Pine Marten Post #7
Hello lovely person!
Bringing you joy in January with easy seed ideas, antique shop perfume, the metallic gleam of a kingfisher, cheesy chocolate, and the curious sport of curling.
Gardening tips for grey days
It's more than four weeks since the shortest day, which means it's time to start thinking about what seeds you'd like to plant this spring.
If you've never grown anything from seed before, it's far easier than you might imagine.
Honestly.
Nature wants to find a way. Seeds want to germinate and produce wee plants. So, even if you're a bit slapdash, as I am, it's definitely worth giving it a try.
Nasturtiums, with their fiery oranges, garnet reds and mahogany browns, are the easiest to grow from seed. Every part of the plant is edible, they're bee friendly, and they flower for months.
Wondering where I buy my seeds and plants from? Here are my trusted suppliers.
It's too early to plant most seeds in the UK yet - best to wait until next month for that - but it's lovely to have a leisurely browse while it's gloomy outside. All the gorgeous colours and all the glorious possibilities.
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Fancy some help with your garden? How about booking a Tiny Gardens chat with me, so we can talk through some easy care plants for your outdoor space?
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Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Esprit du Tigre by Heeley Parfums
Imagine…
Walking into an antique shop on a sharply cold and ferociously windy day.
The ting of a tiny bell as you nudge open the polished wooden door, a
warm breath of beeswax furniture polish reaches you, along with subtle peppery spices. An
elegant china cup of steaming ginger tisane perches on a shelf near some leather bound books,
a wisp of steam gently curling, a
dainty home baked biscuit nestled in the saucer.
You gently touch a satin smooth ancient globe with your fingertip and
the antique dealer smiles.
The storm rages outside.
Inside this shop, all is calm.
Wear this if you want to feel:
Comforted, cosy and reassured.
Perfume notes:
Camphor, peppermint, spearmint, winter green
Cardamom, clove, black pepper
Vetiver, cinnamon
✨PS Just in case you think I'm absolutely loaded, I own very few full-size bottles of perfume. Most perfume houses offer samples of their range and those are what I buy. It's definitely the best way to get to know a perfume—blind buying isn't something I'd recommend.
Nature notes for the month
Plump, strawberry breasted bullfinch glows from dark, dripping branches
while the elegant, sleek form of a heron glides to pause
at a promising wee burn.
Fish. Splash.
Along the slippery lane, puddles have frozen in weird, outlandish patterns, crisply crackling under my boots.
Jolly gorse huffs and puffs vainly trying to breathe its sweetness into the
frigid air and the
shimmering blue blade of a kingfisher cuts the squalling storm
in two.
Blissful bean-to-bar chocolate reviews: Fjak white chocolate with waffles and brown cheese
⭐Rich caramel in colour, studded with crisp, deep golden fragments of waffle.
⭐Smells buttery and creamy with a hint of toffee.
⭐Flavours of opulent fudge explode across your tongue as the silky chocolate melts. Shards of crackling waffle add crunch to this eye-poppingly awesome bar.
There’s no hint of cheese at all. It’s more like Scottish tablet, if you’ve ever tried that. What a revelation.
Fjak chocolate is the first Norwegian company to make bean-to-bar chocolate. They source top quality, ethically traded, organic cacao beans, then blend them with natural Norwegian ingredients.
Random Scottish fact: What's the big deal about Ailsa Craig?
Who knows if curling actually originated in Scotland, but written records document matches dating from 1541, so this magnificently niche sport has been played here for around five centuries.
Two teams of four take turns to throw (slide) 20 kg stones with handles across an ice rink in order to get them as close to the centre of a bullseye as possible—the closer your stone is to the centre, the higher your score. Team members frantically sweep the ice with brooms to help the stone travel further, or not, depending on the throw. After much throwing and sweeping, the team with the highest score is the winner.
Every single Olympic curling stone is made from two types of granite quarried on Ailsa Craig, unique in their abilities to withstand the heat and moisture of the ice rink.
But how did they discover this?
Did other, lesser stones get so hot travelling across frozen lakes, they scorched trails across thawing ice and sank, lost for ever? Did non-Ailsa Craig stones shatter on impact, making curling an expensive (and potentially dangerous) sport?
If you find out, I'd love to know...
On the blog and LinkedIn:
No, it's not just you, January feels endless. Here are some winter wellbeing tips for you.
How to boost your mood during dark days
✨All products mentioned are bought and paid for by my hard-earned real cash money. And as you can probably tell by the distinctly wibbly quality, all photos are taken by me, Rowan Ambrose.
Thanks for being here! I really appreciate your time 🥰
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I'd love to hear about what sensory experiences bring you joy.
Feel free to reply to this email, or you can message me on Instagram or LinkedIn.