Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Scottish Pepper Sauce

My wife is from Trinidad, and we lived there for many years. She has an old family recipe for hot pepper sauce and we have decided to go beyond family and bottle it for sale at farmers markets etc. The link between Scotland and the Caribbean is strong. Many braw Scottish lads went to serve in the military and manage plantations. In fact it was a military hat (see below) the Tam O'Shanter that inspired the name of the worlds most famous hot pepper the "Scotch Bonnet".
Seen from the side. the large floppy hat with a pompom on top looks just like a scotch bonnet pepper, or at least enough like it to make locals give it the name. Our web site for this new venture is here LINK TO WEB


Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Visit to Jersey and secret cows

Took our family to Jersey for a week and thoroughly enjoyed this tiny gem of an island perched off the coast of France. We flew from Glasgow airport of Esyjet and I have to say the whole expoerience was very good from parking to flying. We stayed in the Radisson Blue hotel whoch was all we expected, a good hotel with a super health spa and locate right on the ocean but a walk into St Helier. We loved the island, tiny winding lanes and the smell of flowers everywhere even in October. But we failed to find any of these famous Jersey cows, in fact we looked assiduously and still failed. We began in the family to call them secret cows, maybe the Jersey people hide them from visitors? Anyway here is one.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

A World of Walkers

I think many oif us wish we could walk a lot more than we do. What holds us back is our bodies ability and our inability to devote the training time to overcome that inability. In South America Incas and Aztecs would run and walk 50 miles a day for a week to deliver news without thought. The human body can do it evidence the growth of Marathons. But for most of us its a dream. Now along comes robolegs the lates of a series of  bionic develoipments that I think will change humanity. Sophie Morgan shown below has been in a wheelchair for years since a car accident damaged her spine. She can now walk. The legs as show cost about $90,000. Within 5 years that could be $1500 and you could choose between Nike legs and Converse legs.

Once this happens I think dramatic changes are possible, why cars in towns and cities? See the hills and valleys of the world  (incuding mountains and hills) covered in middle aged and elderly people who can now walk 20-30 miles a day without any problem as their robo assist legs do most of the work, translating feeble twitches to giant leaps. My dream has been to walk the Pennine way, its 300+ miles and at 66 I can't do it now, but I could with robolegs. Rock on I say and I'll be buying the Nike thank you.!

Positive step: Sophie in the robotic exoskeleton Rex, with her wheelchair in the background

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Finally an App that I found useful - Marathon

Everyone seems to get so excited that Apple has x thousand apps while google has y thousand. But to be frank I've looked at them and mostly they are all junk. My son likes the one that shoots a gun for example and makes realistic sounds. Not for me.

But this week I found an app called Marathon that really helps. It uses GPS to track your walks and the results are spectacular. Not only does it track miles or kilometers walked but it also tracks the walk in terms of speed at each point and height climbed, which is very interesting and adds to the experience of the walk. You can save walks and compare say the same walk done today with when you did it last week and see if you improved. Now this is all with the free part. if you invest a modest amount you can get actual maps of your walks and send them top your web site or friends.

This is a useful app. The first I've found. WEBSITE OF MARATHON