Happy Mail and August Wool stats

Well the August wool stats don't make for happy reading. In was 200g, which was the two months from the Yarn Unique Artist club, and out was only 70g because August was another month when the only completed project was a pair of socks. Here they are;

They're nice and accounted for the other self striping skein I got at my Lay Family Yarn retreat. No playing yarn chicken here as they were for me but there were only very  little bits left over. I do love them though. 

What I don't love is that August was another month when there was more wool in than out, reducing my decrease for the year to 5476g. However I am consoled by the thought that September will look better. 

Meanwhile here is the Happy Mail, the next instalment of the Yarn Unique club. This time it's Hokusai and his The Great Wave. 

Love the colours of the wool  and the pin and the stickers. I'm tempted by the  thought of a double loop brioche cowl for the wool, but I've had disasters trying brioche before so we'll see.  

Well that was a busy weekend ....

 ...because it was Bloody Scotland, Stirling's annual and amazing crime fiction festival. 

It amazes me, because I have read a lot of crime fiction since I started at age nine, and these days read little else, how very many authors there are of  whom I have never heard  and who pop up at Stirling and obviously have legions of devoted fans. I generally limit myself to how much I go to, partly because it's impossible to go to everything, and partly because it's easy to get overwhelmed by things like this if you do too much in a short space of time. But mainly because it could get very expensive very quickly. But I still pick up new names and occasionally of course  a favourite writer will be appearing with someone else and that leads you sometimes to exploring their work too.

Anyway this year the OH and I turned up in time to see the Friday evening parade arriving. I didn't manage any particularly good photos of that but fwiw here's the best one I got. Ian Rankin was a guest programmer this year, hence the voodoo type effigy thing. 

Like at the cinema there's a lot of on screen advertising between features, this is the one before the Friday night panel which was all about Rebus. Ian Rankin himself, plus Gray O' Brien who had been playing Rebus on stage, and James Macpherson who apparently does the Rebus audio books but who I remember mainly as DI Mike Jardine in Taggart. I don't remember O'Brien in anything, mainly it would seem because I don't watch Coronation Street or Casualty. I used to watch both but gave up on them when Corrie got a bit too shouty and Casualty got just too soap-y. As always when listening to Rankin I find myself sorry that I don't enjoy his books more, or at all even, because the man himself is clever and funny and comes across as very down to earth and likeable. 

I went to the Rebus panel with the OH and two good friends and that was Friday night. Saturday morning we reconvened, bar the OH, for Mick Herron and Nick Harkaway. NH is the son of John le Carre and writes new  Smiley books. I have never read any and now that I have encountered Mr Harkaway think it's unlikely that I'll bother. The photo shows Mick Herron reading from his new Slough House book Clown Town. He was as charming and funny and self deprecating as ever. 

(On a related note I have just finished listening to Clown Town. The quality of the audio on Audible is appalling .It's not just me, almost every review currently on Audible mentions this, and in future I'll be buying hard copies.  As far as the book goes, for me it didn't eclipse the last proper Slough House book, Bad Actors, which remains my favourite of the series by a long way. But it was still very good; very tense and very funny and at one point I got some dust in my eye.... )

The last one I went with was a case of 'and then there were two' as it was me and one remaining friend and we went to see Elly Griffiths and Belinda Bauer.  (That's EG on the left if you don't know). I'd never previously heard of Belinda Bauer but I borrowed one of her books from the  library in preparation. She doesn't write the sort of books that appeal to me particularly, judging from the flap blurbs, but the one I read was excellent. It was called The Facts of Life and Death, and told mainly from the point of view of a 10 year old girl. She captured what it's like to be a 10 year old girl exactly ( or what it was like for me at ten anyway). Beautifully written and with a real sense of place, I found that it didn't really matter that I knew from page 1 who the Bad Person was.  I would read more I think although I wouldn't buy them, just borrow them from the library. 

This was a midday event and once it was over the friend and I drove out to a local farmshop/cafe and met up with the OH and we all had a delicious lunch before a quick scoot around the shop and then home, exhausted but having had a very enjoyable weekend. 

Some books I've enjoyed lately

 According to my reading journal* I have read fifty four books this year. That seems like not enough and I cant help feeling that some of the ones I have read just never got recorded, because I was too tired, or took them back to the library and forgot to write them down, or they didn't count because I didn't/have yet to finish them. 

*I say Reading Journal, but that gives it more dignity  than it deserves.  It's a spiral bound A5 notebook that I started using to record my reading in May 2024. I struggled to keep up with it, because as well as recording the title and author I was giving stars out of five and recording brief impressions but that must have become too much like hard work because I abandoned it in September.  In January this year I changed tack and now it's basically just a list of the books I've read, decorated with a few stickers when I can be bothered. I note I am currently three pages behind on the sticker front. 

Anyway not everything I read is good or enjoyable and it would be very tedious to record all the ones I think are dull, badly written,  overhyped or whatever so I thought I would just occasionally write up a few of the ones that I've enjoyed. I may also, if I'm having a bad day, occasionally have a rant about one of the bad ones. 

I'm starting off with two series. Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey books were recommended to me by a loyal blog reader and good friend and I'm happy to report that I have enjoyed them. I did make the mistake of reading too many of them one after the other so I'm taking a break just now. I don't always like the conceit of taking  a real person and making him or her a detective in their 'real' lives, but Upson manages it well. It's helpful I think that Josephine Tey was a pen name and a totally constructed persona for the real writer Elizabeth Mackintosh who led somethign of a - not exactly a double life, as that implies deceit - but certainly two separate lives, as dutiful Inverness daughter and celebrated London author and playwright. The plots are good, the research spot on and the backgrounds varied and intriguing - the one I've used for illustration is set in Portmeirion. My one quibble is to do with JT's posited gay relationship; not the relationship itself but the long  dreary circular conversations she and her  lover to be  have which take up too much space in several of the novels I have read. The lover  herself comes off to me as a manipulative emotional bully especially as she is already in a relationship with someone else.  I note for balance that I am currently wading my way through Robert Galbraith's latest Cormoran Strike novel and a similar thing applies there; in this case it's not conversation but a tedious recital of all the things the two people concerned want to say to one another and all the reasons they then run through in their heads about why they're not going to say it. Over and over and over again! No wonder it's over 900 pages long. 

I have previously shunned Clare Mackintosh as she writes thrillers and I'm not a thriller fan but she has also recently written a police procedural trilogy. I came across the first one when I bought it in a two for One offer on Audible and had to take three goes to get through it i.e. I started it twice but only on my third go got all the way through. In the end I enjoyed it so much I put the next one on my Amazon wish list and someone duly coughed it up on my birthday. A Game of Lies is then the second one; the first is The Last Party. I've enjoyed them both and will read the final one Other People's Houses in due course. I'm not going to get it on Audible as there is too much going backward and forward in time, an both stories are told from multiple viewpoints and I couldn't cope with that when I was listening; it's so much easier just to flip back in a physical book and remind yourself who was where when. The Last Party had multiple twists towards the end, all of them clever, plausible and unforeseen by me so that was satisfying. 

Two giant horse heads

 is an accurate but very reductive way to describe The Kelpies. We've visited several times and were surprised to discover that son No 2 had never seen them, so a couple of days ago off we went. 

I am quite proud of that photo.

close up of the steel work (DK strikes again!) 

Baby horse heads by the Visitor Centre with my baby between them. 

After we had marvelled at the big ones we took a walk along the canal path where we saw a swan family - a Mum and 5 half grown cygnets. They were paddling in a flotilla but I didn't manage a good photo of that sadly. Here's a photo of one of the cygnets though with a bit of fancy water reflection. 

Part of the canal path has been designated the Charlotte  Dundas Heritage   Trail. Hands up if you want that to say Charlotte Rhodes and out yourself as a former Onedin Line fan. Apparently the Charlotte Dundas  was the first genuine powered canal boat. 

We're forever finding this sort of seat, there are loads in Alva, it must be a local thing,. They're obviously all made by the  same local firm/person. This one commemorates the Carron Iron Works which I am coming to realise was a real driver of the Industrial Revolution in this part of Scotland; in fact Scotland as a whole. 

And, as we walked along the tow path many reminders that autumn is coming, if not in fact already here. 

For anyone interested, more info about the Kelpies, the Carron Iron Works and the Charlotte Dundas can be found via these links below

https://www.thehelix.co.uk/

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/falkirk/carroncompany/index.html

https://charlottedundas.com/

I Tried These So You Don't have To

 

Many years ago when I was baking for a get together at my home whihc included a friend who had spent many years in Australia I made some of the classic Ozzie teatime treat, i.e. Lamingtons,  using a recipe in a baking book I had. Her verdict was that they were nice, but 'nothing like a real Lamington' although I forget in quite what way(s) they were lacking. They were certainly square, vanilla sponge and iced with a chocolate icing and then rolled in desiccated coconut, so they should have passed muster.  But they obviously fell short and I never made them again. 

But this long-ago baking failure meant I was interested  when my Google headline thing threw up a Guardian taste test for the new M and S Lamingtons, sampled by some ex-pat Australians and so I clicked on it to read. Generally they were not impressed , mainly because, instead of the standard vanilla they were made of chocolate sponge! Heresy. 

We were at Hobbycraft yesterday ( I know!) and the shopping centre where it is includes the non-pharmacy hosting Boots, the Tesco-with-a-pharmacy and an M & S Food,  so we took the opportunity to buy a box of each flavour to try. 

They have now been in the house for a little over 27 hours. There are three of us here currently as son no 2 has come to stay for  a few days adn we all have a sweet tooth. There are currently one half of the standard chocolate and coconut lamingtons and one and  a half of the non-canon caramelised biscuit ones sitting uneaten in the kitchen. I think that tells its own tale. 

Leaving aside that the texture of a bought cake is never as nice as home baked, these are still awful. Dry, over decorated, and the caramel one has a distinct chemical tang. 

Obviously I'm not going to order people not to buy them. But if you do and you don't like them, don't say you weren't warned. 

Forty Five Years - how did that happen?

Yes, last Saturday it was forty five years since the OH and I got married. Not quite sure where all that time went, it doesn't feel that long. Mostly! There again what does forty five years feel like? Time is relative after all.

To celebrate we visited Branklyn Garden. This is a hillside garden near Perth, developed in the 1920s and largely using plants collected by Scottish plant hunters in the far east, and now belonging to the  National Trust for Scotland. It's not huge, just under two acres but it's very well laid out and has interest almost all year round. We're already planning another visit in spring to see the blue poppies. 

It was  a bit of a grey day and eventually it started to rain, but as it was about time for our pre- booked celebratory afternoon tea by then that didn't bother us; we just took ourselves off to the tearoom. 

A few more photos

Let me put it on record that I did not eat my whole 'half' of the tea stand, but somehow it was empty by the time we left. 

I should also say that all the staff, both in the small shop and the tearoom, were delightful; they could not have been more pleasant or helpful. It was a very lovely afternoon, despite the rain. 

Belated Birthday Experience

 So even those with short memories might remember me moaning on my birthday about how we had changed our plans several times only to have the final version  scuppered by Storm Floris. We had had tickets for the JamesVI/I Exhibition at the Portrait Gallery. I'd  wanted to see it since it was first announced and had worried that it would close before we got moved; in the event, since it goes on until 15th of this month we were covered on that front, although we had been so busy with other things it might have passed us by. 

Having had to cancel on 4th I was told they could reissue my tickets for whenever really and I'd put it off until after the grandsons visit. then we heard that a friend from Verona was in Edinburgh working at the National Library and she contacted me to say could we meet up before she went back to Italy so we arranged to meet her for coffee in the Portrait Gallery in the afternoon and we rebooked the exhibition tickets for just after lunch. 

It was a good day. We went up by train and the Portrait Gallery is only a 10 minute walk from the station. The exhibition was interesting and I'm glad I managed to see it although it was quite wordy. Also a lot of the labels had things saying 'Scan this QR code to find out more'. I'm old fashioned enough to think that the 'more' should be in the exhibition if it's important, not that I should be asked to faff about with my phone to access it. I didn't take many photographs although I couldn't resist these two of the front and back of a contemporary embroidered bodice.

It slightly moved my impression of James VI to something a bit more positive than previously, and there were some great pictures. There was also a reconstituted court scent which was interesting to sniff; it smelled overwhelmingly of lavender and rose so nothing startling. 

The main halls of the buildings are incredibly ornate in a very C19 way. I took some photos; here's one of part of the frieze . The frieze shows Great Scots, starting with  Thomas Carlyle  and then going backwards in  time. I don't know that I personally would count Thomas Carlyle as a Great Scot, but there again he was very involved with the establishing of the portrait gallery so I suppose for the artist he was a slam dunk. I have a postcard of the frieze and a quick glance shows only 4 women; a saint, a princess, a queen and Grisel Beaton. I know of Grisel Beaton from the novels of Dorothy Dunnett, but have absolutely no idea what qualifies her as a Great Scot. 

After we'd finished with the  exhibition we had time to look in the Modern Scot gallery which has some interesting portraits,  many of them of painters it has to be said.... we saw three that have resulted from Portrait Artist of the Year; Alan Cumming,Nicola Benedetti and the latest one which is  Lorraine Kelly. These were Interesting, Lovely and Trash respectively. 

Time then for coffee with our friend and a good chat to catch up on what we'd been doing since we last saw her and then home. A Good Day. 

 

More notelets!

 It was back in March that I made a few notelets with some ribbon and some stickers, and as these have now all been used up I thought I would make some more.  There's a tiny but more to these ones than just a sticker and a ribbon, but not much. I was however very pleased with them. That's a dozen blank cards used up, ditto a set of flower stickers someone sent me in a letter recently, also some card and ribbon.

Some might call them plain, I prefer to say they demonstrate my 'spare aesthetic' (ROFL). I like some more than others, and the rabbit is really not me! but it was a relaxing way to spend some time. Sadly I also realised I need another paper trimmer and/or mini guillotine, but given the rate at which Hobbycraft send me vouchers that's not going to break the bank! 
 

July Wool stats and finshed stuff

 Getting this in early as we have another grandchild visitation day today; just one of them and he will be wanting to play Caesar IV on my computer.

I'm aware that it's almost time to review August and I have yet to do the July post. That's not just because it doesn't make pretty reading although there might be an element of that in it. The thing is that we're very busy now that we've moved and I just don't have the same amount of time for crafting as I did. Maybe things will change in the winter months when we spend more time indoors. 

Meanwhile - yarn in 450g, yarn out 224g. The yarn in was the Little Grey Cells club that I get every quarter plus the Irish Artisan Yarn mystery bag. The LGC is half used up so that's something. Still, net increase for the month was 226, making the overall decrease for the year 5606. It doesn't help that I'm working on some time consuming projects and I don't count the yarn I use in them until they're finished. Ah well, onwards and upwards. Or, |I suppose in this instance, preferably downwards! 

After the puny effort that was finished projects in June - 1 pair of socks if you remember, I managed to double that in July and make two pairs. 

This was all yarn I bought on my Lay Family yarn retreat. The top pair are for me and used a very small part of a 100g skein plus 3 minis from a five mini set that I bought. The lower pair are for the OH; I hadn't realised when I bought this that it was a 70g sock set so I ended up playing yarn chicken. I did have some other yarn I could have used to pop in an extra stripe at the end of the foot and which wouldn't have looked out of place had I had needed to, but I was glad I didn't. Note to self; always check weight of sock yarn sets! 

I did of course make the rag wreath and I've also been doing some scrapbooking and card making so I suppose my craft time is spread more thinly over more crafts. As for the cross stitch I didn't touch the little lavender thing, with which I have got totally bored. I'm almost sure I didn't do any work on the Earth Dancer in July either. I did however look out some fabrics and threads and make a start on one of the charts I bought while I was away in Shropshire - it's  sad at my age to still be always distracted by the new shiny thing! 

That was one busy week ....

 but first, here is the picture of the Kandinski yarn that somehow didn't appear on yesterday's post. I did put it in there but obviously missed a click at some important point. 

So, I mentioned our visit to Stirling castle and covered the film. Next up was the Scottish deer centre which sounded fabulous but in the event was expensively disappointing. I knew they no longer had wolves, although the word on the street is that they will have some again shortly - I won't be going back to see them. I love wolves, but honestly, it would take more than the promise of a possible wolf sighting to drag me back. Grandson no 2 was all excited at the prospect of the lynx, the otters and the brown bears, none of which deigned to put in an appearance, although we did catch sight of a few wildcats and he got to feed some deer. Also to use one of the play areas and get a ride on an electric go-kart. Both feeding the deer and the go-kart were extra. We'd given him the choice of this place or the Scottish owl centre and honestly I think we'd all have enjoyed the owls much more. That said he seemed pretty pleased with his day so who are we to complain? 

Another day was so hot that we just stayed inside, venturing out in the evening for a short local walk

We went to Doune Castle, also a very hot day. Doune Castle was featured in a Monty Python film, also Outlander. It  claims to have been used for filming of Game of Thrones too which surprised me, but it turns out that it was used in the never broadcast pilot, so I don't really think that counts. It was too hot for me to appreciate the place properly but I wouldn't mind going back another time for a proper look when it's cooler. It has a couple of spiral staircases and I discovered recently that they are  a long way from being my favourite thing; when I was younger and had better eyesight they were nothing but fun, but these days I just see them as   vertiginous opportunities for broken ankles. 

Our last day we spent at Edinburgh Zoo. At the risk of sounding like a miserable old bat I have to say that Zoos are not favourite places either these days, but this was a special request. Grandson No 2 had done a school project on a thing called a Pallas's cat, and was disappointed that he couldn't be taken from Toronto to Boston Zoo, which was the nearest place that actually had one. So we were asked to take him to Edinburgh Zoo where they also have one. They are generally nocturnal and we were warned by Zoo staff that our chances of seeing one were low; 'just keep going past at regular intervals is your best bet' was the advice we got , but in the end  we were in luck, as the thing was out on our first pass, and stayed out and moved around a bit as well. This photo was taken by the OH - it's better than any of the many I took. 

The penguin photo of two little rockhoppers however is all mine! 

It was a long day because we went by public transport which meant a train and a bus in both directions. However it was worth it as it meant we got the grandsons into the Zoo free. And thanks to a current Scotrail promotion we got their return train tickets for £1.00 each. 

I am still not quite 100% recovered although definitely getting there. Managed a few chores and a trip out today. The trip out was registration day for the local U3A, but I was a bit disappointed that there was no-one there to give me any help with most of the groups I'd be interested in joining.  There was a man who organises the Wee Walks Group, but when I stopped to ask him if their wee walks were circular he said yes they were but the group was full.  He did add that they were looking to see if they had the numbers to start a second group so I suppose I might hear something about that over the next couple of weeks. The lady at the stall for Literature, Reading and  Writing, knew nothing about any of the groups the heading covered except her own thing, which was creative writing, so that wasn't much use.  I wasn't impressed with the overall  organisation of the event at all tbh, but I'm trying not to rush to judgement. 

I'd like to think that from next week we could start what I would think of as 'normal life' here, but September looks so busy that I suspect we won't. I want to find somewhere where I can swim regularly, I need to sort out an exercise class and possibly some Pilates as well, and get fixed days once a week for a walk and a trip out to a place of interest. Ah well, maybe October for that then! 

 

Happy Mail

The grandsons are gone;   more on that story later, as they used to say on Dead Ringers when it was still funny and therefore I still listened to it. The visit  was a lot less bad than we had feared and some of it was even fun but gosh! children are tiring. especially talkative ones who think they know everything. 

Anyway, we're still in recovery mode - and mine was not helped by getting bitten or stung this morning by some horrible little flying thing that sunk its teeth, or sting, into the back of my my neck and then flew away sharpish before I had a chance to identify it. We were on our way into Hobbycraft at the time; when we came out  we went off to find a pharmacy for some antihistamine ointment. This  turned out to be a case of Boots 0 - Tesco 1; a surprise result as the football commentators say. I cannot really get my head round the concept of a large Boots without a pharmacy counter but take it from me, there's one in Falkirk. The Hobbycraft trip was a score draw I think; they did have safety eyes, a Styrofoam wreath for Christmas and some fat quarters of very nice Christmas fabric. They didn't have self adhesive ribbon, or a pushy tool for rag wreath making or any 2mm dpns, but I can manage without the first two if needed and I'm sure I can find some of the latter if I look hard enough. And they weren't urgent. 

Once we came back I washed some towels, read a bit, knitted a bit, cross stitched a bit, and paper crafted a bit and I am slowly coming back to myself. Another couple of days and we'll be back to normal. 

And now for the happy mail. I got two months together of the Yarn Unique Artist of the Month club for reasons that are too long and too boring to go into. 

Here is June's 

I loved this, The artist is Hiroshi Yoshida. Beautiful yarn, and postcards and a cherry blossom bag. The bag is a bit small tbh, not sure what I could use it for, but I'll find something. 

And this was July - yarn and notecards based on the work of Kandinski. I really liked these too, just  not quite as much as June's.

To spur me on to have a proper go at the sewing machine I bought a small quilting kit from someone on Ravelry and that arrived on Monday

When I say small I mean teeny tiny, which I hadn't quite appreciated when I bought it, but I'm going to have a go at it next week. 

Should manage to get back here tomorrow with some photos of our adventures during the last week. 

Postcard from the Edge

 Our grandsons arrived on Tuesday evening for a week's stay. 

This gives me little opportunity to blog, since we're either busy doing stuff, or my laptop is commandeered by Young People who Need a Screen. 

Yesterday we went to Stirling Castle. It was very hot.  Also as we went round we coincided with a group of 4 young children (all, from the look of them under the age of seven) who were the most badly behaved kids  I've ever encountered.  And shame on their parents who looked complacently on while their offspring shrieked, yelled, swore and tried to destroy things. After the castle, we went out for  a meal which was both expensive and horrible.  

Today we went to the cinema at the behest of grandson No 2 who was keen to see a film called Legend of the Ochi. He enjoyed it which was one consolation for having to go and see it. The other was that my brother-in-law had given me a cinema voucher for my birthday so the amount of real money spent on seeing it  was negligible. If you were to ask me whether you should go and see it, my answer would be if you have an alternative, up to and including having a tooth out without anaesthetic, go for the alternative. I may vent about this in greater detail at a later date. Or I may not. 

I think it would be true to say that I am quite tense just now although making valiant efforts not to show it. Some efforts, despite the valiancy ( is that a word - probably not, but I'm sure it's understandable for all that ) are unsuccessful. It is hard, when you have been told that your visitors-to-be 'love snacks' to discover that everything you bought as snacks they turn up their noses at. Also I don't appreciate having a teenage visitor come and tell me that 'it was teatime half an hour ago'. The way I see it unless it's your house, or you've offered to make the tea yourself, tea time is when I say it is. It's not like I was making them wait until midnight. 

Tomorrow we are off to the Scottish Deer Centre, which has deer, lynx, wildcats, otters and all sorts of other wonderful things and I think it should be fun - although not as much fun as it would have been if they still had wolves. 

No idea when I'll be back here but anyone wanting to send 'thoughts and prayers hun' is very welcome to try. 

Well, that was a nice day....

We went into Stirling on Saturday; dove to the Park and Ride and then got the bus. We wanted to check out the new Sostrene Grone shop that opened in Stirling on Friday. I'd never heard of Sostrene Grone until last November when we wandered into their shop in Chambery and bought a couple of small things but we we very taken with it, so it was good news that they were planning one so local to us. 

It was very busy, which I suppose you would expect on Day 2. After shuffling round ( like IKEA it's a one way, go past everything we sell layout - although one doughty couple were en fact wandering around anticlockwise which was, you know, an achievement in the circumstances, but one which was very annoying to almost everyone  else in the shop.

After that we walked up to the Castle. We are having the grandsons to stay shortly, in fact they are arriving tomorrow evening, and Stirling Castle is one of the places we're planning to take them so we wanted to do a brief recce before then. The castle is strategically placed on top of a very large and steep hill and by the time we got to the castle gate we were both so exhausted we knew it would be a waste of time actually going in.  We  were too tired to walk around it. So we bought ourselves an ice cream instead, and sat on a defensive wall* and discussed the likelihood of getting the boys up the hill, the verdict being Not A Chance. Fortunately we had noticed a different park and ride bus which goes up the hill almost to the top, so come the day, we'll be catching that. 

*I want to say rampart, but I'm not 100% sure that I know exactly what a rampart is, so I'm gong with wall, rather than risk making an idiot of myself

Once we'd recovered we wandered back into town. I visited the library to see  if they had anything I might like to borrow before Bloody Scotland next month, and they did, and then we walked back to the bus station via another quick dip into Sostrene Grone, this time to buy something I'd been delighted to spot when we had our first look round. 

Photos.

The Wallace Monument from the castle walls. 

Three (hopefully) good reads and two packets of liquorice fudge, unfindable for many many months. Hooray! 

A Walk from a Book

I didn't mention our first trip to Dollar, which was long before the fund raising strawberry tea;   well -  I say long before, it was after the move, so long before is a relative term really. Anyway we went to check out the bookshop. I'd been told it was fantastic and it is indeed very good, and there's a cafe attached with nice cake and good coffee. They also had a small selection of Yoshi goods, so the OH got treated to a new keyring and some nice jigsaws and I treated myself to one of those. 

We also bought a Walk Book. because when you move somewhere new, that's what you do isn't it?  'Weekend walks in Stirling and Falkirk'  it was called and it seemed just the ticket. Alas I had not realised when it said weekend walks the vast majority of them would take me a whole weekend to do. 

I'm joking. but it's a long time since I did any regular walking of any length and when I looked through the book to mark walks of 2.5 kms or less as a starting point there were very very few. And most of them had the word 'steep'  somewhere in their description. And that's really quire off putting. 

But anyway last weekend, the weather being lovely, we decided to do one of the walks and the OH, who was given the choice went for one  that was rather longer then 2.5 km, but was at least basically on the flat and on a well marked footpath, it said. And it was. It was at a place we'd often passed signs to; the Gartmond Dam country park. The walk is basically a big circle around a reservoir created by a dam which a local bigwig built, not to create a reservoir and therefore a guaranteed water supply for the local villages, but to stop his mines from flooding. The water supply thing was an unlooked for, and happy, consequence. 

Lots of birds, lots of trees and some wonderful views of the hills in the background. So even though the walk  made my back ache it was a very enjoyable afternoon. 

We saw this heron

there was an island, just ripe for the Famous Five, or possibly the Swallows and Amazons to have an adventure on

There were, as promised, beautiful views of the hills

tree trunks on which to practice my Dorling Kindersely photography addiction 

 and as we came away, many sleepy ducks!

More walk reports as we do them. 

Ah well, Happy Birthday to me

Today is my birthday and we had plans. Actually ages ago  we had a Plan A that we changed at someone else's request to  Plan B,  and then Plan B got changed on us a week ago, so we sorted out a Plan C,  and Plan C was put paid to by Storm Floris. Seems the universe isn't keen for me to celebrate my birthday this year. Perhaps it's telling me to save up the celebrations  for next year's Big One. Maybe. 

However there were beautiful flowers

I don't think we have been without flowers since we moved in for one reason or another which is lovely. 

There was Icelandic inspired Danish chocolate coated liquorice , in various flavours, which I love.

And there were cards and other presents and it's been an OK day, but really I just wish we had been able to carry out Plan C. I thought we had left wind compromised plans behind us when we left Orkney, but it seems not.