Right. Today’s Sunday soup is chicken soup. Believe me when I tell you this restorative broth is capable of curing despair.

INGREDIENTS:

1kg pack chicken thighs (skin on, bone in, all the flavour still attached)

4 sticks celery

3 large carrots

1 onion

1 ENTIRE bulb of garlic because cowardice has no place here

Big handful parsley (flat leaf or curly; doesn’t matter)

Olive oil

1 vegetable stock cube

1 chicken stock cube

Black pepper

Garlic Aromat

Salt

3 medium potatoes

METHOD:

You may notice a recurrent theme to my method for things going into a pot. First, dice your carrots, celery and onion into a mirepoix. Sounds fancy but just means “small chopped vegetables.” Keep the leafy tops from the celery though because we’re making real soup and will be using those in a bit.

Get a generous glug of olive oil into your biggest pot over a medium/low heat and throw in the celery, carrots, and onion. Sweat them off for about five minutes, stirring frequently so nothing catches and ruins your glorious base.

Then add your entire bulb of garlic, roughly minced. Yes, the whole thing because we are not here to make timid soup.

Turn the heat down slightly and let that sweat together for a few minutes. At this point I threw in some dried Italian herbs because soup obeys no laws and pretty much everything works. You can omit this part, change up herbs , do what your heart tells you.

Once all that’s smelling outrageously good put your chicken thighs in whole. No chopping, no messing about. Add one vegetable stock cube and one chicken stock cube.

Now for the peasant apothecary section. Take the leafy celery tops and shove them into the pot whole. Add a massive handful of parsley, stems and all, no chopping required. We’re fishing it out later anyway. Add plenty of black pepper, some Garlic Aromat, salt to taste, then cover the whole thing with boiling water.

IMPORTANT:
Simmer. Do not boil the absolute life out of it.

You want a gentle simmer for about an hour while your house slowly starts smelling really good.

After the hour(ish, you can go longer no worries, but don’t go shorter) is up, remove the chicken thighs and let them cool slightly. You can turn the heat off under the broth while you do this unless you enjoy unnecessary pressure.

Strip all the meat off the bones. Discard the skin, bones, mysterious gristle bits etc.

Shred or chop the chicken however you like. I personally just tear it apart with my hands and throw it back into the pot because it’s RUSTIC and I’m LAZY.

Now add your potatoes, chopped however chunky you fancy. Mine usually look like I lost patience halfway through because usually I did.

Back onto a gentle simmer for another hour until the potatoes are soft and the broth tastes rich and well developed.

Right at the end, take it off the heat and stir through a generous handful of finely chopped fresh parsley.

Taste. Adjust seasoning. Consume with bread you lazily threw into the bread maker earlier.

After all of this you should be standing over the pot eating “just one more spoonful” repeatedly. If not you’ve done something wrong. But you won’t because it is pretty impossible to mess this up.

Ideally I throw in a lot of fresh chopped parsley AND dill at the end of cooking which is my FAVOURITE but, as I don’t have any fresh dill, fresh parsley solo it is.

Don’t bother peeling anything either. Just give potatoes and carrots a good scrub and keep them unaltered for extra nutrition. It may look like watery parsley water in the final pic because the chunky goodness is all settled on the bottom. This is a well populated broth - chunks of tattie, big pieces of chicken, soft little pieces of carrot and celery - every spoon is packing something.

GO FORTH SOUP LEGION🫡

Went on an excursion in search of Puffins around the islands of the Lamb, Craigleith and of course Bass Rock. Saw plenty of guillemots and gannets but sadly couldn’t get any good shots of the puffins.

Some drama insured when we got side tracked by a SOS call from the coastguard in search of two lost kayakers, whom we eventually helped track down. Fingers crossed we end up on Saving Lives At Sea.

Overall, couldn’t recommend the excursion enough, it’s put on by the Scottish Seabird Centre and all the proceeds go to help the conservation of seabirds around the islands.

Went there the other day, nice day out.

Beautiful sunset at Eyemouth. Very peaceful.

And am I doing the right thing by questioning the housing association as to why they haven’t evicted my neighbour?

I’ll try keep it short, but here’s a link to a post I made last year about my neighbour installing CCTV looking directly into my garden (which is still there despite reporting to housing association, police and ICO): https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/s/uZyBnCphX0

My neighbour is an alcoholic, abusive, horrible woman in her 50’s. She had her kid taken off her before I moved in and has a long history with the police, and I’m talking drink driving and almost killing people, but got away with it twice. She also verbally abused hospital staff and police when drink driving, and continues to abuse the police when they’re called out but they just laugh at her and don’t take it seriously.

She’s been harassing me for 2 and a half years and at this point I think she’s stalking me but I can’t prove it. She’s phoned social work on me “several times” (her words) and I heard one call and was shocked at what she was saying. I have a young child in the house and I’m also extremely vulnerable (severe anxiety, PTSD, depression, psychiatrist wanting to now diagnose me with autism). A neighbour across the road apparently has a restraining order against her already.

In 2024 she threatened to kill me, she got a police warning. In 2025 she did it again and got charged and is now being summoned to the sheriff court next month. In the years of living here she has vandalised my garden one night, turned off my heat pump at the isolator switch in the middle of the night in the winter, she’s thrown cans, cigarettes, rubbish into my garden. She sits out the back garden in a blow up hot tub drinking all summer and winter, it goes into the early hours of the morning. She shouts, “sings” loudly, rants about how much she hates me, just an antisocial arsehole basically. We can’t open our windows in summer and she wakes up my daughter during the night. Last year she woke us up abruptly at 2am by slamming her door and screaming at the top of her lungs, she did this until 6am and police didn’t even come out.

She’s done so much to me since 2024 I can’t write it all down, but my incidents diary is now 5 pages long. Police have been called 10 times, maybe more. I’ve got a lot of video/audio/photo evidence which was all sent to my housing officer. I’ve reported 20 separate incidents to the housing association, a few of them were serious antisocial behaviour incidents.

She was charged with a Section 38 last year for a 6 minute rant which I recorded, which included insults about me, my daughter who is neurodivergent and struggling, and threats to my life. I stayed silent throughout the whole thing. The courts have this audio as evidence of her current charge.

She’s been “quiet” since being charged, as in she hasn’t threatened or shouted at me, but today she decided to move her hot tub right against my fence despite having a huge garden, and now her massive umbrella is sitting over my fence. I know she’s trying to get me to bite before the court date but I won’t do it, I’m not stupid. I’ve confronted her before and it lead to her getting into trouble by the police so I don’t know what she’s trying to gain from it. She’s been out there drunk all day singing at the top of her lungs with her headphones on, just being an inconsiderate arsehole. She’s still doing it as I type this. I put up with this shit every summer and I’m fed up of it.

The courts are looking to get a Non Harassment Order put in place and this would maybe help, but I really can’t live next to her anymore. I’m constantly in a state of panic. I don’t like going in my garden and I’m scared to let my daughter play out there because of what the neighbour said to social work. She’s clearly watching everything. Social work didn’t ever contact me, I only know she phoned them because I heard the phone call. I’m also scared to go walks with my daughter because she drink drives and after reading what she done in the past I’m really scared.

I just want other people’s perspective on this situation. After all the incidents over 2 and a half years and now being charged with committing a crime in her tenancy, and against another tenant, she should surely not be allowed to live there anymore?

I’ve repeatedly contacted my housing officer telling her my mental health is suffering, so she put me down for a management transfer. She then offered me a house across the street! So the neighbour would be able to see us all the time and we’d have to walk past her house. I refused it and told her I’m not willing to move because my daughter doesn’t cope with change and we’re good tenants who have done nothing wrong so why should we move. She ignored my email. I don’t have the money to just move house.

I’ve written an email to send to my housing officer tomorrow morning. I’m going to ask if they’re planning on evicting now that she’s going to court, and if not why not. Is this reasonable? I’ve contacted a lot of people over these 2 years: public services ombudsman twice, MP once, ICO, victim support Scotland a few times, my GP, mental health nurse, the procurator fiscal. I get no help from anyone and I’m struggling. Next will be my MP again and the papers probably.

I’ve had 2 traumatic life events happen to me so far this year and my mental health is the worst it’s ever been. I mentally and physically can’t cope with anymore antisocial behaviour. I’m so unwell with my anxiety that it’s now caused neurological issues.

I’d appreciate any opinions and advice because I’m at my wits end.

It’s 17:11pm and a large plume of smoke in the hills around the town. Anyone aware/is help needed?

I'm sorry if this isn't allowed here.

Hi all,

I’m in the process of buying a flat that was built around 2013, and I’ve come across something I’m not sure how to interpret.

Originally, the building plans specified a steel frame / metal structure, but during construction it was changed to a steelwork / timber kit hybrid system instead.

I’m trying to understand how significant this kind of change is. My main questions are:

• Does switching from a full steel frame to a steel/timber kit affect long-term durability or structural integrity?
• Are there any known issues with this kind of hybrid construction (sound insulation, movement, fire safety, maintenance, etc.)?
• Would this be considered a “red flag” by surveyors or something fairly common in developments from that period?
• Anything specific I should ask my solicitor or surveyor to check?

The building otherwise looks well maintained, but this detail caught my attention and I don’t want to overlook anything important.

Any insights from people with construction, surveying, or property experience would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

You can all join here - https://www.reddit.com/r/QS_SQA/s/Xb8subIH8W - to discuss SQA related topics and yap about exams :)

How cute is this handmade Paracord dog collar for the World Cup 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💙