We were meeting Isobel for a coffee and a long blether this morning.
We drove up to the town centre and found Isobel halfway through her latte. I imagine it would have been cold by then. She seems to like cold milky coffee. I can think of few things more disgusting than that, although cold milky tea must come close. My Cortado seemed to interest her, but as she said, it hardly even a mouthful. We sat and talked for over an hour and found out that her son had delivered a bag of topsoil for her. Scamp has been looking for topsoil to pack round her roses to give the roots more of a grip in their pots. After interrogating Isobel we discovered that the soil came from Dobbies in Stirling and was reasonably priced. So reasonable that she had decided to get her son to buy another bag for her. Scamp was telling her that she was needing some and we might just go to Stirling to get a bag or two. Then I said to Isobel, “why don’t you come along for the run” and she agreed.
So it was that we drove to Stirling. lifted three bags of topsoil into a trolley, paid and left. Isobel’s quip that “It’s the shortest time I’ve been in a garden centre in my life.” was true. They hadn’t been in that plant paradise for more than fifteen minutes! While they were in looking for the topsoil I had been taking photos of the Wallace Monument and the Ochil Hills through a two meter wire fence. A bit clumsy, but the photos worked. Half a dozen shots in the bag.
We drove home and the wee blue car was struggling on the hills going home. Three full 25litre bags of damp soil and three folk too, plus a heavy camera bag and a zimmer. That was straining its three cylinders to the max, but at least were keeping most thing in threes!
We stopped in the village and used Isobel’s zimmer to transport her bag of soil up the path to her house. Then we drove back home for lunch which today was pizza.
After lunch Scamp got her tools out and started filling the rose pots with the soil. It looked like good quality stuff with maybe more than its fair share of sand mixed with the soil, but it hadn’t been very expensive, so we didn’t mind. I did consider taking a walk in St Mo’s, but when I checked the clock, it was almost dinner time and as it was Monday I was pasta chef today. A sort of cross between Penne Arrabiata and Amatriciana. It tasted fine anyway.
A quick Wednesday Waltz practise tonight and I do believe we are beginning to lick this dance into shape, but whisper it, because I don’t want it to hear!
After a bit of photoshopping and some jiggery pokery I declared one of today’s shots to be the PoD.
We have no plans for tomorrow.