Celebrating Robbie Burns

   

Second Burns supper of the year yesterday, this one a lunch for about 80 people at a local church. There was the piping in of the haggis, all the addresses, songs and speeches. We were part of the entertainment with some dances and audience participation. Today I am quite exhausted and had a long nap this afternoon. Hope I can sleep tonight.

   I have one more to attend on Thursday but this will be a much more low key affair at a retirement home. The residents won't be up to dancing so, after our dances, we will entertain with some Scottish melodies sung "a capella". I have been told just to move my lips as I am incapable of staying on key.

   Last week I bought a humungous cabbage - I like cabbage but chose the smallest I could find as it takes me forever to finish one. Tonight I have made a chicken and cabbage casserole which will probably do me three days. By then I will be sick of cabbage and won't buy it for another few months.

Not Feeling Hungry

   Still stuffed after last night's haggis dinner so breakfast was late and light - just half a banana. OK, I did have a coffee and granola bar during this morning's meeting but that doesn't count, does it? I needed to stay attentive and alert.


   Lunch followed the meeting and I managed to restrain myself. I have learned when eating out I don't have to completely clean my plate. I ate all the vegetables and most of the chicken breast but left half of the potatoes. Also, I only ate half a roll with my salad. Tonight will be a light dinner and I will try to be finished by 7:00 p.m. then fast until 9:30 tomorrow morning. A good plan but can I stick to it?
(Did you notice I didn't mention dessert?)

Speaking of Food.....

    Still not particularly cold and no snow to speak of although I had to scrape ice off my car before I could go out today. 

    My first stop was the "But and Ben". This is a Scottish bakery and butcher in my area and my task was to pick up a haggis for next week's Robert Burns supper. Mission accomplished! I got a 4 lb. one which should be plenty big enough for everyone to get a taste.

It looks a lot more appetizing after it is cooked.

    After that I attended this month's Probus meeting followed by lunch with some of the other members. I was very good and had one of the "lighter" menu items - a beet and feta chicken salad - but it still clocked in at 660 calories. So tonight I skipped meat and just had sweet potato and cauliflower fritters which were surprisingly filling. 

   Now it is almost 8:00 p.m. so time to sign off and see what's on TV.

Finally!

    After a frustrating two days I finally have TV reception back. In the grand scheme of things this was not a major inconvenience, but it involved an hour or two on the phone and a visit to my local Rogers store.

  The saga began last night when I tried to boot up the TV around 8:00 p.m. After several tries and using Rogers automated phone service, I gave up and used my DVD player to watch a movie. 

   Fast forward to today. Still no luck but this time I got a live technician on the phone. He spent half an hour trying to reboot my "box" remotely to no avail. He set me up for a visit from a repair technician for Saturday, not a satisfactory solution in my opinion! He also suggested I could get my "box" replaced which was much more to my liking. So, off I went to my local mall, luckily fairly close, and was back in half an hour with a new box.

   Once it was hooked up to the TV, I attempted a reboot - still no success. So back on the phone to Rogers (I thought I would have to wait until Saturday after all). Thankfully this one succeeded just in time for my favourite Wednesday shows, "Rosemary and Thyme" followed by "Miss Marple", so feet up on the couch to enjoy something that I normally take for granted - TV reception!