Category: weather

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.

Back in the old routine – 22 October 2022

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We were off to Brookfield again after a three week layoff.

Dull foggy morning with the threat of rain, but we were off to dance class, and that lifted our spirits, even mine. According to the messages that were crossing and recrossing the ether last night it appeared that there would only be about four couples coming to the class. That’s a nice number, but it means there’s nowhere to hide!

The road was unusually busy this morning and the fog that had faded out as we reached Glasgow thickened again as we drove out of the city again. The land is fairly low lying there and we could see pockets of fog all around. Strange weather.

We were first into the hall and we saw the teachers final practise for what was to come in a week or two. There were four couples to start with, then another arrive and another. So it wasn’t as small a class after all. We started with what was a new sequence dance for me, but not for Scamp, the Blue Angel Rumba. It seemed it was new for quite a few folk and took a while for everyone to get to grips with it. Next was the Foxtrot which we knew quite well, at least the first half of it we knew quite well. The second half, the back end as the teachers called it, was cloaked in mystery for me. We did, however make a decent fist of the first half. That dance took up almost an hour of our allotted time. We finished off with a couple of relatively easy sequence dances. Then it was time to head home into the rain that had developed from the fog. As we got nearer Cumbersheugh the rain tailed off and, I’d like to say it was a lovely day after that, but it wasn’t. It was just dull and miserable. Dreich was how one of the ladies in the class described it, and if fitted perfectly.

PoD was a quick photo of a rose in the garden that’s just starting to produce its second flush of buds, Lady of Shalott. Taken in the rain, if you look closely you can see the streaks of the falling rain drops.

Prompt for today was ‘Heist’. It was getting late when I started it and it’s not as glamorous as an American heist with guns blazing and tyres screaming. This is a more sedate British heist.

No plans for tomorrow.

Out to lunch – 21 October 2022

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It’s beginning to be a ‘thing’ this out to lunch on a Friday. I blame June and Ian.

The day began dull and uninspiring, but the sun did poke its face out for a while and we decided to go out for lunch to the Stables on the Forth & Clyde canal just outside Kirkintilloch. That used to be a tradition, back when we were both working. At least one Friday a month we’d drive to the Stables for dinner, especially in the winter. It was the smell of the wood fires and that homely feeling. Back when you could enjoy a pint and still be allowed to drive home.

Before that, we drove up to Tesco. Me to spend part of a voucher on a book and use the the remainder on essentials to go in the the food bank. Scamp was going to get her meds in Boots. I bought the new Ian Rankin book for £12. It would have been £18 in Waterstones including a £4 discount! Another Tesco win. With the voucher spent we headed off to Kirkie and beyond.

The car park wasn’t all that busy, so we went for a walk along the canal tow path to the next bridge and then walked back. The trees were beginning to colour at last. On the way back we watched some Goldfinches working their way along the bushes beside the canal, finding some seeds. Heard, then saw a whole field of migrating geese, then across the canal three deer were grazing quite happily in a field. A photo of them made PoD. The sun was shining and it wasn’t really cold. A few bikes out on the towpath, but not as many as I’d expected.

By the time we got to the Stables it was fairly busy. About fifteen minutes to take our order, then a twenty minute wait for the food to come. Scamp had the standard fish ’n’ chips and I had a chicken and pancetta pie. The pie was good, as was Scamp’s fish, but her chips were dried up. Likewise, my mash was dead. Not taste in it. It was the service and lack of interest from the waiter and waitress plus the wait the 35 minute wait for food to arrive on the table that reminded us of why we stopped coming to this restaurant. Compare that with the humour and interest from the bloke who served us last week in Dead Deer.

I’m still struggling with the new OS on the iMac. It’s a bit slow, slower than it was with the previous version, but the MBP which I’m using to type this up seems to be none the worse for its upgrade. Not enough memory and a slow hard drive are dragging the big computer down, I think. Hopefully there’s a fix on the horizon.

Prompt for the day was “Bad Dog”. Not being dog owners, suddenly became a drawback. I couldn’t decide what to draw, then Google came to the rescue again. I think this may be a French Bulldog, or just a Heinz 57 varieties. It’s just a ‘dug’.

I think we may be going to dance class tomorrow. It didn’t look likely last night, but we haven’t heard any word to the contrary, so our first class in three weeks may be on. Other than that, no plans.

What a day – 20 October 2022

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Woke to rain, drove in the rain, came home in the rain, and it’s still raining.

That bloke who was building a boat last week had the right idea!

In the morning I made the decision to install the next operating system, Big Sur, on the iMac. Downloaded the installer and set it to do its thing. 20 minutes it said. It lied. An hour later and it was installed. Tried booting it (felt like booting it with big workman boots) and it took about 15 minutes to boot. Everything was like swimming through treacle. Eventually I gave up and got properly dressed to go dancing and left the ‘thing’, that used to be my go-to computer, to cool down. Maybe the good fairy would drop in while we were out and fix the sorry mess.

For the first time in ages I really enjoyed the tea dance. Usually I’m clock watching until it’s time to come home. Today, I was relaxed. We were dancing and we were moving around the floor avoiding some folk and managing not to get in others way. This is what I wanted to able to do. Nothing flash, nothing fancy, just dancing with Scamp. We danced some sequence dances too. Some were more successful than others, but mostly they worked by the time we got to the end of the second track. I’m pretty sure I even managed to smile for a while. After we’d done the cha-cha line dance, it was time for the tea break. Yes, I danced a cha-cha line dance. Something that would never have entered my head some years ago. We were sitting with a fairly chatty table and had a laugh after the announcement that Liz Truss had resigned. That took everyone by surprise, but injected a bit of good humoured banter into the conversations. More dancing, Tango and another Waltz in the second half and another more difficult sequence dance to finish our day.

We left early to try to miss the homeward rush. It worked for a while, but inevitably the Kingston Bridge brought an end to the rush. It took us nearly an hour to get home, then another half an hour to work out why the phone won’t connect properly to the car. It was solved by removing a piece of crap software that never worked properly from the first day it was installed. I felt better after that.

Time to face that bloody computer again, but I had a plan. I checked the version of the OS I’d installed and it was 11.1. the most up to date was 11.7. That must be the problem. Downloaded the new version and everything, well, almost everything worked. Still a few things to iron out, but the bulk of the work is done.

Dinner tonight was veggie sausage potatoes and cabbage for Scamp. If you substitute lamb burger for the veggie sausage, you have my dinner right there. If you meat eaters out there get a chance of Waitrose Lamb Burgers, try them. They are a delight.

PoD was a picture of my chillies grown from a plant that I bought in Jan’s Vans in Portree. Most of the time the plant lives on the window sill of the painting room, but in the summer it went out into the garden to get some attention from the bees, hoverflies and various other insects. I don’t know how hot these chillies are, because I’ve not been brave enough to try them, but I will soon.

Prompt for today was “Bluff”. I just couldn’t think of anything that I could draw. I eventually settled for a cartoon of someone playing Blind Man’s Bluff, although we both agreed we’d called it Blind Man’s Buff which might be a totally different thing!

That was an annoying day which could have been a total disaster, but wasn’t mainly because I enjoyed the dancing so much. Thank you Scamp for all the help, especially with the waltz.

Tomorrow we’re hoping it’s going to be a bit less rainy and we may go out somewhere.

No Fillings Today Mum – 17 October 2022

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Out early to meet the new dentist and let her have a look around my mouth.

Not that early though. It was one of those dull mornings when the sun forgets to get up and shine. My Fitbit demanded that I take 250 steps, so I went for a walk around the block and brought my camera with me. I saw the two rowan berries and thought about how they brightened the morning. That was the seed that sprouted into today’s PoD.

For the first time in ages I brushed my teeth this morning. I thought it was better to make an effort, rather than to present with a mouth that was BER (Beyond Economic Repair). I needn’t have worried, the dentist lady was completely unfazed. She went ahead and filled the tooth that was giving me grief. She also offered to repair a few more teeth that I’d worn down or damaged over Covid. Not right away, though. Not until the middle of next month. Thankfully the bill for the both of these repairs together was much less than that to fix Scamp’s single tooth. I’ve NHS to thank for that. As always, when someone has been inside your mouth, my teeth don’t feel like my own. I’m getting more used to my new ‘bite’, but it might take a few days yet until it becomes mine.

Back home I started to make a Focaccia, a bread that has more oil in it than Saudi Arabia, or at least that’s what it feels like. Water and oil mixed into the flour, salt and yeast. Once that’s been kneaded, more water is needed and the whole sloppy mess has to prove for an hour or so. Then it gets slopped into a tray and a second mixture of oil, dried rosemary and garlic is poured on top and holes are poked into the dough to encourage the oil to seep into the mixture. It’s left to rise again and then it’s baked in the oven. We’re not finished with the oil yet, though. More oil is drizzled on top and salt flakes are added to give a salty crunch. Unfortunately, maybe I used the wrong kind of oil maybe I should have used 20W-30 instead of 10W-40 or maybe I didn’t bake the focaccia for long enough, or maybe it should have been at a higher temperature. Anyway it ended up doughy and almost inedible. I’ll try again in a couple of days, once the oil tanker comes round and refills the tank.

That kind of limited what we were having for dinner, but yesterday’s celeriac soup and the remains of Scamp’s crumble supplemented with an apple sauce from our own apples was plenty to fill a wee space.

The prompt for today was “Salty”. I chose the ‘Salt Pig’ I was using today. It’s an unglazed terracotta pot that holds sea salt or rock salt. I needed that kind of salt to crumble on the top of the focaccia and since the salt pig was sitting in front of me when I was waiting for the bread to cool, it was an obvious subject with a link to the prompt. Initial sketch done with the fountain pen upside down (you’ll understand this, Hazy) to get fine lines, then the same pen held normally to get the thick lines. A final wash with a brush and clear water to give a bit of shading. Quite pleased, but only quite. Could do better.

Tomorrow we may be visiting another country for an hour or so if the weather is nice.

 

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.

Tidying up loose ends – 11 October 2022

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Lots of little things to do after yesterday’s big sale.

The morning was dry but a bit dull. We’d half intended to go down to Auchinstarry and walk along the canal, but maybe we left it too long and the clouds got heavier and the the dull got duller and when I put some washing in the machine we decided to just switch it on and wait until that was done before we went out. Coffee time, then hanging up the washing and it was lunch time.

After lunch I got a message from the DVLA to say that the red car was officially off my hands and was now tender care of a member of the motor trade. That had been worrying me, but the bloke who did the paperwork was as good as his word.

We had received our covid survey boxes last week and today we were going through the usual procedure of sticking things down our throats and then up our noses. Actually, that procedure isn’t all that painful. The pain comes when you have to fill in the online form. It’s so stilted in its language and clumsy in its operation. I understand that it’s an important document, but it have to be so dull and does it have to offer to give the instructions in Welsh on almost every page? What about Gaelic speakers? Don’t they get an option too? Anyway, the physical bit was done and the online bit was completed too. So we just needed to post the box.

Scamp wanted to get a birthday card for Margie, so we headed off to Condorrat to post the boxes and get a card. We walked a long way back because, although the day had held on to that white Scottish sky, it was still dry ( I almost pressed the “S” key instead of the “W” key when I was typing ‘white’ – honest, it was an accident!). We walked the long way home and it gave us both an opportunity to stretch our legs.

I came home and changed my trainers for a pair of boots and went off to find something that wanted to be PoD. I found a little mushroom growing out of a tree stump and with a bit of jiggery pokery it became PoD.

Dinner tonight was an old favourite. Ham, cabbage and potatoes. We were discussing this and it’s never ‘bacon’, it’s always ‘ham’. Both our mums called it ‘ham’, never bacon, except if it came from Ayrshire, because that was posh and it was Ayrshire Bacon. Anyway Ham, Cabbage and Potatoes was lovely.

The prompt for today was ‘Eagle’. Now the Bald Eagle might be more common across the pond, but here in Scotland the leading raptor is the Golden Eagle. I’ve only seen one once in the wild and that was in the north of Skye. When you see one, you know it’s an eagle. It just couldn’t be anything else.

By the way, I kept forgetting to tell you, we had a duck in the sink the other day.  Honestly, a duck in the sink.  I took a few photos before it disappeared.  No photoshop, no fiddling about, just a quick (or should that be a ‘quack’) snap.  Amazing the things you see in the sink!

Tomorrow I’m probably going over to Motherwell to meet up with Alex. If the weather is fair, we’ll go for a photo walk. If it’s raining we might go for coffee and a blether. Scamp is intending to do some ‘tidying up’. That sounds ominous.

Off to see a man about a car – 10 October 2022

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Today we sold Scamp’s wee red car

The MOT on Scamp’s car was coming up fast and for weeks we’ve had long discussions about whether to keep it or sell it, and if we sell it, who to? We eventually agreed in the middle of last week to sell it. Actually it was Scamp herself who pushed for selling it, I wanted to put it through a pre-MOT and see what the outcome of that would be although we knew it would need some work done. Anyway, after searching around to see which of the snake oil salesmen was the least dodgy, we finally agreed on We Buy Any Car. Got a price that was far in excess of what it was worth and organised a day to have it surveyed. That day was today and after less than half an hour we walked away without the old red Micra, but with a few quid in the bank, although a good bit less than the first fantasy price we got. We were both fairly happy with the whole procedure. It was as painless as it could be. It is a bit strange looking out the window at the car park and not seeing that wee red motor, but that would have happened sooner or later, anyway.

A coffee and a light lunch to settle us down and reflect on what we’d done. It was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. The rest of the day was waiting for us and it was keeping to the weather fairies promise of a dry day for a change.

We drove to Drumpellier and went for a walk in the trees. It was a bit breezy, but the light was good and lots of folk were out enjoying this little bit of sunshine. Deep in the woods of Drumpellier we came upon a tree with layers of golden leaves. The light was almost perfect and the wide angle lens managed to capture most of the scene, even if it was tearing the image a bit at the edges. I had a PoD. Usually we have an ice cream cone from a van at the park, but there was no van today. That was because, despite the sun, it was quite cold. No, a coffee in the cafe was more realistic today. After that we drove home.

Prompt for today was ‘Crabby’, or to put it into Scots, ‘Crabbit’. I searched Google and found this image, or something like it. It just said “Crabby” to me. Some days it’s just not worth getting up. You just know it’s not going to be sunshine and fun. It’s going to be furballs and frustration. Today was one of those days for Crabby Cat!

Tomorrow may be the second dry day in October, if that’s not pushing it. If it turns out as the weather fairies say, we may go for a walk.