I’d hoped for a dry day after yesterday, but it was not to be.
Instead we had rain. Almost continuous rain all today, the last day of October 2025. I did manage to get out to snap a few flowers in the garden. The winner was three Osteospermum flowers in the garden. One going over, one in full bloom and one that might, just might open to reveal its flower if the rain stops and the sun shines.
Hoping for some better weather in November.
For Scamp, I hasten to add. I’ve had my two jags and am looking forward to a new crown. Will that make me a king?
So Scamp was out in the morning to have her six monthly checkup at the dentist. Conveniently, she was to have her Flu jag later today. However, she asked if it would be possible to have the Flu jag after her checkup and was told that would be easy to arrange. She came back looking pleased with herself.
It was a terrible morning after yesterday’s perfect autumnal day. Drizzly rain in the morning that gradually increased to heavy rain by midday. We needed to get some odds and ends in Tesco. I’d already looked for the Araldite I needed in our local Tesco and Scamp needed some meds, so I headed for the better equipped Town Centre Tesco.
Surprisingly, after lunch the rain decreased and I got out for a walk round St Mo’s with a detour to the shops hoping to get some plasticine to act as a prop while I glued a fridge magnet. I couldn’t get plasticine anywhere, so I had to resort to Blu Tack instead. Hope it holds long enough for the glue to set.
Four tiny feathers look like being the PoD for today. They’ve been hanging on grimly to a grimy kitchen window. Must clean it soon!
Tomorrow I’ve been asked to be Good Samaritan to drive Fred to Stirling to get his car back from the garage.
Storm Amy, the first named storm of the season was still clinging on to Scotland today. I don’t know who named her, but she wasn’t behaving in a ladylike manner. Gale force winds and heavy rain battered the west of the country. Although there were some respites, it wasn’t a great day to go out anywhere.
Scamp and I had a couple of exchanges to make in M&S, so we drove there. There were a few trees blown down on our route to The Fort in the east of Glasgow, but nothing we couldn’t handle. We debated whether to have lunch in Glasgow or to just head for home. A splashy rain shower settled that discussion and we drove home.
Lunch was tea and sandwiches as we watched the weather systems come and go across the Campsie Fells from the comfort of the house. No sense in going out in the squalls that were coming in the western winds. Later in the afternoon I did give in and took the A7c out for a walk to St Mo’s with the intention of getting a fish supper for two at the local chip shop. I wasn’t long out when I wished I’d taken a warmer jacket. The wind was icy cold.
I did manage to get a couple of decent photos of reflections in a pool that had been a path a couple of days ago. The water in the big pond was a lot deeper too. The swans and cygnets were drinking clean water for the first time in a long while. The flooded path became PoD.
I walked over to the chip shop and was heading home with two fish suppers in a bag when I turned a corner and found the path blocked by a couple of big trees. At first I thought I could walk round them, bus soon realise that wasn’t going to work so I headed back the way I’d come and found a path that would take me by a slightly longer road to miss the trees. It only took a few minutes, but saved me a long walk round the park. The fish and chips were still hot when I got home.
We got some sad news this morning. Anju, a long time salsa dancer from our classes in Glasgow when they were run by Jamie Gallagher had died last night. Anju was a lovely Indian lady with a wicked sense of humour, and great fun to dance with. We’ll both miss her, even although we haven’t seen her for a while. We’re hoping we’ll be able to say goodbye to her properly this month.
Tomorrow we intend to tie up loose ends and check everything twice.
It all started out so calmly too!
It was a lovely morning. Cool and a bit damp, but nothing to worry us. I dropped Scamp off at the town centre to go for coffee with Shona. I had intended driving to The Fort to exchange a belt that was far too small for me, but by the look of the weather and the warnings on the radio, it looked like a stay at home day, so I drove home and parked.
Scamp arrived back home around 2pm wet, despite her Berghaus jacket, after a short walk from the shops. Then the rain came on more seriously and it brought wind to the party too. For most of the afternoon, the wind got stronger and stronger. It felt like the front windows were going to blow in. About 6pm things started to calm down. Now at just about 11pm it’s becoming calmer still. Hopefully by morning we’ll be able to go out and retrieve the bins that are lying around the garden.
I wasn’t going to risk life and limb going over to St Mo’s today to get blown all over the place just to get a PoD, so the one you see here is a tabletop setup. It’s a selection of the ‘Coral’ we picked up at Coral Beach in Skye, many, many moons ago.
Despite its appearance, its Maerl is a type of algae, not true coral, which are animals. The meal extracts calcium carbonate from seawater to build a hard, white outer skeleton. So says Google and Google is never wrong.
Tomorrow if the weather is in a better mood we may go shopping.
The big van arrived right on time at 9.30am and we were waiting for it.
John Lewis were delivering our new fridge/freezer today. It arrived right on time and the first thing the guy said was “It’s going to be a tight squeeze, through the front door.” I was prepared for that with my trusty Stanley cross-head screwdriver I removed the retaining bolts from the front door and that let me take off the outside handle and the inside one too, plus the big square section key.
That made all the difference and about fifteen minutes later the JL guys were back in their van after getting the new addition into place and removing the old one. One in and One out. Then they were off to another customer. I reassembled the front door and Scamp plugged the new fridge in and we left it to rest for four hours just as the driver had told us to do.
Next stop for me was the dentist for my annual checkup. Apparently my teeth are in good condition, but I’ve a filling to look forward to next week. I think I got off lightly.
After gazing admiringly at this big white box for four hours, we were ready to switch it on for the first time. Again, Scamp had the honour of switching the the fridge/freezer on for the first time. It started making an alarm noise, but we shushed it and told it to go to sleep for a few hours and it settled down.
We walked down to the shops to get some milk and bread and blueberries. I bumped into the guy who used to be the ‘Janny’ at the school, but who is now an assistant manager for the schools in the area. Glad to see him getting on in the world.
By the time we’d exchanged reminiscences and set the world to rights, Scamp was off, carrying the shopping. Despite my argument that it was really my job to carry heavy things, she chased me away and told me to go and take some photos.
That’s what I did and the PoD is a dandelion or a near relative at least, after the morning’s showers.
Tonight’s dance class with Kirsty was Rumba. We managed to get it working quite well, but not every time. Kirsty was happily teaching Scamp how to do the body sways that are such an integral part of Rumba. I just tried to remember the steps in the right order.
When we got back the new fridge/freezer was working silently in the kitchen. Scamp declares that she liked it. That’s good enough for me.
I think we’re maybe going in to Glasgow tomorrow, but for a change, I do’t think we won’t be visiting the Apple shop!
We did think of going in to Glasgow to watch the Pride march, but the weather was against us.
Rain showers seemed to be the order of the day and neither of us wanted to stand in the rain for the hour that it would take for the procession to pass, then have to sit in a bus for another three quarters of an hour to get back home. Blame me if the march was really good. It was my fault!
The rain wasn’t continuous today, but for a while it was ‘straight doon rain’. Fairly heavy for a while then just drizzle for an hour while it caught its breath, then back to heavy again. We seem to be caught in this cycle of heavy rain, then light rain and repeat for the next few days.
The furthest I got was a drive down to the shops to get bread and fruit. Two loaves we bought earlier in the week were now speckle d with the blue spots of mould. All to do with the moisture in the air we think.
After lunch I did take some time out to get some rainy photos in the garden. Photos of clothes pegs dripping with rain in the garden next door. That made PoD.
One of the problems I’ve had since before the the computer took a flaky earlier in the week, is that I can’t send files from the desktop computer to the laptop and vice versa using iCloud Drive. Both drives seem to on speaking terms now, but unfortunately they are still arguing about who’s the boss, like squabbling weans!
The iMac has actually been running really well today, perhaps because it took a couple of hours yesterday to sort out its problems. Again, we’ll wait and see.
No plans for tomorrow as yet. The weather fairies say wet, with the chance of thunderstorms and heavy rain. This is how we pay for the recent good weather.
Different day, but same rain.
The rain wasn’t torrential today, and it wasn’t even continuous, but it did seem as if it was raining every minute of the day. Actually there were times when the sun shone brightly, but behind every cloud there is RAIN. My son and his wife are almost praying for rain down in the south, and we are trying to get rid of ours for a few days.
Genesis summed it up in the song Mad Man Moon (1976)
“… Within the valley of shadowless death
They pray for thunderclouds and rain
But to the multitude who stand in the rain
Heaven is where the sun shines …”
After lunch, Scamp and I sat and watched an absolutely crazy British F1 GP and, as I followed those twenty odd folk driving through the blinding rain of a thunderstorm, I thought again of those lyrics. Was it worth it I wondered? I lost count of the number of cars reduced to scrap in a couple of hours. However, I must say I was glad to see Piastri being taken down a peg. That was satisfying.
Dinner was a new Scamp version of Mac ’n’ Cheese. Slightly different layers and with a very nice topping of Panko Breadcrumbs.
PoD was a photo of a yellow Aquilegia that arrived late to the party, but looked quite startling against the dark green foliage in the background.
Basically that was it for today. Rain, Rain, Lunch, F1 GP then Rain to finish the day.
No plans for tomorrow.
I could almost finish the blog there with that statement, but that would be no fun.
We had intended to go in to Glasgow today to get a pair of trainers. I know the trainers I want, but the idea of wandering around Glasgow in the rain didn’t appeal much, so instead we waited to see if the rain would go off. It didn’t. Scamp did some tidying up and I went for a walk in St Mo’s.
While I was walking round St Mo’s looking for inspiration, this wee snail crossed my path. Both of us were very wet and both of us were on a mission. My mission was to get back home and dry again. I don’t know what mission the snail was on, but it knew where it was going.
Scamp and I had each chosen a different meal for dinner. Scamp was having Fish Fingers and Tomatoes, and I chose a Rib Eye Steak with Padron Peppers and Tomatoes. (Thanks for the tomatoes Jamie, we’re working our way through them!) That meant I had to extend my walk and source the steak. I walked on to the butchers and got the steak and a couple of slices of spiced beef ham, which is really a thin cut steak with copious amounts of mixed spice dusted over it. Sounds odd, but it’s a traditional Sunday breakfast item where I come from.
It might be raining, but as one of the weather fairies said, “At least it was warm rain.” That was definitely true. I was fairly wet when I got home, but my, allegedly, breathable jacket had been choked to death and the condensation meant I had to do a complete change when I got home.
My dinner was ok, just ok. Scamp said her’s was fine. Dessert was rhubarb (thanks for the rhubarb, too Jamie) with some custard and some cream left over from yesterday. That was the highlight of my meal.
Tomorrow we’re hoping for some dry weather to get out somewhere for a walk and maybe a new pair of trainers.
We had been promised rain today and it actually came as predicted!
There wasn’t much rain, but enough to wet the ground and give the plants in the garden a drink.
Rather a changeable day which was mainly dry but with occasional heavy showers, especially later in the evening.
After tidying the kitchen and the living room after Saturday’s dinner guests, there wasn’t really much to do except, perhaps watch the water falling from the sky for a while.
Later in the day I took the A6500 out to St Mo’s to look for some photos. Yesterday, I’d set the aperture and shutter speed to manual and had forgotten to reset them. Today, for some reason, I set the ISO to 100. That meant that a lot of todays photos taken in between the rain shower and in bright sunlight were overexposed and too light. It took me about an hour after I got home to see how I’d done all that. Once all the settings were back to normal, Lightroom dealt with the overexposure quickly. The PoD was a bunch of flowering cherries and the overexposure coupled with a wide aperture accidentally provided exactly what I wanted in the flowers. Sometimes things just work.
Spoke to Jamie in the evening and told him the 3D jigsaw he and Simonne had given me for my birthday was underway. The base is now complete and ready for the tree to grow in it.
Watched the Bahrain F1 GP and apart from a few interesting passing manoeuvres, it was the same old, same old.
Tomorrow we may have shopping to do – just the essentials.
A day where the rain just never stopped falling.
Even when the gale force winds calmed down, the rain kept falling. A day when it would have been foolish to go out in the rain. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I went out into the garden to photograph a clump of crocuses. Purple and yellow ones. They seem to grow well under the apple tree in the back garden. I did actually wait for a break in the showers and the wind before I attempted to photograph the flowers with their raindrops. Then after having taken just three frames, I retired to the safety of the house before the next shower and the next gale made landfall. The crocuses made PoD.
And that was it, really. The gales gradually calmed down and the rain showers became less fierce then for a short time the sun appeared and shone on us, but that didn’t last long. Now, as I’m writing this, the wind is strengthening again, but the rain has gone to annoy other folk for a while.
I had a Picanha steak for dinner. I hadn’t heard of it before a year or two ago, but now it’s becoming quite popular although M&S is the only place I’ve seen it recently. It seems to be a cut that has gained a following with barbecue chefs. I just pan fried mine with some mushrooms and fried potatoes. Scamp had a couple of Sea bass fillets with fried potatoes.
Spoke to Jamie later and heard about Vixen’s laser therapy and a swim to keep her muscles in trim. Good to hear that Simonne is starting to progress with her running.
Tomorrow we are expecting to attend an on-line funeral for Clive.