:: picture show

A great year for raspberries; the garlic and gooseberries weren't bad either.


Not raspberry jam (though I did make two batches from my own fruit), it's blackcurrant, using fruit from Chad's allotment. Yum.


Pic from the day Faye and I walked along the canal path from Ratho.





These are from the day Bertie got thirsty down at the marina and thought "Well there's all that water down there..." It's a steep seawall, slippery with seaweed, and I was terrified he was going to break a leg. Or drown. He thought the floating seaweed was solid ground and kept trying to climb on to it. Oh, and the water tasted funny, apparently.


Also a bumper year for wasps. This hole is on a path at Blackness.



The grand parade on Ferry Fair Saturday. Bertie stuck it out for the pipe band and one brass band, which is not bad going for him.


The weather has been ridiculously bad -- this was also during Ferry Fair week. That's a fun fair down there, next to the historic Forth Bridge! Tourists still flocked to stare at the visible bits of bridge and listen to the trains rumble over. Poor devils.


Great year for mushrooms. I picked some little puffballs recently and had them for lunch. Not bad, though not very mushroomy.


Furniture turns up in the oddest places.

:: rain rain

It's been raining and miserable for what seems like weeks -- culminating in a mudslide that blocked the main road north for more than a day -- but finally there are signs of a change. This afternoon the sun came out, hurrah! The garden's a jungle, so that's a priority for tomorrow (ie later today; it's just gone midnight), but it's also Ferry Fair day, with a parade, the crowning of the queen and a re-enactment of Queen Margaret's trip across the firth, so I'll have to make an effort and get up early.

Work is going to be all-consuming for a while: I should be off on Sunday and Monday as well, but I'll be working. I'm taking Wednesday off, I think. However, the good news is that I'm getting a promotion, and hopefully a decent pay rise to go with it.

I need a slight cash boost at the moment too: the car broke down on Sunday and it cost £230 for a new ignition and starter motor. On my way to work I noticed the electrics weren't working, and once I got there it wouldn't start again. The breakdown service towed me back home at the end of my shift, and I was a few very rainy days without wheels, including my day off. It would be nice to replace it with a newer car, but with all my extravagant travel plans that's not really on the cards.

I'd better get back to my work. I'll post a few pics tomorrow. Honest!

:: no lights

My car has thrown a wobbly, and I suspect it may be down to the haar. Driving in to work this afternoon I quickly noticed that the electrics weren't working. No indicators, no radio. Alarmingly, when I put my foot on the brakes, the battery warming lamp comes on and the petrol guage suddenly drops to zero! I stopped at the nearest petrol station and checked the water and oil, topped them both up, and drove on. I was running late and I'd left my phone at home - stoopid or what.

I managed to get to work in one piece - though there was a heart-pounding moment at some traffic lights when I realised that the terrible racket I could hear was coming from my car. I thought I'd better pull over and investigate, but I barely touched the key in the ignition and the noise stopped. On reflection it was the same kind of racket you get if you accidentally turn the key when the engine's running, which leads me to suspect some kind of electrical shorting-out. Hence my suspicion of the fog, which has been particularly thick over the past couple of days. This afternoon it was also windy.

If there are still no electrics when it's time to leave for home at 1am I'll call the Green Flag man and get him to sort it. Can't drive home without the radio!!

The fog is amazing. Yesterday and today both the bridges were completely invisible. The poor tourists still flocked to look at them -- they ended up listening to trains rumbling overhead. All you could see was the bit of pier behind the Hawes Inn.

:: now what'll I watch?

Big Brother is over, wah! Nadia the Portuguese transsexual won, Oh my GAAAHD! as she said several million times. I've been very brave and come out as a BB fan at work. Everyone here is extremely sniffy about it -- but then they don't watch it, so what would they know?

I love The Onion so much: it never fails to make me laugh.

Back in real life, the weather's been rubbish, muggy and misty. The fog does offer spectacular visual effects on the river: one night all you could see of the Forth Bridge were the floodlit piers; the whole upper structure was just airbrushed out.
There has also been a lot of very heavy rain, so the lawn is growing rank and lanky again, and the weeds are prospering. Almost all the fruit is finished. There are still blackcurrants ripening, but I'm leaving those for the birds. There aren't enough for jam -- I went to a friend's allotment last week and picked enough for ten jars, yum. I wish I'd made more raspberry jam, it really is delicious, and very easy to make.

Planning for Pinky's trip is advancing: it's very exciting when it gets down to choosing what kind of car to hire and looking at hotel websites. I want to leave as much flexibility as possible so we can respond to local conditions etc, but you can get good bargains on the internet. I've got some guidebooks too.

Time I did some work.

:: bertie goes awol

On today's walk I was distracted by Taffy's long-winded dissertation on how he could manage to insulate his static caravan, and Bertie took the opportunity to have another go at finding the black and white cat that lives up The Forbidden Path. There's a gate at the top of the path, but there's also a gap at the side of the gate just wide enough for a skinny greyhound to slither through.

Once I'd whistled and yelled long enough I stumped off up the path myself in pursuit. Through the gate is a little private lane for a row of railway cottages. At the gate of one of the cottages was a woman I'd met before. "Are you looking for Bertie?" she asked. "He's out the back. Just come on through my house."

So, carrying my bulging black binbag and litter-picker (it was a working walk), I walked through the back door, down the passage, through the livingroom, greeting the grandchildren as I went, out the front door, across the garden (large rabbit looking nervously out from hutch) and out the front gate. No sign of Bertie.

I called and whistled and yelled and he hove into view. But then he caught more cat-scent and was off down someone else's garden path. More yelling later and I finally had him collared. So that's another section of the walk where he has to be leashed now.

I've been very busy lately, doing all kinds of dull and domestic things, and a few more interesting things. Which I may write about later on. Right now I'm off home.

:: I am still alive

I just haven't had time to write anything -- it's all I can do to keep up with emailing.

Faye's been here for nearly two weeks, in between jobs. She whizzed up to Arran for a couple of days -- it's a great place to visit, with really varied scenery, and not far to drive.

I still don't have time to write much! But I will make an effort over the next few days.

:: bookings

Last night I got busy with planning the great expedition of Sept-Oct 2004: Edinburgh to Paris to Bordeaux to Biarritz to San Sebastian to Bilbao and back again, via London. The plan is for me to fly from Edinburgh to Paris, where we stay for a few days. Then we get the train to Bordeaux. We collect a hire car there, and after exploring the area for a few days, drive to Biarritz. Then we move on to San Sebastian at some point, and make it our base for explorations & expeditions. Then back to Bordeaux, train back to Paris and ...

This is where it gets slightly tricky. The plan after that is to go to London/Oxford for a few days. So I thought, ok, I'll book Pinky a return on the train; I'll get a single flight from Edinburgh-Paris and get the train back to Edinburgh from London. Or whatever.

It turns out that while flying Edinburgh-Paris-London-Edinburgh (with a stay in London) will cost £266.20 (including taxes), flying one-way from Edinburgh to Paris will be £476.20 (including taxes). Yes, that's £201 just to avoid flying from Paris to London to Edinburgh. This sort of thing drives me into a Colonel Blimp-like frenzy of harrumphing: "Stuff and nonsense! How dare they!" etc. I remember something similar for train fares.

Which brings me to the next thing: I can't book any train tickets. Not the ScotRail sleeper, not GNER, not Eurostar, nothing. It's too soon. I'm being too impatient. Hold your horses, they cry, it's only July! September is months away yet.

So I haven't booked anything yet.

Tonight I might have a go at booking my flight to NZ next year.

:: foiled!

On Friday night, Bertie had a brilliant idea. Like most of his ideas, however, it contained a flaw.

The problem was how to get home with a hedgehog in his mouth. You could nearly hear the wheels turning as he stood there trying to work it out. He wanted to go home. But if he got anywhere near me I'd take the hedgehog off him. Ah ha! He'd go home alone. He sped past me and ran down the street -- just about the naughtiest thing he's done in a long while. He was so pleased with himself! "Ha ha! It worked! I'm home, and I still have the hedgehog!"

But here comes the flaw. He hadn't worked out how to get into the house. As he stood at the front door waiting to be let in I clipped on the lead, knocked the hedgehog out of his mouth with my foot and dragged him inside.

Damn! Damn damn damn!

The weather's still pretty awful. I went for a walk in the Pentland Hills today & got drizzled on. It's quite chilly too.

I have a new hobby: litter-picking. The woman who started the Cleanferry campaign dropped off my litter-picker the other day, and I've had a couple of sessions clearing up rubbish. It's astonishing how much there is, once you start picking it up.

:: binland

I should have taken a photo. On Tuesday, a council van arrived in our street and unloaded our nice new brown wheelie bins, especially for recycling garden waste. It was rubbish day, so all the green wheelie bins were already out. It was particularly spectacular given that they left a brown bin for each of the flats across the road -- the street was a sea of bins!

A neighbour later said she'd tried to talk them out of leaving bins for the flats -- the grounds are kept by contract gardeners rather than the owners themselves. But the council workers said they were just following orders. Some of the bins are still sitting out in the street -- there's nowhere to put them!

I'm very pleased with mine, and immediately did some weeding and trimming. Then the storm broke, and since then the rain has been lashing down almost without a break. The raspberries are just about to ripen, so it's been maddening to watch the canes being battered by gales. Wah!

On the work front I've decided to stop moaning and grizzling and whining and adopt more of a Positive Mental Attitude. I've always been an optimistic person, but lately work has been getting me down. Not any more! Realistically I have very little to complain about, and I'm taking positive action on the things that are wrong. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

:: sorry 'bout that

What a time it's been. Work has just been insane, busy and stressful. I won't say much more about it here, suffice to say I bought lottery tickets today. I haven't been sleeping very well, then I sleep in and then have to bustle around getting everything done before work. Urgh.

A symptom of work stress is that I've become addicted to Big Brother. It's a cracker this year -- viewers called the police at one point! I know hardly anyone else who watches it. "What's the point?" sneered one chap. Hello?!? What's the point of Coronation Street? It's entertainment. Duh. Desmond Morris watches it.

One of the proofreaders the other day circled the word "hippest". Hip, hipper, hippest. "I've never come across it before," he said.

The QEII was in town the other day. First clue was a gaggle of elderlies at the bus stop, all dressed in shades of beige, white and stone. They were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones had decided to catch the train into Edinburgh. The ship is parked at Hound Point, and the passengers are ferried to the Hawes pier. Someone told them just to go up the steps behind Hawes Inn to get to the railway station. "I thought I was going to die!" gasped one lady I met while walking Bertie near Dalmeny. Neither she nor another couple I rescued could find the station, though they could hear the trains stopping there.

The weather has been wonderful, hot hot hot and sunny. Then yesterday it clouded over, and today it's pissing down with rain and cold enough to see your breath. I've had a couple of good walks (hood up, wishing I'd worn gloves), a hot bath and watched a bit of BB, and now I'm going to whip up some beef stroganoff. No idea why ... a whim in the supermarket. Fillet beef, mushrooms, sour cream and noodles, mmmmm. I haven't cooked it for probably 20 years.

:: Phew

Finally, a day off. Three days off, actually. It would have been five, but they're short-staffed, so I'm having to work on Sunday.

Right now I'm going to walk Bertie, then go shopping for a wedding present for a couple I've never met, but whose wedding celebration party I've been invited to, then I'm going to a film. I'm not sure which one ... but probably The Day After Tomorrow. It's had rubbish reviews, but I love a disaster movie. Either that or Troy. It's also had rubbish reviews, but I love an epic.

Then I might do some housework, mainly because Fiona's coming round tomorrow and the place is fairly grimy. The window-cleaner came this morning, so I need to at least clean the dog-snot off the inside of the windows.

:: terrierism

The first thing Ozzy did on arrival was to run straight under Bertie (yes, that's right, under) to his food bowl. Bertie's food bowl. And he stood there eating steadily while Colin handed over his luggage and we chatted. Bertie just stared in amazement. I finally had to haul Ozzy's nose out of the trough, at which point Bertie nipped in and finished off his dinner -- he doesn't usually eat much during the day and likes to leave himself a late-night snack. (The solution was to put Bertie's bowl on a high stool, and to give Ozzy some of Bertie's bikkies in his tiny wee dish.)

We had a walk and then it was bedtime. But hey, who can sleep in a new house? It's much too exciting! He barked at the neighbours arriving home at 1:30am, he barked at distant voices at 2am. At 4am he found Bertie's squeaky toys. It was like that the whole weekend: Ozzy manically excited by everything, Bertie so laid back he seemed comatose by comparison. When Bertie caught a hedgehog last night Ozzy's excitement went right off the meter. We were right under the bridge at the time, so his hysterical yipping could probably be heard in Edinburgh. He's a very cute dog, but man is he hard work.

Colin was picking him back up this evening -- a relief for me, and I imagine for Bertie too. He likes sleeping even more than I do!



In case you were wondering what Oz looks like -- he's the same kind of dog as Toto. Hence the name.

:: oz

Oz is staying the weekend! Oz is John and Penny's dog, a Border terrierist. He's very cute, and he and Bertie get along famously. John and Penny are in the US for their daughter's wedding (she's getting married in Las Vegas, in the Starlight Chapel), and Colin and Jenny are minding Oz -- but this weekend, Jenny's away and Colin is rescue-boating at a regatta all weekend.

I'm working on Sunday night, so Colin will let himself in to collect Oz.

Work is just insane, I'm so busy. I'm on top of things, but just barely. I'm having to make inhuman efforts not to burst into flames. I've got Saturday off, then back into the maelstrom again from Sunday to Wednesday. I was then due to have a gloriously long weekend, from Thursday to Monday, but am having to come in on the Sunday. Grrr.

That's all for now, I'll try and post pics of Oz and Bertie together, they look really cute.

:: the big blue

I finally finished painting my bedroom over the weekend and moved back in last night. It's very blue.





Also over the weekend I had a good go at the garden, front and back. I mowed and weeded and strimmed for hour after hour, and it's now looking reasonably cared-for, in a ragged sort of way. My mower doesn't have blades, it has a little plastic tag that whirrs around, and it leaves the grass looking a bit chewed. Also, the hedge is a bit wobbly -- I have no idea how people get their hedges looking so neat.

And finally, I went for lots of walks. The weather was lovely, warm and sunny.





The weekend's over, though, and I'm back to work tonight. It's going to be a very, very hard week. From Thursday I'll be on my own for a full week, with only Saturday off (normally there are at least two of us, and often three). The bonus is that from the following Thursday I'll be off until Tuesday -- a mini-holiday!

:: forgot to say

Bertie didn't need a biopsy -- the swelling's gone right down & is nearly normal. He's got another vet visit on Friday.

I was going to go sailing on Monday but it was too windy in the afternoon. Colin came over in the evening but when we got to the marina the red flag was up, meaning we'd be confined to the harbour area. There were three Wayfarers booked and a school group, so we decided against it. Apparently the waves were 3ft high out on the river. Ulp.

:: ticking boxes

I sat down with my Palm today and forced myself to do things I'd put in my Task list (instead of sitting in the sun eating strawberries and reading a computer magazine). It was quite satisfying to tick the little boxes and see the Tasks disappear from the wee screen.

So, dear Mother and dear Janos, you will soon be getting birthday cards. I've got an appointment for a smear test, and my mortgage update is done. Tick, tick, tick.

One thing I haven't bothered to put on my task list because there's no chance I'll forget to do it is: Paint the bedroom. I finished the papering on Monday and plan to paint on Saturday. The only thing is, I couldn't resist dabbing a bit of paint (B&Q Fresh Sky Blue) on from the test pot ... and I don't like it. It suddenly seems very bright. Changing Rooms bright. Plus the brilliant idea I'd had for a home-made bedspread (ivory brocade with butterflies on it) was blown out of the water by the discovery that it would take 10 metres of fabric -- let's see, at £19.95 a metre, that's ... aeiii! I'm thinking of waiting until I go to Paris & buying something in Montmartre -- there's a whole street of wonderful fabric shops there. Or I could just do curtains in the butterfly brocade.

In the meantime the spare room is a disgusting tip, with piles of clothes everywhere & too much furniture.

:: further update

The swelling is going down slowly, so I've asked them to put off the biopsy until Monday. That's my day off, so I'll be able to ferry Bertie around and hold his paw while he gets over the anaesthetic.

:: update

Bertie's blood test came back clean: no sign of an infection. So he's booked in for tomorrow morning (yes, he's letting himself out quietly so as not to wake me -- well hell, the clinic's practically at the bottom of the road, only one busy street to cross!) and I've been told to starve him from 9pm, because he's probably going to have a biopsy.

Of course I've been hitting the internet and have diagnosed a sialocele, a salivary gland cyst. How impressed will the vet be when I trot that out? Not very, I suspect, so I'll just let them get on with it. But it's good to know he's not about to keel over.

This morning the swelling seemed to have gone down a bit, so it may even just get better on its own.

Yesterday I had my hair done and whizzed round town doing 50 things, all in blazing, sticky heat, and roared off home thinking I would have time to mow the lawn before meeting Fiona. It started raining at Barnton. Fiona and I had had equally knackering weekends so gratefully agreed to put off drinks. I should have rushed upstairs and at least primed the bedroom walls, but instead I whipped up a lovely tasty dinner and then joed out -- after walking Bertie.

:: poor dog

Yesterday morning while out walking Bertie ate a lot of grass and honked it up. Uh oh. I checked him over and noticed that the glands on one side of his neck were swollen. Uh oh. I phoned the vet and whizzed over to Linlithgow for a consultation. He's not keen on the Linlithgow surgery because one time I left him there and the evil vets knocked him out and he had to wear a boot for weeks afterwards. However he was pleased to discover that the other pet in the waiting room was a rabbit in a cardboard box. Also the next pet in was another greyhound, hurrah. Lucky old rabbit owners.

So the vet had a look and couldn't see anything down his throat. His other glands are ok and his temperature's normal. She gave him two shots, antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory. The vet said the antibiotic shot "might sting". Well, apparently it hurt. It really really really really hurt. He squealed and cried and cried and cried. He cried so much and so loudly that the receptionist came in to see what was going on. He cried so much that the other greyhound howled along. The vet gave him a biscuit, and he managed to eat it without stopping crying.

I've got to take him back in tomorrow morning, and if he's not better they'll knock him out and have a good look down his throat. I fear it might be a hedgehog quill stuck down his throat. He isn't any better today; in fact his neck is more swollen than yesterday. He's not eating as much of his dry dog food as normal, but he is managing to choke down a huge quantity of treats. He's in good spirits, chasing rabbits and bouncing around, and his nose is still cold and wet so I'm not too worried. But I feel a massive vet's bill coming on.

I've nearly finished stripping the wallpaper off my bedroom -- ghastly business -- and I should finish tonight. Tomorrow I've got the vet, then I'm getting my hair done and going to the Christian Aid booksale in George St, then in the evening I'm meeting Fiona for a drink. But that could change depending on whether I have to collect a zonked-out dog from Linlithgow -- they don't have an operating room at the local branch. The bedroom's going to be blue. Eventually.

Last night I went to a great concert, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Sympony, plus Elgar's Sea Pictures and a couple of other things. A woman at work is in the chorus and she flogged us tickets: John, his wife and I went. We'd also been asked to go by Martin, who knows someone else in the chorus, and he was there with his son. We all met up in a pub & had something to eat before the concert, then went back to the pub afterwards. We had to move pubs because it turned out that Martin's son is barred from the first one! He's not a ruffian, just a free spirit.

:: back due to popular demand...

No, Bertie's coat is not still green. He scrubbed himself up and down the hedge while it was wet and then dried off on the carpet. Oh the joys of pet ownership.

In other news ... well, nothing. I've got a couple of good books on the go (All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland and Ilium by Dan Simmons) and sped-read another, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Oh, and I've also started Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. I recommend them all, though Ilium is only for hard-core sci-fi fans. Having said that, it has inspired me to download Homer's Iliad from the net and store it on my Palm. How sci-fi is that? I've got four other books on there, plus all my addresses etc, several photos, calculator and what-have-you, and plenty of room left. Twenty years ago I was all excited to have a computer with two floppy disc drives (and they really were floppy); now I've got a library in my handbag. I love technology.

I had a lovely letter from Uncle Jock, who sounds in good spirits despite having 10% kidney function and a crook ticker. Dog tucker, he reckons, but he's not letting it get him down. I've resolved never again to whine about my arthritis.

:: green dog

Why aren't dogs ever green? It would be better camouflage than white, surely, especially for a dog that can't take the cold. Bertie is trying out a new coat colour at the moment, thanks to a freshly-cut lawn. Mmm, very fetching.





After mowing the lawn and strimming the edges I ran out of steam and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside reading the paper. I know this is technically a "waste" of my time off, but my feeling it was to do just this that I bought this house in the first place.

I have a cold. I've had a vaguely sore throat all week, but the actual cold only developed in the last couple of hours at work last night. How irritating! It's nothing serious though, just a dribbly nose & slight fever.

Neighbours with dogs:
Neighbour A, who has been Holding Forth on the topic of Orkney for a good ten minutes, spies Neighbour B coming along with her dogs. "I hope you don't mind if I avoid her ... she does go on a bit. I think she's rather lonely; she buttonholes me and goes on and on with all the latest gossip." I have a brisk chat with Neighbour B about the GPS course she's doing, then rejoin Neighbour A, who proceeds to Hold Forth on the subject of narrow boats for another ten minutes.

I really like them both, by the way.

:: creepy clones

My website used to be www.hockadilly.co.uk, but then I got cheesed off with my ISP and shifted away. I didn't take hockadilly.co.uk with me because it would have cost ?75. Instead I got the dot-com version and moved on. The old url was registered to me until November last year, and this month, someone reregistered it. No biggie. (Though the word "why?" did cross my mind.)

Then tonight I googled the word hockadilly, just out of curiosity, and was amazed to see 1,360 hits. Even more amazing, the first two were for hockadilly.co.uk - not my own work, but something called "Be Equipped: Deuteronomy: Aquiring the Tools for Spiritual Success". A work by Warren W Wiersbe. It wasn't cached, and the link just leads to a message saying the site is "offline due to server maintenance operations". Weird.

A lot of the hits were for sites that trawl the web looking for search terms and listing the results; so I'm down for things like "fairy necklaces" and "dog coat knitting". Just stuff I write about normally.

Didn't do much today -- went to the pet supermarket, where Bertie met a truly terrifying little boy. His mother told him sternly not to try and pat the poor scared doggie -- so he went and got a great big ball off the shelf and threw it at him!

They've moved the live rabbits and guinea pigs from the dogfood section to over by the cat toys, but apparently you can still smell them.

:: days of whine and roses

Kate and Robbie's wedding ceilidh was wonderful: Kate looked radiant and elegant, and Robbie was magnificent in full fig Highland dress. Andrew was also in a kilt and formal jacket & bow tie. I know kilts are a Victorian invention -- originally it was just a long bit of fabric bundled up round the waist with a belt, with the excess tossed over the shoulder -- but I do think it's gorgeous. Blokes like it because it comes with a non-embarrassing handbag, the sporran. This year, they're putting their digital cameras in there! Slightly nerdy digression, since we're talking tartan: I now know how to tell a military kilt from a civilian one. At the back, the pleats of the civilian kilt make checks when they hang flat. On a military kilt, they make stripes. You probably already knew that, but I didn't.

So yes, lots of wild dancing, including the tango -- Robbie is from Argentina. My camera is rubbish at taking flash pictures in large spaces so I didn't take a lot. This one, of Andrew doing the tango with the best man's wife, required a lot of technical fiddling around with to show up at all. He's got a rose between his teeth, put there by Paul. And yes, that's the best man in the background. He was a very nice person!



The age range went from tiny babies (the youngest was six weeks old) to ancient folk, and everyone had a ball. Here's another picture of Andrew:



Afterwards we piled into a minibus and had a brief drink in a manically noisy bar/club before repairing to the hotel where Andrew, Paul and several other wedding guests were staying.

So that's the roses part. The whine part was the hotel where I stayed. Whiiiiiiiine! My room was unbelievably tiny -- no room for Bertie to turn round without backing into the bathroom -- and jammed full of ornate furniture and hectic florals. Bertie hated it. I think he's always slightly worried in case this is our new home.



The bed was excruciatingly uncomfortable, so what with Bertie moaning and grizzling and everyone else in the hotel getting up at 7:30am, I got hardly any sleep. Then at breakfast came the final insult: I was seated at a table right at the back of the dining room, next to the kitchen. I had to scramble under a palm tree and shove aside wine-bucket stands to sit down. Grrr.

What cheeses me off most, though, is that I didn't complain. I should be more assertive, I should have refused to sit at the damned table. But I was tired and hungover, so I just paid up and slunk out.

Yesterday it rained and rained, but I went to the Hermitage for a walk anyway -- it's lovely there whatever. Meeting up with Andrew and Paul lightened my bad mood, but then I fell over!! Argh. I gave up and went home, where I had a nice hot bath and a nap. In my wonderful comfy bed, in my spacious bedroom. Bliss.

:: too busy to blog

Have a look at this instead: kevan.org. There are a lot of amusing things to do on Kevan's site, like making up slang. He's also doing The Diary of a Nobody as a blog, which is a grand idea. Someone else is doing Pepys's blog.

Oh, I talked to Faye today. I called her on her mobile after first phoning her landline and getting her employer, the 90-something former Oxford philosophy don. He's deaf and won't use a hearing aid, and got quite tetchy with me for not speaking clearly.

"When I answer the telephone I expect to get a name. Now, who is it you wish to speak to?"
"Faye. F, A, Y, E..."
"Wye Ee? There's no-one here by that name!"

:: It's still me

I just changed the name ... no good reason, I just felt like a change.

Maybe it's because spring is here. I do feel energised generally -- I cleaned the house twice in the space of a month, and didn't even have guests! The garden's erupting quite nicely. The rose hedge out the front that I hacked down is sprouting, and the giant honeysuckle that wove in amongst the roses -- now reduced to a twisted stump -- is also sprouting, so that's good. I'm hoping to keep it all down to about waist height. It was 6ft high or more.


This is an early photo -- the hedge is the second wodge of greenery.

Without the hedge though, the front looks kind of bare. There's a honeysuckle next to the front door and a nice dark red rose under the kitchen window, but nothing under the dining room at all. I would love to put a tree there, but I can't because all the drain manholes are there -- I don't know why my place got lumbered with them but it did. There's one huge one and two smaller ones. Now and then an official water authority van drives up and men in clumpy boots stamp all over my lawn and garden. Shrub-in-a-tub's an option, but knowing my expertise in causing early plant death that may be over-optimistic. I could always just stop strimming the edge and cultivate a tiny "meadow" strip.

I love spring, it's my favourite season. Especially here -- it's so dramatic after the winter, and so welcome.

:: oops!

My hush.com email account was deleted for lack of activity -- ie I hadn't checked my mail for a while. So, sorry if you wrote to me there and I never wrote back. I'm too slack for my own good.

Lately I've been busy mainly with work and dog-walking. On Monday I went to Tentsmuir, had a fantastic walk there. First off I went to the West Beach at St Andrews, but it was too crowded -- Bertie is too neurotic to do well on crowded beaches. He wasn't too bad; he was nice and friendly to a woman and her son. But then she sat down and he rushed over and barked in her face, and then danced around and wouldn't let me catch him. So we went to Tentsmuir, where there are miles and miles of empty sand and forest and it's like dog heaven. He met a very interesting lurcher and they played chase. Bertie lost: the lurcher dashed through water up to its chest without giving it a second thought, and Bertie had to detour round because he's such a wimp.

It was a changeable day, with bursts of bright blue sky and acres of dark, heavy rainclouds piling up along the horizon. There were seals off the beach, poking their heads up to stare, and flocks of darting black birds. It was just wonderful.

I'm on a healthy eating stint. I don't know how long it will last, but I'm enjoying it. I make delicious salads to take in to work, and on my days off I have steak and salad, things like that. Today I baked a piece of salmon for tomorrow's salad. Yum. And lots of fruit.

I haven't been out to check if the grass seed has sprouted.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I bought an outfit for weddings! Well, a top. But I also bought a pair of high heeled shoes! Anyone who knows me would be amazed. Next thing I'll be buying a frock. The top is nice, a dark purple with flowers embroidered on it, and most importantly, it's comfortable. In the same shopping session I also got a wedding present for Kate and Robbie and a christening present for Calum, plus all the paper, cards etc.

:: spring clean

I spent the weekend mainly doing DIY, gardening and housework. The lawn had its first mow of the year, mainly so I could sprinkle around some grass seed. It's from Canada, apparently that makes it extra tough. It had better be, if it's to compete against buttercup, moss, dandelion and dog pee. I planted a lavender bush in the front garden that I bought ages ago, but I haven't yet decided where to put a bunch of blue polyanthus and some pansies, which I got at a knock-down price at B&Q. I was there buying a pot of paint for my bedroom, a project for May, perhaps, when I might have some time.

On Monday I had a desultory go at buying something vaguely dressy for wearing to weddings (only a fortnight until Kate's ceilidh; the other one's in June) but didn't even try anything on. Frills and chiffon? Hmmm. I don't think so. I'm going to have a really good go at getting something on Saturday.

I'm still waiting to hear all about Pinky's investiture, hint hint. I'm sure it all went swimmingly and that you all had a lovely time at the party afterwards. Wish I could have been there!!

:: social whirl

In today's mail was an invitation to the wedding celebration of a couple I've never met. They're getting married in Las Vegas, but the dance is right here in Edinburgh. I'm going to go -- it's always interesting to meet new people. (It's the daughter of a colleague.)

I did a spot of gardening today, in between torrential rain and hailstorms. I really must do something about the front garden, it's a tip. The daphne is still hanging on in there, but it's frazzled-looking, and it's on a lean now too. I might dig it up and put it round the back in a pot. That will teach it to lean over!! The back is like a detention camp, home to a bunch of skinny, starved plants barely clinging to life. I was thinking I might put a row of pots round the front too -- surely I'd remember to water them! -- to brighten things up. But what I really need is more evergreens. It doesn't look too bad in summer, but it's too bare in the winter. Which is most of the year, let's face it.

The garlic's doing ok. And the Spanish bluebells too, they're flourishing.

On my day off I spent a bit of time going through my computer back-ups and looking at a lot of old writings and web projects. It was quite inspiring, so I think on my next days off I may have a go at a redesign.

Right now I'd better get on with my (paid) work.

:: Faye's away

Faye left this morning, heading for her new job caring for a very elderly chap, a former Oxford don. He's in his nineties and lives on the outskirts of the city. When Faye arrived here she only knew the general area he lived in, so we looked at a map of Oxford and decided one particular street looked nice -- near the open country, away from the ring road -- and lo and behold, that is indeed where she'll be living.

While she was here we did a bit of out-and-abouting. Went to see Pieces of April, which we both enjoyed, and had one whole day shopping for new clothes for me along Princes Street. Faye was determined not to buy anything herself, but couldn't resist a gorgeous pair of black brocade jeans on sale. I got boring work clothes mostly, but also some nice floppy linen trousers for summer.

I'm starting to plan my holidays: three weeks in September/October (with Pinky in France), then at least another three weeks in February/March (in New Zealand) next year. Awful bunch-up of hols, but cannot be avoided. In 2006 I swear I am going to take a fortnight in high summer season! Actually I probably won't -- I prefer to have holidays in spring and autumn when it's relatively quiet. I'd like to go to New York for a week in spring, or to somewhere in New England in the autumn.

Spring has definitely sprung here -- the weather's gone haywire and the lawn's started growing. Weeds, too. All my neighbours have been out busying themselves pruning and tidying and double-digging. Not me -- it's a jungle out there. A tiny pink cyclamen is blooming away madly and the big straggly purple-flowered thing in the rockery is budding. Loads of Spanish bluebells are coming up, despite my best efforts. The massacred rose hedge is showing signs of life -- I hope it will bush out, because I don't fancy having to grub it up and replace it. I don't know if I said, but Mrs Blacker grew it specifically to keep the paperboy from cutting across her front lawn. Hah!

:: thrillsville

Excitements in my street this week:

Dave and Diane painted a bright pink stripe around the bottom of their house. It's semi-detached and the neighbour's stripe is dull rust to tone in with the harling (roughcast). Diane was downcast; she thinks it's too bright. Dave likes it though: "I think it's quite gay!" "Very gay," was my opinion. But in a seaside kind of way. "Huh, I suppose we should stick pictures of boats to it," huffed Diane.

Meanwhile, the couple next door to Bridie have constructed two raised beds in their front garden. "And can you guess what they've gone and planted in them? Only potatoes!!" Potatoes in their front garden! What next.

In other news, I got my Ikea bookcases built without too much bother and they look fantastic. I ripped into a big scrubbing and decluttering exercise, and the place is looking spiffy.

Work: The top-secret project is that we have gone compact on Saturdays. We had all guessed by the time we were told. Teeny tiny little paper, much more work but fun. I've been appointed chief nag, which is why it's fun.

Faye's arriving on Saturday on a break between jobs. The last one didn't work out -- no phone signal, hardly any time off, persnicketty clients. Happily the agency is very understanding, so she'll be posted elsewhere without any bother. She's motoring up -- the train was going to cost some astronomical amount and the bus takes 12 hours. She's here until Tuesday.

:: pics

This isn't a great picture, but I took dozens trying to get the colour to show true and this is the closest I got.



Just to remind you, here's the old green.

:: greens

That was some week. I didn't do the bedroom in the end. I could have if I'd put my mind to it, but by Wednesday I was cream-crackered and couldn't even think about starting another room. I papered the dining room first -- not quiiiite as simple as I'd imagined, given there was no pattern-matching involved. Once that was pretty much done I cleared out the livingroom, threw plastic sheets over the sofa and chairs and started tearing off wallpaper.

It was at this point that Bertie barked at me. Yep, he was trying to tell me something, just like Lassie. "Are you mad? This is pointless. Where's my damned rug? I hate you!" He flounced off upstairs, where his bed was surrounded by dining chairs and sofa cushions. He flounced back down and did some more barking. By now I was lying on the plastic-covered sofa watching TV and eating olives and oat cakes. I'm surprised he didn't call the SSPCA.

After getting all the paper up (including incredibly fiddly bits around the windows and the gas fire), I took half a day off -- went out for drinks and a movie (Something's Gotta Give, 6 out of 10) with Fiona.

Next was the moment of truth: had I got the colour right?

Last year I painted the livingroom walls what I thought was a nice soft green. It turned out to be a nasty yellowy lime. When the sun poured in (which it does) it became fluorescent. Plus I still had the awful wallpaper underneath.


This doesn't do justice to the yellowness of the colour.

The new colour, whew, is much more to my liking. It's got a bluish caste; at first I thought it might be too blue. But it's perfect. In bright sunlight it fades out to a pale, fresh green. At night it darkens down somehow & is almost cosy. I'll post some pics tomorrow.

To Bertie's relief I've replaced all the livingroom furniture. My books are all still upstairs -- I haven't got the new shelves yet.

:: Ready or not

The walls are all stripped down, the piles of (stinky) wallpaper have been binned, and I'm ready for action. I've got lining paper, paste, size, brushes, bucket and seam roller -- I'm going to do this properly. I've got the Wallpapering section of my jumbo DIY manual memorised, I'm all set.

So imagine how irritated I was yesterday when my boss said, "You know that week off you've got ... how committed are you to that?"

Argh!

Very committed, was the answer -- especially since the compromise alternative of the week after next off was ruled out. And the week after that was also a non-starter. So I'm still having next week off, but I may lose my days off the following week, which are the Sunday and Monday. I chose that week in particular because I knew I'd have those days off tacked on the end, but my boss has booked his weekend off at the Flodigarry Country House Hotel (my fault, I gave him vouchers), so he won't be around.

The cause of all this disruption is some top-secret project that will keep us all busy over the next few weeks. I'll be busy manning the fort, I'm not involved in the project.

Back to the decorating: frustratingly, B&Q have run out of the colour I've chosen for my bedroom (Blue Sky), so I'll have to trail back into town at some point. Or maybe I'll just paint it Magnolia.

:: interior decor

Why? I had this lovely (almost) flawless wallpaper:



And I had to go and scrape it all off.


First the paper had to be torn off, then either I steam/scrape/scrub the glued bit left behind -- it's like a ghost of the paper. If I decide to go with lining paper, then I don't have to scrape the glued bit off.



It took hours, long hours, it soaked up my entire long weekend, and it's not even finished yet. It took hours just to get all my books out:



It had better be worth it. I'm taking next week off to redecorate the dining room and my bedroom, and possibly the livingroom too, depending on how I get on. I thought I'd get a good headstart this weekend. Hah! By the end of next week I'll be knackered -- I'm already aching all over.

However. It did have to be done. I painted the livingroom over the wallpaper, which I really don't like, and guess what? I still don't like it. In fact it's worse, because it's the wrong colour.

Did I tell you about the toilet in the dining room? Frances next door told me a little while back that once Mrs B couldn't manage the stairs any longer, her son-in-law installed a toilet for her downstairs. She was sleeping in what is now the diningroom, so that's where the toilet went. After she went into the home, he took it out again. So while stripping off the wallpaper I discovered where all the pipes went. How fascinating! What a lovely mental image.

In other news: a message from Faye. She says she can't get a signal on her mobile at her new home, and internet access at the library is fully booked, hence the silence. However, it's a lovely house and a busy job. Can I suggest that everyone send her a card/letter the olde worlde way?

Spooky moment while stripping wallpaper: I was listening to Poetry Please on Radio 4, something I don't usually do because a) I'm usually working and b) I hate the way Roger McGough says "poo-etry". So anyway it's a poetry (pooetry) request programme, and as I scraped away, I thought, I should write in and ask them to play Sorley McLean reading my favourite poem (pooem), his great work Hallaig. And I swear, the very next reading was ... yes, Sorley McLean reading Hallaig. I nearly fell off the ladder.

You can listen to the programme via the internet, follow this link.

In between scraping and scraping and scraping, I went on some good walks, cooked some nice meals and watched a bit of TV. Just now I've had a lovely long bath. Now I'm off to the 24-hour supermarket for some dog food. Bertie hates interior decoration -- it's completely pointless and makes a hideous mess. I have to compensate with lots of treats and nice walks.

:: blither

Where does the time go?

Faye got away all right, had a fairly cold and miserable trip south though, by the sound of things. She's now settled in to her new home/job and I hope to hear all about it soon.

The Saturday before she left was nice and sunny so we went for a walk in the Pentlands. By the time we got there it had clouded over, but we soldiered on. The plan was to have a good walk and then have lunch in the Flotterstone Inn. But it seems everyone in Edinburgh had the same idea -- the hills were hotching with people and dogs.

It was bitterly cold, so we didn't walk that far, just up to the top of the reservoir. The inn was packed out, with a queue for tables, so we headed back to the car. In the rain. "It's nearly snow," I said. By the time we got into the car it was snow. We drove to Carlops in a blizzard. Had a nice pub meal there though, in the Allan Ramsay hotel. I had thought of going to a film or something in the evening, but Faye was busy packing and, well, it was too cold and snowy outside to bother.

So yes, she's gone south and I've been busying myself with sleeping, reading, doing embroidery and playing with my new Palm. Oh, and walking the dog and walking.

Inspired by the great crib-painting expedition, I'm taking a week off later in the month and finally doing up the dining room and my bedroom. It'll take at least a week, what with scraping the vile wallpaper off. I'm going to start preparations this weekend.

:: getting there

Faye's gradually working her way through the morass of paperwork and phone calls. Her backpack has arrived safely via air freight; she just had to call the official, who faxed her a customs form, then talk to the official for half an hour, fill in the customs form and fax it back, then talk to the official again to organise a delivery date. I think she's just about co-ordinated the activities of Lothian and Borders Police and several departments/branches of Lloyd's Bank regarding her stolen cards and chequebook. And I'm pretty sure she's mailed off her application form for a visa renewal. She's organised her start date at her new job and discussed details of her duties with the other carer.

She's also getting over her jetlag, and is very cheerful and positive despite all the hassles she's had to wade through.

We had a nice day yesterday -- I got my hair done (always a treat) and she took her car in to have its wheels aligned, then we met up and she treated me to lunch. After that we had a trawl through the charity shops of Morningside before I headed off to work.

There was a tremendous rainstorm in Edinburgh yesterday, complete with thunder and lightning. The building I work in has a glass roof, so the noise of rain hammering down was tremendous. Reminded me of listening to rain on the crib roof. Ah, the summers of yesteryear!

Anyway, Faye has an extra day, so she leaves for the south on Sunday. She's planning to stay overnight at Whitby, and then spend Monday night at Banbury. It's close to Oxford but not as expensive.

In other news I'm enjoying my new Palm in an extremely nerdy way. The whanau should be grateful though: I'm putting in everyone's birthdays, with a seven-day advance reminder. It's a chore entering all the data, but it will be worth it. I've already found it much, much more useful than paper diaries etc, but in such nerdy ways I'm not even going to tell you.

Faye wants one now: she's downsized from a fat Filofax to a skinny diary, a skinny address book and a skinny shopping list, but a PDA would be even skinnier. Trouble is, the old computer I gave her doesn't have USB. So now she's thinking of a lap-top plus PDA. I think with her mobile lifestyle (and a fresh desire to lighten her luggage load) that set-up would be perfect. Some places she doesn't have room to set up the computer, and it's a clunky old thing anyway.

At one point, Faye was looking for something in her suitcase. She sat back and looked round at all her stuff and sighed. "I think I might have a disorder," she said.

But the thing is, all our family has the same disorder. I know I do. When I came to this country I had a backpack and a small suitcase, and I sent over a tea-chest by sea freight. ("What've you got in this, rocks?" puffed the delivery man as he hauled the chest up the stairs. In fact I did have rocks in it, including a beautiful white river rock that John gave me.) Now I have a three-bedroom house with ample storage, two sheds and loft space and I have an amazing amount of stuff squirrelled away. So much in fact that I lose track of things. Like my Christmas stuff: somewhere I've got a box filled with ornaments, fairy lights, wrapping paper and Bertie's antlers. Can't find it anywhere.

Trevor certainly has the disorder. I asked him once if I could get him a model kit for a birthday or whatever. He took me through to his study and flung open the cupboard doors. There were shelves and shelves of unopened model kits. Mum .... well, we've all seen inside your wardrobe! Full marks for tidy storage. Pinky's flat is so tiny (and so tidy) that you wouldn't think she could have the disorder, but she's confessed to having a big cupboard downstairs. So there you go. It's genetic.

:: the eagle has landed

Yep, Faye arrived this morning, safe and sound and bang on time, and looking tanned. We had a cup of tea and a good catch-up chat before she hit the wall: no sleep to speak of for over 24 hours, plus jet-lag. I've put her in my room: I figure she has greater need of the comfy bed than me!

She starts her new job on Monday, which is a shame -- not that she's starting a job, but that it's so soon. Bertie is thrilled to bits to see her again, and it's mutual.

I had a great few days off. I drove through sleet and high winds to get my Palm -- and got a little karmic payback for not using public transport. The shop has a parking building right next to it, so I though, aha, I won't have to go outside. But I had to collect the Palm at its customer pick-up depot, which is across the road! Damn. But it was worth it -- it's the coolest thing out, so little and neat.

Sunday morning I met up with a work colleague and his wife and their dog for a walk -- Bertie and Oz are great pals. Then Andrew turned up with Faye's car and we had another walk before I drove him into town to catch his train back home. Then I went on to Fiona's for dinner -- that was fun, there was a good crowd there.

Yesterday was mainly practical stuff -- cleaning, laundry, supermarket shopping, entering data into the Palm. I also had a good walk on Blackford Hill, Bertie's favourite venue. Many, many dogs, mainly labradors.

My knees are much better just now. One of my neighbours was having a clean-out and found a couple of (unopened) tubs of high-strength glucosamine sulphate tablets, so he passed them on to me. They seem to be working: the inflamation has gone down and my knees feel much stronger and more stable. Still get jolts of pain, but nothing like the same constant aching. I've still been using my stick though, it helps on downhill stretches.

:: stormy weather

It's completely foul today -- sleet, high winds, urgh. Got drenched on the morning walk but once I've dried out I'm off out again -- to spend my vouchers, whee! I've also got to visit the supermarket -- the shelves are bare -- but I might leave that till later on. Last time I supermarketed on a Saturday it was so crowded I nearly had an agrophobia attack. It helped that everyone else seemed to be as shocked as I was at how crowded it was, leading to a kind of Blitz spirt where we all co-operated rather than stressing out at aisle-blockers. I much prefer supermarket shopping at 2am; the only disadvantage is not being allowed to buy booze.

It's been a hectic week at work, due to Hutton and its aftermath, so I'm looking forward to having a weekend off. Shopping today, lunch with Andrew and supper with Fiona tomorrow, housework on Monday. Faye arrives on Tuesday, back from her NZ sojourn. I hope the weather's improved by then!

:: cold in winter shock

Yes, after a nice little mild spell it's gone all Arctic again. Or what passes for Arctic here in Blighty. The papers say things like "snow causes chaos in Highlands", when in fact they closed one or two roads (which are closed by snow so often they have snow gates and special poles so the snow ploughs know where to go) and Mrs McPherson's sister Agnes slipped and sprained her ankle on her way down to the shop for a pint of milk and a loaf. Arctic is permafrost, people. Arctic is 50 below zero plus windchill, it's frostbite and hypothermia.

I still get a big thrill from snow, though. My first winter here there was a cracking snowfall one day, so I jumped in my car and drove out to the countryside to get some photos. Driving down through the Borders, visibility started to fall as the wind piled driving snow up in drifts against the fences. How exciting! Then, in the next village, a policeman flagged me down. "Where are you heading?" he asked. Heading? Errrr.... "Jedburgh," I said, having seen that on a sign somewhere. He looked concerned. "You'll not get to Jedburgh this way, the road's closed," he said. "I'm not sure how you'll get there, let's see..." "That's ok, I can stay with friends," I babbled. I turned the car round and went straight home, chastened. I didn't even have a coat on, never mind a thermos flask of coffee, a shovel, sacks for traction, blankets, a torch .... Tsk tsk.

Today I confined myself to a nice walk with the dog - who very much enjoyed the snow.

On Monday we went to Dollar Glen -- it was a good walk, but hell on my knees, despite my walking stick (sorry, Adventure Pole). It was fiercely cold up on the tops, although the sun was shining.

Here's Bertie striking a striking pose (he held it for four shots, while I messed about with exposures and flash!).



And another one, dog walkers on Blackford Hill:

:: whoops

Another hiatus while I get busy with other things. I've actually spent a ridiculous amount of time finessing the comments (see below). Ridiculous considering how few comments are left, that is. But it was interesting tinkering with them.

I wrote to blogger about the intermittent problem getting this blog to show, and they said they're working on it. In the meantime, if you get a message about the page not being available, click on the refresh button on the browser and it should show all right.

I had a whole weekend off and managed to squander most of it faffing around with mp3s and reading books (I'm reading Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson; Last Act In Palmyra, a Falco mystery, by Lindsey Davis; and The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates). I did get in a few good walks, though, and Andrew swung by for lunch and to collect the furniture from Anthea's old flat: a double bed and a chest of drawers. He brought the main farm car, a big Astra, and it swallowed everything up no trouble. He's just e-mailed to say that his aunt had an awful accident the other day: one of her excitable dogs pulled her over while she was walking in the woods and she broke her ankle badly in two places. She managed to crawl home and from there phoned Andrew, who rushed over and rode shotgun in the ambulance, guiding the driver through the country roads. They've been minding the three dogs since then, though they're going into kennels shortly.

I also went to see a fantastic film, which I've been meaning to see for ages: Touching the Void. It's the true story of Simon Yates and Joe Simpson, who climbed a mountain in Peru. Simpson fell and broke his leg in a fairly gruesome way, so Yates one tried to get him down by lowering him on a rope, section by section. At one point, though, he went over the edge of a cliff, so he couldn't take the slack off the rope so his Yates could come down to lower him down the next bit. So Yates had to cut the rope, letting him fall into a crevasse. When he saw the crevasse he assumed Simpson was dead. But he wasn't (obviously, since he wrote a book about it all) -- he'd landed on a ledge. He managed to crawl off the mountain and across a glacier and rocky moraine to the campsite. It's not all grim: there's quite a bit of humour. The photography is stunning too, and the narration has the kind of matter-of-fact, undramatic feel that is so true of mountain-mad men. A colleague who's a climber came in to work with a gash on his face once, and it turned out he'd fallen 300ft while roped up. "I would have been fine, but my ice-axe bounced off into my face." We were all going, "three hundred feet!!!!", but to him it was nothing.

We've been pretty busy at work, one way or another. Tonight's drama was a computer glitch that had the whole IT department running around feverishly. Once it was sorted we caught up pretty quickly though, and still hit the deadline.

Did I mention my long service award? I'm getting £200 of vouchers and an extra day's holiday for hitting the ten-year mark as a permanent employee (on 3 January). No sign of the vouchers yet, though the boss's secretary offered to let me look at them. The boss is apparently writing me a letter. Jolly good. Must be a long one ....

:: comments are back!

Hurrah! Quick ... say something.

Another site stepped in to help -- read about it here. All this is free, by the way -- though I will probably send them a donation.

:: talking back

I just noticed the commenty thing wasn't working and did some poking around. I found this angry diatribe (Contains fruity language, by the way.)

Erm... so ... send me an email if you have something to say, I guess.

:: bertie's new best friend

At last, some Christmas pix:


Wee Jenn is mad about dogs and was thrilled that Bertie liked her.


The two Jennies and Bertie.

Awwww!

:: time out

I hadn't realised I'd left it so long between entries. I've now almost completey recovered, phew. I've been surrounded by sick people for weeks, so it was only a matter of time before I caught something. I'm just relieved it was so minor. My knees are feeling a bit better too (now I've got the new hard plastic orthotics) so good news all round. Might get out into the hills at the weekend, I could do with a long walk, especially uphill.

I've been thinking a lot lately about people and their dogs -- I meet so many of them, and their relationships with each other (people to dogs, dogs to dogs, people to people) are fascinating. They vary as much as dog breeds, so much so it's impossible to stereotype them (though of course people do have reasons for choosing certain breeds). And when you get talking to other owners ... wow. Weird and wonderful. Dog owners can be intense about their pets. Uh, sorry, "companion animals".

My favourites are the relaxed types who let the dogs get on with their own socialising. I was lucky enough to meet a man just like this when I first got Bertie, and he taught me not to be anxious about Bertie's boisterous behaviour. Then there are the prim folk who think bum-sniffing is rude even when dogs do it and who think Bertie might eat their precious yorkie. Bertie can usually win them over with his big brown eyes and gentle manners, though.


The scary dog-owners are those who get scary dogs because they're scary. Pit-bull terriers, that kind of thing. After a few terrifying encounters, Bertie has learned it's not a good idea to go prancing up to these dogs pretending he's hard enough. He isn't. Sure, he can run faster than them, but they're smarter. There he was, running and running and running and yet this staffie still managed to catch him! How? He was running in a circle, and the staffie just cut him off at a leisurely jog. Pooooor Bertie, he's dumb as a sack of hammers.

:: on the mend

Did I mention I've been sick? I've been sick. Just a cold, nothing serious, and now I'm getting better. I took huge doses of vitamin C, then read on the label that I shouldn't exceed the stated dose. Oops. So I got on the net and after trawling through hundreds of "spam" sites, finally found a list of the symptoms of vitamin C overdose: diarrhea, abdominal cramps, high stomach acid, increased urination, insomnia, irritability, joint pains, osteoporosis, headaches, hypoglycemia, weakness, reduced oestrogen, PMS, may increase infections by causing copper deficiency. Hmmm. Don't think so ... There was also a Dutch piece about the bossy old EU saying it was "probably" bad for your body to take too much vitamin C.

But I think the best therapy has been getting plenty of sleep -- thanks to my wonderful new bed. It really is fantastic.

The weather yesterday was conducive to staying indoors but of course being a dog-owner I was out there slogging around in the wind and rain. Later it hailed heavily and it snowed overnight too. Ugh. Today was sunny though, so Bertie got a longer walk.

Oh, I forgot to say that 3 January was my 10th anniversary at work! Of working full-time that is -- I was a casual for three years before that. By a marvellous coincidence, the company has brought in a scheme to reward long service -- starting 1 January! I get an extra day's holiday and ?200 worth of vouchers to spend at the high street store of my choice. Whee! I'm going to get a Palm Tungsten PDA. Ten years. Blimey, that flew by.

:: back up! back up!

Whoops, I didn't have such good backups as I'd thought -- a couple of the CDs I used can't be read. No disastrous losses: just a few dozen early digital-camera photos and some of the music CDs I coverted into MP3s. I also discovered I hadn't backed up a lot of older files, and had to hook up my antique SparQ drive for those.

However, now I'm all reinstalled and back on line and updated, phew.

I had a great weekend off -- lots of walking, a bit of shopping, a movie (Cold Mountain) and much, much time spent hunched over this computer. Back to work today.

:: weekend off

Yes, so, back online ... I was in a bit of a rush by the time I finished setting the modem up and there is still some fine-tuning to do, but basically I got it going, that's the main thing. Phew. Now the big ghastly grind is downloading all the updates for Norton Anti-virus and Windows XP -- I had it set up for a "live update" so don't have backed-up files. Tsk.

I have three days off now, hurrah. Lunch with Andrew tomorrow (I think -- we've been communicating by text, which I'm rubbish at. Plus my phone battery keeps running down). I found my old answering machine the other week when I was looking for my Christmas decorations and thought I'd give it to him. But now I can't find either the answering machine or the decorations! Plenty of other junk though ... anyone need a scsi card?

Nice moment today walking Bertie: we met a girl he's previously barked at and he cosied up to her immediately. "He likes me, he likes me!" she said. Aaaahhhh, sweet!

:: back online

Phew. Took some doing, but I finally got my shonky modem to work. I found a nice boxed warning on page 15 of the user's manual: you're supposed to physically remove the modem before reinstalling XP. Gee, thanks Zoom! I didn't have to reinstall XP again, thank goodness. That would have made me crazy.

:: happy new year

Not such a happy one for lots of people here: they've just called off the Hogmanay street party. It's 10:30pm, so there are tens of thousands of people jammed into Princes St, freezing but cheerful at the prospect of live music and a huge "seven hills" fireworks display. Now they're all shuffling off to find something fun to do. The culprit was the wind. Aberdeen's street party was cancelled too. Drummochter Pass and the Slocht are both closed by snow -- they're the highest points on the main road to Inverness.

I'm at work, get off at about midnight, depending on what happens new-wise. Bertie is sleeping over with friends -- latest report was that he and their dog, Oz the terrierist, are getting on famously, even eating out of each other's dishes! I'm going to meet up with Fiona -- the traffic should have cleared by then -- for a modest celebration and maybe a party or two, then home.

After a delicious lie-in, Bertie's minders are coming round with him and we're going to watch a work colleague dice with death in annual Loony Dook. Then off to Fiona's again, for brunch this time, and then to work. Which should be a doddle ... but you never can tell.

Happy New Year, everyone!

:: happy happy

My computer's mostly fixed but I cannot get the modem going -- which is annoying because I bought it because my old modem wouldn't work under Windows XP. Hah. So anyway, no snaps of my wunnerful Christmas yet, and very little blogging because I can only do it at work and I'm really really busy at work.

There was a Christmas miracle up north: Bertie made friends with a child, Andrew's niece Jenny, age nine. She loves dogs, so she was thrilled to be his first ever junior chum. He was so relaxed she could walk him on the lead, and chase him shrieking across a field.

Mostly it was a whirl of activity, a lot of which was kitchen-based. I didn't do any farm work at all, tsk. I'm getting old -- the silage pit has lost its charms (it does have some! it's warm on a frosty morning, for one thing). We saw The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and went to a brilliant panto, Jack and the Beanstalk. Jenny senior cooked up a storm despite having fallen and hurt her back at the weekend -- roast beef and Yorkshire pud on Christmas Eve, and turkey and all the trimmings plus pheasants for the Big Event. It was great seeing Ian and Yukari again too.

I called NZ on the 24th, talked to Liz, Leigh and Ken. Big merries to all those I missed!

Once my computer's back up I'll post some snaps.

:: I broke my computer!!

I did a stupid, stupid thing; then I did another stupid, stupid thing which compounded the earlier stupid thing. Finally, Windows XP did a stupid, stupid, stupid thing. The net result was that I spent most of today backing up my files (whew). I've done some research on the net and have a solution for the short term, but in the long run I really need to do a complete reformat and reinstall. Given the amount of damage already inflicted, I think that would be best.

The first indication that something had gone horribly wrong was pretty spectacular: the screen was filled with just one word, repeating endlessly:



Grub is a Linux boot manager. It wasn't working.

Ah well, I'll get there in the end. In the meantime, however, I am without an internet connection. GRUmBle GRUmBle GRUmBle. I won't even have this work connection, as -- hurrah! -- this is my last night before a whole week off.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Oh, speaking of Christmas, I heard a great one on the radio this afternoon: a woman who runs some kind of Christmas decoration business was wittering on about changing fashions in tree-dressing. Her favourite was a Byzantine theme she'd devised. "I wanted something colourful so I thought, where's a colourful place? And it came to me: the Middle East! Even though the Middle East has nothing to do with Christmas, quite the opposite in fact."

:: damn

The police raided Ingliston Market -- no Christmas presents this year, then! (Kidding.)

I find the whole thing astounding, I have to say. It's been going on for years, both at Ingliston and at the Barras in Glasgow. And it's so blatant! I remember once seeing a woman come up to a bloke selling dodgy software, effing and blinding at him that he'd shopped her to the police and she'd lost a load of equipment. But no-one needs to shop anyone, they're all doing it right out there in public! Well, not the copying part, the selling.

I'll draw a veil over my own purchases at Ingliston. I'll just say the software industry hasn't lost a penny; I can't afford their finest products.

I'm feeling v. smug at the moment, having finished almost all my Christmas shopping. And I've still got a week to go! I still have to ice the cake, finish off a handcrafted gift, wrap some presents and distribute local cards. I'm off tomorrow -- appointment with the podiatrist in the morning -- working Wed-Fri and then off until after Christmas! Whoopee!

Mother and John, thank you very much for the tea towels. Gaudy is good! In fact I'm thinking of putting the very bright one up on the wall. Uncle Jock sent a calendar with a great pic on it of you and the Dick whanau, Mum. I think I'll frame that one at the end of next year.

:: search

I'm completely addicted to this search thing: as I've said before, the statistics thingie I've got tells me the "referer" for my hits. And some of them are from internet searches.

Like "dog parka", for example. OK someone might be searching for that, but in Portugal? Why? Then there's "budgies sleep patterns", and "vegetarian perfume cruelty guerlain". Alarming that these people get my weblog up!

Oh, then there's "diy surgery dog spade" -- that really is disturbing, on both counts. In my defence, I was doing some diy, the dog had surgery, and then I bought a spade. They are not connected.

Here's one that was tooooo specific: "barevan christmas". It only gets one result. So: who was the mystery browser on Dec 05 2003 at 12:08:11 pm? Using a Tiscali connection? For 35 seconds? Ah yes, I have your IP address! I know your operating system -- Windows ME, the final clue.

:: the hedge

After Saturday's Christmas experience I spent Sunday afternoon doing something much more satisfying: hacking back the rose hedge in the front garden. It's wildly overgrown and threaded through with honeysuckle -- sounds romantic, but it isn't. Rosemary next door got so sick of it snagging her guests she attacked it with the shears in midsummer -- not the best time of year to prune, but she was desperate. So I promised to give it a good trim this winter, and now it's a row of stumps. Once I've disposed of the mountain of clippings I'll feed the stumps and put some new compost around them. Just to show there's no hard feelings, you know. The roses should shoot back up, but if they don't they don't -- no biggie.

When I told Rosemary I might plant replacements if they do die, she hurriedly said she doesn't care if there isn't a hedge there. She says Mrs Blacker, the former owner, planted it because the paper boy and the postie used to cut across the lawn in front of the dining room while she was having breakfast, and she got sick of both the intrusion and the muddy trail they wore in the lawn. But as with everything else she didn't spend any time on upkeep and it grew leggy and mildewed and full of dead wood. In the spring I'm also going to reseed the front lawn -- now it will get a bit more light it might do better.

Yes, so that was Sunday -- I was out there until dusk, my feet freezing in my wellies, chopping away at 6ft high rose bushes. Overnight there was a harsh frost, with a fog to boot. On the way back from the morning walk I saw another neighbour trying to start his car. Rrr rrr rrr, rrr rr rrrrr. "Good luck!" I said cheerily. Ten minutes later I was sitting in my own car. Rrr [silence]. Rrr. Eh? I phoned Green Flag and just had time to wash the dishes before the mechanic was there with his jumper leads. Brrrmm! Apparently it was the cold. All I need to do is pour a kettle of boiling water on the battery. I have never heard of this, but that's what he said. I haven't had any problems in previous winters -- maybe I need a new battery.

So then I got my parcels posted and the cards and fuelled the car and and supermarketed and walked the dog again and made a curry and conked out on the sofa in front of the telly. Very enjoyable time off.

:: some pix

I did the Christmas shopping thing today -- went in on the bus and spent half the day trekking around various shops. You lucky people! My favourite purchases turned out to be decorations for the cake. I found cute robins, the kind with real feathers, for just 90p each! Bargain. I tried to have a look at the Christmas market, but it was too packed.





Here are some other photos from the past month:


Blackness Castle with 1,000 acres of sky.





Couple of autumnal shots from Blackford Hill.



Here's a picture taken the day Bertie was bashed up by the marina cat. His wounds have healed up ok.

:: uh oh

I seem to have managed to lose the talk-back thingie. Bugger.

:: changing faces

Another day, another new look: I didn't really like the last one, and as I said I changed it by accident. So here's another one: Bluebird. Nice and simple.

Today's Scottish word is dreich, adjective, dreary.

As in, "The weather's awfie dreich the day, hen." Damp, dull, with the kind of rain that is too light for the intermittent setting on the windscreen wipers but still manages to soak you through on a short walk.

See: smirr, smur noun
1 drizzly rain
verb (smirs, smirrs, smirring, smirred)
[intransitive]
2 to drizzle lightly

Well, we've had a good innings this year, weatherwise. I'm only grumbling because today was the day I was meant to heave my old mattress and bedframe out on to the pavement, and I forgot. And now I'm going to have to do it when I get home. At 1am. In the smirr.

Today was also the day I chose to lock myself out of the house again. Happily I hadn't mucked up my Cunning Plan and managed to get in ok, albeit with a wet bum and a very confused dog.

Speaking of Bertie, his leg had miraculously healed by the time I got home from work on Friday night. Which is just as well, because I overslept and missed his appointment with the vet on Saturday morning.

:: update

In case any Bertie fans are worried, well worry some more. He's convinced his leg is broken. He walked home ok from the marina and was fine during the post-walk cleanup and ear-bandaging. But after he'd had a lie-down it suddenly became really, really sore. Ooowwwww! He only managed to get downstairs when I got out the treat biscuits.

I took him out for a toilet walk regardless, to show him it would feel much better once he got moving. In fact it didn't. It was still so sore he could hardly walk (nothing to do with the fact that it was raining heavily, of course). Mysteriously, when I gave him his Jumbone he managed somehow to sprint upstairs. Miracle? Hmmm. I've caved in and made a vet's appointment for tomorrow, however. He does like those painkillers.

When I phoned the vet, the receptionist asked my name, then said, "Oh, what's wrong with Bertie today?" The joys of owning a greyhound.

:: the cat won

One of Bertie's dreams came true today -- he got to play with a cat. Unfortunately it was the hard-as-nails feral cat at the marina, and it won. At one point in the encounter, the cat was clinging to his head, kicking, biting and scratching. As far as I could see, it didn't suffer any injuries itself -- apart from perhaps being a bit out of breath.

Bertie, however, limped home covered in wounds: a torn ear, scratches all over his face (including one right next to his eye) and neck, and cuts and scrapes on his ankles from racing over the slippery seawall rocks. The ear is bleeding like mad, and there are bloodstains all over the house. I put a bandage on it -- ha ha ha! Like he's going to keep a bandage on his ear. Sigh. Now the excitement has worn off, he's feeling very, very sorry for himself.

Apart from that, nothing much to report. I had a lovely birthday (it was one of my days off) and got lots of wonderful presents and cards. Work has been very busy and full-on, but I've mostly been enjoying it. There's a horrible flu bug going around so a lot of people are sick, and some are so sick they're off work. So far I've not caught it, touch wood.

:: my new hobby

Sleeping. Sleeping in my new bed, which is a marvel of comfort. Ah, bliss, heaven, etc. Still unsure of what to do with the old one: crap, broken bedframe and worn-out mattress, anyone?

I tormented my dog by taking him to Ingliston market today. He hates it there: it's a bewildering maze of stalls -- there are exquisite fried-food smells at every turn, but the hundreds of sugared-up little children desperate the pat the big doggie really kill his appetite. Not to mention there's usually a couple of rotweilers with huge studded collars wanting to rip his guts out. "Aww, he's really cold!" everyone says. But no, he's shaking himself to pieces from fear. Bouncy castle! Gigantic pink gorilla! Screaming weans! The lady at the petfood stall tried to give him a chunk of Puffed Jerky, one of his favourite treats, but he was too far gone for that.

It's part of his thurupy, however. If I expose him to stressful situations on a regular basis, eventually he will get over himself. That's the theory anyway. Ingliston is the most stressful situation he's been in. Next year I'm planning on taking him to the Royal Highland Show. That should be interesting... Ingliston will seem a doddle after the Grand Parade and the pipe band march-past.

:: bug's life

OLD COCKROACHES SEIZE UP JUST LIKE HUMANS
By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News
Cockroaches get doddery in their old age, just like humans, scientists revealed today.
In the first detailed study of insect ageing, researchers found that the bugs’ joints seize up and they have trouble walking up hills.
American scientists noticed that cockroaches that survive into old age reduce the time they spend moving around by about 40%.
When the team put the insects on a mini treadmill, adults that had reached the ripe old age of 60 weeks took half as many steps per second as one-week old individuals.
Many of the old timers developed a stumbling gait as their front foot caught on their second leg.
Angela Ridgel, who led the study at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, told New Scientist magazine: “It happens every couple of steps. It does slow them down.”
The constant tripping happened because the insects’ joints had stiffened up. By 65 weeks old, more than 80% of the cockroaches were tripping over themselves.
Old cockroaches also did badly at climbing a 45 degree slope. While all the younger insects managed the task, 58% of the older ones failed.
There was one rather drastic way to speed up an old cockroach, the researchers discovered.
Ridgel tested the ability of one cockroach species to run off when nudged. She found that elderly individuals were more likely to escape after being decapitated.

"Escape"? In what sense is running away after someone's cut your head off escaping?

However, interesting to find I have so much in common with cockroaches. Apart from the decapitation thing, obviously.

:: feet first

Went to the podiatrist today, and she says she thinks the problem with my knees is mainly down to misalignment and can be fixed. Hurrah! My left leg has shrunk by half an inch and my left foot needs more stabilising. She's taken away my orthotics to tinker with them -- leaving me pronating wildly in the meantime -- and if that doesn't work, she's going to try me with a hard plastic set.

"We've had you pain-free before, no reason why you can't be again." Which makes a change from the doctor's "take some painkillers, there's nothing else can be done". Three cheers for biomechanics!

So then I took Bertie for a walk on Blackford Hill, hobbling round like an old lady while he went zooming off into the distance. It will be great once my knees are fixed -- it feels absolutely dreadful to be so insecure on my feet. Walking downhill in particular is difficult. Bertie absolutely loves Blackford Hill. He gets to meet new and interesting dogs and people, plus there's the stream to drink out of and lots of interesting smells.

:: dog's life

When I first got Bertie we were walking through the marina when we met a family that also had a greyhound, a black female. The family has a boat moored there, and the dog goes sailing with them. Bertie was scared to death of the children & deeply suspicious of the rest of them, including the dog.

Then last year, we met them again. I'd forgotten about them in the meantime, but they remembered us. Bertie was a bit calmer by now, but still nervous about the children.

For some reason, on Friday as I walked Bertie through the marina, I thought of that family for the first time since last year.

Guess who we saw yesterday?

This time it was just the mother, who rushed up with a huge smile. "It's Bertie, isn't it?" He greeted her just as enthusiastically -- he's become ultra-friendly lately -- and she raved about how he's improved over the years. She pointed out her family heading along the pontoon to the boat, with the dog in its red jacket.

Does everyone have such a good memory? I couldn't remember her dog's name if you put a gun to my head.

It was good, though, to get confirmation that Bertie has improved since I've had him. I tend to think he's the same scatterbrained nincompoop he was back then, which he is of course. But he's also a lot more confident and more obedient too (when he feels like it). I took him to Holyrood Park yesterday, and he had a whale of a time and didn't get into trouble once. We met a group of people with a bunch of dogs, including two puppies, and he behaved himself perfectly.

Yeah, I think I'll keep him.

:: searching questions

You won't have noticed, but I've put the tracking thingie back on the page -- it's a little coloured box down the side somewhere. It spies on you and reports back to me, so I can keep track of who's looking and how often.

One thing I can see is when someone has stumbled on the page through a search. It truly is bizarre, the things people search for! And even more bizarre that they find my pages. I mean, I don't write about men's willies, big or small, and there certainly aren't any pictures of them.

Then there's this one: "torn and tattered + anthea". What's even odder is the language: "Ekki þarf að nota "AND" því öll leitarorð eru sjálfkrafa tekin með." What's that, Icelandic? Weird.

More: "Spike Milligan Song lyrics One Black on White down to her knees". And this one: "carjack and brick". And "christmas flatpack pictures". On a Google search for "cagoule messy", Hockadilly comes up first, isn't that interesting?

No? Uh, ok I'll stop then.

I bought a new bed yesterday, a "Picasso" at John Lewis. I lay down on a bed costing £3,000 and nearly lost my head, it was so deliciously comfy. But good sense reigned, sigh. The one I have is perfectly comfortable, low enough for me to sit on and not too dear. It's arriving on Friday.

:: hi cathie!

Wow, someone talked back! Hurrah. Cathie says:

"That Xmas cake sounds far more suffisticaked than my white job made with pineapple and coconut, no booze but yummy Brandy icing, and I will have to make one this year seeing we will be home and not off to the North!! Bill will love it though!!!!! If we win the lottery can we add to your visitor list and have some too? Do you remember its four years since we came to see you. My doesn't time fly when you're having fun!!"

Yes, I do remember it's four years -- and I've got a tentative ETA for my next trip. Margaret and Ben are getting hitched in Jan/Feb 2005, and I've invited myself to the wedding! It'll be in Christchurch, of course, so I'll see you and Bill then, Cathie.

:: tidying up

I sat down to fix a few broken links on my website today, and found an interesting function on the program I was using: Check broken links/whole site.

Wow, there are a lot of broken links.

From there I went on to Check code/whole site.

Oops, lots of bad code too.

I spent so much time faffing around checking and fixing all the broken stuff I didn't have time to reload the site -- so it's still all broken on the web! I'll do it tomorrow, maybe.

I might be too busy fixing a few things round the house: I still haven't draught-proofed the front door, and I should do that really soon because there's a storm coming. I have to finish the great study reorganisation project as well, and plant some garlic for next year.

Next week I've got an appointment with the podiatrist to see if I need new protheses. Did I mention I've got arthritis in my knees? Well I have. It's been pretty bad since my last holiday, to the extent where I can hardly walk downhill. So anyway the doctor says there's nothing I can do but take ibuprofen regularly. I'm also taking codliver oil and cutting down on coffee. Pinky suggested seeing the podiatrist again, because limping changes your gait and that may be making the protheses not so effective, hence making my knees worse. I really hope she can help, because it's making me crazy not being able to walk freely.

I got a trekking pole for hillwalking -- not a walking stick, oh no, it's a pole. The guy in the shop told me I should have two, but I have to hold Bertie's lead most of the time. Maybe I'll get another one later on. They're great things, they telescope so you can make them exactly the right height.

I haven't actually used it yet, I have to confess. But soon I will.

I've been shopping for a new bed, and I feel like Goldilocks. My bed really needs replacing: the mattress is second-hand -- I bought it off my old flat's previous owner -- and the frame is a cheap-and-nasty pine slatted thing that broke last year (I mended it, more or less). Last weekend I went to a factory outlet recommended by a friend, but the kind of bed I want (pocket springs) was too huge and puffy. I had to actually jump to get up on to it, and couldn't sit on the edge -- the base is sprung too. Shame, because it was a good price. I don't like Ikea mattresses at all, they're either far too soft or too unyeildingly firm. Pocket sprung mattresses are great: they're firm, but mould around your body.

:: jolly good

I've just had a very restful and zestful few days off. Actually I was quite busy -- I made a Christmas cake, for starters. It called for things like a kilo and a half of dried fruit, which made shopping for ingredients a pleasure. I love mixed peel and glace cherries and dried apricots, mmm, so there are lots of those in it. And I added cranberries, too, and figs and raisins and sultanas. It was in the oven for over three hours, and now it's sitting bundled up in tinfoil, soaking up a glass of brandy. Next month I'll ice it.

I also got round to renewing the insulation around my hotwater tank, and got some winterising bits and pieces too: a foam wrap for the garden tap and draught-proofing for the front door. And I got materials for a couple of embroidery projects. One went belly-up immediately because I found I'd bought "waste" canvas -- it's very loosely woven, designed to be basted on when you want to do counted-thread work on fine fabric. Once you've finished you pull out the threads of the waste canvas. It's useless for tapestry work itself! Bah. The other project is going belly-up in a slower way, due to me being over-ambitious. Heigh ho.

Time to go home!

:: Faye's here

After a pretty miserable journey up from Reading (heavy traffic, rain), Faye arrived just in time to unload her car and get changed ready for my next-door neighbours' wedding anniversary ceilidh. It was a hoot: live music from a band of old geezers with accordians and a drum-kit, and detailed instructions on the Virginian Reel, the Dashing White Sergeant and Strip the Willow. We were seated with some of Rosemary's relatives and our other neighbours, so it was very congenial. I'm a rubbish dancer, but a gallant gent whispered instructions in my ear for a reel (one, two, three, stamp, back one, two, to me, to you, and turn, turn!).

We had intended to leave early, but they brought out the supper so we stayed on a bit, and then they cut the cake, so we had to stay for that, and for the toasts and speeches. And then there were the farewells -- Rosemary had prepared a little scroll for each guest with a thankyou poem, very sweet touch.

Eventually we wobbled home in our tight, girly shoes. We'd left Bertie with the television on as well as two radios, because the fireworks had been very loud earlier on. Someone was letting them off right behind our houses. When Faye arrived I was just getting out of the shower. Bertie had crushed into the bathroom too and curled up on the mat, he was in such a state. I'm sure if the shower hadn't been going he would have climbed into the tub. When he heard the door I'm sure he thought the explosives experts were coming to get him, he really panicked! Imagine his relief and delight when he found Faye there! Bertie's life is full of surprises.

Tomorrow we're going to North Berwick, meeting Fiona and her mother for lunch. That means a very early start, eek. But it'll be worth it, especially if the weather holds.