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Hello,

So 2010 is almost done!
It's been an interesting year with lots of laughs, some tears, a good few firsts - life is for living after all ( the ride in the tractor was Fab!).

I've managed to post 242 times this year and its been great and fortunately those of you kind enough to pop in have a look at my adventures has increased over the year too.

Although I've posted today already I just wanted to say - early I know but it will get so busy later on - best wishes to you and yours for 2011.

Thank you for visiting and your contributions, hopefully you will continue to do so in 2011.
Take care

Fegrig

Form a line!

Hello
The cold nights are still here albeit warmer of late due to the warm thawing winds from somewhere warm - being my guess.

In winter though there us nothing to beat a hearty soup to warm your cockles. With this in mind I set to making a pot of soup for the three of us. That's three as in 1,2,3 none of us giants in any way just normal folk with normal size baggies to fill.

I sniffed around to discover what was lurking in the larder. My expedition unearthed the following

Some crutch reliant brassica ie limp cauli and broccoli.
Carrots
Onions
Tin tomatoes
Garlic
Curry paste
Coconut milk
Fish stock
Prawns
And finally
Smoked cobbler - the fish as opposed to the person who mends your shoes.

So I softened up the onions and carrots added the brassica's then the tomato. As they all partied on and got mingly with each other I got the stock going.

I then added the veg to the stock for more raving. Then the curry paste and coconut milk.

Finally in jumped the sea food, simmer, simmer. Soup done. Num, num.

Well more overdone really as I ended up with 5 litres of soup! It was tasty though and did the three of us for dinner and lunch and some.....

The picture perhaps does not do the soup credit it looks all veggie and imposing. It smelt and tasted good enough. Perhaps next time I'll alert the red cross?

5 litres!

The worlds a stage and we are all actors?

Hello

Sometimes I start wriing things when I'm on the "road", these are usually retrieved at the next stopping point, tidied up and posted. However this wee observation was written just before all flights to Northern Ireland and Eire started having "cancelled" as their signature on airport departure boards. I found the post today and decided to share. It really was a very bizarre scenario.

"Camera, lights, action........

I'm watching an interesting drama unfold with some comedic undertones.

I'm waiting on my plane opposite the desk behind which sit staff who are doing very well to field and parry the verbal questioning coming their way.

The snow has disrupted some of the airlines flights and understandably this has caused distress for some passengers.

However some of the questions asked makes me wonder what is happening within the questioners mind.

"Do you know if the ferries are running?"
asked one customer on hearing his destination was now out of reach by air. Obviously now under the misbelief that the airline controlled sea ferries.

The airline staff member looked, their head tilted to one side and observed the questioner who repeated his question again and again and again. All without a pause for breath. The staff member with a soundtrack of a taking off jet gave the most honest answer he could.

"I'm sorry sir but I have no idea"

The traveller was last seen heading off to the nearest port in search of a ferry, yacht, fishing boat or pedalo to transport him across the Irish Sea.

The wood shed

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Hello
The wood stove has been working well, earning it's keep, especially so over the last few weeks of wintery coldness.

However as you can imagine it needs to be fed with wood. We keep the wood in a shed stored and drying until required to warm our tootsies.

We burn whatever wood we can acquire and probably burn wood that we shouldn't because it's treated for building use or something similar. We don't mind it all burns.

The supply though is low I thought we had more but on closer scrutiny it's all kindling and not the heavier wood to keep the fire going.

What was needed was a stocktake and it provided some interesting finds..

We have the seasoned branches ready for tomorrow's chainsaw to turn them into logs.

We have the hand axe employed with good effect today, breaking down the large pieces of soft to stove sized.

I also came across a section of tree trunk. At one time the idea was to use it as a table mat for hot dishes being brought to the table. However during the drying process we noticed an over abundance of wee wood loving beasties and decided this would not make an ideal place mat especially when used to protect a wooden table from the hot ovenware.

Near the end of the exercise a rather tired and dilapidated wooden frame that contained a small bouquet was found. The frame had long ago been compromised and the small bouquet that in full bloom were yellow roses had lost all resemblance to what they once were. The roses had at one point sat upon my Mum's coffin. They were removed just before she was buried I'm not sure why or by whom, but they were. A friends father built a frame to house them in. When recognisable they had a place of importance but the ensuing years and travels took their toll and their importance was supplanted by more personal memories. The frame is now broken and now due for burning and the desiccated flowers have been placed in the compost bin. This memory receptacle will keep on nourishing but just in a new direction.

Spaghetti Labradori?

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Hello
Do dogs like spaghetti?

Board the Ark!

Hello
Here we are again the weather is changing. The temperature has risen by about 5 degrees centigrade over the last forty eight hours and it has given the news media another excuse to reach for the dictionary section entitled "The Really Scary Adjectives!"

So what have we seen and heard being employed today?

Well there has been

Unprecedented - so that means that we have today experienced new, unexampled and unheard of number of calls to the water authorities? Or at least since the last big thaw.

Decimation - to kill in large numbers , or one in ten if you want to be Caesar. Oh that one applied to football game postponements.

Chaos - a state of extreme confusion and disorder that will be due to burst pipes so obviously we shall need to build an ark to wait out the flooding.

I've found the reporting to be at times hysterical (excessive or uncontrollable emotion) or perhaps just lazy (disinclined to work or exertion) journalism. It takes effort after all and the use of the thesaurus to stay away from the "The Really Scary Adjectives!" section.

Yours in sanguinity (optimistically cheerful and confident)

Sent from my iPad

Happy Chookmas!

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Hello
A special message from the chickens this morning, have a peaceful day.
Ho ho ho!

Happy Crispmas!

We wish you a Happy Crispmas and a Happy New Beer!

Chicken recovery service

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Hello

We have all read in the newspapers and watched the video of those stranded, cut off from home. Eventually they are rescued, the roads unblocked, snow and ice no longer the barriers they were, hooray!!

Closer to home we have some creatures perhaps on that last minute shopping trip, stocking up the store cupboard before the food store closes for what.....pa day?

One of the chickens having decided that they would adopt the Yuletide madness set out in search of more food and seemed to have lost their way?

Cold feet, snow obliterating the trail who knows and although it's only a few metres to home. She seemed incapable of getting home. The only option left is to call out the CRS - Chicken Rescue Service.

Shod in their 4 x 4 wellies they will ensure stranded chickens are returned to the bosom of their nests.

A film crew followed this 7th emergency service and we have exclusive footage of them in action!

Double Hooray!!!

The lurgy cycle?

Evening

We've decided Christmas will be low key at castle Fegrig this year. The snow and ice although present have proved passable but lurgy has waved it's hand.

I've acquired some coughy, throat thing and n has developed acute sore backness.

She hobbles across the floor as if carrying a surf board under her shirt and I cough and wheeze providing some bizarre musical accompaniment.

Trying to sleep tonight will be challenge movement = pain for one and movement = coughing for another. So we shall have a cough - movement - pain - movement - cough - movement etc etc lurgy cycle going on.

We shall see what the next 10 hours bring?

I'm out and about

Glasgow Boys @royalacademy

Evening.

22/12/10

Several months ago we had planned to travel through to Glasgow in order to visit the "Glasgow Boys" exhibition at the Kelvingrove Gallery. However it was not to be, as most of the population of this western metropolis had decided to do the same thing. Unsurprising really, as it was the last day of the exhibition's run and a local holiday to boot.

So we thought that the opportunity had passed to see this collection of Scottish painters' work. I am not what you could describe as an art buff, not at all knowledgable on the subject unless, like most of us, it is a general  awareness of the great works of art. However I do know what I like (and don't like) and I do like the work of this school of artists. The historical snap-shot that they provide on Scotland and Scots folk at the end of the 19th through to the early 20th century is an added bonus.

So I was pleased to see that a condensed version - but not a condensed price, London weighting perhaps - was being shown at the Royal Academy in London and at the end of a working day whilst in the "Big Smoke" I trundled along and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

As well as the paintings themselves what I also found interesting was how many of the art works were still in Scottish hands either through national, council or personal collections or museums. Several though had been sourced from overseas.

 

During my viewing I did not see any of the usual signs advising you that photography was not allowed so I snapped a few of the cards giving the details of the painting. I don't know about you but I can remember the artwork but usually forget the individual details. As none of the patrolling staff said anything I felt enboldened to take some snaps of the paintings but in a discrete fashion. This was the tipping point and I was advised by gallery staff that this was not "the done thing". I surmised that the sign at the doorway saying no photography having been obscured by someone's bottom.

So here are the photographs from the  "not that good photographic school" or the "Leith Laddie" school as it is more formally known illustrating a few of my favourites from the exhibition.

 

The detail on some of the figures within this painting reminded me of scenes that I came across during my time in Saudi Arabia.

 

In this painting I felt that the man could have been me enjoying a walk by the river in the country air.

 

Lastly the final two photos, real masterpieces of the "not that good photographic school". For these paintings I could not take a picture of the information card so I'm a bit stuck with the detail but I am not going to make apologies for that. The images of a minister presiding over a funeral gathering and a small girl hearding geese hopefully (like the rest of this wee story) will whet your appetite for more and you will visit the exhibition and enjoy the art for yourself.

 

 

Perhaps the gallery curator will forgive the transgression and see it instead as an advert for a worthy exhibition. Go enjoy it!

 

Honeymoons

Evening,

21/12/10

I'm back, and after experiencing some difficulties with the blogging platform I have decided what I want in a platform, what I don't want and what I am prepared to compromise upon. This I suppose is not unlike a marriage. The honeymoon period on this platform has come to an end with the deficiencies (the things I don't want) becoming apparent. Perhaps, like a human relationship, the unhappiness was the result of the reality that we all have faults? In the end I flounced out but having now reflected on what I want, don't want etc., I am now back and willing to give this platform another go with perhaps a wiser head.

The weather at the moment reminds me of our own honeymoon - a January in Moscow - but that's another story.

So here I am. The decorators have been in to spruce things up, some new pages and some links to other sites.

Do you approve?

Any suggestions of sites I should look at?

All relationships can be sickly sweet to onlookers but not a sickly sweet as Honeymoon Cake, something I tried for the first time at the weekend. This is the type of tray bake that would make any boy the centre of attention at BB camp if a slab of this were to be in his camp tuck box. 

As I said I have added some links to blog sites that I drop into now and again and perhaps I will add this one to the list? It contains a long list of calorie rich, teeth rotting, sugar rush tray bake recipes but not one for Honeymoon Cake. So on further investigation I came across a Q&A site with this reply from someone named Jennie - thanks to her we have this...

ok I couldn't find a website so I made up the recipe.
1. Then take some melted chocolate and pour it over the bottom of a rectangle shaped oven pan.
2. Then put some shredded coconut mixed with a tiny bit of coconut milk in a bowl. Mix until it has a sticky consistancy. Wait for the chocolate to harden and pour this on the top of the chocolate.
3. Take a saucepan and put in some sugar. Then stir until the sugar has caramalised, or honey brown in colour. Then add 2 tablespoons of hot tap water. Be careful the caramel might splash and burn.
4. Pour the caramel on the top of the coconut.
5. Finally, get some rice crispies and melted chocolate and mix together like you're making rice crispy cakes until sticky. Spread this on the top of the caramel once it's hardened a bit.

Stick it in the fridge to harden.

This is what it looked like on Saturday in the Cairn Cafe
Do any of you have a different recipe?

So Honeymoon Cake, there you are as chomped by our good selves at the week end, washed down with tea as the pudding course to the bowl of potato and celery soup. This being the lunchtime sustenance during our Christmas shopping foray.

All tasty stuff, now though the hard work to build up the blog again after losing momentum, almost as difficult as the effort required to burn the calories consumed in Honeymoon Cake. Or perhaps like the effort required to keep the marriage strong after the honeymoon period is over?

Houston we have a problem

Evening

This evening another post lost to the ether after using the posterous phone app and there are a few other issues with posterous that are beginning to give me an increasing nuisance factor.

So I'll stay away for a while in order to sort things out with my blogging platform.

TTFN

 

Living at

http://fegrig.posterous.com

Get out the way!

Evening

I'm in the airport today in the airline lounge and I'm sitting with my juice thinking on what to choose to eat.

Then this fellow passenger comes past me. One of those people who are incapable of sitting down to have a phone conversation. No, not for them sitting down. Those with the captive polar bear mentality they must pace and talk.

Now nothing wrong with that they can go outside and pace in a park less sweaty than jogging, if they want the exercise. Rather than getting in the way of normal folk.

However she paced up and down in front of the food and drink counter then she disappeared before returning again. All of this whilst she carried on talking. She gave the impression that she was guarding the food and drink like some overzealous food monitor.

During the gap in her patrol I made a dash like some 1960's POW movie character for the hole in the camp wire. I picked up some food and headed back to my table. Just before the polar bear came back on the prowl.

However on a top up run she got in the way, like some American Football defence blocking the way, she walked back and forth. She had decided that she wanted something to drink but couldn't decide what. This added an uncertainty to her behaviour.

By now having timed her patrols and no longer peckish or thirsty I watched as she got in the way of other travellers. You could see the collective sigh and shrug of those blocked whilst she gaily prattled on.

Eventually she picked a drink, finished her conversation and settled back into her seat. You should have seen the rush when she did so.

Famished and thirsty travellers making a bee line for the counter piling their plates just in case the guard came back.

Tick Tock

Evening
You know the feeling

Plan

Check

Pack Drive

Meeting

Look at watch

Phew early finish

Drive

Stuck

Drive

Jam

Crawl

Clock hands moving faster than you are, eek!

Crawl

Speed hooray!

:( Crawl

Time seeping away

Home phew!

Change

Into car

(read this slower I did not change into a car)

Drive

Airport

Security zoom no queues!

On time big phew!!

Wait ........

"big plane airways are sorry to announce a delay to your big smoke service"

Ho hum?

I'm out and about

What a day that was!

Evening

Here I am safe in the bosum of Scottishness grateful for what I have and the interesting life that it affords me.

Well I think it's interesting but maybe not? The reason being the conversation overheard (I wasn't eavesdropping but some folk are so loud) on the tube last week  as I travelled to the airport. I never have such interesting discussions as these. 

Do you?

This communication was about that metallic foundation of office life - staples - with the couple of co-workers (I assume) discussing the difficulties in getting their office stapler to work that day. The stapler was jamming you see and could only be used if you manually moved the staples along to the exit point at the end. The preferred tool being the letter opener, scissors having been tried and discarded. Very time consuming the carriage was informed.

 This problem persisted for a while before the dynamic stapling duo decided that the problem inflicted upon the poor staple gun was that the staples employed to staple where 2mm too large! Gadzooks! 2mm who would have thought such a small distance could cause so much bother. A veritable storm in the office tea cup!

What we need to order one informed the other was a box of size 13/6 rather than the mistakenly ordered and used 13/8 the difference being the leg size of the staple 8mm as opposed to 6mm. Oh the crisis, but the goodly couple of subscribers to "Staple Today" and it's sister publication "The Staple Gun Gazette" had managed to fasten together a solution to the problem.

Perhaps with a heavy duty staple gun loaded with size 23/24 fixings?

I'm out and about

Lines

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Afternoon

A domestic day for me today catching up on some domestic type stuff you know the thing clean the house, do the washing, clean the chicken house, make the dinner - not chicken, tidy up the wood supply for the stove and chip a path through the ice that used to be snow.

Lots of time to think but no great inspiration a day of things being very linear this chore leading to that pleasure type of day.

So I though I would just post a couple of pics taken in the warehouse district of Hamburg all nice and linear they are too!

What's on your list?

Evening

On the tv just now is Casualty something I haven't watched for many a year. Although when I was much younger watching Charlie flex his eyebrow was a valuable lesson in my student nurse education. One of the sub plots this week is about someone who thought they had cancer, but didn't , but kept the fib going to waken up the relationship with her husband. It did but she didnt have cancer but she ended up in ITU anyway for different reasons. They drew up a list of things they wanted to do together before the end came, but the husband in a fit of pique ripped it up.

So the question is what would you put on your list I don't want to be morbid so let's instead say what would you like to achieve if you had the time and motivation?

Me I'll think about it and maybe I'll share. One day.

Ta Boris

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Evening

It's late, so you are naturally feeling a bit tired, the hotel is usually well within walking distance on an earlier and warmer evening. What to do?

A bus, not on a bus route. A taxi rather keep hold of my cash. A river bus they finished many hours ago. It is London though so what about the tube, journey start and finish not near a station.

However with the recent introduction of a pay n go option the London bicycle hire scheme was an excellent option.

I put my bank card into the machine, had it approved, the machine spat out a bike release code and after entering it out of the stand popped my bike for the next thirty minutes.

Usually a bike helmet is my standard headwear for cycling but as it was a case of pay n go that option was not with me. Trusting my brain instead to the less wise choice if a fleece beenie.

I trundled along and in a week of firsts this was another. The only difficulty was riding past the bike parking racks, missing it all together and having to pedal back part of my route to the last one seen.

Good fun, kept the chill out and took me closer to my bed for the night. Not sure I would ride them during the day but at 1 AM it was the best choice.

G'night

The snow is retreating

Hello

After a trip to Londinium I'm back and find the snow has started to melt although at this rate it will be several weeks before it disappears.
My reserves however are diminishing faster than the Lib Dems polling figures and melting into my pillow I'm out of inspiration and need to go to bed.

Until tomorrow then
G'night

@flybmi BD Marie Celeste?

Afternoon,

I'm back at Edinburgh airport 48 hours after the aborted attempt to get to London. I'm hoping it's second time lucky but I am asking myself will it just be me and the crew?

The online check in process didn't help error messages informing me to try again. I eventually checked in at the airport and few seats seemed to be taken on my flight south.

Perhaps my fellow travellers have decided it's not worth the hassle of traipsing to the airport, compounded by the fear they may have to go back home again?

The airport is open and seems to be operating as normal although one cannot say the same for some of the airlines.

On moving through the airport the announcement that the 12:40 to Dublin had been delayed to not 13:10 or 13:40 perhaps but no, to 20:10! This made me thankful and my empathy was conveyed to a couple of folk who's plans to sink their "real" Guinness would have to be put on ice or is that snow, for a bit longer.

Sitting here waiting in the BMI lounge and it's quiet, eerily so. I've never seen it's so empty. It's Marie Celeste like in it's presentation.

I don't mind though, plenty of room to settle into. What if it's like this on the plane who going to help me push the plane if it gets stuck in the snow?

I'm out and about

Punk, pop & prog rock!

Evening I'm sitting here watching the tv programme about the changing shopping habits over the years on BBC1. This week it's the 1970's.

Interesting enough in its own right but what is more interesting to me is the music that is providing the soundtrack.

What have we heard

The Tavares
The Sex Pistols
Demis Roussos
Brotherhood of Man
The Bee Gees
David Bowie
Slade
The Stranglers
Fleetwood Mac
Walker Brothers
Chicago
Foreigner

And others I can't remember such was the glut of musical entertainment, yes I did say entertainment. Do you remember some of the songs sung by these artistes? Perhaps you watched the programme tonight with your toes tapping?

All that was missing were the clothes that one may have worn, now that would be a 1970's Hammer horror movie!

I'm out and about

The Road Home 3

I'm out and about

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I'm out and about

Thank you Paul and you!

Afternoon
Well that was an adventure, a challenge that had an unexpected end. I appreciate that it's not the ideal way to come home but rest assured safety was at the top of my considerations.

This is the tractor that brought me home the last quarter a great end and an afternoon I'll remember for a long time. Especially if I'm wearing the same suit and woollen overcoat.

Thanks for the support!

I'm out and about

The Road Home 5

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The Road Home 4

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I'm out and about

The Road Home II

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The road home I

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Do Gods pay taxes!

Morning

I'm sitting waiting on my plane to the big smoke after an early-ish start and nothing was falling from the sky then. However just as I arrived at the airport the snow started and continues to fall resulting in delays because it is too snowy for planes to land and take off.

I'm fine with it, yes it does possibly scupper the original plan but what can you do, nothing it's the weather after all and largely too big a problem for mere mortals to tackle especially when we have had the amount of snow that's fallen here over the last week.

However from what is observed in the media reports and indeed heard in the airport this morning not all of us are mere mortals there are quiet a few who feel that the weather situation should not be such a hindrance.

I've heard descriptors such as "ridiculous", "intolerable", "crazy", "could do better", "they could just get in some extra machines" - what realm do they preside over?- and my favourite "health & safety madness". I'll sit beside that last immortal as obviously when the plane skids across the runway either on take off or landing before ploughing into the fence/building/field his omnipotence will save us.

It irks me when my fellow citizens expect someone else to take responsibility for their inability to function as they would on a summers day. I think my local government has coped tremendously well with the unexpectedly heavy and prolonged snow. I and mine have done our bit by clearing our paths, steps and the car. We have helped to clear our street and assisted others. Still though "not enough has been done" to quote some of the weather gods who with one wave of their hand would make snow and ice melt no doubt.

It's not like this in Sweden/Canada/Finland or Antartica you hear. Of course not because we live in Scotland duh! We get snow and ice every so often not every day for months like these other places. Not enough salt, not enough snow ploughs, not enough machines to shovel snow, moan, moan, moan. Weather masochists a term I heard last week to describe people in this part of the world. How very apt.

However you never hear anyone saying let's pay more tax to buy more snow ploughs or to keep the operators in the job rather than making them redundant due to public service cuts. I wonder why, perhaps that's a mortal responsibility and gods don't pay tax?

Sent from my iPad

Do rabbits drink tea?

Afternoon

As you may have read I was in the vets yesterday spending more money to keep our animals fit and healthy. An essential spend the majority of animal owners might think being an ER type spend. However as I sat waiting I scanned the shelves an activity not usually open to me as I sit most of the time waiting to be seen with a dog sitting at my feet. The shelves contents opened my eyes to a whole host of products that I never knew existed or indeed ever thought there was a demand for. Most of these products were directed at the owners of small furry mammals namely rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and others of that type. Fibrevores is the proper term seemingly.

On the shelves I found nibble sticks, nibble sticks! That's them on the left looking like a pack of "green" ciggies.

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I could imagine the two rodents in the cage

"How many you on?"

"Trying to cut down, I'm down to 5 a day!"

Nothing more than 5cm chopped sticks for your furry creature to chew upon, a hefty price was stuck on them too. Couldn't see a health warning though.

Next to the sticks is the large  green edged packet of "natural meadow hay" is there any other kind? What is unnatural hay? Could grass clippings not do? What happened to feeding them weeds?

The other picture portrays the depth of my ignorance of such things as it shows different types of hay. Oh and it's called herbage, is that not slang for an illegal substance? Maybe that's why Dylan in the magic roundabout always seemed a bit spaced "It's the herbage, man"

There in the photo you can see birch herbage, especially good roughage recipe it stated on the pack, with antispeptic properties to boot. To the right there is chamomile herbage. I could imagine when the furry creatures have problems sleeping that they pop the kettle on, warm the pot and have a chamomile herbage infusion. Yes it did say it is calming so perhaps when they have worn the exercise wheel out and they need to calm down it's time for a chamomile brew.

When did furry creature care go all homeopathic?

Thankfully feeding a dog seems so much simpler with them being anything-given-or-thieved-vores!

 

 

Knock, knock!

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Afternoon,

We were on our travels again today, Boris and his human companions, to our local...vet (that's the interior in the first picture). A bit dispiriting for all especially when it was so recently that we had visited before for the surgery on his tail. This time it was his claw. One of his claws had spilt and despite our best intentions we were not able to be dealt with this at home. So off we went.

For those without an animal husbandry background and unfamiliar with these things - gory bit alert!

Imagine your nail ripped down to the quick, both halves are still intact and attached to the nail bed. Then imagine yourself walking through the snow and ice as it pushes the split apart and of course without the comfort of socks and boots.

Gory bit over.

So there we sat waiting for the consultation like a group of frequent travellers waiting in the lounge for the flight, on talking terms with the staff and the vet. This particular vet being a "Movember" participant too. However this frequent visitor status may be a cause for worry. What if the system works the same as it does for children? Some people say their dogs are their children, don't they? Not us I hasten to add! Surely the number of "yellow slips" (visits to A&E) will start to draw attention to ourselves for all the wrong reasons?

The vet did asssure us that this type of injury is the consequence of an inquisitive, outdoor dog, sticking his snout into everything as Boris does. However that does sound like the sort of thing you hear in kids A&E.

"He's always out playing, climbing here n' there, getting into scrapes......you know what I mean?" as the child is being seen again for the next cast for a break or sutures for that cut.

What if there is a vets Health Visitor (HV) who will be perusing the visit history? Not just the frequent history but this injury has happened a few times now.

The vet examined the injury and I signed the dogs life away by way of the consent form, sedative given, local anaethesia in, claw trimmed and injury site cauterised (cracking smell!) and twenty five minutes later out he comes. The second picture is him still under the influence and needing to sleep the afternoon away.

Now at home he has had that important post op drink without difficulty and more importantly as all we nurses know the post op wee has been performed. Now he sleeps with no throbbing, torn claw to keep him awake.

But wait who is that shadowy figure coming down the path/ Perhaps it's the animal HV coming to check on the animals welfare, yellow slips in hand! Knock, knock!.......it's only the postie delivering the larger than usual bundle of mail, including an invitation to change our pet insurance provider. I would think this unlikely as Boris is probably deemed as high risk now. Perhaps the next delivery will bring his frequent vet visitor platignum card, silver and gold having long been passed.

Community spirit

Evening,

We live in a reasonably small rural community that now spends it's time as a commuter village due to its location and excellent transport links to the rest of Scotland through the Edinburgh-Glasgow corridor.

Although the location has been of little use this week with road & rail links cut off. Being 450 feet above sea level offers us a grand view on a clear day but when you add it's exposed position as we do, in winter it can be grim.

The neighbours are friendly and well neighbourly and most will exchange more than just the usual hello. The occasions when the community spirit is most prevalent though is at times like these when the snow and ice takes the village and in particular our road by the scruff of the neck, refusing to let go, until that spirit rears itself.

I've written before of the great dig of several years ago when the menfolk of the road cleared the residents only route to the outside world of snow, an iconic moment. This week saw another side to village life and it brought a smile to our collective face. The adversity certainly brought out the human side of so many strangers.

I was going to expand on this story but why don't you go over to here, there's some photos too.

http://theyarnyard.co.uk/blog/

The Last King of Scotland

Evening,

The temperature is falling outside, the snow enveloped garden cross crossed by paths that now look like trenches in some winter conflict. The stove is on, the house warm and comfortable. We're sitting watching and enjoying the DVD of "The Last King of Scotland ". This is an interesting and entertaining film with good turns from Forrest Whittaker as Idi Amin and James McAvoy as his Doctor. Must go it's not finished yet and we are reaching the movies climax.

G'night

Thank You that was #Movember

Evening

The month of Movember a mish mash of moustache and November (have a look at the post from the 1st November), is over for another year.

The top lip has not seen the sharp edge of a razor for the duration of the project. My evolving moustache initially aroused no interest but as the dates on the calendar were crossed off and the 'tache grew so did the interest.

Hopefully then my Movember attempt along with the many others will have raised awareness of the fight against male cancers and perhaps some funds too.

Although the month is over maybe the 'tache will stay a bit longer with all this snow it helps to keep part of my face warm.