:: I have the powah

After weeks of grinding my teeth, suddenly it all flows. The car is booked in for a service next Tuesday and a courtesy car will be provided (at first they said no, I'd have to wait two weeks for a courtesy car but I put my foot down quite hard & they capitulated. I would have demanded the sales manager's car if they'd stuck to their guns!).

A new certificate of motor insurance is winging its way to me as well. Yesterday I had the humiliation of going to the PO to renew my tax disc only to discover I had the wrong insurance certificate - and I couldn't find the right one anywhere. (For kiwis: the tax disc is a windscreen sticker that shows you've paid your registration fee; insurance is compulsory over here, so you have to prove you've got it before you can get a tax disc.)

And being on a roll, when I got to work I immediately spotted something set up wrong that could have resulted in mayhem later on, and not only that but I found a simple and elegant solution.

I'm so glad that sticky patch is over. I have a lot of stuff to do this weekend! First off tomorrow is the Christmas work do - lunch in an Italian restaurant followed by drinks at a pub up the road.

:: nothing's ever that simple

When I bought a shiny, nearly-new Ford to replace my ageing, clapped-out Peugeot, I was savvy enough to ask for a service record. There wasn't one, but the salesman said it should have had a service, and promised to track down the record for me. This is where my savvy came undone. I believed him! I know! A used car salesman!

Six months on I still haven't got the record. Not only that - it transpires I haven't got the service record because there isn't one: the car has never been serviced. So now I'm waiting for the Ford service centre to phone to arrange for a service - no doubt at a time of maximum inconvenience.

Mind you, any time until after New Year would be a time of maximum inconvenience. Unless they give me a courtesy car - some friends with an Audi have a brand-new one to tool around in while their airconditioning leak is sorted out. I'm not used to these little luxuries: with my old car I would drop it at the local garage on my way home from work and pick it up on my way to work the next day. But the Ford service place is out in industrial estate country, near the bypass.

I'm starting to feel like that League of Gentlemen character: "Are you local?" I've abandoned my fancy-pants city hairdresser for the local salon. And it's so liberating! I popped in (popping in is such a "local" thing to do, isn't it?) yesterday and made an appointment for today. Left home two minutes before the appointment and arrived bang on time. Half an hour later I was home with glossy, neatly trimmed hair, for a fraction of the price. My previous hairdresser was originally "local", in that his salon was just up the road from my old flat. But then high rents drove them out to a bustling suburb, and news of his excellence meant he got busier and more expensive, while I moved out here. I'd have to book weeks in advance, then drive in (it was either that or two buses), spend ages looking for a park, pay a small fortune and drive home (half an hour each way). Local is the way to go.

:: plumb crazy

The plumber-who-put-Jack's-bath-in-wrong wasn't busy at all. He - or rather his underling - rang the doorbell at 9am on Thursday, the day after I phoned. Underling, an extremely reserved youth, scurried up the ladder into the loft and had the ballcock replaced in a jiffy. He didn't have a timer in the van, he said, so he'd be back later.

I popped up to the loft and put the lid back on the header tank and tucked in its cosy insulation. It is winter, after all.

Underling returned at lunchtime. He had the old timer off in a jiffy but couldn't work out how to fit the new one. After a phone call his boss arrived. I sat in on the lesson in How to Replace a Timer and I think I could do it myself now. Apparently it's reasonably important to make a note of which wire goes where, or else you may fuse the switch and get told off and have to run out to the van for a new fuse and a better screwdriver. Also, it's good to turn off the switch before poking at live wires with said screwdriver.

Eventually they got the thing wired up, but then the heating wouldn't come on. It's your solenoid, Bossman said. Eh? Then the heating came on. "It should come on right away," he said. "It came on right away last night," I replied. He denied having caused solenoidal problems & suggested I replace it - "forty quid". When I balked, pointing out that it was actually still working, he suddenly noticed the lack of ventilation.

Uh oh. Next thing Underling is hurrying out to the van for a notice, which Bossman duly affixed to the front of the gas heater.



Every time a gas plumber comes to my house I end up with a notice tied to the heater. Scottish Gas do nice big yellow ones. The real scunner though was when he came back the next morning (9am again) with a form for me to sign, presumably absolving himself of all responsibility in the event of me dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. I don't know, I was still asleep when I signed it.

The new timer is a snazzy electronic number, though it does pretty much the same job as the old one. Which had a sticker on the back showing that it was over 20 years old!



The new timer won't need to last that long - I'm planning to get a new system in the next couple of years.

I'm really tired of those warnings.

:: stood up

How naive was I, thinking the plumber would come today just because he said he would? He said tea-time, which I narrowed down to "around five or six". I waited until 7.30 before phoning. He'd forgotten. He couldn't come now because he was going out. And then he got angry with me! It was like I'm some kind of mad stalker who keeps ringing him up. He's too nice to just say no, so he doesn't show up and hopes I'll stop calling. We had a big fight and now we're through. Sob.

Tomorrow I'll try someone else, maybe the other local plumber, the one who put Jack's new bathroom in but put the wrong slant on the bath so that water collects in the wastepipe and smells musty. He probably won't be busy.

Aside from that it was an ok day - did some housework, did some computer stuff (very satisfying, actually, though far too geeky to go into here - I solved a problem with my old computer that I had thought was insoluble).

And, I now have "Happy Birthday" down pat on the guitar and have started on "Ode to Joy". It's trickier because you pluck with two fingers - it's going to take forever to learn, but it's lovely. I prefer picking to chords, though I'm also practising some blues style riffing.

:: birthdays

Having been pretty slack about sending out birthday greetings this year I was touched at how many people remembered mine! Presents included matching teacosy and scarf, fromm Pinky and Mum respectively. The scarf, bought in Dunedin (I assume) is light purple and the teacosy, bought in Auckland, is red, but they're made of the same kind of yarn, a wild hairy stuff. All very apt for today, when we got a fierce blast of weather from the Arctic. Lots of places got thick snow (including the south-west of England), but we just got sleet, which is miserable stuff.

Many thanks to everyone.

It's Bertie's birthday tomorrow - he'll be eight, which makes him about my age now. He's going quite grey and getting very grumbly and set in his ways. I was cursing him this morning - how delicious it would have been to have sat there reading as the sleet lashed the windows. How undelicious it was to struggle into several layers of woollies and waterproofs and trudge around the town.

Bizarrely the firm that looks after the gardens of the flats across the road chose today to turn up. They were trimming and mowing for a few hours in the worst of the weather. Otherwise it was just the dogwalkers out and about.

I'm still having plumbing woes. The main woe now is trying to get anyone to sort out my plumbing woes. It's frustrating because I'm pretty sure I could do it myself, but I'm too scared in case I a) bring down the ceiling (header tank) or b) blow the place up (timer clock). So I'm reduced to phoning the Recommended Plumber every day.

"So, do you think you can come this afternoon?"
"Weeeeellll, I might be able to get over before half three, but to tell you the truth I'm strugglin. We're so busy just now, and I've got to get these jobs finished before Christmas."
"What? You mean to say that even if you can come round and look at mine, you won't have time to do the actual work?"
"If I could just come round in the evening ... it's getting there by half three that's the problem."

So anyway now he's coming round on Monday evening, my day off. I suspect I will be very, very lucky to get anything done before Christmas. The alternative is to ring 500 other plumbers, who will all be too busy except for the one who has messed up so many jobs he doesn't get any repeat work. So as it's not urgent I'll just let the Recommended Plumber work through his To Do list.

In the meantime maybe I should drop some dye in the header tank so the icicles in the honeysuckle are nice festive colours.

:: heavy duty

Pretty tiring week, one way and another - work in particular is tiring, and then there was a couple of nights of broken sleep due to a combination of gale-force winds and nervous dogs, Ozzy in particular. He also freaked out when my Saturday morning paper was delivered (at 6:30am - who knew? my respect for the newsagent just trebled). Last night was tranquil, however, so I feel refreshed and ready for work - which is just as well, because it will be hard.

Ozzy is settling in really well. He's lying on the sofa next to me as I type this (loving the laptop! surfing from the sofa!) worn out after a long walk. He's always on the alert though - his ears are up. Bertie, aka Mr Mogadon, is upstairs, completely joed out.





I've got tomorrow off, and am determined to use it wisely - the main project is getting to grips with the header tank.

:: guess who's coming for your dinner?

Ozzy!

Yes, the terrierist is back - for eight sleeps, this time. Penny said she told him this morning that he was going to see Bertie and he ran to the door, crying with excitment. Bertie is cool! Bertie has fun toys and great-tasting food! Bertie catches real live hedgehogs!

So at lunchtime Ozzy came bursting through the door and took charge. He checked out the food dish (yum! tasty!), tried out the toys, chewed on a bone, climbed on the furniture. But Bertie still wins when it comes to wildlife - he led the charge into the back yard to chase off the two rabbits and the squirrel that pretty much seem to have taken up permanent residence out there.

Ozzy has calmed down quite a bit since his last stay and he should be ok. So long as the fox keeps its yap shut at night, anyway.

I think I cracked the plumbing crisis: the water is now trickling out of a pipe that emerges from under the eaves. That means a problem with the header tank ballcock, probably. At some point over the weekend I'll get a proper inspection light and have a good look. I can bend the ballcock bar as a short-term fix, but I might have to replace the assembly in the end. That should be easy enough, though my big problem with these kind of jobs is finding the shutoff tap and draining things down. I also have a morbid fear of falling through the ceiling. (I'm fairly sure Ozzy would eat me after a couple of days.)

And I do remember the bathroom tap ordeal, when changing the washers turned into a mole wrench nightmare of epic proportions. I kind of almost know what I'm doing, which is in some ways worse than not knowing anything at all and getting a plumber in. It's cheaper though!

:: Guy Fawkes

After 400 years, isn't it time to give it a rest?



I used to love fireworks, and now I hate them nearly as much as Bertie does. The DAP doesn't seem to have any effect at all. Last night the racket was so bad he tore up his duvet in a frenzy of fear. He also barked and cried and paced around. Finally BBC Radio 2 playing loudly upstairs and in the kitchen seemed to put him into something like a coma. He was in a froth from when he heard the first bang - at about 4pm, while we were out on a walk - right through until about 11pm.

Tonight isn't quite so bad - the first few explosions rattled him but he settled down on the shredded remains of his duvet to listen to PJ Proby and Elvis. But then it got bad and he had a couple of hours of barking and crying and pacing. He's settled down again now (operetta and hits from the musicals) - I hope that's it. Poooooor boy!

One of the neighbours is giving his dog a natural remedy for fireworks misery - since DAP seems to have been rather a waste of time, I might try that. I think the problem with the pheromones is that Bertie doesn't sleep in one room most of the time - he like to move around the house, so he's probably not getting enough of a treatment to affect him greatly.

:: loft living

I spent half the morning teetering around the loft with a torch, desperately looking for leaks. It's a big space, criss-crossed with wooden roofbeams. There's no lighting and no floor, just the ceilings joists and various bits of wood - old doors and such. The long-term plan is to put up a proper loft ladder and floor at least part of it. For the meantime, getting up there involves climbing a stepladder through a hatch in the hallway ceiling.

So there I am, balancing on a joist, torch in hand, grubbing around in the insulation. Some of this is pink fibreglass batts, but a lot of it is ... well I don't know - it looks like kapok. Piles of yellowish fluff.

It was tricky working out where I was in relation to the leak. Every bit of ceiling I looked at was dry. The roof seemed completely sound, which was good, but the lack of water was mystifying. At long last I found some slightly damp insulation and a small patch of mould. Hurrah! And then I spotted what I hope is the culprit: a plastic pipe exiting from a small header tank (for the hot water tank, I think) had come adrift. It seems to be an overflow pipe. I jammed it back together again, but I will have to go back up armed with gaffer tape and a better light. And maybe some planks! There was one terrifying moment when I lost my balance and nearly trod heavily on the bedroom ceiling. Managed to grab a beam at the last minute, wrenching my shoulder but at least not plunging down through a new skylight.

:: something nasty in the attic

Just before I left for work today, for some reason my eyes strayed to the ceiling in the upstairs hallway (rolling my eyes at something on the radio, probably). And I noticed a bulge. A downwards bulge, like the kind of bubble you get in bad paintwork, only bigger. I had a book in my hand, so I very gently poked the bulge. It gave gracefully, and when I'd finished poking at it, it smoothly rebulged.

I looked at the floor. Was that a tiny damp patch on the carpet? Aiee! I took a towel from the hotwater cupboard (coincidentally right under the bulge) and tossed it on the suspect spot. Who knows what I'll find when I get home. But I'll be phoning a plumber in the morning - right after I've climbed up into the loft to investigate.

My best guess is that the header tank or its piping is leaking and that there's a big puddle up there, with its deepest point over the bulge. I might even be able to mend it myself, with some gaffer tape!

:: all DAP-ed out

For the past week I've been treating Bertie with DAP - Dog Appeasement Pheromone - to help him with fireworks anxiety. He is now so thoroughly appeased he can't be bothered to get out of bed in the morning. He sets out on the morning walk at a gentle waddle rather than his usual eager trot. After I got home from work last night he had to be woken up for his late-night wander; usually he's pestering me to go walkies - it's his main chip-scavenging run. Today he strolled past a group of squealing teenagers with barely a glance. He's dozy and dopey and right now he's completely joed out in the livingroom.

:: Okney travelogue, part two

Where was I? The Tomb of the Eagles. After the talk I was shown into the "wet room" to choose my oilskins - trousers in my case. They also had jackets and wellies. Then I headed off down a farm track in the wind and rain to the first site, the settlement. On the way I met the farmer, who had apparently been out there all day sitting in the caravan where he gives his own talk. My own "talk" was brief.

"You know about the settlement?" he said.
"Errr ... it's over there," I replied.
"Ah, you'll be all right then," he said, patting my shoulder. And then he buzzed off on his battered 50cc motobike, accompanied by a couple of slinking sheepdogs.


The caravan at the settlement.

Trudge, trudge, trudge, through the rain I went. The ancient green caravan was the most picturesque part of the settlement, so although the site was interesting, I didn't linger there. Trudge, trudge, trudge, onward and seaward. At what seemed like the edge of the known world, there was the tomb, facing the cliff's edge. No decorous stooping here - you have to get down and crawl. Or, if like me you have bum knees, you lie on your back on a skateboard-like affair and haul yourself down the tunnel using a rope.


Outside the tomb. The plastic containers hold knee pads and mitts for the crawlers.

The tomb's interior was underwhelming - a stone chamber with side chambers - but knowing that at sunrise on one day a year the light strikes the back wall made it special. And the view of of wind-tossed waves through the tunnel was striking. But for me the main draw of this place was the effort you had to make to see it: it's not a passive, theme-park experience; you have to work at it, and you do get a strong impression of how it might have been, back then. Having held the eagle's talons in my hand I could imagine the great birds "excarnating" the bodies before the remaining bones were gathered up and stored in the tomb, for example. It's a great place and I recommend it.



I'm finding it hard to remember quite what I did when! Certainly after seeing the Tomb of the Eagles I drove home, took Bertie on a walk (he was asleep in the car while I was tomb-crawling) and slumped on the sofa for the rest of the evening. That's the great thing about having a flat when you're on holiday - you can eat dinner lying down. Not many restaurants offer recumbent dining.

The next day it rained and rained, so of course I went for a looong walk. I did intend to "do" some museums etc, but after "doing" Skara Brae - brilliantly well-preserved 5,000-year-old village - I wanted to stay out in the open. Skara Brae is fab. The village was buried in sand until a storm in the 1850s revealed it. The most complete house has been recreated near the visitor centre, complete with plastic food, sheepskins and so on, and seems pretty cosy. The guide on duty at the site was excellent, knowledgable and enthusiastic. He was especially eloquent about the plumbing system the ancients installed! The drains still work, apparently - they keep the houses nice and dry.




So then I drove on and quite by accident arrived at the Brough of Birsay at low tide. There's yet another ancient settlement there, and a ruined church, this time on a headland that's only accessible via a low causeway. Very slippery but fun.



I thought I'd be able to go up to the lighthouse, but it was strictly off limits for dogs due to sheep. Tsk. So instead we had a loooong walk along the coast to Skipi Geo, a lovely little cove dotted with "nousts", little hollows that were used to store fishing boats. Each local family had its own noust. They're not used now. (The house my flat was part of is called The Noust.)


Whale vertebra on a pole, Skipi Geo.

The rain was really quite heavy by now and I was damp, so it was back into the car for a drive home the long way, and another night indoors. I did stop off in Stromness at one point to do some shopping and take photos, but the visit was cut short after Bertie had a big wobbly fit on seeing several cats just strolling around. And then some children tried to make friends with him. Too much excitement!

Is that it? I think so. On the last day we had one final walk along the cliff path to the Earl's Bu, then I jammed everything back in the car, said goodbye to the flat's owner and headed off to the ferry. It was a much nicer day, with almost no wind, so it was a shame to be leaving.


Orphir on the last morning of my stay.

I drove straight back home, stopping off for a good walk near a tiny village called Latheronwheel, and again at the Falls of Bruar just before dusk. After that the weather packed in and the drive became something of a nightmare. Just outside Perth, on a long uphill haul, I pulled out into the fast lane to let a lorry in from a slip road. A van shot out from behind the lorry and overtook it - and I had to bang the brakes on hard to avoid hitting it. In the rain. In the dark. Aiiieee! One positive element was that the emergency services were busy dealing with an accident on the other carriageway, so if I had hit the van, they would have been able to cut me out of the wreckage fairly quickly.

It was lovely getting home safe and sound. A hot bath, a glass of wine and all was right with the world!

:: Orkney travelogue, part one

About time I shared some of the highlights of my holiday, before I forget. Click here to see photos.

I had a good drive up - the weather was clear and there wasn't a lot of traffic. I stopped off at Helmsdale, a little burg on the north-east coast. Very nice B&B - the man of the house was a fishing boat skipper and the house was right on the quay. The landlady and her sister were off to the Western Isles for the weekend for the Mod, the annual Gaelic cultural competition/festival. She belongs to a local Gaelic choir and her sister was along for company. In the morning she cooked Bertie a couple of sausages.

And so on to Scrabster, a fairly grotty little ferry port right near Thurso on the north coast. There was an hour or so to spare so I found a walk to a ruined chapel along the coast a step. The ferry trip was fairly smooth, although it was a windy day. I got chatting to a couple who turned out to be from the very village I was staying in!

I drove pretty much straight to said village, Orphir, which is roughly midway between Stromness, the ferry port, and Kirkwall, Orkney's main town. The flat was ideal, a roomy one-bedroom place with kitchen/livingroom and showerroom. The shower was fantastic, and everything was really comfortable. All mod cons, including microwave, TV, CD player/radio etc. I soon found a good walk for Bertie - down the road past the fields to the coast, then along a footpath to the Earl's Bu, the ruins of a Viking drinking hall, and back home along the road. Just lovely, and I did it every morning.

So: the highlights. There are so many sights it wasn't hard to be busybusybusy every day. First visit was to Stenness, for the Ring of Brodgar, a wonderful stone circle, and Maes Howe, a neolithic burial mound. This is like a smaller version of Newgrange in Ireland. Having seen Newgrange I suppose I was a little disappointed by Maes Howe: there was work in progress to repair the concrete roof and the guide wasn't the most enthused I've ever met. He wasn't even a Scot, let alone Orcadian! However, the tomb itself is interesting and has a lot of Viking grafitti. The Ring of Brodgar is wonderful - the stones are beautiful and the setting is sublime, on a neck of land between two lochs. The sun flashed out for a couple of minutes so I got some nice shots. I didn't take any photos at Maes Howe - most uninspiring.

The next day was grim - windy and cold - but after the morning walk I set out for the Churchill Barriers. Oh, first of all I walked round Kirkwall and visited St Magnus Cathedral, a magnificent building full of wonderful memorials and carvings and windows. So then I headed down the chain of islands - first stop was the Italian Chapel, built by prisoners of war on Lamb Holm. It's gorgeous.

I was ready for a walk so stopped fairly randomly at a likely-looking spot just by one of the barriers (causeways between the islands built as wartime defences for the Scapa Flow). Lo and behold there were a bunch of kids surfing! They had wetsuits on and boy did they need them - it was perishing. It started to rain while I was there and continued to rain pretty much through the next day. Also at that spot was a startling piece of sculpture, what I guess was a Jarl's head, with a winged helmet.

After the walk I pressed on south, heading for the Tomb of the Eagles, which had been highly recommended to me by a bloke at work. It is on a farm on South Ronaldsay, the southernmost island reachable from Mainland via the barriers, so it took a while to get there but it was totally worth it.

It's another prehistoric chambered tomb and it was discovered and opened for visitors by the farmer on whose land it is. The family has made a visitor centre at the farm house, with various bits and pieces they found in the tomb and at another site, a settlement, including pottery, skulls and stone tools. The farmer's daughter gave a really good talk, during which she passed round artefacts. It really is amazing to handle a piece of pottery tens of thousands of years old!

more later ... time for bed.

:: some pix are in

I'm back from Orkney - had a great time of course. I haven't got time just now to write a travelogue, but there are photos to look at on flickr. I've got loads more to post too, when I get a minute.

I'm writing this in the ten minutes spare before my dinner guests arrive. I'm doing lamb chops and roasted vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, aubergine & onions) with rosemary sprigs and garlic. I don't have too much confidence in the recipe - it's by Nigel Slater, who is my top favourite cook, but I had quite a time in the butchers yesterday buying the chops & they don't look anything like the ones in the magazine photo. The butcher didn't have any neck chops left - the woman who bought them was following a recipe from Jamie Oliver's new book! - so he carved up some ribs, yelling at me the whole time that they would be MUCH better than neck chops because neck chops only have a tiny amount of flesh on them. He said if they weren't delicious I could get my money back, but only if I bring them back to the shop and he tastes them and agrees. "If I lose a finger here it's your fault!" he bellowed as he sawed away at the bones. I love butchers.

I was so worried I went and bought gigot chops at Tesco today, because they look more like the ones in the picture. But they're only a fall-back in case the butcher chops don't work.

Oh, my lucky guests. Can't you tell I don't give dinner parties very often? This is my second in this house and I've been here for five and a half years.

The starter is Orkney herrings and marinated salmon rolls, salad and oatcakes, pudding is gooseberry crumble with yogurt or icecream.

Bertie's guest, Ozzy, is having Greyhound Maintenance biscuits and fresh tap water.

:: king kong done gone

WAH! I missed the news completely (see below), so imagine my shock and dismay when I went to Ingliston market today and it was all gone! No secondhand stalls, no dodgy dealings by the gates, no burger vans, no racks of horrid sportswear, no offers to unlock phones, no piles of pirate DVDs. Nuffin. A bunch of blokes in cars watching the planes land and take off (what's that about?), a helicopter taking on passengers in a field. Boo hoo hoo!


This lovely mirror cost just £2 at Ingliston!

And even if the market does resurrect somewhere else, the gorilla won't be pink any more!

From The Edinburgh Evening News 4 Oct 2005:

FOR years he towered over proceedings at Edinburgh's biggest market, helping reunite thousands of lost children with their parents.

But now the giant, bright pink King Kong statue, which was a landmark at Ingliston Market for more than 30 years, has been taken away after the market's closure. The 22ft-high gorilla statue, which became famous at the market as a meeting point for separated parents and their children, is to be resurrected at the market's new site.

But Spook Erections, the owner of the market, which was axed last month, has still not disclosed the location of the new site.

Plans to expand the airport prompted the market's closure amid fears the current site would be swallowed up.

A spokeswoman for Spook Erections said the gorilla, which was uplifted from the Ingliston site yesterday, would undergo repairs and a makeover before being settled into his new home.

She said: "Unfortunately, he was pushed over by some vandals before the last market, so he wasn't able to take part in that upright.

"He has some damage to his back and has broken his arm, so he needs to be repaired before we can put him up at the new site.

"The planning application for the new site hasn't been finalised yet, so we're not allowed to put him there yet anyway. We shall reveal the new location soon."

She added that the gorilla, which was grey until four years ago when current market owner Lesley Maby, boss of Spook Erections, decided to paint him shocking pink, would undergo a colour change.

She said: "He will also be painted a different colour, though I don't know what that will be yet. It will be a surprise when the market reopens."

The gorilla, which weighs 890kg, was erected at the market in 1973, three years after it opened.

The spokeswoman said: "He was part of a range of unusual and fun things that the owner of the time, Mr Maby, a relative of Lesley, decided he wanted to introduce to the market."

David Dixon, of Neil Williams Haulage, was in charge of removing the gorilla from his old home and putting him in storage.

He said: "He is a real Ingliston landmark. He's been there for years and years and everybody knows about him. If children got lost at the market, there would be an announcement over the Tannoy, saying: 'The parents of so-and-so should come to the King Kong to collect their child.'"

He added: "It was very sad when we went to pick him up - he'd been damaged, so he had a lot of strapping on his arm, just as if he'd broken it."

In its heyday, Ingliston Market was renowned as being one of Europe's biggest outdoor markets, regularly boasting more than 2700 stalls and tens of thousands of shoppers every week.

I wish I had seen it in its heyday. Sigh. There are car boot sales in a parking garage in Edinburgh - I went to one once and it was horrid: stinking of petrol and cold and dingy. Yuck.

:: orkney it is, then!

I'm going to be staying at The Noust for four nights, in the one-bedroom flat. It's only £25 a night, which is just great. The plan will be to drive up to probably Helmsdale the night before, then catch an earlyish ferry from Scrabster. The tricky part of travelling with Bertie is that I can't just do my usual thing of driving off without any bookings and just stop wherever looks nice. I have to find out in advance whether dogs are welcome. And I've stayed in some really rubbish places as a result. The first test of B&Bing with Bertie was a disaster - the room was so tiny and so crammed with furniture there was barely space for me, let alone him, his bed and his dishes; the door was directly opposite the front door, which opened straight on to a road busy with speeding traffic; and the resident dog was extremely unhappy at having an interloper on the premises. Nul points. A flat is ideal, however, because there is oodles of room for everything. Hurrah!

A five-day trip is good too, that way I can spend some time at home as well, tidying the garden, going out with friends and playing the guitar.

:: plinketty plinketty plonk

I've got about five chords memorised on the guitar now, and am concentrating on changing from one to another without looking. Lots of discord. My fingertips are getting tender. Next week I'll phone the local guy who does lessons.

I'm also pondering where to go/what to do on my week off. I'm thinking of spending a few days in Orkney. I went there a long time ago, on a day trip from Inverness and have always meant to go back. The day trip was great - I went with Annmaree, who now lives in Melbourne. The coach left at some ungodly hour and drove us to John o' Groats, where we got a ferry across to South Ronaldsay. The coach that met us there whizzed us round a selection of Orcadian highlights: Skara Brae, the Italian chapel, the Ring of Brodgar, the Churchill Barriers. We didn't have time to do Maes Howe and I only got a brief scurry around St Magnus Cathedral. The only thing is that it's a very long drive from here - about nine hours according to Google Maps. But then they suggest driving 29 miles north from the pier at Scrabster, so there's probably a bit of search and rescue downtime factored in.

It's only seven and a half hours from John o' Groats, but that ferry doesn't run after September. And there's always the option of getting a ferry from Aberdeen - six hours on the boat, which would be pleasant for me but no fun at all for poor Bertie.

The alternative would be to spend the week at home, making day trips now and then and doing stuff like going out in the evening and getting the garden tidied up. I'm leaning towards Orkney, myself.

:: michael, row the boat ashore ...

A few things meshed over the past week and voila! I have a guitar.

See, I have always longed to play a musical instrument. Last year I noticed a flyer in a local cafe window offering guitar lessons. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe I should take down the phone number. Then at the weekend I got my computer magazine through the post and the free CD included ... a Teach Yourself Guitar program. Finally, the day before yesterday there it was, in the "for sale" section of our electronic staff noticeboard, a Spanish guitar in mint condition, cost £140, selling for £50.

I collected it today - sadly minus the promised "Teach Yourself Guitar" books (the vendor's mum had given them to a charity shop. "Sarah could play Greensleeves, and you could tell what it was!"). But hey! I have the computer program. Which, marvellously, includes a tuner - you bong bong bong on the string in front of the microphone and the computer widget goes green when it's in tune. Ah, the miracles of technology. All tuned up, I was able to start strumming. I did three chords: simple G, simple C and G7. They are all strummed on just three strings. Tomorrow I progress to four-string strumming.

As far as I can tell it's a nice guitar.

I'm going to plug away at the computer lessons for a bit, but I think it would be useful to have lessons with a real person - I can't seem to get my fingers into the same positions as the man in the video clips.

The weather is crispening now we're almost into October, and the trees are turning. We are told this is going to be a severe winter and I wonder if that is related to the appearance of squirrels in the back yard. I've been feeding the birds for years, and last week had my first-ever squirrel. Within two days all my seed feeders had been destroyed, the little perches gnawed off. So now I've got squirrel-proof feeders with metal perches. The squirrel still gets fed - it tips the feeder sideways so the seed pours out. But at least the birds get some of it. Bertie is useless - this morning the squirrel AND a rabbit were chowing down in the garden while he lounged around upstairs. He deigned to look out the window but claimed he couldn't see anything.





I had a housework blitz last weekend - most satsifying - but the garden has really fallen behind. The front doesn't look too bad - the lavender has done especially well this year and is just gorgeous to brush past - but the back is tragic. I'm planning to relocate the vege bed, but it seems like too big a chore at the moment. I've got a week off next month and may get stuck into it then, weather permitting. What I'd really like is a raised bed, like the ones Leighanne had at Waihola, but I remember her saying what an enormous effort it was to create them, and ... err, I'm too lazy. But it would be ggreat to have something high enough for me to work on in comfort and to keep Bertie from trampling everything. Oh, and where the vege bed is now, I'm going to put in some blueberry bushes. Yum. And maybe a plum tree up the back.

:: liftoff

I haven't done the laundry or washed the dishes or the floor or the car, dusted, vacuumed, mowed the lawn or even made the bed, but I have established a wireless network connection between my two computers. [Cue thunderous applause] Thank you! Thank you! This is so unexpected ... I'd like to thank my bank manager, who made all this possible ...

It's autumn, suddenly. Have I been working on the computer for that long? I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle.

The ivy outside the back door is in bloom and is a riot of wasps and flies. I must have a go at it with the clippers - two sneaky strands are trying to force their way into the livingroom.

There are squirrels in the back yard! I've lived here for five years now and it's the first time I've seen squirrels. It was just one to start with but word got around and now there are at least two. They hang upside down on the bird feeder, gorging on peanuts and seed. I'll have to get some squirrel-proof feeders - the poor birds are missing out. No pictures of squirrels yet - they flee as soon as I open the door. Bertie was excited at first, but less so now he realises he will never, ever catch one.

:: I have a new boyfriend

How gorgeous is he? Fwoar! I don't know why I didn't get a laptop long ago. I've wanted one for long enough - I nearly got one when my old computer blew up, at the end of last year, but ... well there was the trip to NZ and other stuff & in the end I had to economise. I decided I would wait until next year to get one, definitely. Then a few days later I was in Stockbridge and glanced in the window of the Sony shop ... and when I came to I was signing a credit card slip.

geektalk
It's not blisteringly fast, but it does have a TV card and built-in wireless & a big HDD (100Gb - annoyingly partitioned into two drives, and I didn't realise the small one was C: until I got a panicky error message saying I was nearly out of space ... "I'll just start deleting stuff, OK?" it squealed hysterically, while I yelled at it to shut up and started firing all my photo files over to the D: drive. Grrrrr. I now have to uninstall all my programs and reinstall them on D: How annoying), plus a docking station & good speakers. The screen is unbelievably good, much better than my telly, so it's fab for watching DVDs. I got a wireless setup too, which I'm going to have to finesse somewhat - the signal is allegedly "excellent" but I get a lot of disconnects. It may be the phone interfering. Or it could be that all the skirting boards and door frames in my house are cast iron. The old box is relegated to the spare room upstairs, where it sits rocking and sucking its thumb. I'm trying to set up a wireless network, but no joy so far ... the lappie won't share its stuff.
/geektalk

I can watch DVDs in bed! I can surf the net from the sofa! It's fab. I haven't tried taking it outside yet - the weather's been a bit too changeable - nor have I sat in a cafe pretending to write a bestseller. Hee hee!

In other news .... I don't know if I menationed, but I've started cooking Bertie's food. He's gone off tinned stuff almost entirely, apart from one flavour in one brand. Plus I got sick of the smell and washing out the tins for recycling. So now I get a big tub of whatever meat is cheap (today it was lean minced beef, last time it was turkey chunks) and cook it up with veg and stuff. Today it was elderly zuccini and pasta shells. I did the turkey with carrots and rice. He absolutely loves it! His favourite so far was liver porridge - liver is cheap as chips & so are oats, and he licked his bowl clean. He also gets a full serving of Greyhound Maintenance biscuits, which is enough to live on.

On Sunday I went to Fife for a walk, on a hill near the Scottish glding centre. It's a good place to walk because the gliders ride the thermals around the hill and they're wonderful to watch. They're so graceful and silent, like big birds. There were also a lot of paragliders launching from the top of the hill - a lot less graceful than the gliders, plus they were yelling at each other! It was a fairly gruelling climb - it's steep, plus I tried a shortcut and got scratched to pieces on gorse bushes, and it was hot, too. But very enjoyable. I had to keep Bertie on the lead because there were sheep. He was probably too hot and knackered to bother chasing them, but there's no knowing with him. We also had a walk at Loch Leven, which I thought would be nice and cooling for B - but it has blue-green algae, so I couldn't even let him have a drink, let alone a paddle.

Yesterday was spent mainly clearing up the clutter created in the course of setting up the new computer - it looked like I'd been burgled!

Big shout-out to Cathie and Bill in Christchurch: Cathie has just come through major surgery that could have knocked out her one remaining kidney - and she came through with flying colours! The kidney is ok, plus she was in and out of ICU in a day instead of the expected 3-4 days. What a trouper!

:: a dog's life

This just in:

Dear Bertie,
What has happened to your mistress? As John might ask: has she given up on her bloke?
Did the cry-for-help knife wound turn septic, therefore hindering her typing ability? Has she spent all her time frivolously tootling around the glens in her whizzy new car and left herself no time for blogging? Has she fallen down and not been able to get up? Are you, Bertie, at this very moment, chewing the remains of her ulna to stay alive?
Yours bloglessly,
Cousin Margaret

Bertie's reply:
Hey there, cuzzy! We've been having fun. First of all Faye came to stay, she's my favourite visitor on account of lots of walks and cuddles and treats. She didn't stay long though, just a few days. Then Andrew came by, but that was just the one day, for two walks. Great to see him though. And then it was David and Donna staying! They are cool too - Donna says she loves me, and I love her too. No more visitors since then, but I live in hope. We have been for lots of rides in the new car. I like it apart from the windows, which whizz up too fast and sometimes hit me in the nose.

We've had some really good walks lately and I've got some cool new friends. Yesterday we went to Holyrood Park and I waded in the pond, got all muddy, ha ha. The weather's been too hot for chasing rabbits though.

Look at my new table! I love it:



There might be more to report soon. There's been some talk of a "new machine" - hope it's not one of these computer things, she already spends far too much time fiddling about with them.

This picture was on the screen today - anyone know what it is?

:: cutting edge cuisine

I had a delicious dinner on Saturday night - spaghetti with an absolutely scrumptious sauce. I started cooking it at about 7pm and finally sat down to eat at just after half past midnight.

In between ... ?

It started with an olive. A black olive with a stone in the middle. The way not to stone an olive is to grip it in your left hand and slice it with a very sharp knife. The olive will slip from your fingers, the very sharp knife will keep going and you'll end up with a very nasty gash. In this case, across my thumb.

I eventually managed to stop the bleeding with a pile of paper towels, and after a little lie down (cold sweat, trembly knees, singing in my ears) I decided to try out NHS24, the new dial-a-nurse service. It was excellent! I learned that my nearest A&E Small Injuries Unit was too busy to take me before it shut at 9pm. The next nearest A&E was in Livingston, which I don't know at all, so I opted for the new Royal Infirmary. The nurse said she'd fax them my details, so off I went.

It was also very busy, Saturday being the night for disasters, and a cut thumb obviously isn't a high priority case. But there were plenty of magazines and plenty of interesting people, so the three hours I spent waiting went fairly quickly. By the time I got to a doctor the cut had started to seal up, so I didn't even have stitches, just steri-strips, a bandage and a tetanus injection.



It's still extremely painful, and the area between the cut and the thumbnail is numb. The doctor said that was ok, so long as the tip isn't numb it'll all settle down. The tetanus shot didn't hurt at the time but is now a big angry boil, like a giant insect bite.

Sunday I went to a lunch party at John & Penny's place, which was jolly. A former colleague was up from London with her daughter and it was nice seeing them again, plus there were other friends there I hadn't seen for a while. I also met lots of interesting new people, so it was a thoroughly good time all round. Oh, and the food was wonderful too.

I've been doing a bit of community volunteer work that's turning out to be interesting. A local livewire has organised a survey of what residents think of the town and what they'd like to see, and I've been helping type up the results in a spreadsheet organised by another livewire. The latest batch I did were teenagers, and it made slighty depressing reading. There isn't anything for them to do, they say, it's boring. So what do they like about the town? They like Tesco, McDonalds, Burger King. What would they like to see in the future? KFC, Pizza Hut and (wait for it) a theme park.

Later: I'm on to some grown-ups' survey sheets now, and they have a lot more to say about everything. The funniest teenager "dislike" was: "Too many police so you can't get into trouble". The elders, of course, would like many more police, on foot, patrolling the place at all hours. And something called "sequence dancing".

I started this the other day and put it away due to busy-ness, so I'd better publish it now or I'll never get it done. Work is just go go go the entire time these days, from when I arrive at about 4pm right through to 1am. Tonight I went to the pub for half an hour, but that's rare. At times I want to chuck it in and be a professional dog-walker. But Bertie can't afford to pay me, and I do quite like my posh new car, so I soldier on. At least it's interesting!

The Tattoo started tonight - and it was raining, of course. We've had a very dry, hot summer, but there were a couple of rainy days last week. "Tattoo weather," said one old hand, and so it is! Poor Festival visitors, I do feel sorry for them.

:: dog wars

Apparently X along the road has had a letter from the factor of the flats across the road complaining about her dogs. She is *furious*. She's an angry person anyway, and this is just about to tip her over the edge. NO-ONE ELSE has had a letter, she says, and anyway her dogs never poo around the flats and she carries bags anyway. She blames Y - who lives in one of the flats opposite her and has three dogs - for the factor's letter. X went into an angry rant about how "aggressive" Y's dogs are, "especially that black one, he needs a smack". (Actually the dogs are all perfectly OK, and Bertie gets on particularly well with the black one. X's two dogs, on the other hand, regularly growl at and nip Bertie.) X had gone across the road to confront her but got Z instead, who didn't say much.

So anyway then I met Z, who walks Y's dogs because Y has MS and can't manage them(I'm not sure if Z is her partner, her brother, nephew or even son - she's about my age and he's in his 30s). I mentioned X's letter to him, and he said they'd got one too. In fact every dog-owner in the whole complex had got a letter. X was the only dog-owner on our side of the street to get one, though. Z's theory is that the culprit is a cat, because the poos are quite small. There is a big black fluffy cat that seems to be outdoors all day and night. And when I think about it, something has been peeing and crapping on my front lawn, leaving bleached patches. That's highly unlikely to have been a dog. I forgot about that until I mowed the lawn this afternoon - the grass was so long it hid a pile of poo until it was too late.

I should write a letter of complaint to all the cat owners in the street.

:: cruising

Ah, having a (nearly) new car is lovely. Electric windows! Electric wing mirrors! Central locking! Most of all - extreme cleanliness. The last means, of course, no dogs allowed. I did take Bertie for a birl at the weekend, but he got (white) hairs on the (black) upholstery despite the seat cover and slobbered all over the windows, so he's banned again for a while. It won't be too long before I've tashed it up myself though, and he'll be back in the rear seat enjoying the 70mph breezes.

Also at the weekend I went to a party across the road - Dave & Diane's 35th wedding anniversary. It was fun! Dave has a jazz combo so I'd hoped for music - but they didn't play. I did meet most of the band, though, and their spouses, all real characters. And I also met a lot of across-the-street neighbours, who all knew me as "the woman who walks the tall skinny white dog". Hee hee! D&D's house backs on to the river, and it was wonderful to sit outside watching the yachts and dinghies and ships.

On Sunday I made jam - a dozen or so jars of gooseberry and just two of raspberry. The rasps are not up to much this year - possibly not enough rain. The gooseberries did surprisingly well. The fencing guys trampled one bush, breaking several branches off and damaging the others. But although the remaining branches were lying right on the ground almost hidden by straggly grass, there was an abundance of berries. The other bush suffers every year from some kind of insect attack or disease, not sure which, that strips off all the leaves just as the fruit are ripening, so I end up with a weird bald bush covered in gooseberries. The jam was excellent, a beautiful colour (green skins and seeds and pale pink jelly) and perfectly set.

The blackcurrants are coming along nicely too, should be ready in a week or so depending on the weather.

Oh, I forgot to mention last week's fun - meeting some flickrites in the flesh. I've never done this before - met internet contacts - so I was a bit nervous. Brendada came up from Durham and stayed with me, and we met up with Birdw0rks from New York and Chumplick from Texas. Not their real names! I also got to meet Shooz and Ladybobo briefly.

I'd better get back to my work - will write more later.

:: new wheels

Or nearly new, anyway - I've signed on the dotted line for a one-year-old Ford Fiesta, boring car in boring silver. It feels very nice to drive though, so it'll be ok. Also, the sales yard I'm getting it from is giving me £50 for my poor leaky, dented old bomb! Which is £50 more than anyone else has offered.

I have Tuesday off, so I'm collecting it then. I didn't like to ask if I could try putting my dog in the back seat to see if he fits, so too bad if he doesn't!

I'm looking forward to getting it, I must say. The window in my car is really hard to wind up and down - the mechanism is broken - and because various bits have broken down it has three, count 'em three keys. And now ... electric windows and just the one key. Luxury.

It's under warranty until May 2007 - and that's when it has its first MoT test!! No MoT (WoF) worries until then!

So anyway yes, I am still driving my old bomb around, as it happens. I went over some speed bumps today & suddenly thought - erk, that doesn't sound too clever. The suspension bearings are "worn to excess" in the back. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday Bertie and I went on the Make History Poverty march. It was quite something - up to 200,000 people aiming to form a white band around the centre of Edinburgh. This was organised before Geldof's Live 8 thang, which kind of overshadowed it in the end. What really struck me about the Edinburgh rally was the amazing variety of people there - all political persuasions, from Socialist Workers to church leaders (including the cardinal), punks to hippies, tres chic folk to teenage hoodies. The atmosphere was good too, relaxed but purposeful. People had come from all over the place, even Wales.

Bertie did brilliantly well, considering the place was heaving with children, and most of them were blowing whistles. He hated it, but he didn't freak out. Afterwards, as a treat, I took him to the Water of Leith.

:: argh

Bad news today: my dear old Peugeot, which has ferried me back and forth to work pretty much faithfully for five years, has failed its MOT (WOF, for kiwis). The repairs needed for a pass would cost £500 or so, and it's just not worth it.

Worse news: I thought I'd be able to sell it for scrap, but no-one I've phoned so far has offered a bean! They don't want to know! "I'll take it off your hands but I won't give you anything for it," they say. Bah. I'm going to offer it to the lads down the road who mend cars in their driveway - if I'm giving it away I'd rather it went to someone I know. They might not want it either, of course, it is pretty rough. But hey, it has four good tires! Errrr.... and that's about it.

The mechanic says it's actually dangerous to drive, so I'll probably have to hire a car to go car-hunting in. One of the chaps at the garage offered me a P-reg SEAT Toledo for £150, but as I said to him, it's probably time I got a proper car.

So, car-hunting. Tomorrow is my day off, but it's also, wait for it, Make Poverty History rally day. Yes, not only would I rather be rallying myself, but a) I can't and b) car-hunting/hiring/scrapping will be made difficult by road closures, heavy traffic, police, steel perimeter fences ... oh, it's going to be just lovely.

Oh, and of course then there's car parking at work - you only get into the car park with your own car, the one registered as yours. So I'll have to explain to them about my hire car etc etc.

An added complication is insurance - apparently some car dealers will insist you have a certificate of insurance before they'll let you drive your car away. So that means giving them a deposit, arranging insurance, waiting for the insurer to post a certificate and then picking up the car.

Grumble grumble grumble.

Plan A is to get the bus into town and hire a car, then tootle around looking at car yards. What is missing from this plan? Bertie, that's what. So I have to walk him, get the bus, hire a car, blah blah.

Everything else I was planning to do on my day off goes out the window.

I'll stop grumbling now. It's a lovely sunny day, hurrah.

:: The Big Update

John phoned today (hi John! hi Mum!) and said: "Have you finished with that bloke then?" Or at least that's what I thought he said. In fact he was asking about this blog, not about my imaginary boyfriend. And he's not the only one asking about the blog. It seems I have Readers.

So here it is: an update at last and a promise to drop an occasional line or two here.

Where did I get up to? The general election.

It was a busy night at work but fun - it was strange seeing all the London-based political correspondents in the office, and very strange indeed that we were almost all still in the office as dawn broke. Bertie stayed with my colleague John's wife Penny, and I collected him before driving home. The downside of this late shift was that the next night at work I felt as though I had a really shocking hangover.


John and Alistair compare notes at the end of the all-night shift. Please note that I have two computers!

Anyway, soon enough I was off for my extended weekend trip to Argyll and points north. I took my time getting there - I was still a bit groggy from sleep deprivation. The weather was a bit wild en route: I stopped to let Bertie out for a wee on a bleak hillside and nearly couldn't get the door open, the wind was so strong. And I had some trouble finding the B&B - I've stayed there before, so I thought it'd be easy to spot. But in fact it's fairly tucked away, and Mrs Gordon doesn't bother with a B&B shingle.

It's a lovely comfortable place - not great on mod cons, but wonderfully homey and relaxing. I also had a nice big room, which is great where Bertie's concerned. Click on any of the photos to see more on flickr.com.


After walking Bertie I hit the hay and had a wonderfully restorative sleep. Just as well, because I had a busy day planned. First off, south to Loch Sween and the Kilmory Knap Chapel, to look at gravestones:



After that I had a great walk at a forest reserve along the road. It was a real gem - Bertie enjoyed it enormously. He doesn't get off the lead much on country walks due to sheep, so a gallop through forest glades was just thrilling for him.



Then I drove down the other side of Loch Sween just to have a look-see. Major thrill there was a roe deer dashing across the road right in front of the car, which caused Bertie almost to explode from excitement. I stopped in Tayvallich for a late lunch - the cafe was right on the shore, so I had a grand view of dinghy sailors battling the strong wind in the bay.

Next stop was Crinan, at the end of the Crinan Canal. Nice spot for an hour or so.



And still there was more to see! I hurtled back north to Kilmartin, to visit the graveyard there.



Then south again to Dunadd Fort, once the stronghold of Scotland's kings.



I was flagging a bit by now, but hit one more prehistoric highlight: the Nether Largie standing stones. It started to rain, so I headed back to Ri Cruin, completely cream-crackered. I didn't bother with dinner, just had a cup of tea and a biscuit.

While walking Bertie that evening, I saw something intriguing: a huge ruined house on the hill, half covered in ivy. I asked Mrs Gordon about it the next day, and she said it was Poltalloch House, which used to be the home of the owners of the big estate. It had a magnificent oak staircase and a pipe organ. Ri Cruin was the factor's house, and her parents had bought it after the war, when the estate was downsized.

She said they couldn't get staff for the house because young people didn't want to go into service any more - "they found out there was a world out there" - so they decided to demolish it. "They went and lived in the castle ... it's not like they didn't have anywhere else," she said.

So of course I had to go up there for a look. Mrs Gordon said there were Keep Out notices, but just to ignore them. I'd noticed what looked like a private road leading to the house during my walk, but when I looked at the map there seemed to be another one so I thought I'd try that. Next thing I was bumping along through a field on the most terrible farm track, trying not to gouge out the underside of the car on the ruts. And coming towards me was another car. Uh oh, I thought, here comes the farmer to berate me for upsetting his lambs.

He stopped and wound down his window. "Have you seen a lurcher anywhere?" he asked. Er, no, I said. Bertie of course was almost climbing out of the window - he does love novelty! "There's another road up here, you know, a much better one than this," he said as he drove off. So I carried on up the rocky road to the house. There were indeed signs warning me, but soon I was in the most amazing ruin. The roof was gone and the upper floors, and the ground was thick with mud and festooned in rolls of barbed wire. I couldn't get through all the obstacles to reach the front of the house, which was annoying.

Back in the car I drove round the front to see if I could get access that way, but it was all fenced off. (As I drove out on to the track, a van stopped and the driver wound the window down. "Have you seen a lurcher around anywhere?" she asked.) Plus I was due in Oban for lunch and still had other places to visit. I'll go back one day for a better look.



I headed off down the better track and met the lurcher man driving back up. "Did you find your dog?" I asked. Yes, he had. "She loves the farm so much she always runs away and hides when it's time to go home. She was in the house the whole time."

Off to Oban then, with a brief stop at the Temple Woods stone circle. I took some wonderful photos there the first time I visited - the bluebells were amazing. But this time it was drizzling and the flowers weren't quite out yet.



I was in Oban to visit Kate, Robbie and wee Calum. I found them all well and happy, in a nice little cottage tucked around the corner from a beautiful beach near the town.



After lunch (delicious soup and home-baked bread) I headed off across the country to the Rose-Millers' farm. It was an uneventful trip - until I got to Inverness. I got stuck in a rush-hour traffic jam! I still can't believe a little city like that could have a rush-hour, let alone one that traps you in a single street for nearly an hour. As it turned out I got to the farm just as dinner was served, so the timing was pretty good.

My farm visit was pretty busy too! On Tuesday, after a lazy start for me and lots of farm work for Andrew, we went to Culbin Sands for a walk. Bertie flushed a hare and chased it at break-neck speed straight into the forest. He must have been doing 30mph when he hit the treeline - he was very close to catching the hare. When we finally found him he was badly winded (he is seven and feeling his age a bit) and had scraped his back legs on logs or something. The walk back to the car was a good warm-down for him though and no serious harm was done. We had lunch at Brodie Country Fare, a favourite spot. It has a great restaurant and the most mind-boggling shop, a cornucopia of ornaments, gee gaws and objets of every description - all wildly expensive. The smell of potpourri would fell an ox. Which they would then stuff, decorate and sell to American tourists.

After Brodies we hurried home, ditched Bertie and headed off to the movies. We saw that Crusader film, the name of which escapes me. Kingdom of Heaven? Anyway it was OK - I have a thing for Orlando Bloom so the ludicrous plot didn't bother me too much.

After the movie we hurried home again and got ready for dinner. We went to the Cawdor Tavern, which has great food. I didn't see much of Jenny, who is, as ever, busy with the museum. But Andrew and John are on good form.



Andrew is looking forward to starting teacher training. He's going to a college in Glasgow, arriving in July or August. His preparation includes observing at a school in Auldearn, a village near Nairn, and doing high-school maths.

The next day after a nice walk I headed for home. I went via the museum and then south over the moors via Carrbridge.



Fast-forward now to later in May and a brief visit from Faye. We went toHopetoun House, which is just down the road from my house but which I've never visited. It was great, and I'd like to go back for a second look. We had a sumputous afternoon tea in the cafe, which is in the old stable block. "The horses lived better than the servants," the waitress said.



Faye enjoyed having a break from her job - she says it's lovely to sit and read or do embroidery and know you're not going to be summoned away to deal with something. She's now waiting to hear from the Home Office whether her application for permanent residence has been approved. If it has, she'll try to get work up here in Scotland. If not ... wah!

So that's the main events. Other than that I've been quietly, happily busy: work, dogwalking, photography, the occasional movie or meal out, yakking on the phone, gardening, going to the gym, tapestry, reading. I'm feeling the benefits of the gym work, though my knees are still pretty painful. My trainer, Stewart, is a hoot. I had my MP3 player on while treadling away on the crosstrainer and he asked what I was listening to. "The Supremes," I said. "What do they do?" I let him listen to a snatch of Baby Love. "Oh, that 80s stuff!" he said. "Sixties, I think," I said. "I dunno, I wasn't born then," he shrugged. Now he ribs me mercilessly about my "old people's music". "Yeah, it's some old stuff from the 90s, before you were born," I told him.

I'm so old.

Also on the fitness theme, some workmates and I have started up a walking group - we're going to go for a longish hike one Saturday a month, see how it goes. The first one was yesterday: Barbara, me, Anne and Anne's friend Gina. We went to the Pentlands, did the long flat walk by the reservoirs. Barbara brought her dog, Jack, along and I took Bertie. It was a good walk, good company too.



I had a lovely letter from cousin Jean the other day. She and Margaret are coming to Scotland next year, probably November. I haven't seen Jean for years and years, so it was great to hear about her family and their farm and the McKenzie Country. It's amazing to think how similar our start in life was and how completely different our lives have been. I'm looking forward to having them to stay.

Work has been particularly busy the past few days, as John's away on holiday, so I have more solo shifts. Friday was a complete nightmare: it was the busiest I've ever been in this particular job, I was a blur from go to whoa. But I survived, and not only that, I didn't kill anyone or even shout at anyone, which is quite an achievement.

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair done - I'm going back to my natural colour, or rather my hairdresser's interpretation of it. But it's only a semipermanent tint, so it washes out - it's looking terrible at the moment. I've got Tuesday off, hurrah.

So there you go! All caught up. I will try to be more regular from now on.