We have been burning the old roof to our shed bit by bit in our incinerator. When R went to break up the last piece, he checked underneath it (looking for amphibians mainly) and found it had been colonized by many snails! All were removed to a place of safety.

Saphy did not cover herself with glory yesterday. First of all, she was sitting on my desk quite calmly. R came in and we were having a chat, when all of a sudden, Saphy’s tail started to flutter. We ignored it for a few seconds and the fluttering got more vigorous. “She’s spraying” I shouted. […]

In “The Lord of the Rings” Galadriel gives the Fellowship a gift of elven “waybread” or “lembas” which is a kind of biscuit which acts as the ultimate travel ration. There was some discussion on the Internet about how you actually make it, and this was the recipe Chat GPT came up with. Ingredients: 315 […]

I made it back to Lochgoilhead all on my own (bus, two trains and plane) apart from R meeting me in Glasgow. I was nervous about all the steps but it was actually fine. Now I am home, R and I have resumed our daily walks, albeit a bit slowly and carefully. I am hitting […]

It has been a rewarding and quite enjoyable week. It has been nice to be somewhere with a bit more life to it than Lochgoilhead and also to be able to go out in lovely weather without battling with rough steep paths, rain and midges. Really nice to wander to the excellent farm shop and […]

Today J and I walked down the Holy Mile between the Slipper Chapel where the RC shrine now is, and the Anglican shrine in the village. This is by far the longest walk I’ve done since the operation. Walsingham is much better than Lochgoilhead for my foot because it is nearly all on the flat […]

Walsingham has two shrines – one Anglican and one Roman Catholic. A strange feature of the history of this country (blame Henry VIII) is that all the older churches tend to be CofE and the RC churches are modern. This is because the older churches were originally RC before they were “taken over”. I’ll have […]

J’s Mum’s funeral today. It was at St Peter’s church which is a lovely little country church, and it was also a very beautiful day. J and I picked a huge bunch of flowers from his Mum’s garden (the place she had loved the most) and we put them on the grave where she was […]

J’s mother did not have an automatic washing machine – she had a twin tub! I’ve honestly not seen one in nearly forty years – my Gran had one when I was a child, and I briefly (once I think!) used one in a rented house I stayed in. J and I had to figure […]

J’s Mum died rather suddenly and this, followed by his solitary occupancy of the property left it rather sad and cluttered looking. My remit for the week (as well as attending the funeral) is to pack a load of stuff away and get the house looking nice ready for sale. It is such a very […]