Old Friends – 29 August 2022

We didn’t do much in the morning, but the afternoon was full.

In the morning I saw the “Washing machine is ready to go” message when I went down to make the breakfast, so I switched it on. After breakfast Scamp wanted to go out for messages and I wanted to give my bike the once over, because I’m intending taking it out on Friday with a little bit of luck. The tyres are flat, but what state the inner tubes will be in, I don’t know. I might get round to that tomorrow, but today Scamp returned and saved me from getting my hands dirty.

After lunch I suggested we go for a walk. My offerings were Drumpellier, Auchinstarry for the Forth and Clyde canal or a more gentle Colzium. Drumpellier was our choice, so off we went.

As usual we walked anti-clockwise round the loch, then into the woods, taking it in turns to decide which road to take at each split in the path. It was a really warm day with a bit of cloud cover. We were just coming out of the woods when I saw a woman pushing an older woman in a wheelchair and recognised her voice. It was Morag from school and the older woman was her mum. We met up with her husband just a bit further along the road. We must have stood there for easily three quarters of an hour, just catching up and talking about folk we’d worked with. Funnily enough John and I had done exactly the same thing on Friday night. Morag has gone back to teaching again for half a week after having retired! I don’t know why people do that. Surely they are just taking jobs away from up and coming teachers who really need a job. I’m perfectly happy being retired and being able to live my own life. I’m sure Scamp would say the same thing, even if I do get in the way a lot of the time. We eventually said our “goodbyes” and we strode off, because the ice cream van was beckoning!

Just after getting the cones, I saw the opportunities of a photo with the swans. I handed my cone to Scamp and took a couple of photos of the birds. They weren’t too happy to see me and started hissing, as swans do, probably because I’d woken them up from their afternoon snooze. Two shots was all I risked, then caught up with Scamp again and we scoffed the ice cream, then drove home.

Two photos isn’t really enough for me. I kept my walking boots on and took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s where I got another sleepy dragonfly and back in the garden, a bi-coloured dahlia. Strange thing. Most of the flowers on the plant are pale pink, spotted with dark red. Some are plain red, but this one was half and half. Some sort of throwback perhaps. All are available on Flickr, but the swans got PoD.

While I was out, Scamp had been cutting the back garden grass. Hopefully that will be her finished for the year. Depending on the weather, the grass might need one more cut, but equally it might be good enough as it is,

Rather a good Pasta Carbonara tonight using Val’s Italian recipe with two full eggs and one extra yolk, but no cream. Apparently that’s how carbonara should be made.

Tomorrow we’re booked for coffee with Isobel in the morning. The rest of the day is our own.

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