After Wordle and Spelling Bee were done, the day was our own.
But first, even before Wordle, there was a big cardboard box to open, and inside as … another big cardboard box. Inside that was the usual amount of bumf you get when you buy something fairly expensive. “READ ME FIRST” was on the first page, so that was put to the side to read later. Next the inevitable expanded polystyrene to unpack and crumble into the carpet, then more bumf to read at a later date and finally the food processor was revealed in all its shiny plastic glory. Oh yes, and we got a recipe book, not an app to download and install on our phone, but an honest to goodness recipe book and a hard back one to boot! We might read that later, mainly because it didn’t scream at us “READ ME FIRST”!
While Scamp went into the kitchen to wash all the bowls and the lethal looking cutters and slicers, I read through some of the paperwork and some of the recipes. It’s amazing the variety of breads, cakes and soups you can make in one of these clever devices. I may even attempt some of them sometime.
Satisfied that all the washable bits had been washed and dried and after reading the recipe book and completing Wordle and Spelling Bee, Scamp suggested we go out to lunch as we’d planned at The Bothy just outside Stirling. As usual these days we were handed a buzzer and told to browse round the shop. Not long afterwards our buzzer buzzed. I did quite fancy the Mushroom and Bacon Carbonara on the ‘specials’ board, but inevitably I ordered the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry and Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese as I suspected. Two coffees to wash it down and two ginormous Cream Donuts to take home in a box.
Scamp was looking for another rose, but not for us this time and she wanted a pot to replant “Harley” the Harlequin Berberis we thought we’d lost in the June heatwave. It’s not quite recovered its variegation yet, but maybe once it’s repotted it will regain its colour. We drove round the outskirts of Stirling to Dobbies, but they had none of the rose variety she was looking for. We did get a heather plant to replace one that had died in June, a pop-up bin for the garden and a packet of basil seeds for me to plant.
I thought there was just a chance that we’d find the rose in Calders in Cumbersheugh, so we went there on our way home. Scamp knows one of the gardeners and she asked him if he had any and thankfully he had. A bit of local knowledge goes a long way, and it’s a true saying “It’s now what you know, but who you know. A quick visit to Tesco on the way home and we were done, or nearly.
I hadn’t a photo of the day so far, so back home I got my boots out and took the A6500 out with the big clumsy 105mm macro lens and in about an hour I took 130 photos. Most were rubbish, but I did capture a male Common Darter dragonfly. I’ve been keeping a careful eye on the battery performance of the new camera and it’s actually almost within the parameters that are advertised for it, so not such a big problem as I initially thought.
That was a good day. Weather wasn’t all that good, but it stayed dry all day. Scamp’s off to get her nails done again. I’m hoping to do an Auld Guys coffee morning tomorrow with Val and Fred.