Aug 12th, 2023

New sign

The sign on our spare room used to say “Roddy’s Room” (ok – I have to admit that this is our friend J’s real name). However, we thought Saphy used it more than he did (this is a hint that he hasn’t been over to stay recently), so I renamed it. I also put a […]

Aug 6th, 2023

Visit to Glasgow

It’s been a while since I went to the big city. With one thing and another, nearly four years in fact. So considering we have a holiday in London booked for Sept, I thought I had better get some practice in by going to Glasgow first. It was J’s birthday on 6th so we made […]

Aug 5th, 2023

Which way up?

Part of this is the hillside, and part is its reflected image in the loch. But the question is – which way up does the picture go? I have never seen the loch as completely mirror-like as it was today.

Aug 1st, 2023

R’s Totem Pole

This is R’s Totem pole (it is literally a curtain pole in his office). The “scalps” adorning it are the speaker’s lanyards he has acquired from all the conferences he has given talks at for the last ten years or so. He is (rightly) very proud of it – but to me there is something […]

Jul 25th, 2023

Lucky again

We have christened a little black and white cat which keeps visiting us “Lucky”. She first started coming regularly a couple of months ago, and at first she was so timid that we couldn’t get to within 50m of her. But we have partially “tamed” her, and she will now come into the hall for […]

Jul 20th, 2023

Iris

Iris by the pond today. We are going to have to do something about the pond because it is increasingly overgrown. The trouble is that getting it properly fixed professionally would cost a fortune because the stream that used to feed it inexplicably dried up. We think tree roots cracked the pipe it was running […]

Jul 14th, 2023

A visit to Helensburgh

I went on a little trip to Helensburgh today. The weather was really lovely and Helensburgh was looking very fetching. The thing about British holiday towns is they look great when the weather is fine… But are surpassingly awful as soon as it isn’t (and it very often isn’t). The nastiest day I remember was […]

Jul 5th, 2023

Cobwebs everywhere…

Cobwebs all over the garden this morning – you can only really see them when they are wet with dew. Rather like the cobwebs in the garden of my parents’ old house in Mossdale the morning of R and my wedding day.

Jul 2nd, 2023

Elizabeth Line

R went to London for a few days to speak at a conference, and got the chance to go on the new Elizabeth Line. Apparently it was very shiny and impressive – perhaps I will get a chance later this year as R and I have a week’s holiday in London booked in September. It […]

Jun 25th, 2023

Three cats

Here is Saphy with Amber’s two clones, Casper and Bumble (ABC for Amber, Bumble and Casper). Saphy loves jumping on things and then rolling around chasing her tail until she inevitably falls off. She is not very well co-ordinated and I sometimes suspect she may have a mild case of “wobbly cat syndrome” – but […]