Summer sale now on!

We all know someone who has a birthday coming soon, or someone that is due to move house or someone that is about to have a baby. Well now you can stop worrying about what to buy them as Velvet Antlers now has 20% off all hampers! We can deliver to their home or you can surprise them at work with a hamper full of tasty treats and the beauty of it is, that not only are they currently on sale, they can’t fail to enjoy their lovely present – who doesn’t like good food?! And do you know things just get better and better as we are accepting delivery dates on sale prices right up until 30th August 2008 so you can buy them now at their sale price and not have to worry about forgetting that all important birthday. Genius.

Yummy Coconut Macaroons

Last night a couple of people told me that they had made gingerbread and lemon icing after I had out the recipe up on here. Inspired that people were going into the kitchen and knocking out some fantastic home-baked goods after reading about it on a blog, here is the recipe for the tasty coconut macaroons that I made for last nights party that seemed to go down well (again, courtesy of my second favourite domestic goddess, Nigella.)

2 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
30g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3.

Beat the egg whites until just frothy and add the cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks are formed then add the caster sugar a teaspoon at a time until it’s finished. This is extremely good endurance training for your forearms – it takes ages.

Fold in the almonds, salt, vanilla and coconut. Shape into 8-10 wee domes, pop them on a lined baking sheet; stick them in the oven for about 20 minutes until they are turning golden brown, cool on a wire rack and hey presto! Yummy coconut macaroons.

And in case you were wondering, Mr MacLeod is my most favourite domestic goddess.

Fort William wall opening night

Last night saw the official opening of Alan Kimber’s new bouldering wall at Calluna, Fort William. For the past couple of months, Dave has been setting all the problems on the wall, built by Scott Muir. I even had a shot myself of setting some problems but we don’t have a telly at Chez MacLeod and the lure of the flat screen in the kitchen of the wall was too great most nights and ended up watching Taggart/Eastenders/Bear Grylls para-motoring about the place instead of unpacking holds.

Insert your own comedy caption in the comments!

Tom utilising his visualisation techniques.

The motley crew that made it happen - Scott, Alan and Dave.
Visualising a full brass band?

The entire Extreme Dream team came over from Aviemore for the opening and I’m amazed to say we staggered home at half twelve and most of them were still bouldering strong. That’s keen.

It’s great that there is finally a decent wall in Fort William itself and I’m pretty sure that there is going to be a brilliant scene there.

Spring sunshine

The sunshine has been amazing here for days and days and days. We’ve been out making the most of it and getting up to a variety of things in the glen and on the Ben.

Everyone always laughs at me when I wear this jacket. I have no idea why….

Dave and I went up the Ben a few days ago to film him on some winter climbing for a film that we are making about his training and attempts on a route he wants to do there in the summer. It’s so weird that down in the town it’s so Spring like and up on the North Face conditions are amazing for winter climbing; and it looks like they are going to be amazing for some time to come.

There I was, taking photos in my HUGE down jacket and this crazy guy scoots past in shorts. On a bike. Brrrrrr.

You know you are in the Outdoor Capital of the UK when in one day out we met walkers, climbers, skiers, snowboarders and one crazy mountain-biker on the same hill.

Bear Trap Prow, V12

On Friday, we headed up the glen to the Skeleton Boulder for some more filming and a photo-shoot. I managed to get footage of the first ascent of the hardest boulder problem in Glen Nevis, a new V12. The past few days have really brought it home to me that I seriously need to do something about my lack of fitness. The film that we are making is going to involve a stupid amount of walking in and out of the Ben with what I think are stupidly heavy rucksacks. Not only that, but I’m going to need to keep up (so far as I can) with Dave who can fairly belt up hills, let me tell you.

The half way Lochain – I suppose getting fit with views like this ain’t all bad.

So this morning, I headed up to the half way Lochain via the tourist path to get the pulse rate up and enjoy some sunshine in the Spring. I’ll never be as fit as Dave but I’ll need to try and do something about my fitness or this summer is going to be a nightmare.

Wish me luck.

Kiting on Camusdarach beach

Such are the joys of living in the Highlands, taking Dave on a driving lesson doesn't mean doing circuits of industrial estates and supermarket carparks like I did when I learned to drive. Instead, we circumnavigated 1/4 of the total number of roundabouts in Fort William (i.e. one) and headed down the Road To the Isles. Happily, this takes you to the beautiful beach of Camusdarach. It was snowing when we arrived but I whipped the kite out nonetheless and Dave captured the front blowing over to reveal clear blue skies and some jaw-dropping scenery.

One of the drawbacks of having high winds blow away the storm clouds is that it can be quite hard on your kite, with one string snapping, quickly mended, followed shortly after by the other one going as well. Never mind, it was worth it.

What a difference a couple of minutes can make...

With the beach more or less to ourselves, Dave took some snaps and got increasingly cold in the wind. For a hardy climber he can be a bit soft sometimes! To be fair, he is still suffering a bit from frost nip, so I let him off and we headed to Glenfinnan for some soup to heat him up.

The snowy peaks of Rum

Skiing for the first time at Nevis Range

Waaah - how do you stop these things?

It was all systems go this morning for meeting Lisa Wharton, local writer and editor, for lunch at the Farm Shop when a sneaky wee email sent at the last minute asked if I fancied a spot of light skiing at Nevis Range afterwards. Not the kind of email one normally receives but I thought what the heck, I'll take my thermals along and see what happens.

Crikey, it's a lot harder than it looks. Lisa, a seasoned skiier, started me off with trying some turns. Then we back tracked a little and tried snow ploughs. I knew I wasn't doing so well when she then said "Right, I think we'll practice just standing still." Oh dear. We got there in the end though and I managed 4 whole turns in a row without falling over just before we got back to the gondola as it got dark.

Lisa looking somewhat more at home

What I find amazing though, is that this was all just a 10 minute drive from my house. Fort William keeps surprising me.