Coffee with Isobel – 8 May 2024

We were out this morning for coffee with Isobel.

I sometimes don’t join Scamp when she’s meeting Isobel, but I chose to today. As usual, Isobel’s conversation covered family, gardens and anything else that was interesting her at the time. She’s a mine of useful information about gardens and plants, so Scamp is often picking her brains about what to plant and when to prune. Me, I just go along for the ride and interject with some cheeky comments if I think I can get away with it, which isn’t often with Isobel. One thing she did say was that a the new Home Bargains had some great bargains in the plants section. When we left Costa we decided to go and visit it, because Isobel was going shopping in the town centre.

The new Home Bargains is enormous, taking in the general shopping area, a well stocked garden area and a cafe, although we couldn’t find it. The prices for the plants were very good, but you had to be careful to get fresh looking plants as quite a few of them were wilting. We picked a couple of plants that Scamp fancied, a miniature Gypsophila and a Foxglove. We went in to Aldi which is next door for a loaf and some soda scones. When we came out we’d spent less than a tenner! Result!!

Back home after lunch Scamp was working in the garden and I thought I should too. I split up a pot of basil that I bought in Tesco and made four pots with the plants. We also cut down some old broken solar powered lights. They seem to work for about a year then just die. If you put new rechargeable batteries in, they don’t last as long as the original ones. I reckon it’s ingress of water at the cable junctions that causes the problem.

I was getting coffee delivered today from The Bean Shop. I was disappointed in the coffee I’d got from Braithwaite’s in Dundee when we were there. Old Brown Java was almost exactly as its name described. It tasted old and brown. I don’t know where in Java it came from, but it tasted like it had been mouldering in a damp cellar somewhere. But I digress, as it turned out my coffee wasn’t delivered until about 7.30pm, by which time we were halfway through a new Waltz routine with Kirsty. Quite a small class today, but that’s often a good thing. It was tonight. By the time our hour was up we’d learned the first waltz and were promised the second one next week, all being well.

Back home I found my coffee in the bin shed, exactly where I’d asked for it to be put. DPD always delivers! So far, at least.

PoD was a single solitary American Cowslip – Shooting Star. Usually I get at least half a dozen flowers, but this year there was only one. I’d read that the plant only lasts for about five years and that’s about the time I’ve had it. I have seeds that I harvested last year, somewhere in my room. I’ll need to find them and hopefully grow a new batch of Shooting Stars for next year DV.

I got a lot of flak from some of the more PC members of EDiM in Flickr. Almost all the comments were about the dangerous weapons I was sketching. A pencil and a scalpel. Ok, I agree about the scalpel, but a pencil?? Some folk just don’t live in the real world.

Today’s prompt was A Scooter.
This is the exact scooter I used to have many years ago. It’s a Triang Mobo scooter. Mostly made from metal with yellow wheels, red chassis and plate and black rubber grips. I travelled miles on that scooter. When I grew out of it, I passed it on to my brother. I wonder what he did with it.

Tomorrow, if the good weather stays, we may go and visit the big horses.