Category: Family

We did lunch – 9 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Wednesday looked like the best day of the week. We thought we’d go for lunch somewhere nice.

We drove over to a cafe Scamp had heard about from Isobel. It was a find! We’d been warned that it was along a narrow country road, and it was. I really didn’t think we were going to get a table, judging by the number of cars that were in the car park, but we did. It was possibly the second last table in the place. Two things caught my eye on the menu. Mince ’n’ Tatties was one and Sri Lankan Lamb Curry was the other. Now I can make mince ’n’ tatties and Scamp can make it far better than me, so working on the theory that it’s now worth paying for something that I can make myself ( that came from Chris, Jamie), I opted for the curry and wasn’t disappointed. Neither was Scamp. She chose one of her favourites Mac ’n’ Cheese. I can only say that was the best lamb curry I’ve ever had. Spices were perfect. Heat was just this side of uncomfortable and the curried pineapple (yes, pineapple) was a brilliant surprise. I hope that’s a regular on the menu. We both had coffee, but since I can never taste coffee after a reasonably hot curry, I cannot comment on it.

We had a walk round the farm shop on the way out, but all we bought was half a dozen large eggs. Lots of expensive alcohol and some interesting sweet things, but nothing we couldn’t get elsewhere … for less, probably. Some decent hardwood furniture too which was a bit incongruous in a farm shop, but heavy stuff. Even the coffee tables would take up too much room in our house. I was on the lookout for a cheap SSD and hoped I’d get one in PC World, but they had none. In fact they had very few of everything. Most of the sales staff were engaged in conversation with each other while Amazon are probably stealing their livelihood away.

Scamp wanted some Neapolitan wafer ice cream in Morrisons, but it looks as if the company that used to make them for all the supermarkets has gone to the wall. None to be had in any of the places where we used to get them. That IS a pity.

I’d got some photos looking over to the Ochil Hills when we came out of the farm shop, so I didn’t really need any more. I was pretty sure I’d a PoD in amongst them, so we drove home in bright autumn sunshine. I made some soup when we got home. What Scamp calls Just Soup. Two leeks, three carrots, some broth mix, a chunk of turnip chopped, some cabbage and half a red pepper boiled up with water and some stock pots and left to simmer. Easy Soup. It was dinner after a large lunch.

Heard from Hazy that Neil got home today about 9pm. A bit later than he’d hoped, but the op had gone according to plan. Which was good and a weight off everyone’s mind.

I’ve got the dentist tomorrow morning, but the rest of the day is our own

No Soup Today – 8 November 2022

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We went as far as the shops today.

Today was wet when I got up, and it stayed wet for most of the day. We did go out in the early afternoon to get some veg to make soup and also some chicken to make paella for dinner.

Spoke to Hazy for a while and heard more about Neil’s op. Probably more than we really wanted to hear. I don’t envy you the surgery, Neil, but I hope it brings you the relief you’re looking for.

No chicken breasts or thighs to be had in M&S, but plenty next door in Lidl. Are M&S chickens that much better quality than Lidl? I don’t think so. Tiny wee turnips in M&S for 95p each. Big turnips in Lidl for 65p. Ok, maybe the chickens in M&S come from better farms, but a turnip is a turnip. It smacks of food snobbery. That’s my moan for the day. I used the chicken and did make paella, but the soup will have to wait until tomorrow.

After we walked home we went out to look at the garden and drain some of the pots. The entire back garden is simply waterlogged just now. Maybe if I’d pulled up one of my leeks I’d have remembered to make the soup, but I didn’t. Instead I took the smaller A6000 out for a walk in St Mo’s. I got a few shots, all landscapes, but they all seemed to be dark and underexposed. It took a while to tease a decent photo out of the morass, but I was quite pleased with today’s PoD, taken from the boardwalk and looking right into the sun.

Back home the paella was a bit dry, but I was using a new pan and this is the first time I’ve made paella for ages. That’s my excuse.

That was about it for a day that started wet, stayed dry for an hour or two in the late afternoon and returned with more rain later in the evening. The garden will be even more waterlogged. Actually, we have mushrooms growing in the front garden! We saw them today.

Tomorrow looks a better day. We may go out somewhere.

Summer has officially ended – 30 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

At 2am the clocks went back. I never saw them do it, but I’m happy to believe they did.

We got an extra hour in bed, sleeping through that amazing happening at 2am. However, in my sleep I must have been worrying through the Continuous Hover Cross, so much so that I wanted to see if I could manage to get through it solo. I did the count that Jane had done and lo and behold it worked. Not the first time, nor the second, but by the fourth or fifth attempt the steps worked. Now all I had to do was fit it into the routine that Scamp was doing, because unlike most ballroom routines, the Lead and the Follower are doing completely different steps, while almost being joined at the hip. Again, not at the first attempt, but at the third or fourth we were dancing the CHC. Hooray! A milestone had been reached! On to the Telemark Turn.

We spent some more time dissecting the next part of the routine and that’s where iMovie came to the rescue again. In that clumsy bit of software it is possible to speed up or slow down a video. We did the slowing down to about 70% normal speed. The really clever part is that you can force the pitch of music or speech to stay the same and not slow down with the visuals. That gave us another weapon to use in the final part of the ‘back end’ of the Foxtrot.

We needed something for tonight’s dinner, so once the rain had stopped we put the computer away and walked down to the shops. We came home with a chicken, some veg and a pudding plus other odds and sods that would do for lunch during the week. We wouldn’t starve.

When we got back, I grabbed a camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s.  According to my weather app, there was a one hour window before the next rain shower blew in and we’d already used up about half an hour of that walking down to the shops and back! There wasn’t much to see over the road, but there was just occasionally some sunshine through the trees. The sun gave a bit of back lighting to a leaf that had become entangled in some weeds. That made PoD after some restorative work in a couple of post-processing apps. Yes, the weather fairies had it down perfectly.  I was back in the house about ten minutes when the first raindrops met the window.

Dinner was roast chicken with baked potatoes and roasted veg. All done in the oven. The kitchen was toasty hot for the rest of the day as a result.

Spoke to Jamie later and found out about his forthcoming work trip to Switzerland, famous of course for it’s clocks and WATCHES.  DId I say WATCHES?  But of course he wouldn’t be interested in such things, would he?  Sounds like they were getting some much needed rain these past few days.

The prompt for today was ‘Gear’. Would I do meshing gear wheels? Nah! The thought of drawing all those gear teeth with involutes and pitch circles. No chance. I thought of drawing camera gear, but somebody had already drawn that. I settled, finally, on my painting gear and that’s what you see here. I thought it was only right and proper to give them a chance in the limelight.

No plans for tomorrow. Possibly another practise of the Gershwin Foxtrot. I don’t think Alex is fit enough for a photo walk yet.

A wild morning – 26 October 2022

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A wild morning and a computing afternoon with a walk in the late afternoon.

Heavy rain in the morning, but by the time Scamp was driving to meet her sister, the worst of the rain had passed and the sun was beginning to shine on the hills. Scamp had put some towels in the washing machine and once they had run their cycle I was in two minds whether to hang them up on the whirly to dry in the breeze. I finally decided to just do it because although the clouds were still massing, the breaks were getting bigger.

I planted a pot of basil after the washing had been hung out. It cost virtually nothing, just a couple of quid for a packet of seeds. There is always some compost in the greenhouse, enough to plant the seeds in and lots of plastic pots. The seeds should germinate in about a week’s time and once they have their second set of leaves they can be divided up into individual pots. They seem to like to live on the window sills of the bedrooms. Not too warm, but plenty of light. Let’s hope they grow well.

<Technospeak>
With that done, I started to carve up the SSD that holds the new operating system for the iMac. I’d initially set up the SSD almost a year ago, before I knew what the APFS was all about and it ended up a confused mixture of partition and APFS filing systems. To get it cleaned out I had to be careful and take one piece out at a time and in the correct order, or I risked screwing the whole 1TB drive. Long story short, after about two hours I had the ‘easy’ stuff done. The next chunk of data was about 250GB in size and I was copying it off to an old spinning disk (scathing called “Spinning Rust by the SSD fanboys). The copy would take about an hour according to the info box. That left time for lunch with Scamp who had just arrived home.
</Technospeak>

After a plate of Scamp’s Just Soup I put a pair of boots on and went out for a walk around St Mo’s for the first time in about a week. Deep in the woods I found some delicate looking fungi growing out of a fallen tree branch. They made PoD. I’d made some changes to the colour balance in the A7 last night, but clean forgot to leave myself a note as to what I’d done. Whatever it was it seemed to have cleared away a green cast that had appeared on everything yesterday. Easily changed in post-processing, but better if it’s done in the camera instead.

Back home the backup was complete and I could continue with the last part of the clean up. I wasn’t entirely sure if the next bit would work, but was pretty sure the Mac would tell me if danger threatened. It went very smoothly in the end. I shut the machine down, then powered it up again and the operating system operated and it now had twice as much space as it had last night. Phew!

Dinner was Carrot & Lentil Curry and Scamp was chef. It was very good, but I just know it will be even better tomorrow. Curries are like that.

Prompt for today was another vague “Ego”. Now, in Latin, Ego means “I” or “Me”. That gave me the germ of an idea. After I looked through Google Images the germ became a reality, this is my interpretation of “Ego”.

No plans for tomorrow, but it looks wet … again.

Making the most of the morning – 23 October 2022

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This morning there was light cloud, but the weather report looked gloomy.

We decided that it would be best to go for a walk in the morning while it was still dry, if not bright. Boots on for both of us, because it was going to be wet underfoot, wherever we went.

It wasn’t a long walk. Just down to Broadwood Loch, over the dam past the exercise machines and back past the shops. Around 6000 steps all told. We didn’t hang around much and I only took two photos, that’s how dull it was. We did stop at the shops to get some veg for dinner and a very nice piece of rump steak for my dinner. Scamp was having salmon instead of meat. By the time we reached home it felt like there was rain in the wind and just after lunch it was definitely raining. I’m glad we decided to go out while it was still dry.

Just before it got too heavy I went out and took a few shots of the fuchsia plants that hang in a basket on the fence. There was just enough sunlight to pick out the raindrops on the flowers. That became PoD.

I spent a while fiddling with the settings on the SSD that was now taking the place of the internal hard disk drive of the iMac. I did one upgrade that brought the version number up from 11.68 to 11.7. That seemed to make a big difference to the stability of the drive. The speed difference from using the hard drive is immense. Lightroom takes between 3 and 4 minutes to boot from the hard drive. Today it took 14 seconds. That’s over a ten fold speed increase. There are lots of other areas where things are working a lot smoother too. Still not totally settled on the new technology, but it’s working well for now.

Today’s prompt was ‘Boogers’.
As another sketcher with the nickname “Mydoghasnno.se” says, different places have different words for the mucus that must be removed from our nostrils. In the US they may be Boogers, but in Scotland they are Bogles and the more liquid varieties are Snotters. The bloke I drew is obviously an expert Bogle hunter.

Spoke to Jamie and heard about the cost of repairing a roof in a listed building. It’s a lot more than I’d have thought, but Jamie seemed to accept it as a reasonable price and with winter coming, it has to be done. Glad to hear they are getting some much needed rain.

I’ve never been much of a political animal, but the events of last week with Liz Truss resigning after 45 days as PM and Boris attempting a comeback are the stuff of pantomime. Unfortunately, it’s real.

Tomorrow we may go and visit Margie … in hospital.

Tea dance without tea … or dance – 16 October 2022

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Today we we had booked and paid for a tea dance. We left at half time.

Still messing around with the new toy, the Samsung phone. It’s got more bells and whistles that a hundred steam trains. Controlling them, ah! That’s a different matter.

I found an app in the Galaxy App Store that led me down a rabbit hole and stole away hours of my attention. It’s called Good Lock. It opens out to two lists of apps. Some are good and useful, all are clever in their own way. All of them needed investigating and that’s what stole away the morning Your Honour. I did find a couple that more substance and less flash. Tomorrow’s task is to find out how to use them sensibly.

I’d half intended going for a walk in the morning, but that would have to wait until later. We were going to a tea dance with a live band in the Lanternhouse cinema cum dance studio in the new Cumbernauld Academy. We arrived fairly early, we thought, but already the room was packed, and I mean PACKED. Far too many tables for comfort and far too many of them were already occupied. We’d paid over the odds, I thought, for the tickets, but that was for a tea dance. I could see no tea and the dance floor was smaller than the one we practised on in the British Legion on Wednesday.

The music was from a Swing Band and they looked the part. Probably about 12 musicians with two singers. We did get up for for the second dance, which was the tempo for a social foxtrot, but the dance floor, oh the dance floor. It was as if it was made from suede leather or felt. There was no way to do an Immelman Turn (actually a Telemark Turn) on that floor if you’d tried you would have ripped the sole from your dance shoe. All the tunes had roughly the same tempo. One waltz, no rumba, no cha-cha, no tango. Just social foxtrot after social foxtrot. There were two Swing dancers who definitely could dance, but the more I think about it, the more I think they were stooges. There to show off their skills to the music that was playing.

The floor was small and made even smaller because the band were taking up about half of the available space. To me, it looked like they’d sold as many seats as they could and hadn’t considered that people might like to dance at a tea dance. We left at half time, disappointed. The amount of people that were crammed into that space would be a fire hazard. The floor was no in any way a dance floor, and one of the ‘singers’ couldn’t sing. Honestly, I could have done a better job … well, maybe! Did you get the impression that we didn’t enjoy it? We didn’t.

Back home I got dressed for a walk and went over to St Mo’s. Got a few photos, but the light was all but gone by the time I got there. PoD went to a photo of a Cow Parsley seedhead.

Dinner was Celeriac Soup, Fish Pie (from M&S) and Apple and Bramble Crumble. All were good and there’s soup and crumble at least for tomorrow.

Spoke to Jamie and told him our story about selling the red car. Also our sorry tale about a tea dance with no tea and no room to dance.

Prompt for today was “Fowl”. The fowl I chose was a cockerel, a photo from Google and I thought it looked fairly good. It had a lovely red comb and I was tempted to add a bit of watercolour red to it, but I resisted the temptation and just washed in some ink. It’s done and in.

I’ve an appointment with the dentist tomorrow. First visit in three years! Apprehensive? Just a bit

 

 

Out for a walk – 12 October 2022

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Out walking round Dalzell Estate with my brother.

The weather fairies were convinced that the weather today would start our wet in the morning, but would clear for the afternoon. I wasn’t so sure, but that’s exactly the way it turned out.

I sat and talked to Carol and Fiona and Ollie. Ollie didn’t say much, at least not much that I could understand, probably because he is only about 7months old, but he smiled a lot and made noises which is the best kind of talking.

Alex and I said goodbye to everyone and we headed off to Dalzell Estate and went for a walk in the woods. Some folk were having a picnic in a clearing. I don’t know what that was all about, but they didn’t invite us to join them so we walked on. From one of the bird hides we watched a flight of geese, some swans and a host of lapwings. I haven’t seen any lapwings (or ‘peeweeps’ as we call them on account of their call) for years. One of the serious bird photographers arrived and I think we were crowding his hide so we left to find a temple Alex wanted to show me. It was a fairly long walk, but one I remember going with him a year ago. Eventually we found the temple, but it wasn’t the one I was thinking about. After looking at a map tonight, I think I might have confused it with a mausoleum which is in the estate.

Anyway, we walked back to the car from there after admiring the “Big House”. It’s an impressive building with centuries of additions to the old part of it, but the land in front of the building has been turned into a car park which spoils the look completely. We stopped once more at the Japanese Garden where I got some decent shots of the maples. I also got a bruise on my bum when I slipped on the slimy steps up to the garden.

With some of the day left, we drove to Chatelherault in the outskirts of Hamilton and had a coffee in the cafe there, then went a walk down the broad avenue of trees that stretches for a mile or so to Hamilton itself. Walked further down to the Avon Water which was still in spate after last week’s rain. Back at the Chatelherault House itself I got PoD which is a view down the narrow avenue.

Drove home and dropped Alex at the house, then drove home for dinner before I changed from my waking gear into my dancing trousers and drove to the British Legion in Cumbersheugh for an hour long dance class. I wasn’t impressed with the first half which was Tango Serida. Not my favourite sequence dance. The second half was more interesting, but there were too many clowns in the class, every one a comic.  Let’s hope they calm down next week.

Today’s prompt was one of the vague ones, ‘Forget’. After a fair bit of soul searching, I decide on the one you see here: a note pinned to a wall.  I am a master of forgetful. My mum used to say “You’d lose yer heid if it wasn’t sewn on!” She was probably right. I haven’t lost my heid yet, but I’ve forgotten much more than I’ve remembered. Now what was I saying???

That was about it for a busy day. Tomorrow Scamp is hoping to get to Inverness for lunch with her sister. An early rise to get the train that will take her in to Glasgow and then a walk to the bus station to get the bus. Rather her than me.

On the Green – 9 October 2022

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The morning was dry, but not all that bright, but we’ll take ‘dry’ and get out.

We drove down to Glasgow Green where there were big spaces in the car park. It soon became clear that the reason for the spaces was the ‘pond’ that had appeared after the days of continuous rain we’ve had. Nobody wanted to park in the ‘pond’ , and neither did we, but we were there early and found a dry parking space.

We walked down to the McLennan arch near the High Court and then turned back along the path beside the Clyde. We took some time on the suspension bridge to watch some of the rowers in their twos, fours and eights and even one or two sculls. From there we walked on to the new bridge over the Clyde that would take us to Richmond Park. Not nearly as well kept as its English cousin, it’s in a bit of a state, and has been for some time now. Half of the original park was chopped up and sold to developers who now seem to have stalled, leaving it as an ugly, half finished building site. The pond is clogging up with litter and other kinds of detritus. Still, it doesn’t stop the model boat builders who were there today showing off their boats. That was the good part of the pond. We walked round the less well maintained section where there is a jungle, honestly that’s the only way to describe it, a jungle on an island in the middle of the pond. Ignored by the council, because it would cost too much to maintain. False economy, because it will just get worse with every year that passes.

We crossed back over the Clyde and walked past more building work on a piece of spare ground. This one looked more organized with proximity detectors to prevent intrusion. I photographed one that looked like a robot. Maybe it photographed me too! After a while we were recrossing our steps back to the car park where that big puddle was still guarding a few parking places.

Back home I decided it was time I cut my hair. It took longer than I thought, even with two clippers and Scamp to help me. It’s great to have a shower and have dry hair after a few minutes.

Dinner tonight was Seabass with roast veg and roast potatoes. Eaten while we watched a very strong Japanese GP which Verstappen won. Also, after a few a few scratched heads by the officials, he was also crowned World Champion because of an infringement by Le Clerc that dropped the Ferrari driver down to third place. Verstappen never seems to win a clear victory, but he did deserve today’s award.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard how he may have moved to his new company at the right time. Good luck to Simonne on her half marathon on Saturday.

Today’s Inktober prompt is “Nest”.  My sketch is of some wee hatchlings, what we in Larky used to call ‘Scuds” in their nest.  Not the best sketch in the world, but done and posted. PoD went to a “Meeting of Mushrooms”.  With all the UK parties having their conferences just now, maybe the mushrooms are thinking about having their own political party.  They couldn’t do much worse!

Tomorrow we’re going to see a man about a car.

The Elephant on the path – 2 October 2022

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We went for a walk and saw an elephant.

We did Wordle (Me 5, Scamp 3). We did Spelling Bee (Me 2 words, Scamp 1). I messed about with settings on the phone again and finally found a way of deleting all the annoying nonsense jokes and funny stories one of my pals dumps on me every day. Basically we just sat there wasting time while it was beautiful sunshine outside. Eventually one of Scamp’s “I’m fed up” sighs prompted me to ask “Should we go out for a walk?” Of course that was what the big sigh was for, so Scamp promptly agreed.

We walked out along the path to Broadwood and over the rickety bridge. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a boardwalk out over part of Broadwood Loch, but make it out of plastic, presumably because it was cheaper and the plastic wouldn’t rot. It wouldn’t rot, but its not strong enough to hold lots of people either. NLC. Numpty Labour Council. Anyway we survived the Wibbly, Wobbly Way and walked on, over the dam down behind it and along past the exercise machines. Back up the hill and into then out of M&S with a bag full of messages.

It was when we were walking up the path to the house, I saw what I thought was a big fat slug on the kerb. On closer inspection, its skin was dry and not at all like a slugs slime. I tried to take some photos with my camera, but it wouldn’t focus close enough. My phone did, though. Back home I did a bit of research and found that it was in fact an Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar. Like the ugly duckling, it turns into a beautifully colourful moth. You didn’t think it was a real Elephant, did you. Come on, it’s Cumbersheugh. Somebody would have taken it home and hidden it in their bedroom. Ah, but that’s a different story that I might tell you some time. The photo of the Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar is on Flickr if you’re interested.

I started my dinner early. It was Stew and it needed a long time to cook, so I fried off the meat and dumped it with a chopped up onion, a couple of rubbery carrots and half a can of Guinness in the slow cooker and left it to slow cook for a couple of hours. Then I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was still a lovely day but I found very little to photograph. I eventually settled for a single dandelion gone to seed. That became PoD.

The stew wasn’t great, because it wasn’t cooked for long enough. Scamp’s salmon was overcooked and the skin wouldn’t come off. Somewhere between those two extremes was the perfect dinner. Maybe tomorrow. Homemade Apple Sponge for dessert was perfect! Our apples too!

The prompt was ‘Scurry’? Well, it just had to be a mouse and cartoon mice are easier to draw than real live furry ones, so that was it settled. A cartoon mouse it was.

Spoke to Jamie later and we discussed phones and the difficulties of working with the Samsung website. Also on the discussion table was vegetable gardening. Glad he’s getting some decent tomatoes after a bit of a problem earlier in the year.

Hoping for a good day tomorrow. The weather fairies say don’t bother.

 

A much better day – 29 September 2022

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Decided to have one more try at the Samsung website.

The expression “A Dug wi’ a Burst Ba’.” springs to mind. I just couldn’t let it lie. I just tried to buy the phone this time, but it still kicked me out. Then I thought it might be the extra £100 from Jamie’s generous offer that was causing problems. With a heavy heart I removed it and tried again. Lo and Behold, it worked! DPD sent me a message this afternoon to say they would be delivering my parcel tomorrow. Let’s hope it’s the phone and not the box to return the old Huawei!

So, with a skip in my step and after a lift from Scamp, I got a train in to Glasgow to meet Alex. We got the bus out to Kelvingrove and the picture above is what we saw when we got off, PoD captured. Beautiful light on Glasgow Uni with dark glowering skies above. It only lasted for a few minutes then the light was gone, heading north to brighten somebody else’s day. We listened to the organist playing the gigantic pipe organ in the main hall of Kelvingrove Art Galleries, then we had lunch. After that Alex wanted to photograph the ceiling of the main hall, so I loaned him my wide angle lens while I wandered round the galleries. For the first time in my life I plucked up courage and asked a total stranger if I could take their photo. Thankfully, she said Yes. I never asked her name and she didn’t ask mine, but she was sketching a plaster bust in one of the galleries. Thank you, whoever you are.

After we’d covered everything in the building, we walked up to Glasgow Uni. All that good light was well gone by then, but Alex was heading for the famous Cloisters to get some slow shutter photos of folk walking around them. I did the same, but neither of us was all that successful and we left the excited ‘Freshers’ to their conducted tours and walked back down the hill to get the bus into Glasgow.

There was a bloke came on to the bus in a fancy motorised wheelchair. We were impressed at the way he could manoeuvre it into a busy bus and then reverse it into the wheelchair space. I told him as we left how impressed I was with his driving skills and he just laughed and said “Thanks for noticing!”

Another coffee in Nero and we walked down to the bus station. Alex was getting the bus home and I was heading to the station hoping that Scamp would give me a lift home from there, which she did.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Cacciatore. Delightful with a glass of red. A great end to a really good day.

Tomorrow looks like rain from start to finish!