over because I didn't think I'd need it, but that's precisely what I need to make apple butter. After looking in all local stores and asking everyone we know if they had one we could borrow and coming up empty, we ordered one through Amazon.co.uk on November 9th. We were notified after a couple of weeks that the vendor had run out and was awaiting resupply. Last week they e-mailed to say their supplier would ship it to them at the end of last week and they would send it out to us early this week.
Lo and behold we got home from St. Fillans Music Circle yesterday afternoon to find a note that JRS Logistics, Ltd, tried to deliver the food mill less than an hour before we got home. Did they leave it on the doorstep or hand it in to a neighbour for us to collect? No. They took it back to Dundee and left a note for us to call them. We phoned and they said they'd get it out to us today but couldn't say when. If we'd phone this morning, they'd let us know. We phoned this morning and they gave us the bad news that the driver had already left and our parcel wasn't on the delivery truck. After another phone call they at least have promised delivery tomorrow in the early afternoon. I am getting an idea of what the "Ltd" in their name stands for!
Are we disgusted? You bet, especially as every other delivery service has left parcels for us if we're not here. I'm even more disgusted by the fact that a family 2 doors down has gotten numerous deliveries when they're out during the day and both my next door neighbour and I have been asked by deliverymen to hold onto the parcels until the neighbour comes to collect them. (And then the people wait sometimes 4 or 5 days before collecting their parcels, even though we can see they are home.)
You know how your mind gets into those "if only" ways of thinking? If only I hadn't left the food mill behind! If only I hadn't gone to St. Fillans Music Circle (which I only do once or twice each year) yesterday! But the fact is, the programme yesterday was too good to miss. Don had come home from last year's programme by this particular presenter and told me how impressed he was by her knowledge and presentation skills. He watched for when she'd next be on the schedule and has reminded me for weeks so I could be sure to come. The presenter was Myra Souter who only recently retired from teaching music appreciation and other courses at Glasgow University.
Yesterday's programme was about music in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century, focusing particularly on the Europeans who had migrated to or had long sojourns in the U.S. going back to about 1907 and coming forward to the 1950s. It was a fascinating programme and I felt I had learned a lot. Don described the effect of the professor's presentation style as being like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hose. She is full of enthusiasm, energy, and information which comes at you in a rush. One could see how students would love to study under someone with such a style. She had brought a collection of CDs to give us snippets to illustrate the work of the composers. How wonderful to have such a resource available here in rural Scotland. We are fortunate indeed.
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