Category: Driving

A new member of the club – 11 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

My pal John joined the retirees club today, so I went to see how he was settling in.

Actually he’s settling in quite well and seems perfectly happy with the prospect of all those workless days stretching out before him. We tackled about old times, friends and colleagues we’ve known. “Some are bad and some are good, some have done the best they could. Some have tried to ease my troubled mind” Lyrics are like a form of modern poetry for the masses. That one was from Tom Paxton.

After an hour or so of walking down memory lane I took my leave and drove home, stopping on the way to see if Currys in Hamilton had the Sony camera I’ve been looking for. They had Canon cameras, lots of them, but little else. Of course, none of them had batteries in them. Either that or the batteries hadn’t been charged this year. Looked at a couple of tablets too, but wasn’t impressed. I was even less impressed with the traffic jam of people trying to get out the retail park. Roadworks. That bane of everyone’s life these days, and this in a 28º heat. Thankfully the air-con took most of the sting out of that. Had a quick look in Hobbycraft at the fort to see if there were any bargains – there weren’t, despite plenty of posters saying there were. Final stop was the ice cream shop in Muirhead for a litre tub of Scottish Tablet ice cream – That’s your fault Hazy for sending the WhatsApp message!!

After dropping off the ice cream, I went for a walk round St Mo’s because I’d nothing in the bag, photo wise today. Got a photo of my dragonfly model from yesterday, still posing for me, but PoD went to a mountaineering snail I saw. Not a lot else was moving in today’s overpowering heat. Humidity was high and the wind was very light, so I left a bit earlier than I’d intended and went home.

Dinner was Chicken Kebabs on a bed of Cauliflower Couscous. Sounds strange, but it tasted great – so did the tablet ice cream.

I enjoyed seeing Teflon John make a grovelling apology to all the pupils whose last week of the holidays he had completely destroyed with his decision to make the posh kids look smarter and the poor kids look stupid.  It didn’t work John.  They stood up to you and you had to back down.  Just shows that people-power does work sometimes.

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet Val for coffee and a wee chat about what’s new in the world of computers! Ah, normal service is being resumed at last.

The test and the result – 8 August 2020

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If, like me, you can’t be bothered about the details of the test and just jump straight to the result, here is the test in that order.

I phoned The Man in Stirling about 4pm and confirmed that we’d like to take the “Power Blue” Nissan Micra, and if the one we’d test driven this morning was available, that would be just fine.  He agreed that the one we’d road tested was available and that the paperwork would be in our hands by Monday.  You’ll note that most of our responses were in the plural.  We both liked the car and when Scamp said, after we’d road tested it: “I like it”, the deal was all but sealed.  After about an hour of driving round Stirling, Scamp and I were happy with the Micra.  Scamp said she felt quite at home with it.  I was happy with it.  Maybe not as powerful as the Juke, but not as heavy on fuel either.  Lots of lovely stuff to play with and at last, a digital speedometer display on a Nissan!  Something I’d really missed when moving from the old Megane to the Juke.  Good sound from the radio courtesy of Bose speakers and less road noise, if a little more engine noise when travelling.  Overall, it’s a car that we can both drive with confidence, and that’s what I was looking for.  Sold!

After our stressful morning we left Stirling to drive to Perth in the Juke. It was a beautiful day for the drive up to Perth but  when we got the Fair City, we found that the carpark was now an online parking carpark run using the Ringo app.  I’d read a few scathing reviews of it and decided it wasn’t for me, so promptly exited and parked across the road in a pay (using coins) carpark.  That was much better.  Maybe Ringo has improved from where it was a year or so ago, but I’ll read a few reviews first. In Perth we had our second coffee in a coffee shop this week, Nero this time just to balance things out, then while Scamp went looking for trousers in M&S, I went to get some much needed coffee beans in The Bean Shop.  Nearly maxed out the £45 ‘touch’ card limit just managing to sneak under the line.  I felt it was needed because I’d been reduced to drinking decaf coffee for a few days.  Actually ‘good’ decaf isn’t all that bad.  Perfectly drinkable and it doesn’t give you that  ‘Buzzzz’.  Bad decaf is just awful.  “Death before Decaf.”  Never a truer word spoken, Hazy!  Scamp didn’t find the trousers she was looking for and I thought I’d get my hands on the Sony camera I’d been searching for, but the bloke in the camera shop only had one which was 1p away from £1000.  I said “No Thanks”.  He didn’t look all that interested and didn’t even try to interest me in the purchase.  Perhaps it’s getting near the end of the line for small independent shops.

Drove home through the same beautiful countryside under the same beautiful blue skies.  Back home, Scamp wanted to work in the garden.  I went for a walk in St Mo’s.  Lovely big blue dragonfly flying over the small pond, but not resting on anything.  Gave up on it.  Nothing else really interesting, so came home.  PoD turned out to be a pic on my phone taken in Perth outside a toy shop.  Good to see a bit of Covid-19 humour.  Dinner tonight was a salad which we ate outside in the sunshine.  Chicken and Prawn Salad.  All washed down with a glass for white.  What’s not to like.

So, the car problem looks as if it’s on the way to being solved and the sun was shining all day today.  It’s been a good day.  Let’s hope that’s a sign for  the future, for everyone.

 

 

 

Where did the day go? – 5 August 2020

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It didn’t help getting up just before 11am.

After a cup of espresso to wake me up, I went out to clean the remnants of a six month old parking ticket from the Juke’s windscreen. Then there was some residue from electrical tape that was still showing on a door pillar. Sweetie wrappers stuck down the side of the seat were the next target for me and my Dyson. Finally there were the dust and debris in the inaccessible places under the seat and stuck fast between the seat back and the cushion, but the long nose of the Dyson proved that there was no place to hide. It looked much better when I was finished and as a bonus, I found a charging cable and a plug-in charger I’d lost months ago!

After lunch we drove through the rain to Stirling to see what the man would say about our now (almost) sparkling Juke and how much he’d want something to replace it. We arrived too early but the man was busy talking to other hopefuls. He apologised and we waited some more. My unspoken limit was 30 minutes, then we’d drive home and he’d lose a sale. Scamp’s unspoken limit was the same 30 minutes. With literally minutes to spare he finished with his two customers and he escorted us to his table, complete with the mandatory clear acrylic screen. We had a look and a seat in the new Juke. Neither of us were all that impressed. It was much bigger and clumsier looking than the Red Juke. The Micra was much smaller by comparison and the seat seemed much lower too. Finally we got round to the numbers. It wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated. We were all singing from the same hymn sheet and the bottom line was a bit better than what we’d feared. In fact, the top of the line Micra was quite well appointed for a fair price. The Juke we looked at was above our spending limit. It’s not that we couldn’t afford it as much as we didn’t want to. I don’t think we need such a big car now.

We left with smiles on our faces, lots to investigate and talk about an a box of posh chocolates for taking part. We’ve to phone on Friday to arrange a test drive in a Micra. I’ve already driven one and liked it, although it was an automatic. Scamp has had a quick spin round the factories in the driving seat too. We both quite liked it.

Drove home through the usual 5pm traffic and sat down to look at the details of what we were about to commit to. Looked at the clock and it was 7pm! Where did the day go? Dinner was pasta and tomato sauce (with meatballs for me). More talking about money and cars afterwards and then we raided those posh, Lindt chocolates. Took today’s PoD in the fading light in the garden. It’s rain on a pea leaf. Peas are looking very good this year. May pick some at the weekend. While Scamp watched a documentary, I processed and posted the PoD. More talking after that and finally got round to writing this blog just before midnight.

Tomorrow we’re booked for coffee in Costa with Isobel. Hoping to go and look at a camera in Glasgow in the afternoon. It’s looking like a better day tomorrow. Today was dry in the morning and wet in the afternoon.

Confusion Reigns – 3 August 2020

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Confusion may have reigned, but there wasn’t much actual rain. A bit, but not much.

I’d promised to clean up the inside of the car and that’s what I did first this morning. It’s not sparkling clean, but it’s not nearly as dirty and messy as it was. Not quite in the JIC category, more … lived in!

With the future of the Juke in mind, I phoned Nissan to check if I was actually booked in for a meeting tomorrow (not Thursday as I’d reported in yesterday’s blog). I seemed to confuse the receptionist because I didn’t have a department or a sales person she could transfer the call to. She eventually just passed it on to the first available sales person. I then proceeded to confuse him too. Eventually I cut to the chase and asked him: “Do you have an appointment scheduled for me to visit tomorrow?” He said “No.” Not the answer I wanted, but at least we were getting somewhere. He now wanted to hand this confusing and possibly confused customer over to someone else. He opened my file and found the salesman I dealt with three years ago when I bought the Juke. He said he’d contact him and get him to phone me later. I think he went out to have lunch then and left his phone deliberately in the office. Locked in a drawer, no doubt.

Scamp wasn’t feeling so good today. She had been feeling sick during the night and hadn’t slept much. For those reasons, she had a light lunch, and so did I because I was still trying to get my head round what had happened. To clarify things we started looking at options for loans or money transfers, basically working out what was the easiest way to deal with the offloading or keeping of the Juke. With my head spinning in a different way now I suggested we take a run to Bishopbriggs to buy a 2 Terabyte removable drive to let me back up the MacBook Pro and the iMac using Time Machine. It’s an old but reliable way of backing up your entire Apple computer with more options than there are with Carbon Copier. Don’t roll your eyes JIC, I’m not going deep into the technicalities. Carbon Copier is a disaster recovery tool. Time Machine is a file recovery tool. Anyway, we drove to Bishopbriggs and bought the cheapest one I could find with a reputable make.

Back home again, I was just about to go on a ‘beastie hunt’ when my phone rang and it was the salesman who sold me the Juke trying to unravel the mess. The phone call I got last week from Renault finance was actually telling me about a discount event that runs from Wednesday 5th until Saturday. They had got their wires crossed and had also been booking people for the event from today and causing a lot of problems as a result. To simplify things I agreed that we’d to to the VIP event which will also feature an extra discount (probably less than 1%). So, I have until Wednesday to get rid of the remaining seagull crap, dust the inside of the car. Wash it down and tidy up the boot. I might get the seagull crap removed. The rest? No chance!

There were no beasties posing for photos today. The bees were too busy, the beetles were beetling about, the ladybirds were lazing, even the flowers were fading. I came home almost empty handed and with no quality work.

Scamp was feeling better by dinner time and had some light tomato spaghetti. After dinner I was making my coffee when I spotted him. There is a Cyberman in my coffee machine! It took me a few seconds to prise him out and half an hour to get a tripod and camera positioned so that I could record his existence. What you see above is living proof that Cybermen exist!

Later we found that series 1 episode 1 of Line of Duty was on BBC 1 (also on iPlayer). It’s a totally believable storyline about corruption in the police and must be the best cop series on TV. I think we started watching it from about halfway through series 2 or maybe we started at series 3. Worth watching if you haven’t seen it before.

Right, so we aren’t going to Stirling tomorrow. In fact, by the looks of the weather we won’t be going anywhere tomorrow. Certainly not without a good Goretex jacket. It’s going to be wet and windy.

Rain in all its forms – 30 July 2020

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Today was wet, really wet, soaking wet in fact.

It was that typical Scottish summer day. Every form of rain you could imagine falling incessantly from the sky. It didn’t come as a surprise, we knew from the weather reports that today was going to be a washout, so we’d planned for it. We went for the messages!

We drove to Waitrose in Stirling in the morning. We needed shopping and there was no point in wasting the warm sunny day that had been promised for Friday, so we thought it made sense to use up Thursday wandering round Waitrose filling a trolley. When we got to the till I thought we’d actually managed to buy Waitrose. We nearly did.

Coming back, the rain was even worse and the spray thrown up by the cars was like diving through fog. I was amazed at the number of drivers who chose not to use lights. The ones who had no rear lights were bad enough, but it was the ones who didn’t even daytime running lights who were the worst. A grey car driving through heavy spray on a dull day without lights is almost invisible from front or rear. Rant over.

The rain continued into the afternoon and as I didn’t have a photo, I took a walk in the rain to see if I could find some moody raindrop pictures. Instead I found some Yarrow plants. One shot of them became PoD.

After dinner I settled down to paint a wee jam jar of lavender flowers. Scamp had cut them yesterday and I’d dropped them into an jam jar of water to stop them wilting. Today that jam jar and its flowers became the subject of a wee watercolour. It’s up on Instagram, but I’ll let you have a look at it here too. I’m quite pleased with it.

Tomorrow is forecast to be the best day of the week with predicted temperatures in the mid 20s here in the Central Belt. Down in London it’s going to be over 30º. Too hot for me! Hope you enjoy it Hazy and Neil-D. Hope the Cambridge pair have a more sensible temperature.

We may go for a walk somewhere if tomorrow is going to be Summer!

Just sitting in the sun – 25 July 2020

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Listening to music.

After yesterday’s frantic hither and thither driving and wheeler dealing, today was quite placid by comparison. No plans, just some stuff to take to the skip, quite a lot of stuff, actually. Loads of cardboard boxes, some garden rubbish and the old grass hoover.

By the time I’d had my morning coffee and made inroads into today’s Sudoku it was time to get started. I loaded the car up and drove off to the skips. Noticed the line of cars when I got there, but didn’t realise this was the queue for the dump. Drove to the end of the queue and parked with the engine off. Played some music from Spotify to have something to do while I sat in the sun and waited. Actually it didn’t take long for the queue to start moving. The sun was out, it was pleasantly warm sitting in the car listening to some music I’d put into a playlist and flicking past the ones that didn’t inspire me. Then a bloke from NLC asked me for ID. It felt a bit like Alice’s Restaurant, but most of you are too young to understand the implications there. Look it up and if you get the chance, listen to Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. I didn’t really have proof of address with me, then I hit on my bus pass. That confirmed that I lived in North Lanarkshire Council area. Would that do? The bloke said yes that was fine. Finally he asked, almost as an aside where did I live. I told him and he smiled and waved me on. I’m guessing that as we are right next to three other council areas, they don’t want ‘outsiders’ dumping their rubbish in Cumbersheugh. As if anyone would notice. Anyway, half an hour had passed fairly quickly. We had nowhere else to go today anyway and I’d added three more songs to my latest playlist. Dumped the stuff and was on my way home.

Later in the afternoon we walked over to Condorrat to get a steak for dinner for tomorrow’s dinner for me, some eggs, black pudding, sausages and also some chicken for tonight’s dinner and walked back.

Back home I packed my camera and a long lens just in case I saw something interesting at the pond and walked round St Mo’s then back down behind the school were there are more interesting insects. Grabbed two shots of a little moth. The head was sharp in one and the wings in another. ON1 2020 made light work of joining the two parts into a convincing whole. That became PoD. See if you can see the join.

Painted a trio of sweet pea flowers in the afternoon too. Posted on Instagram and FB. That was our nice lazy Saturday. Weather was fairly pleasant. Not too hot, but dry after last night and early morning torrential showers.

Tomorrow we have no real plans, I’m sure we’ll find something to do.

Phone – 24 July 2020

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Today we to get a new phone. That should be easy, shouldn’t it?

Not so in the new world we now live in. First stop was Tesco. The cheapest and easiest to access. Two people working in the Tesco Mobile booth but only one allowed to serve customers. The other was managing the queue, i.e. Scamp. She got a price and they had the phone in stock. We were one step on the way to a successful conclusion.

To get a broader view of the other options we drove to Coatbridge, using my route, not the scenic route we took earlier in the week. Went to Carphone Warehouse at Currys. No queue this time and the girl went through the standard procedure of noting down everything up to and including what Scamp had for breakfast (Kellogg’s Special K with strawberries.). Only once she’d confirmed that Scamp didn’t want a contract with Vodafone and that she didn’t want to go with in-house iD, she told us that they didn’t have the phone she was looking for in stock and they wouldn’t be available until Monday – note, she didn’t say which Monday! We said no thanks and left to go home for lunch, but next door was an Argos where EE are based these days. Lady at the door said there wasn’t anyone at the EE stand as he was at lunch. Only one person selling? And then, only when he was there. Didn’t sound good, but par for the course these days.

After lunch we went to Bishopbriggs to another Carphone Warehouse in Currys. Waited in the queue where only one person was actually selling. After half an hour of standing around a second Carphone Warehouse operative told us that they didn’t have the phone in stock there either. Very popular he said. We’d guessed that.

Drove back to Cumbersheugh and finally sealed the deal for roughly the same price as Carphone Warehouse were promoting with EE, but that was with a ghost phone. PAK code has been entered and the final switch over should happen by Tuesday. Apparently computers don’t work weekends.

A lot of the time was spent standing around waiting in a queue. We can partly blame Covid-19. How can Tesco manage to hold a stock of phones when Carphone Warehouse seem unable to. A what the hell, Scamp has a new phone.

As for the rest of the day. When we got back home we assembled the new grass hoover and Scamp hoovered the front grass. Her first thoughts are that it’s not as good a cut as the old one, but it’s much lighter. We need to make some adjustments to the cut height and after that it should be better.

I managed an hour before dinner taking photos of ‘beasties’. Mainly hover flies and other insects. A couple of shots of a little froglet or toadlet too. It was a dusty little hover fly that got PoD.

No plans for tomorrow. It looks wet in the morning, the aftermath of the rain that’s battering down just now, but better in the afternoon. We won’t be driving far, the poor Red Juke it tired out tonight.

A Visitor – 23 July 2020

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A busy morning in the house.

Visitor coming today, so the house had to be made to look like a house and not a jumble sale. Tables to clear, floors to hoover and work to be done elsewhere. Scamp’s aunt/cousin (It’s complicated as most families are) was coming to visit and Scamp wanted everything looking nice. I did my best. I cleared the table. It took three armfuls and three journeys up and down the stairs to put most of the stuff away in the back room. Now I can’t find anything in the back room, but that’s ok, because I’m the only one who goes in there. Scamp just opens the door, looks in and sighs.
Isobel had been complaining to Scamp the last time they were on the phone that her daughter had bought her a mask, but it was really uncomfortable, so I suggested I make her one as a belated birthday present. That seemed to pass muster as a good idea. So that was my job thing morning after the table clearance. I got it finished just before lunch.

After lunch, Scamp went out to get Isobel. She had a new knee fitted earlier in the year and has some mobility issues as a result, so we’d agreed that Scamp would pick her up and I would drop her back at the house later. While she was out, I grabbed my camera and went out to see if I could get any photos. Found a tiny little orange spider in the middle of its web on a gypsophila plant. Got a few photos of it, but of course it was that first one that got PoD. The raindrops looked like star trails coming out of the web.

When they arrived Scamp gave Isobel the Royal Tour of the front garden. Then it was coffee time and a wee natter before we reviewed the back garden. She seemed quite impressed and the garden did look good in the sunshine. After a while Isobel announced it was time for her to go back home and I was chauffeur. Got her settled and had a walk round her garden, amazed as always at her memory for all the plants names.

Took my leave and drove home via Tesco to fill up the thirsty Juke. I was chef tonight and it was an old favourite, paella. Not real paella, because I can’t eat mussels, but it’s a fair compromise that looks and tastes like a real paella.

No sketch tonight, at least, not one posted. I did sketch half a pepper, but it’s not worth posting. Lockdown Library may be closed, but I still intend to post any decent sketches on Instagram and Facebook. Just not every day.

Tomorrow we may go somewhere nice for a walk.

The Grass Hoover – 22 July 2020

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It was an uninspiring day. It rained from morning until night.  A day for clearing up loose ends.

We had decided yesterday that if today was as bad as predicted, we’d go and look for a new grass hoover. You know, one of those things that you run over your grass, it cuts it, then hoovers it all up. Some call it a lawn mower. We don’t have a lawn, we have grass, that’s why we need a grass hoover

Drove up to B&Q. They had the model Scamp was interested in, but only on display. No big boxes with the real thing in them. Nearest B&Q that had them was in Coatbridge. Just for fun I set the satnav to take us to Coatbridge. Firstly it got lost. It took us along the M80, then told us to take a slip road and go back the way we’d come. I ignored it. It could have taken us off at the next but one turn off , but no, it knew a better way. We went the scenic route via Hamilton. A seven mile trip that ended up consuming about 20 miles of road. It did find B&Q though.

Thankfully they did have the big orange box with the grass hoover in it. We wandered around and around the grass cutting toys, but we couldn’t decide which one to get. Eventually Scamp chose the one we’d been looking for from the start. It went into the Juke’s vast storage space easily and we drove home … my way. Took about half the time the satnav had wasted getting there.

The rain had not let up all day, so there was no point in unboxing the grass hoover, it wasn’t going to hoover up any grass today. It’s still sitting in the hall, sleeping in its box.

In the afternoon I grabbed a few shots in the garden during a dry spell. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s raindrops on the seed head of an Allium. With one in the bag I could relax a bit. Next was dinner prep. Today we were having a Chilli non-carne, in other veg chilli and I was chef. While I was making it, Scamp was trying to do a deal with Vodafone to get an upgrade to her four year old Samsung phone. She was unsuccessful. So, it looks like she’ll be leaving Vodafone. Well, it did until she found that she can get a better deal by leaving Vodafone with her PAK code and going to Carphone Warehouse and getting them to give her a deal with … Vodafone for about a fiver a month cheaper than Vodafone were offering. Are you still with me? I’m not sure I am.

Today was number 100 of the Lockdown Library on Instagram and Facebook. Since one hundred was a nice round number, I thought I’d finish the Library there. That does not mean the drawings and paintings will cease. Oh no, you don’t get away that easily.

We think Isobel is coming to lunch tomorrow, so there will be a fair bit of tidying, polishing and hoovering (not grass) tomorrow morning. Let’s hope it’s a better day than today so she can have a look round the garden.

Another energetic day – 21 July 2020

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Out early and away for a walk

Should we go out for a walk in the morning or the afternoon? You will notice that in Scamp’s question there is no third way where we don’t go for a walk, simply a choice between the morning or afternoon. I chose Morning. Not to get it over with quickly, no of course not. But the sun was shining now and it seemed a shame to leave it until the afternoon because for the past few days, the weather has deteriorated as the day progressed (and to get it over with!)

We drove down to Auchinstarry and parked in front of what used to be the He Bo House, but has now been reduced to the the B Ho. It’s not open at present and I wonder if it will ever reopen. It would be a shame if it didn’t, because we both liked it in the second stage of its existence. The first owners were not the most welcoming of people, but the ones who took it over and revamped it had made a good job of creating a warm and comfortable atmosphere. It would be a great shame to lose it now through no fault of theirs. They must fix the sign though. B Ho doesn’t work. He Bo House is much better. I’ll suggest it to them when they open their doors again.

We walked along the canal to Twechar, avoiding fishermen, cyclists (especially the one who was sitting on the only seat along the canal, talking to his watch) and joggers. Foolishly I’d taken my rain jacket expecting showers that never came and wore it round my waist like a nylon kilt for most of the walk. We turned at Twechar and started back along the old railway path. The last time we were there, the council we presume had dumped piles of topsoil near places where the path had eroded into the River Kelvin, leaving about a 1.5m drop into the water for the unwary. Today the piles had been used to fill in the eroded parts with wooden piles driven into the banking to help hold it in place. Finally, coarse grass had been planted, not seeded, but planted. Presumably the roots will also help keep the new soil in place. Let’s hope it works.

Back home for lunch then Scamp was off to get ‘the messages’ or enough of them to make tonight’s dinner which was to be a stir-fry. I got myself ready to go for a walk, hoping to get some photos. When she returned, I walked down to the Mosswater nature reserve hoping to get some photos of dragonflies. No dragonflies or damselflies to be seen, but loads of ladybirds and one of them kindly presented itself for a photo opportunity. Difficult to get a sharp shot with an annoying breeze making everything move at the wrong time.

Walked back home and really, really enjoyed Scamp’s stir-fry with Tiramisu for pudding. Not a bad day with over 18,000 steps for me and over 12,000 steps for Scamp.

Tomorrow looks wet, very wet. An 80% chance of rain all day, that kind of wet. We may stay in.