Silencing the alarms – 17 August 2020

Scamp was out for coffee this afternoon with the core of ‘Gems’. The ‘old guard’ so to speak, although I’d never call them that to their faces.

In the morning we watched and waited for the sun to break through the clouds, but we knew in our heart of hearts that it was never going to happen, but that didn’t stop us watching and waiting some more. We finally gave up and had lunch.

After lunch, Scamp drove off to collect Margie for their coffee afternoon with June. I had great plans to watch and listen to a bit of my new tutorial course on architectural sketching, but first I had to find out what type of battery our CO2 and smoke detectors used. They had been cheeping once or twice a day for about a week, but now they were becoming insistent, beep every hour. Then I’d to wrap up the belated birthday parcel for JIC and post it. The alarms were starting to grate on my nerves, so they were the first to deal with. The smoke alarm was the easiest. It took two AAA batteries and was fixed in a couple of minutes. The CO2 detector took a different battery of course, the only one of the common batteries we didn’t have, the 9v one. I’d get one after I posted the parcel. So, next I dealt with the parcel. With it safely addressed and sealed I walked out into what was now a dreary drizzle, stuck my big clumsy bluetooth headphones and was serenaded all the way to the post office. The architectural sketching would have to wait.

Got the parcel posted and was heading to the Spar shop to get the battery when I saw the little green island in the pavement. Here was my PoD. I called it ‘Island in the Sun’ as it wasn’t an island really and there wasn’t any sun, but at first glance it looked to me like a green tropical island in a rather murky sea. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Got the battery and walked home in a downpour, still being serenaded by Spotify’s Discover Weekly. When I got back, Scamp had returned from her coffee afternoon and seemed to have enjoyed it as much as my visit wit Val, last week. Fixed the CO2 detector and it’s now quietly flashing away every hour or so. Silent at last.

Watched the final episode of series 1 of Line of Duty and I still haven’t watched and listened to the sketching video. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow we may get a new modem delivered. Otherwise no real plans.

Out to Lunch – 14 August 2020

Today we were booked for lunch at The Cotton House. Note the capitalised ‘The’. Not just any Cotton House, but The Cotton House!

Drove there and arrive just in time after a quick return to the house “Did I switch off the computer”. Yes, I had switched it off! When we got there, and got parked in an actual space, an event in itself, the restaurant wasn’t even open. Five minutes later the sign on the door was switched from Closed to Open and we were not quite first in the queue, but nearly first. Got a table and were told it was a one hour time slot. No problem. We could scoff anything they’d put down to us in an hour. Scamp went for her usual TCH standard: Thai Spring Rolls followed by Chicken Chow Mein. I decided to be adventurous and had Thai Spring Rolls (I usually have Chicken Noodle Soup) and Salt & Chilli Chicken, rather than the usual Chow Mein. Both starters were fine, although I’d have the soup next time. Scamp’s main was just as good as it usually is. I can vouch for it because she let me have some to taste. I’d definitely order my Salt & Chilli again, we both agreed the chicken was excellent (yes, I did let her have a piece to see what she was missing!) Neither of us was really bothered about tea or coffee and we just paid and left, feeling bad because we had no ‘real’ money to leave a tip and there was no facility in the card machine to do it digitally. They used to bring a wee dish of jelly beans with the bill and I was thinking that in these post Covid days that might pose a problem, but someone was thinking about that and there was a wee plastic disposable tub of multicoloured sugar-heavy sweeties with the bill. Great idea!

We left Longcroft and headed for Glasgow. I wanted to have a look at a camera in JL (no surprise there, say some) and we both wanted a wander round town. It was a great day for it. This morning it had been heavy cloud, but on the way to Glasgow the clouds lifted and the sun shone. We wandered round JL. I had a look at cameras, but the one I was looking for wasn’t there (surprise, surprise.) I heard one of the ‘partners’ (i.e. sales assistants) say to a couple of prospective customers that they “don’t have their full stock in the stores yet.” He added that they were hoping to have it in ‘soon’. That seems to be a problem these days everywhere.

Walked down Bucky Street which is where I got today’s PoD. It’s actually a cut and paste of two images, but Lightroom is so good at this stuff, it would take and expert to see the join. If you are an expert and you can see the join, keep it to yourself. Nobody likes a smarty pants.

After a coffee in Nero – I’m getting like Scamp and beginning to despise disposable cups – we headed up to the car, stopping to allow Scamp a retail opportunity in the Pandora shop. I think she deserved it for surviving Lockdown with me moaning at her about everything I could think of.

Back home and the sun was still shining. I did think of going over to St Mo’s to annoy some beasties, but I had a decent PoD and it was a rather warm and sunny afternoon so I planked myself in the garden along side an already ensconced Scamp and listened to some music. I even did a wee painting that’s available for your perusal on Instagram. I think I’ve inflicted enough pain on friends on Facebook! I also had a beer to accompany Scamp’s Pimms.

Tonight we travelled back a year and a few hundred miles to Venice to remember a sail-in we won’t forget in a long, long time.

Our WiFi died about half an hour ago, so this blog is getting posted late. Checked the state of the connection with Virgin and was given the surprising news that our modem is being upgraded!!! After umpteen phone calls and emails with no response, suddenly out of the blue they say we’re getting a new hub! I’ll believe it when I see it. Of course the signal came back, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

No plans for tomorrow and it’s too late to book another lunch out. Hoping for more sunshine. That will do instead.

Up early for a change – 9 August 2020

I woke early, before 7am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I hate it when that happens.

Eventually gave up sat reading for a while. About half way through “Flowers For Algernon”. Really old book I remember from Larky library around the mid ‘60s. It’s quite dated now, but an interesting concept, none the less. Finally gave up completely and got up to make breakfast.

So, we were up fairly early for a change. It was a beautiful day. Not quite as hot as yesterday which was good. We did a bit of gardening. Actually, Scamp did a bit of gardening and I started fixing up the solar cell for Scamp’s new LED light string. Finally, after a few false starts, we go a good place for the solar panel. Just a little one about 75mm by 50mm, but enough to power the lights. Many years ago, probably about 30 years ago, we all visited an Eco centre in Wales and I bought some shards of solar cells, hoping to build a small solar pane. It never got made. The cells were too fragile and most got cracked on the way home. Amazing to think you can buy a solar panel which charges a NiMH battery which in turn powers a line of fifty LEDs all for around £4. Back then, you could only have Red, Yellow and Green LEDs. Bit massive things by today’s standard which drained a battery in about fifteen minutes. Not everything was better in “the olden days”.

With the lights strung up and tested and all Scamp’s potting up done, we adjourned for lunch. After lunch and a rest to let all that fatty goodness be digested, we went out for a walk round Broadwood Stadium avoiding kids on bikes trying to make the most of their last days of freedom before schools restart in the middle of the week. I’m sure there were teacher out there too, making the most of the last days of sunshine before they return to the grind. Oh, how I enjoy looking back at those last days of freedom from the standpoint of one who doesn’t need to do that ever again.

When we got back without having taken any meaningful photos, I grabbed a camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp went to laze in the afternoon sunshine. I came home empty handed again. I’d seen yesterday’s big blue dragonflies, but they weren’t posing for me. They had far more important things on their minds, cavorting around the wee pond at St Mo’s.

Dinner was Sea Bream with Long Stem Broccoli and Potatoes. It is one of Scamp’s specialities and it tasted as good as usual. The starter was Bruschetta made with Italian crust bread I’d bought in Perth yesterday. Delicious too.

Watched the second British GP and enjoyed an interesting ending. Thankful really that we didn’t have to sit through the whole boring race. Nothing happened that couldn’t have been predicted by anyone who follows motorsport, with the possible exception of the fall of Vettel. It looks like he really has lost the plot. “Toys out of the pram” is the phrase that springs to mind.

Spoke to JIC and gave him a fleshed out version of yesterday’s announcement that our love affair with the Red Juke is sadly coming to an end and another Nissan has now taken its place, albeit a Nissan with one less cylinder in its engine.

PoD today went to a focus stacked image of one of Scamp’s favourite roses, the beautiful Troika. Focus stacking done in-camera and very neat it was too.

Tomorrow we may have to sign a contract to give some money to Mr Nissan for the chance to use one of his Blue Micras for a few years. Other than that and the chance of thunderstorms, hopefully another sunny day.

Confusion Reigns – 3 August 2020

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.

Not as oppressively warm as yesterday – 1 August 2020

That was my first thought this morning.

Not as warm. A bit fresher perhaps? Yesterday was just a bit too unScottish on the temperature scale. Today was going to be more down to earth.

We had no bread, very little fruit and no fancy little cakes, so I wandered off down to the shops in the morning. Got enough stuff to feed us for today (and a few days more if the truth be told) and a bar of chocolate for going, which I thought was very fair. Lunch was a roll ’n’ cheese for both of us, but not just ordinary rolls, no, these were Ciabatta rolls that had come all the way from Iceland, the frozen food shop, no the northerly island nation. Then we sat and wondered what to do until the live British F1 GP qualifying was due to start. We were then glued to our TV until the end of the qualifying came to a nail biting finish, or at least that’s what we were told. It was the usual faces in the usual grid slots. No nails were bitten in this house.

Later in the afternoon, I took myself and a camera out for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp waited at home, deciding what to wear for tonight’s Zoom Dance. To be fair to her, she also prepared the “mise en place” (food and dishes preparation) for tonight’s dinner which was Smoked Salmon and Broccoli Quiche. We’d made it before, but it was really good to walk into the kitchen and find everything laid out for me. The actual cookery was easy after all that. It tasted really quite good. Not as good as Jackie’s, but a fair stab at it. Plus, of course she uses the old fashioned shortcrust pastry base while we have a new super fast method which must remain a secret!

After dinner it was a bit of a rush to get the living room rearranged in time for the dance. It’s really a good way of having a socially isolated dance without the need for face masks and all that faff. Just a computer and a space in your own home to dance. It’s amazing the amount of stuff we’d (read “I’d”) forgotten since the last one. It took me one whole track before I got the steps for the basic waltz anywhere like a dance and not just staggering blindly around the living room. The Social Foxtrot is all about dancing in never ending saw-tooth formations, even I can manage that. Salsa was … let’s say it wasn’t as smooth and faultless as it should be. All in all, it was an exercise in not falling over and no, I’d not had anything stronger than a bottle of beer at that point. However, it was great fun and good exercise too. Don’t know what the couple next door in their Jacuzzi thought! I kid you not, they have a jacuzzi in a gazebo in a garden the same size as ours. What is Westfield coming to? I think they have just too many Zs in their heads! When the Zoom dance ended we had to have a wee seat in the quiet just to allow our muscle groups to return to normal. Next one is in a couple of weeks time unless Lockdown finishes before then – we should be so lucky!

Today’s PoD was wee fly on a cow parsley head.

Tomorrow we may be aching so much we won’t be able to go out anywhere, or maybe we should just to ease those dancing muscles.

One really wet day – 27 July 2020

Dreich – a well used Scottish word summed up today.

Rain in all its forms today. Heavy rain, light rain, smirr, drizzle, we had them all. Then after a full day of the wet stuff it dried up about 8pm and gave us a beautiful sunset. That’s Scotland for you.

Spoke to Hazy on the phone for a while in the morning and spoke to JIC in the evening, so it was a fairly phone filled day as you will find out below.

Scamp’s sister came over from Eastfield to have her lunch and a natter, leaving me a chance to get the sewing machine out and create another face mask. I wasn’t totally happy with it, in fact it’s one of the worst designs I’ve seen so far. It goes in the bin.

Because of the weather, there wasn’t much chance to take any outside photos. The closest I got was taking out my chilli plants to get watered with clean, unchlorinated stuff, but I had a look around and couldn’t see anything worth switching the camera on for.

Later in the afternoon Scamp brought a Ruby Wedding rose in from the garden to prevent it being battered by the rain. I took one look and decided I’d found my PoD. Beautiful texture and colours with a few raindrops to give some highlights. Done!

Most of the rest of the day was spent tweaking the last few apps on Scamp’s new A41 phone. It’s much like mine, but her apps are nothing like my collection, so I was working with one eye on the phone and one on the help files I’d found on the net. Together the two eyes finally got the better of the phone demons and everything fell into place.  I think that’s us all set.  The phone number is updated. Most, if not all the apps are in place and working.  Just a few more checks and we’re done.

Struggling with Luminar 4 now on the Mac.  It used to work really well, now after an update it’s going like an arthritic slug.  Do slugs get arthritis, I wonder? If they don’t, they should. They’ve eaten holes in my kale plants and I’m sure its them that are responsible for  the disappearing carrots.  I’ve had enough for one day.  I’m off to bed.

Scamp is out with the Witches tomorrow and it looks like a good day.  I may go out and take some photos.

The Grass Hoover – 22 July 2020

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.

Tweaking – 17 July 2020

Not so much tweaking as returning the DL to factory settings and starting again.

It took me ages to work out exactly how to return the DL to the default state. In fact it was only when I watched a YouTube video I discovered the correct key presses and dial twists to do and the order they had to be done in to achieve this. Finally it was in out-of-the-box state and ready to be tweaked. Actually, I decided that out of the box was a producing a decent espresso and a very nice cappuccino. After that I re-read the instructions, always a last resort, but sometimes necessary. It was there I discovered how to cool the overheating boiler. Amazing the things you find out when you read the instructions.

Shona was coming to lunch today and Scamp volunteered to go and meet her at the shops. Shona’s first time at the new shops and I think she was impressed. I was finishing off the swearing at the DL when they arrived. I was also finishing off cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Possibly the cause of the earlier swearing.

Shona kept us up to date on how things were progressing with Ben’s move to Secondary School. Heavens, it seems like no time since he was a fairly tiny little baby in Andrew’s arms. Hard to believe that was over eleven years ago! After a while I left the two women to their women’s talk and went clear up the painting room so that I could actually find room to paint in it. I almost succeeded, but that’s about as far as I usually get.

Later in the afternoon, Scamp took Shona home and I settled down to make my first real cappuccino according to the DL recipe I found on the ‘net’, but a recipe from DL that wasn’t included with the coffee maker! It tasted fine. I was quite proud of myself as I cooled the boiler without any further help. Barista? Me? Not yet, but I’m on my way to being one! After that, I went for a walk in St Mo’s in the rain and grabbed PoD which is a hover fly in flight. I was impressed. Loads of teenagers hanging around the wooded part of the path again. Not causing bother, just nowhere to go, nothing to do apart from being noisy. Was I the same when I was that age? I don’t remember being that noisy, but it’s different when you’re there, not looking down from the heights of fifty odd years.

Dinner tonight was Italian Chicken from one of Neil-D’s recipes and it worked well. Best thing about it was that I had plenty Pesto and Marinara Sauce left over to be used in the next few days.

I struggled for a sketch/painting and settled for Scamp’s sunflowers as a subject. Not big or brash enough, but worth working on. Maybe something to do tomorrow, because the weather looks wet!

Burnin’ a hole in ma’ pocket – 16 July 2020

Since early April I’ve had a gift card that’s been “burning a hole in my pocket.” My son and daughter collaborated and gave me the card as part of my birthday presents intending it to be used to pay for an espresso machine to replace my old and failing Gaggia. Unfortunately just after they bought it, Covid-19 took over the world and all the shops closed. Of course I could have used it on-line, but being an auld guy, I like to see and touch what I’m buying, so I waited and waited and I pondered. I changed my mind umpteen times, but in the end I got it down to two machines. Today I chose the De Longhi and it’s lovely. So small, so compact and yet so versatile. Starts in a flash and produces good, strong coffee. It was worth the wait to have a second birthday three months after the first! Thank you again Hazy, JIC, Neil-D and Sim (alphabetical is the fairest way!).

We’d driven in to Glasgow in the morning to have a look in John Lewis although I knew they didn’t have any in stock, because I’d checked before we went out, and so hadn’t brought the gift card. They lied. Not one, but two boxed machines sitting there large as life. Still the visit wasn’t wasted because Scamp managed to buy ‘a few things’ in JL. She went in to Lakeland to buy cling film and came out with a skillet (fancy name for a frying pan) too. We drove home. After lunch I made my decision, grabbed the gift card, drove back to JL and bought the machine before anyone else could deprive me of it.

Spent what was left of the afternoon building it up and making a mess of coffee all over the kitchen. The De Longhi is a bit more complicated to work than the old Gaggia. I imagine once you’ve got it set up to your specification, all will be well. I’ve had over ten years of adjustments incorporated into the Gaggia and when it’s on song, it produces good coffee. I’ve yet to hit that sweet spot with the DL. It’ll come. We just have to discuss things, DL and I and come to an agreement. A meeting of minds, coffee minds.

I’d grabbed a picture of a Grey Glasgow from the Buchanan Galleries bridge, but realised it was almost an exact copy of one I’d taken before at least twice. It just like the front cover of Deacon Blue’s ’Raintown’. Dull, dull, dull. When I was puzzling over the instructions of the DL for the umpteenth time, I notice two of Scamp’s roses glowing in the sunshine which was streaming in the window in one of the few dry spells of the day. Grabbed a couple of shots and one of them made PoD. Sketch of the Day just had to be the New Toy.

Tomorrow we have no plans although Shona might be coming for lunch. Ben’s off on holiday at his dad’s and Shona’s got ‘an empty’!

Stormy – 5 July 2020

You expect the storms in the autumn or the winter, but in July? Well, it is Scotland.

It was a windy old night last night and this morning was much the same. Thankfully as the day progressed, the storm winds regressed. Not so the rain. It pounded us relentlessly all day, with just the occasional sunny spell to trap the unwary and entice them out and then ambush them with another heavy shower.

In the afternoon I was enticed out but given the warning from Scamp to get home quick if the rain started. I ignore the warning, of course, but then the camera started acting up after an accidental finger press on the screen changed the setting to stupid mode and it started shooting video instead of stills. Eventually I gave up and reset it to default position, but by that time the good light had gone and so had the soldier beetle I was intending to photograph. I gave up. I had a few shots from the morning when we had that strange Scottish mixture of sunshine and showers … at the same time. The flower shots would have to do and I started to plod my weary way home. Reached the door just as the really heavy rain started. Scamp thought I was just obeying instructions and heading home before the rain came. I had to disabuse her of that notion and told her the story of the wayward camera and Stupid Mode. I don’t think she believed me.

Dinner tonight was Steak and Kidney cooked by my own fair hand. Scamp had an omelette. Both served with Jersey Royal potatoes. While I’d been out wrestling with the camera, Scamp had baked a Sultana Cake and we had a slice each with custard for pudding. Lovely!

Watched the Austrian GP, the first one of this Cover-19 season. Full of thrills, spills, bad tempers and lots of crashes. Nobody hurt thankfully, some egos bruised and a lot of very expensive equipment spread all over the race track. Let’s hope they all cool their heels before next week’s re-run.

Two of Scamp’s Sweet Peas made the PoD. The first two to flower and both survived todays gales. It was meant to be a rose for today’s sketch, but it didn’t quite make it. Perhaps it will be better tomorrow. The Lockdown Library is stalling a bit and maybe needs a rest. Maybe I should break out all the new paints and use them tomorrow. Also tomorrow, we’re hoping to go for a walk somewhere that isn’t Cumbersheugh based, because actually Lockdown had been folded up and put away in its box. The box hasn’t been locked yet and we’ve been well warned that Lockdown may yet come out of its box and restrict our movement again.