Category: Blossom

Today was dull, just dull – 25 March 2021

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Not the most interesting of days. Dull grey morning with the promise of rain later.

Spent most of the morning searching for a paintbrush. Arty paintbrush, I don’t bother much with the decorating ones these days. Eventually found it in the last place I’d look, where it should be with a load of other brushes in a cup on the wardrobe. That’s the thing about putting stuff away after you’ve used it, you have to remember where ‘away’ is.

I eventually dragged myself out for a walk to the shops. Instead of going the direct route, I walked down the path Scamp and I had walked yesterday, hoping to get another view of the deer. Unfortunately the deer had other places to go today. What I did find was a whole tree’s worth of catkins. I’ve never seen so many all out together. A small section of that made PoD.

Back home I began baking. Yesterday we had panna cotta for pudding. It was meant to have a tuile on top. A round wafer thin biscuit curved into a cylinder. Tuiles need to be very thin, so I’d watched folk making them on Monsterchef and they scrape the mixture over a template to get the initial round biscuit batter onto the greaseproof paper. In the morning I’d made these templates. Now I was going to see if they worked. Surprisingly they did and although the baking process was a bit hit and miss, we had a tuile each with tonight’s panna cotta. I’ve learned what my mistakes were from Scamp and will try again soon. Ingredients were:
Soft Butter
Icing Sugar
Plain Flour
The whites of two eggs (sorry Hazy)
All the above in 50g quantities and mixed in that order. Bake for 4mins or so at 180ºc, just in case you fancy trying it.

Scamp had spent the afternoon and some of the morning making Carrot & Lentil Curry. It was very good too. We both agreed it was quite spicy hot, but Scamp was adamant that no chilli powder had been added, just Garam Masala which isn’t spicy. A mystery.

Spent the evening trying to work out how to get a video to play using chapter marks in any of Win 10’s video players. Eventually gave up, installed VLC which, although clumsy, did work. I hate Windoze.

It’s raining quite heavily now, but it’s forecast to be clear tomorrow for a while. We may go somewhere for a walk. If we leave it too late there is the chance of ‘wintry showers’. Brrrr!

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2021

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Up and out fairly early.

Had to get up and go out to get the makings of today’s dinner which would be Cod and Prawns with Fennel and White Wine. Sounds really posh, but is fairly easy to do, successfully. However, it does require Cod and Prawns as main constituents and I’d forgotten to get them yesterday. Also, pudding would be Panna cotta which really needs double cream and whole milk, also on the ‘forgotten’ list. So a quick run up to Tesco was in order. Because the ‘birthday girl’ enjoys the odd glass of Kraken dark rum, and because of a price reduction of the same in Tesco, it seemed the right thing to do to add a bottle to the list. Managed to curb my spending to those essentials, and drove home.

After a light lunch and with the panna cotta cooling, we headed off for a walk round the Broadwood Stadium, route, because the clouds were gathering and it would have been pushing our luck to go the full Broadwood Loch path. On the way there, we saw a young deer buck happily grazing by the side of the path. I grabbed half a dozen shots of it before it loped off a few yards than stood in open ground staring at us and looked like it was saying “are you still there?” Spoke to a couple who were walking the opposite direction and agreed that the animals seem to be less frightened of us humans. Probably a side effect of Covid because a lot more of us humans are invading the animals’ space. Not only heavy cloud, but also a cold wind when you were exposed to it might have encouraged us to walk that little bit faster round the Broadwood paths.

When we got home I thought I might have just enough time to go round St Mo’s a couple of times to augment my deer photos. I visited the ladybirds still hibernating in the woods and grabbed a few shots just to remind me of when I’d last seen them, because they will be leaving soon. Nothing else interesting poked its head out to see me.

Back home it was full tilt into prep for dinner. One thing I’ve learned from Scamp and from my one day at cookery school is mise en place, or ‘setting up’. I’ve tried to use it more and more in my recent cookery. Just getting everything at least ready, if not measured before I start. It saves time when the gas is turned on!

Starter tonight was Pizza Bread Bruschetta. Main was Cod and Prawns with Fennel and White Wine. Pudding was Panna Cotta with Raspberries. All worked out well and were deemed a success.

Hazel and Neil had organised a Zoom call tonight with Jamie and Simonne for the Birthday Girl. We had an enjoyable hour talking to them all. What a wonderful idea Zoom is. Not quite as good as face to face meeting, but better than a simple phone call. Great catchup you people. Thanks for organising it.

Well, that was a busy day. PoD was a photo I took of blossom on a fruit tree near Broadwood Stadium. Those who are observant will notice that the blog is now HTTPS after I eventually set up my security properly. I don’t think it will make any difference to your connection, but if it does, drop me a line. Tomorrow, relaxing I hope!

Deep breath and here we go – 22 March 2021

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Today I left Sierra behind and found Mojave.

I’ve been running Sierra on the iMac since I bought it about four years ago. It’s been getting slower and slower all that time. Finally, today, after making another backup and filing away some important passwords, I ran the Mojave installer and went to have my lunch. I fidgeted and paced the floor like a dafty on and off for about half an hour after that. Actually, the time scale the installer gave was almost correct and after an hour I had a new, responsive operating system. I’m quite impressed with it and have learned a lot in the process. The main thing I’ve learned is to let the computer and the code I’m injecting get on with things and don’t poke about in it. I’ll try to remember that when things go wrong as they did about half an hour ago when my memory usage was red-lining and one app was taking up twice as much physical memory as I have installed. Don’t ask me how that’s possible, I don’t know, but it just is.

It was a dull day, so I suppose it was the perfect day to do this kind of messing around. It didn’t actually rain, but it looked like it wanted to. Scamp was busy doing housework while I was pacing the floor and swearing at anything that got in my way. Eventually, I closed the computer down, grabbed my camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s. For the last week the weather has been really like spring, but today it was as if we’d returned to winter. Cold wind, grey sky and not a lot of light. However I was out. I did two circuits of the pond and then came home with a few photos, two of which got red spots, which means they were good enough to post on Flickr. PoD went to the photo of the red flower with the zig-zag stem. I also took a few shots of desiccated weeds. The structure of weeds is really interesting. As someone who used to make a living drawing structural steelwork, these featherlight vertical structures are amazing. They can sway in the breeze and not break. They have evolved to cope with wind, rain, snow, sun and ice. If you study them, they are incredibly strong for their light weight. Anyway, as I photographed some weeds a line from a George Gerdes song popped into my head, “Seeds that I’ve sown were all a bunch of weeds”. When I got back home I searched for George Gerdes and found that he had died of a brain aneurysm on January 1st this year. He was 72. We heard him sing at a Loudon Wainwright concert in Glasgow away back around 1974. RIP George. I loved the humour of your songs.

We had a quick attempt at the figure we learned yesterday, The Five Step, but after Scamp trod on my toe and I trod on hers, both by accident, we decided to call it a day and try agin tomorrow.

There will be some worried faces in the SNP party tonight since Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of ‘breaching the ministerial code’, which is legalese for ”She didnae dae it!” That means all those who had their daggers drawn ready to take her down will be keeping a low profile for some time to come. I’m not saying she’s vindictive, oh no, I didn’t say that. I’ve always said she was the best leader we’ve ever had. Ahem, I think I got away with that.

Tomorrow looks reasonable weather wise, but we may get some of the wet stuff.

 

 

Painting without a brush – 3 May 2020

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Scary business slashing away at a painting with a knife.

For some unexplained reason, I got up this morning and started cleaning up the back room. Scamp thought I was doing it to provide me with a spare bed in the event that someone was disturbing my sleep by snoring. Unlikely. Or did I mishear her, did she say that I was disturbing someone’s sleep by snoring? More likely. If it was either of those reasons, then the prompt was subliminal, I didn’t generate it knowingly. Luckily around 11am it was time to turn on the coffee machine and I gave up on the pointless exercise to return to reality, and coffee.

It looked like another beautiful day had dawned. It had taken a few hours for the weather to get its ducks in order, but now the sky looked set fair for a few hours. I took some of my plants out of the little greenhouse and set them on the grass to harden off a bit. The garden is beginning to look a lot more active with the sun last week warming up the ground and the rain at the end of the week giving some much needed moisture. I even have a pea pushing its little green head above the soil of the raised bed. One pea of the dozen or so I planted in double rows. Well, perhaps it’s one of many to come. It looks like the peas I planted in the little plug pots are beginning to show signs of growth, even a couple of the ones I held back from last years harvest and carefully dried over the winter have sprouted. The James Grieve apple tree has its first flowers and hopefully the Russet beside it will come to flower this week. My biggest surprise is the return of the American Cowslip “Shooting Star”. I’d thought it was dead and was really pleased to see some green shoots coming from it in April. Today it has three flower stalks and two flowers in bloom. I just checked and it was flowering last year on 2nd May. Just one day behind this year isn’t bad.

After lunch I got started painting. I took a photo out of the painting room window and used that as a prompt. A few heavy clouds and some blue sky over the Campsie Fells. It took about an hour and a half to get the first likeness, and another hour after that to get the details. It was all done with a painting knife or two painting knives to be precise, no brush was used. I finished it (for today) just before Scamp called me down for dinner.

Dinner tonight was Bruschetta with a base of home made bread, then a rub with garlic and topped with little vine tomatoes, basil and olive oil. Lovely starter. Main was sea bass with Jersey Royal potatoes and broccoli, washed down with Rosé D’ Anjou. Pudding was our own stewed rhubarb and custard. Quite delicious because Scamp was cooking and I volunteered to be pot washer.

Spoke to JIC and were updated on all things gardening down south and also how to deal with money grabbing cruise companies like, say P&O who withhold the deposit you’ve paid even when the cruise you booked on isn’t going to sail due to government restrictions. We may try some of his suggestions.

PoD was the apple blossom, but the Shooting Star gave it a run for its money.

With the tree lights shining multicolouredly (if that’s not a word, then it should be), that brings us to the end of another blog. Hope you enjoyed it.

Another delivery day of sunshine and groceries – 28 April 2020

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This time Tesco were doing the needful for the groceries and the blue skies were producing the backdrop.

A dull day at 4.40am, but the birds were singing happily. Blackbirds I think, certainly not magpies that abound just now and definitely not seagulls they should be banned or better still culled.

Spent the morning clearing off the dried paint from my painting palette which is nothing more than a large white floor tile, but it has a hard glossy surface that works so well with any kind of paint and generally washes clean. It didn’t do it today, in fact I had to take some turps on a rag to it. That got the paint moving. Unfortunately it made the whole house smell too. I think I’ve finally got rid of the smell tonight. Since I had the turps out, I cleaned my oil painting brushes with it and then washed them in hot soapy water. That way they won’t pass any Covid-19 to each other.

Gary, the window cleaner came round today to make an honest fiver. Haven’t seen him in ages and we did a bit of long distance social distancing catching up. He was asking after you JIC. I don’t think you knew him Hazy. He used to go to karate class with JIC and me. Then it was lunch time.

In the afternoon I sat and struggled again with the problems of getting a Pilatus PC12 to follow a GPS trace. Finally, and I say this with a fair degree of certainty, I know how to set it properly and make the aircraft play nice. It’s just a case of knowing which of those screens to set up properly, which of the buttons to press and when. Heaven knows how real pilots know which of the buttons to press and more importantly, which NOT to press.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk round St Mo’s. Just because it was so nice, I went round twice and got a couple of photos of blossom and flowers. The blossom was Hawthorn or May Blossom. That got PoD. The other little flower I got was a Lousewort. Ugly name for a pretty little flower. I’d read last year’s blog last night and I’d photographed the same flower, but hadn’t found a name for it. Now I know. I used my old trusted Collins book Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe to find it. Of course I cross-checked it with Google!

Dinner tonight was a combined affair. Scamp made Cauliflower Fritters and I made Souk Style Chicken and Chickpea Soup. It was like a soupy tagine. Very spicy, but not hot. We got the recipes from a cooking magazine and Scamp suggested we both look through it separately and write down recipes we would like to try. Not surprisingly, we both chose a lot of the same things. We’re intending to work through the list now and maybe cut a few from it to make a short list of favourites.

Tesco delivery arrived early as usual and with the wrong printout of groceries. Scamp was confused for a while and then she noticed the delivery address was wrong. Most of the stuff we ordered came this time, even bread flour. Now the problem is going to be finding yeast. We’ve enough to do for about a month, so there’s no rush for it. Just a matter of waiting until the panic buying is past its peak.

Read some sad news on the web today. Apparently John Prine a singer songwriter I’ve been enjoying for the last few months died on 7th April with complications from Covid-19. Such a pity. If you get a chance, search Spotify for Some Humans Aint Human. Clever lyrics that mean so much more nowadays.

More rain tonight, but the day was clear and sunny for most of the time. However, the weather fairies say the good weather isn’t going to last. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Two ponds in one day – 20 April 2020

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It was a fair bit colder today caused by a strong east wind.

East winds are usually cold. They blow in from the North Sea which has no North Atlantic Drift (Wrongly called the Gulf Stream) to warm it up. It felt raw today, but inside with the sun streaming on through the front windows it was lovely. So lovely I didn’t want to shift too far from the couch, which is a bad thing really. Eventually had to move to get lunch. After that I was encouraged to go for a walk to allow Scamp some ‘me time’.

I chose to walk round St Mo’s, but I’m becoming jaded with its greenery, its swans and geese and even its trees which are starting to look very tree-like all of a sudden. I didn’t even take any photos there today. Instead I walked down through the underpass and on to Broadwood Loch. Unfortunately it was the same story as yesterday. Too many people in too big a group with only one brain cell between them. The paths are very tight in places and while some people give you room to pass, some of the dunderheids don’t know enough about social distancing or don’t care and just bustle past. Really, they shouldn’t be allowed out without a carer, a polis escort or at the very least, a man in front of them with a red flag. Cumbernauld! Where it’s not just the dogs that piss on the trees.

On the way back up over the green hill between the ring road and the houses where they are considering (Councilspeak for going ahead with) building yet more houses on the greenbelt. That’s where I found another wild cherry tree and took its picture. That became PoD. Hardly needed any post processing.

Watched Christine & The Queens tonight on YouTube on Fire Stick because it’s about ten times faster than using the Sony TV to do it. It all started with trying to watch the Stones on BBC singing in harmony(!) with each other from their homes, over some supposed video link that was as dodgy as the singing. At least it was funny, but the presenters, oh dear, the presenters. The Wood family. Just not up to the job I’m afraid. That’s what sent us to YouTube to find C&TQ, which was what we were looking for. Amazing performance from Glastonbury last year.

That was about it. Short dancing practise today. Tomorrow, probably longer one.

Walking on new paths – 19 April 2020

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Up and out early to go for a walk in the new paths of Broadwood.

Actually, although we were up and out fairly early, the paths were already being well used by others. Cyclists and joggers were out in force and so too were those, like us, who were out for their daily exercise. On our way out we met a few fellow walkers and in the woods we met hardly any. In fact the paths were so quiet we spotted a deer feeding near the little lochan not far from the famous Irn Bru factory. Fear not, dear readers it was drinking from the lochan, not from a can of Irn Bru.

The walk back was the usual boring walk beside the least interesting piece of manmade loch in the Western Hemisphere. Broadwood Loch is not my favourite place, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. It was made even more tedious by having to avoid the great unwashed walking in the opposite direction or attempting to cycle in that direction via the steep banking on the opposite side of the path from the loch. The punter in question just managed to stay vertical, more from good luck than from skill. Forget the story that “It’s just like riding a bike. You never forget.” Possibly you do never forget, but only if you knew how to do it in the first place. Pity, because it was a waste of a new bike!

Back home and after lunch I started again at the painting of the four slices of orange. I’d given up yesterday and slapped a coat of white on top. Today I redrew the painting with new orange slices. It was a bit better, but still not right. Eventually I gave up and started a third time on a new sheet of paper. This time I used a viewfinder, something I’ve never used before, but with its help I managed a reasonable copy of the scene in front of me. Slapped some thin acrylic washes on the sketch and left it to dry while I took the camera for a walk in St Mo’s.

Not much happening there, but at least I was out of the house again and doing something. The something I did was complete my 10,000 steps for the day and then a little late the 8 active hours. Result (of a sort)! Today’s PoD was of catkins sitting on the surface of the pond, like little yellow ducklings. Back home I finished the painting and it started to look much better. Sometimes it’s the simple things, like the shadows that bring a picture together.

Mojitos tonight. Not the best mojitos I’ve made, but reasonable. Scamp later told me I was using the wrong sugar and I suggested that soda water might have been better than sparkling water. Just excuses really. The best way to enjoy a mojito is to get someone to make it for you and then try to walk back to your hotel. That’s not going to happen any time soon.

Spoke to JIC tonight and found out that our nice warm day with a cold wind was a non-starter, compared to their 20+ºc. We probably managed 14º at best, and that was without windchill.

Tomorrow, as usual in Lockdown, we have no plans. Well, maybe some dancing practise again.

Out walking – 16 April 2020

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Firstly for food and later for exercise. Are you allowed to say “for enjoyment’? Or is that forbidden in this strange new world?

Went out this morning to go to the butcher’s and passed a line of Wild Cherry trees, Gean, we call them. Thin, almost bare branched with a bunch of fluffy white flowers on the end. They never cease to cheer me up, even on a dull day. Today was a dull day and with a cold wind too! Walking back I decided I had to have a photo of them and this was the best one. I’ve been photographing these trees for years now. Not every year, but almost. The first camera I remember using to photograph them was an Olympus C2000z back around the year 2000. Twenty years ago! I must dig out those photos if they’re still around. Anyway, that first walk was for essential provisions, which is perfectly legal.

The second walk was in the afternoon. Twice round St Mo’s pond and a chance for more photography. If asked why we were walking round a pond twice I’d have to say that it was for exercise. No officer we did not gain any enjoyment out of the walk at all it was a route march over hills and through woods, purely to breath fresh air into our lungs. There is a theory that walking in pine woods is good for the respiratory system. I read that once officer. Luckily no officers were there to interrogate us on the reasons we were out of our house. It seems that some of our constabulary are taking the new powers a bit seriously and laying down the letter of the law, rather than its spirit.  We’ve not been bothered, but some people have.

Dinner tonight was an attempt at a chicken stir fry and although neither of us was one hundred percent happy with the result, it was worth trying again and another recipe that needs just a bit of gentle tweaking.

Spoke to Hazy tonight and she pointed us in the direction of Quiz which is a dramatised version of the attempt to cheat at Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Watched episode 1 on the Amazon Fire Stick. Much quicker than trying to get the TV/Tivo combination to connect to it. Quite enjoyed it.

The other thing I watched was another instalment of Watercolour Artist on Sky Arts. I’d watched one episode before and it was fairly staid and “British”. That’s not a compliment. The second one was set near Edinburgh and involved three artists painting the Forth Bridges … two of them. Where was the other one, the Queensferry Crossing, the newest one? It wasn’t on any of the camera shots. Only at the end did it become clear. The film was made in 1999!! That’s even before my Oly C2000z! I believe “Scraping the bottom of the barrel” is the expression I’m looking for. That’s another thing about the Lockdown. There is a dearth of new drama, documentary (except Covid-19 related) and soaps. Once we return to ‘normal’ whatever normal will be then, there will probably be a hiatus while the filming backlog is filled in. And then there will be Brexit …

Tomorrow we have no plans. Maybe more walks and maybe some dance practise.

Mothers Day – 22 March 2020

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I made the breakfast. I even sliced up a banana for Scamp, with none for me. I did this only for Scamp on behalf of the weans … and because banana on my porridge would be a step too far.

Today was shearing day. The thatch that’s been growing under my nose and around my mouth was getting far too lush. It had to go. So I took it upon myself to give it a quick Number Four. I possibly could have gone to a number three, but it was just 1.9ºc when I was making breakfast and, at my age I need a bit of insulation on the upper lip and the chin, so a number four it was.

After hacking away for a while and washing all the clippings away I felt ready to face the day. Scamp was already speaking to Hazy on the phone when I went downstairs. She didn’t even notice my carefully sculpted facial hair. Neither did Hazy, but as this wasn’t a video call or FaceTime, I’ll forgive her. It was only hours later when I told her about my barbering skills she looked and said “Oh, yes”. That’s all you get for all the planning and careful cutting then. Hmph!

It being Mothers Day, Scamp had the choice of where to go for our daily walk. She chose St Mo’s surprisingly. I thought she’d want to go to Broadwood, which I find boring, but she likes. No, she thought there would be fewer people at St Mo’s after yesterday’s crowds at Drumpellier. It was another beautiful day and there were a few folk, mainly mums and dads with a single wean. They weren’t observing the proper social distancing rules, but I suppose they were all living under the same roof, so what’s the point of maintaining the 2m exclusion zone when you’re outside if you’ll be sitting in the same room when you get home. I did get what turned out to be today’s PoD on our walk, it was another of those flowering currants, but this time about half of the flowers had opened. I was hoping to get a chance to take some more later in the walk or even later in the day, but technology got in the way. After we’d done our circuit of St Mo’s, Scamp suggested we walk down through Condorrat and over the ‘Red Bridge’. That extended our walk a bit, even if it was beside a busy road, still quite busy even with so much isolation going on. The motorway however was almost deserted. I’m pretty sure we could count on the fingers of one hand, the number of cars and lorries that passed under our feet as we crossed the Red Bridge. The M80 was carrying its lightest traffic load for a long, long while.

After we got back, Scamp took the bull by the horns and instituted a video call to her sister in Skye. I was most impressed with the ease she did it with. A real tech genius Scamp is. I’ll be going to her for help with all my problems now!

Later, I thought I’d go for a solo walk around St Mo’s to see if Mr Grey had returned. He had, but he was away on the far side of the pond, well out of reach of the 200mm lens. I tried to get some macro shots of some nicely lit moss spores, but for some reason still to be explained, the shutter seemed to fire, but no photos were recorded. That’s the reason we ‘chimp’ (check the image on the back screen of the camera) but I had confidence in the ability of the E-M1, misplaced confidence it seemed.

Dinner tonight was the second half of the Thai Chicken Stir-Fry for Scamp and the first half of a Beef Stir-Fry for me. Both with egg noodles instead of the usual rice for a change. Scamp’s was fine, if a bit oily. Mine was so hot it would have set the oil on fire. The girl in the butchers said it had “a bit of a kick”. I’d say! A kick like a mule. I’ll treat it with caution when I get round to eating the other half. It’s in the freezer at present, I hope it hasn’t melted anything in there!

Spoke to JIC later and got his take on Covid 19. He’s much more down to earth than the BBC. It’s good to hear a more reasoned, grounded voice on the subject.

Tomorrow we may go for messages. Just ordinary messages and if we find toilet rolls, buy lots and lots of them!

A lovely Spring day – 19 March 2020

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Sunshine from early and we both decided to make the best of it.

Scamp wanted to get some pansies to fill up her flower tubs and I volunteered to go look for some. Found some at B&Q. The place was quite busy considering the present circumstances. Took the long way home via Tesco to see what was for sale. Hoping for some pasta, but the only thing available on that aisle was Tagliatelle and I know that Scamp doesn’t like that. It wasn’t actually on the shelf, it was still in its box with the top ripped off, sitting in one of the rolling cages the shelf stackers push along (according to Scamp the cages are called “Yorkies”). So someone just tore of the top and helped themselves. The next step will be raiding the warehouse and if they can’t find what they want there, ambushing the artic wagons when they try to unload. I kid you not!

When I got back there was an email waiting for me to tell me that my coffee would be delivered around 3pm. That gave us the opportunity to go for a walk. We walked around St Mo’s pond and then went to Condorrat with the possibility of getting a cake in the Spar shop. However we went in vain because there were no cakes that interested Scamp. She did, however get some potatoes then announced she had no money! Luckily I had. While we were in St Mo’s I got PoD which I think is a flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum.

We walked home and had lunch, then Scamp thought she’d go out and edge the grass in the front garden and maybe tidy up the pots. I thought about helping out, but only thought about it. Postman brought a big box addressed to Scamp in Hazy’s writing style, then the DPD man brought my coffee and tea. With nothing else to do but play games on my phone I put on my big jacket because the sun was getting lower and the wind was cold now and went back to St Mo’s to do a solo circuit of the pond, but got no photos. Eventually I settled for some low shots of the crocuses in the front garden. Another of Scamp’s brilliant ideas a couple of years ago was to plant crocus bulbs in the grass of the front garden. They certainly do brighten up the grass, and after the flowers disappear, it will be time to cut the grass anyway and allow the plants to die back until next year, hopefully.

So, not only have they closed all the UK schools from Friday, but they have also cancelled all exams because of the virus. John Swinney the Scottish Education minister sought to explain how certification would work and managed to fit in his two buzz words “Robust” and “Rigorous” four or five times in his statement. He has yet to explain what they mean in this context. Pupils will be graded on coursework, teacher assessment and prior grades and of course it will be Robust and Rigorous. I feel sorry for those pupils who will not get the opportunity to sit their exams.  It is the first time the exams have been cancelled since the system was put in place in 1888.

Tomorrow it looks like a cold start but a bright day. We’ll take that. We may go for another walk, while we are still allowed out.