The chilled factor...

Hello dah-lings,

Well. It's certainly a lot colder in the UK than it is in Cape Town during February. 

On arriving at Heathrow two weeks ago I promptly wanted to get back on a plane home to South Africa, but then I remembered that I would get to wear my new, improvised "snood" (circular scarf) if I managed to make it out into the cold. The things we do for fashion. This was my favourite winter fashion accessory for Winter 2010/11, and I am glad that I am getting a chance to wear one despite missing Cape Town's winter...

I realise the title of my blog is somewhat ambiguous. What is cool? If it's temperature - well done, Mandy, you've found it! Hunt over. It's freakin' cold here. 

"Cool" for the purposes of this blog will be what I deem it to be at the time. I will rule this blog in a very authoritarian manner - and will not entertain too much discussion or input on my misuse or abuse of the word "cool" (or my abuse of the English language as spelling and grammar may not be optimal on this blog)

Things that I may deem "cool" for example - on my recent trip to Islay (pronounced eye-la funnily enough) - I was walking past some deer that were less than 5 meters away, and I thought that was pretty cool :-)

Islay is amazing and I can't wait to go back. My Half and I visited all the distilleries, tasted a lot of whisky, ate many roast dinners and tasted a lot of whisky. 

Whisky, I discovered, is a lot like wine in that you can talk about the nose, flavours etc etc. They have come up with this useful chart to describe whiskies - they even have special tasting glasses similar to wine tasting glasses in shape. 

I approached the whisky tastings as I would wine tasting. I nod appreciatively while the incredibly knowledgable host talks one through the flavours and nose, and then proceed to try and drink as much as possible!!!

I really enjoyed Bruichladdich (pronounced Brook-laddie). They are a progressive distillery and well worth keeping an eye on. It's hard to choose a favourite though, as each distillery was amazing! The distilleries on Islay that  we visited were Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Bunnahabhain (which we temporarily dubbed "Bonnaboobin" until we found out is was pronounced "Bunna-ha-vin"... potatoe, pot'atoe as they say... heh heh), Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Caol Ila and the newly opened Kilchoman.


A lot of the distilleries have special edition whiskies only available for purchase on the island. Half spent a considerable amount of his savings on acquiring some of them, now dubbed his "babies"... It's quite sweet seeing the affection in his eyes as he cuddles them. 

There's a lot more to do on Islay apart from drinking whisky such as visiting a woollen mill that makes tartan and tweed in the traditional manner, craft centres and touring historical sites. Half would argue that the only other thing to do is play golf... 


Check out http://www.islayinfo.com/islay_whisky_distilleries.html for more info on the island. For whisky enthusiasts - it would be your dream holiday. 


My top three cool things of the last two weeks:
1. The band Mumford and Sons - Album "Sigh no more"... 
2. Hobnobs (like chocolate digestive biscuits only better)
3. Islay whiskys. All of them. 

I am currently job-hunting as well as cool hunting - and I sincerely hope that I will be far too busy working soon to update this blog regularly ;-)

But in the mean time, I hope to provide some entertaining and slightly verbose work avoidance for you all. 

Yours, 

Mandy