Category: Ice

On a cold and frost morning – 18 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

I didn’t see the “Three Craws” that are the title of the song, but it certainly was a cold and frosty morning.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to start the blue car to warm it up a bit after a very cold night last night. I took some photos of the ice crystals on the roof of the car while I was waiting for the windscreen to thaw a bit. One of them became PoD. Allegedly the temperature would rise a bit today and the thaw will begin properly tomorrow. Hmm, always jam tomorrow, but never jam today.

I was supposed to meet Alex to go for a photo walk this morning, but I’d to phone him to call off because I’d been having stomach pains during the night and morning. He was very good about it and told me that Noravirus is rife just now in Monklands hospital where his step-daughter works. I don’t think that was the problem. If felt more like trapped wind. Scamp looked after me, making me tea and generally giving good advice. The pain has lessened a lot now and probably it will be gone by tomorrow. I certainly hope so.

Yes, the temperature rose during the afternoon, according to our weather forecaster which has a sensor outside on the back door where it doesn’t get affected by the sun or the wind and it has always been quite accurate.

Instead of wasting my afternoon doing nothing, I wasted my afternoon with two more programs that I can use to make up the “Where Was It Took” sheets that go out with the calendars. Both of them worked and I think the best of the bunch was the one from Avery Labels which I remember using a couple of years ago, but couldn’t find last year. Very simple to use, but only works online and saves in Avery format which is fine, because it allows you to print out the sheet on a printer, but I don’t think it allows you to print to PDF which would be better. The second program is one I’ve had for about three years and didn’t know you could do mail merging with it. It’s more versatile, but way more complicated to work with than the Avery one. I watched and listened to a bloke showing how it was used on YouTube. I got it to work once and after that I couldn’t repeat it. May try again tomorrow if I get a chance.

Another task on my to-do list for today was putting the Christmas decorations up into the loft. Scamp and I achieved it this afternoon. So Christmas and New Year are officially behind us now and we’re looking forward to Spring.

Would you believe that Hazy is the only one in the family and friends who always reads the WWIT sheet that comes with the calendar. And who was the only one, not to get a sheet with her calendar? Yes, Hazy. However I emailed her a special copy tonight and I believe it has been printed off and is clipped on the back of her clipboard!

Tomorrow is Friday and that is usually shopping day. The day to go for the messages, and if I can get the car defrosted, that’s what we’re hoping to do.

Another cold one – 17 January 2024

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Temperature this morning was -7ºc when breakfast was being served – in bed.

I downloaded a To Do app last week and am beginning to use it. I had three tasks for today and took great delight in ticking them off one by one. I even added another couple to the list and ticked them off. How long it will last, I don’t know. Probably until they start asking me for a subscription and start removing parts of it or adding adverts. That’s when it will get the heave.

The first task was to post my calendars to some folk. I actually really like the photo on the front page, but it’s more than halfway through the first month and the poor folk will only get this one for half the time it deserves. Unless, of course, they get crafty with a pair of scissors! I’m not saying what the picture is, but it’s not alcoholic, that’s all I’m telling you. I only did five this year. One for me one for Alex and one each for three lucky people. I strengthened the calendars with some corrugated cardboard, so they should arrive intact. I also spent ages working out how to mail merge my database of “Where Was It Took in 2023” into a Word document, eventually giving up and using first Scamp’s computer and then my old Tosh to do the job. Mickeysoft make some clever office apps, but they don’t give a toss about whether they work on a Mac or not. Anyway, I digress – as usual. At least one of you recipients didn’t get a copy of WWIT2023, so if it’s you and you really want to find out what was taken where, email me and I’ll send you a PDF of the script.

I walked over to Condorrat and posted all three off to their recipients. Then walked down to St Mo’s with the shiny new lens on the A7iii and let it take some photos for me. I think it was 35 photos in total today and about 5 of them ended on the cutting room floor. Not bad odds. Everywhere was white. Not snow, just frost. Best of a bad lot was one of a St John’s Wort flower well covered in frost. Despite being well wrapped up, I was beginning to feel the cold on my face and any other bits of exposed flesh, like my hands. I did have a pair of cycling gloves with me, but they are a bit cumbersome to wear when you’re operating a camera. I was glad to get in to the warm house and heat up some soup for lunch. Scamp was away to a birthday bash at Castlecary Hotel, so she wouldn’t be needing any, I thought.

Next task was to order some coffee. I still get it from The Bean Shop in Perth and get it delivered to me. It’s the sensible way to get it. £3 for DPD to deliver it and about twice that in petrol costs to drive there and buy it. DPD are pretty good at delivering it within the one hour time slot they state. I also ordered a new UV filter for the new lens. The old one I had was ages old and showing its age with a handful of scratches. However it was protecting the lens for now at least.

As it turned out, Scamp’s lunch date hadn’t been all that good. Two of the group, Scamp included weren’t impressed with the quality of the food which is a a pity as it was always a good restaurant. But, as we know, things change.
So it was Mince ’n’ Tatties for my dinner, cooked by my good self and Fish Fingers ’n’ Tatties for Scamp.

We watched the weather report on BBC and tomorrow looks just as cold as today, if not colder. I’m booked to meet Alex in Glasgow. We were going to go to Paisley, but if the weather is so bad, we may, at Scamp’s suggestion, take the subway up to Kelvinbridge and have lunch in the Paesano there, then spend the afternoon in the warmth of the Botanic Gardens greenhouses!

 

 

 

 

Going over old ground – 15 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a crisp morning, sub-zero, but we were going out. It had been snowing during the night, just a light covering, and then a hard frost had made the place look quite, well, … frosty!

Scamp needed either to get her glasses repaired, or a new frame, so we were driving over to Larky to see what the optician or his glamorous assistants could do. Terrible driving conditions, with the low sun shining right into our faces and the road salt on the windscreen having to be washed away every few minutes, but we made good time.

When we got to Larky, Scamp told me to meet her at the Co-op in half an hour or so. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I drove down to Millheugh to grab some photos. First place I looked was again looking straight into the sun, but with a great view of ‘The Boards’. That’s another name for a dam that created a sluice to power a waterwheel in the old bleachfield long before my time. The sluice, which we always called the Lade, is still there, but the bleachfield has gone long ago. Took a few photos there, then knowing I’d lose track of time, I set a 15 minute timer on my watch and went for a walk through Morgan Glen.

It used to be a great walk on a bright summer’s day, along the banks of the Avon, but the whole glen is a bit run down these days. It’s years since I walked along there. Now that I think about it, it’s MANY years since I walked along it, but bits of it haven’t changed much and other bits are broken down and hidden in the undergrowth. I found some Hair Ice which, according to the Met Office “… is a rare type of ice formation where the presence of a particular fungus in rotting wood produces thin strands of ice which resemble hair or candy floss.” As you can see here, that’s a fairly accurate description.

Not long after I found and photographed it, my timer buzzed to tell me it was time to head back. Sometimes when you turn back, the view and the light is totally different from that you saw walking out. So it was today. I took ‘a few’ more photos on the way back. My total for the day was 42 photos, 38 of which were ‘keepers’. Not a bad percentage. Then I drove back up to meet Scamp at the Co-op with her new glasses! Then we drove home with the sun at our back this time for most of the way.

I did think of giving the blue car a wash when we got home, but the temperature was just above zero and I didn’t want my wash water to freeze and cause an accident for some poor soul driving up the hill, or even walking up the hill, after dark. There are warmer, or less cold days to come we’re told.

Scamp made her version of Minestrone soup for tonight’s dinner.  Her version and mine are completely different from each other.  Both of them are from old books and both of them over time have had additions and subtractions from the basic recipe.  Both are good warming soups with loads of veg in them.

PoD turned out to be the Hair Ice, but it was a close finish between it and a photo of a tree stump with ivy dangling from it, taken against the light.

The forecast is for more snow, lots more snow, they say, and down to sea level for all of Scotland. We may not be going far.

Out on the Ice – 9 January 2024

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Scamp was off in the morning to meet Shona and June for coffee and a blether. I stayed at home.

Well, I’d things to do and the first one was trying to locate Katy. I’ve photographed her before a few years ago before she changed her name to Katy. It took a bit of searching to locate her, but I finally found her back in 2017, skating on a frozen pond. That was my intention for today too. I though I could get a few shots of her skating on a slightly smaller pond, a frozen bird bath to be precise, but first I had to find her. Like most of my ‘weemen’. Which for the sake of political correctness can be pronounced ’wee men’ or the Glaswegian ’weemen’ which translates as ’women’ in English. I was sure she lived on the window ledge in the bedroom, but she was nowhere to the seen there. Some weemen live in various stages of disassembly in a big cereal box and a smaller subset of ‘favourites’ can be found in a smaller Lock & Lock box, but Katy was not in any of those places. After Scamp had left, I finally tracked her down to a turned square wooden dish I’d made many, many moons ago, when I had skills.

After dusting her down and ensuring she still had her skates with her I set up a tripod in the back garden next to the ‘skating rink’ cum bird bath. I just couldn’t get the shot I wanted despite using two cameras and umpteen lenses. I finally settle for a hand-held A7m3 camera with 50mm macro lens and got a few shots with of her standing on the ice, looking like the star she is.

It was a cold day, but the temperature must have been just above zero, because by the end of the photo session, pools or water were appearing on the ice. Poor wee soul looked frozen out there on the ice. Back inside in the warm, she got a place on the bookcase while I checked the quality of the photos and they passed muster.

By then Scamp had returned from the coffee and blether group and it was lunch time. Yesterday’s rolls warmed up to hold some slices of bacon for me and an egg for Scamp.

The next task I had set myself was to try to mail-merge a spreadsheet of photo info using Microsoft 365 on the Mac. I had cancelled my subscription a few days ago, but had a few days grace left on it. I tried everything I could think of to get MS Word to work with MS Excel, but they kept finding errors. Eventually I borrowed Scamp’s HP PC and using the same apps and the same data set, at the first attempt got exactly what I wanted. Just to be awkward, I tried to do the same thing on my old slow Toshiba PC laptop and after a lot of huffing and puffing (from the laptop, this time!), it too came up with the goods. I went online to find a solution to the problem. I didn’t find it, but I did find a lot of people with exactly the same problem. All of them trying to get Word and Excel to work together on a Mac. In one case, 695 folk had the same problem as me and Microsoft were no help to them at all. And they wanted me to pay £80 a year for their faulty software? The sheets are printed out now, so if I need a “Where was it took in 2024”, I’ll know to use my old Windoze 7 Tosh laptop with MS Office 2017.

That was today’s two tasks completed so I de-stressed over Fish Fingers, Egg and Chips for dinner, followed by the last piece of Scamp’s Apple Pie.

Tomorrow we may need more shopping to cook for visitors on Friday.

Coffee again – 6 December 2023

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Out in the morning for the third time this week, but this time it was both of us who were going out.

Scamp was heading for Glasgow to find an undisclosed purchase and I was going for a coffee. I gave Scamp a lift to the station and then managed to pick up a box of Christmas cards and had just enough time to write them before the meeting began

I was meeting Colin and John for coffee in Costa. I think I’ve had my fill now of poor coffee. Not terrible, just not good coffee. But I did have a good blether with Colin and John. I laughed when one of my FPs (Former Pupils) walked past pushing a pram, and who then did a double take at the sight of at least two of her former teachers sitting there. Even worse, she returned to the counter with another FP, presumably to corroborate her discovery that we were still in the land of the living!

After about an hour and a half we were talked out and went our separate ways. I drove home through what must have been freezing fog, I reckon. It certainly wasn’t very pleasant to drive through. I’d had the fog lights on earlier in the day, but didn’t need them on the way back.

After footering about for a while back home and once again praising a central heating system that keeps the living room at a comfortable temperature, I was just thinking about heading over to St Mo’s to grab some misty, if not foggy photos when a message from Scamp arrived on my phone to tell me she was on the bus home. That’s when I realised I was supposed to be making soup for dinner and I hadn’t started it yet.

The early warning gave me about 45 minutes to get going. It was another “What have we got that’s worth cooking” soup which finally settled down to be Leek, Red Pepper, Carrot, Turnip and Kale soup with a handful of Broth Mix added in for good measure. By the time Scamp arrived the soup was simmering nicely and I did go out with the A7 to get some photos.

There had been fog in the morning, but by the time I was in St Mo’s, it had dissipated and the temperature was dropping just like the weather fairies had said. The fog had left a light film of moisture on the branches and berries on the bushes and as the temperature dropped below zero, that moisture became spikes of ice crystals. Very pretty to look at but very cold. I got a few photos of them, but PoD went to a crop of a shot of wildfowl on St Mo’s pond. The crop made it look, to my eyes, like a sort of panorama. I was quite pleased with it. However a black & white image of a man and his dog walking over the boardwalk got more attention on Flickr.

No dance practise tonight because the teacher is crocked. She twisted her ankle when she was out walking her dogs at luchtime.  That’s a pity, because I’m getting to like her style and her classes.  Maybe next week.

We watched the final episode of Shetland and found out who the murderer was as well as discovering how the sorry tale unwound itself. Clever writing, producing, acting and scenery. I’m beginning to feel that I know what Shetland looks like now.

Tomorrow Scamp is out again for lunch this time with Mags and I may take the opportunity to do some painting or to go in to Glasgow. It depends on the weather!

Tesco, Ice Trees and a Trio – 17 January 2023

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We went for messages today. Lots of messages.

Scamp was out first, clearing the frost from the windscreen of the Micra. I locked up and then sat in the passenger’s seat for our run up to Tesco on another lovely bright, but cold day. A waltz round the shop, just normal food shopping. So good to be able to walk around without folk barging past to grab stuff off the shelves like they did pre-Christmas. Today was relaxed shopping. Scamp drove us back and we had lunch. It was good being a passenger.

After lunch I had a headache and thought a walk with a camera would ease the pain, so I wrapped up well and walked over to St Mo’s to see if the ladybird was still in its hibernation hideaway. It was, then I noticed there were three more on a nearby tree. A trio of ladybirds of different sizes tucked under a lump in the tree. This time I’d come prepared. I screwed the camera onto the Gorilla Pod I’d brought along for taking low down shots of Cladonia and pressed two of its legs on to the tree trunk just below the trio. That allowed me to angle the camera to get quite close to the ladybirds and get a few shake-free shots. The ladybirds were about two metres above ground level, so hand holding the camera would almost certainly have induces camera shake.

I didn’t find any Cladonia today, but the wee pond gave me the opportunity to do my ‘Camera On Ice’ trick and get some low level shots by resting the camera on the ice (once I’d tested its thickness) and pressing the shutter. It gives a totally different perspective on the pond. Lots of little bundles of ice crystals growing round the rushes that protruded from the pond like little frozen trees. By that time, the sun was beginning to set, so I walked back to the path by the shortest route to get a few landscape shots before the orange ball of the sun dipped behind the trees.

When I got home, the delicious smell of mince cooking reminded me that tonight was going to be Mince, Potatoes and Cabbage. Just the food you need on a cold winter’s day. Before that, though, I had a cup of hot chocolate and discovered that my headache was gone.

So, tonight’s dinner was indeed Mince, Tatties and Cabbage for me and Bubble ’n’ Squeak for Scamp. Basically the same as mine but without the mince.

Tomorrow doesn’t look as clear as today and there’s snow on the forecast for tonight. What we do tomorrow depends on the weather.

The long slow thaw continues – 18 December 2022

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It’s taking a long time to remove that ice.

It was one of those days when we should have gone out somewhere, anywhere just to get out of the house, but we didn’t. The furthest I got was a walk down to the shops to get some ingredients for today’s dinner. I got as far as the corner house before I was forced to put on my YakTrax.  Rain water on top of ice is a deadly combination.  Luckily the Yaks cut right through and give you a perfect grip.  Everybody else in the Central Belt was there too and they were buying thing, indiscriminately. Food! Let’s buy Food. The shops will be close for days over Christmas, where will we but Food. That’s the way it seemed anyway. I just wanted tomatoes, shortcrust pastry and cheese, but there were folk loading up great trolleys with every kind of consumable item they could lay their hands on. I know it usually happens at this time of year, but every year it seems to get worse, or maybe I’m just getting old and crabbit. “Surely not”, I hear you say!

I’d considered driving down to the shops, but I thought the walk would do me good and when I got there I was pleased that I’d walked. The road was clogged with cars in both directions. That’s where all the shoppers came from. I was thankful that some bright spark had put a Pelican Crossing at the entrance to the retail park. That got me across safely.

Walked back up the road as the sleet started. It soon turned to rain again, but didn’t seem to melt the snow or the ice, despite the temperature being above zero for the second day.

Dinner was to be a quiche. Mine was hot smoked salmon chunks and broccoli. Scamp’s was cheese and tomato. Not the best Sunday dinner, but fairly filling.

Spoke to Jamie later in the evening and heard about his week. Heard too about his plans for between Christmas and New Year, now that he doesn’t need to work those days. Looking forward to it. Glad to hear that Simonne is negative for Covid today. That’s a good sign.

Watched a 30 years of Jools Holland program after the phone call and like all of these things it was good in parts and in others it was just the same old faces, getting older. But 30 years? Surely not, is it?

PoD was a tradition. It’s Fairy Nuff the fairy not on the top of the tree!

Tomorrow there are no excuses, we’re going out, even if I have to dig wheel tracks out onto the main road!

 

The thaw is with us – 17 December 2022

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The snow is not quite on the back foot yet, but the end may be in sight.

I think the thaw yesterday caused the surface ice and snow to melt, but the crunch of footsteps this morning signalled a refreezing of the surface. One of our next door neighbours was out fairly early putting salt down on the really icy parts of the path because we live on the outskirts of NLC and the council pretend we don’t exist, so they don’t have to grit our paths or our roads.

With no trains running, and with icy roads, we resigned ourselves to a stay-at-home day. There was no real need for us to go out and we could live quite happily out of the freezer if need be. At lunch time I watched a man walking down the path to the shops, putting on what might have been a modern dance routine or it might just have been that he’d lost his footing on the ice and was attempting to keep his balance!

After lunch I took a walk over to St Mo’s and with Scamp’s insistence and also with the memory of the ‘modern dance routine’ I wore my YakTrax over my walking boots. The boots are comfortable, warm and great for walking over most surfaces, but they draw the line at ice. The grips on the soles are just not deep enough to get a hold on the ice. You really need Vibram or Commando soles to get that assurance of a positive connection with what’s under your feet. YakTrax give you that confidence with their coiled wire grippers. Anyway, enough of this advert for expensive overshoes. I managed a walk round St Mo’s pond without slipping or sliding and got at least one acceptable photo that became PoD. I also managed to get back home without any slipping or sliding.  On reflection, today’s photo wasn’t really all that great.  I much preferred a re-working of a shot I took out with Alex last week.  It too is on Flickr and is much more vibrant!

I spent most of what was left of the afternoon sorting out some photos to take their places on the first eleven pages of the 2023 calendar. I prefer to leave that last month free until we are nearly out of 2022. Superstitious as usual, that’s me. So I’ve now got the pre-print almost complete and I think I will take Hazy’s idea of using a clipboard as a support for the calendar and run with it. It saves the tedious punching, aligning and clipping exercise. One clipboard and two small bulldog clips works really well. Thank you for that idea, Hazy.

We watched the final, and tediously stretched out, Strictly of the year and the correct couple won, in our eyes.

The temperature at 10.55pm is still a positive 1.1ºc, so we’re hoping that we might just be able to catch a bus in to Glasgow tomorrow to see what the wider world has to offer.

Freezin’ – 15 December 2022

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But I don’t mean outside, I’m talking about inside!

Spoke to Hazy this morning. We had a good conversation. Glad to hear that they have booked a cottage for a wee holiday in the early spring. I’m sure it will be a welcome break. Not so good was that Neil has a chest infection, but I’m sure a course of meds will put that right. We discussed the weather and the postal strikes that are really making life difficult for everyone just now and also the pros and cons of varifocal glasses. More pros than cons, thankfully.

Once we’d finished our call, we had to discuss whether or not we were going to the tea dance at Glenburn. We eventually settled on staying home for today and hoping for more open weather on Saturday to allow us to get to dance class.

After lunch which was a piece ’n’ sausage (link sausage this time) and French Toast for Scamp, I thought I might attempt a walk in St Mo’s. The landscape was changed again. On Tuesday it was shrouded in fog. On Wednesday it was white with frost and today the wee berries I was hoping to photograph had lost all their frosty covering, as had most of the branches on the tree. Could it really be thawing? My fingertips said no, it certainly wasn’t and my phone confirmed it. Definitely still sub-zero. Maybe it was the effect of the sunshine that was streaming from a blue sky.

Some days I take fifty odd photos and most of them end up on the cutting room floor. Some days, like today I take a little more than a dozen and they are all winners. I think it was the colour returning to the land after the frost had gone. Not totally gone, but probably on the back foot. My favourite and PoD was a shot of a bunch of Alder catkins. I never realised that the catkins were formed in the middle of winter and don’t open until the early spring. Photography is a learning experience. Everywhere I looked today there were little spots of colour appearing out of the frost. It was good to see.

Back home I was post-processing the photos I took when I realised it was quite cold in the room. The Hive said it was 17ºc, but it was definitely lying. Checked the radiators and they were cold. Checked the boiler and the burner was off, plus there was an error message about ionisation. I did what I usually do and reset the power to the boiler. It started gurgling ominously. Oh dear, and just after we’d had it had it serviced too. I went out and tapped the soak-away pipe and it sounded solid, also the pipe from the boiler to the outside drain was dripping in the cupboard. I switched it off again and phoned the emergency plumber and he sussed it right away. Asked if where the boiler was, did we have a pipe going to the outside and said it was the outside pipe that was frozen. The solution was to dribble a kettle full of boiling water onto the outside pipe. That would melt the ice and allow it to wash away. Two kettles full usually does it, he said and he was right. After the first dose of water dripped down the pipe I could hear the water running and also the pipe wasn’t sounding solid when I tapped it. Switched the boiler on and reset it. The boiler started right away and we were back in a cosy house again. Not really surprised that it was the cold that had caused it, and hopefully I’ll know better next time.

While I was out with the kettle I noticed a bloke doing the exact same thing to his pipe, only he was about ten feet up a ladder doing it. I hope he was successful too.

We have no real plans for tomorrow, but it looks like we might get some snow. So it might be a stay at home day.

Living in the frozen wastes – 14 December 2022

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The frozen wastes of Cumbersheugh.

Despite the freezing temperatures I did go for a walk in the morning, but before that there was the car to defrost. It didn’t take long to defrost the windscreen, the rear screen and the wing mirrors. Two buttons and about ten minutes max and they were clear. It was the side windows that took the time. The ice on them resolutely refused to budge until the sun came up far enough to reach them. After that it was a simple nudge with the old plastic scraper and the ice was gone.

With that done I had time to go for a walk in St Mo’s. It had to be done in the morning because we were booked for a visit to see Margie in the afternoon and I knew we’d be back after the sun had set, so lined jacket, lined walking trousers and a pair of sturdy shoes for a change and I was off to see the frozen world. Actually it was quite pleasant to be out today. The sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky with no sign of yesterday’s fog. I didn’t really like the fog. Like I said yesterday, it seemed to suck all the colour from everything. The frost did the opposite. It seemed to turn up the contrast on everything. Whites looked whiter and blacks looked blacker. I even remembered to old photographer’s maxim. Overexpose by at least one stop when shooting snow scenes. And while this was frost, not snow, the same rule applied. The camera is fooled into making the frost look grey, because that’s what the exposure system is designed to do. The photographer’s job is to make the finished scene look like what he or she saw on the camera screen, or maybe what he wanted to see!

I covered a fair bit of ground, tramping into the wilderness at the back of St Mo’s and the eventual winner of PoD was a cow parsley seed head completely covered in frost. It’s almost black and white, but there are just a few bits of colour there too. I arrived home with just enough time to download the photos, have a plate of soup and a cup of tea before we headed out again in a defrosted car to see Margie. I don’t know what’s wrong with my new phone. Every time I connect it to Spotify it will play one song and then stop. I suspect it’s something to do with bluetooth, but I’m not sure how to fix the problem. What worries me is the amount of folk on the ‘net who are having the same problem with the same line of phones, the Galaxy S22. I did some tweaks and a reset tonight, but I’m not convinced it will make any difference.

Margie was her usual interesting self today with lots of stories to tell. She has such a cheery manner and quite outspoken when she feels the need. Not as fit as she used to be, but doing well for 89.

We got back in plenty of time for the Tesco delivery. Three basket’s worth this time. I pity the poor delivery drivers. It must be no fun lugging those heavy baskets and driving on the sometimes untreated roads. Although, for the first time in a long while, our road has been gritted, or at least the hill has been gritted, which makes a difference.

Fish ’n’ chips for dinner tonight. A lovely bit of cod cooked to perfection as only Scamp can. After dinner we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We’ve seen it, maybe twice, but this is the first time I can remember seeing the first ten minutes of it, where we meet the characters for the first time. Still a feel-good film. Worth watching again and again.

More cold weather forecast for tomorrow, with the chance of snow tomorrow night or on Friday. We’ll have to wait and see.