19000 steps

Yesterday we mostly went walking

In the morning we walked around the loch out the front of Paul and Carol's place. We were accompanied for part of the way by one of the local border collies who came to say hello and then came along just for fun. 

In the afternoon we went to a headland and walked through wildflower meadows and then back along the cliff tops

All in all yesterday my pedometer counted 19000 steps. 

It's just as well we don't have walking plans for today!

The view from the kitchen yesterday evening:

And this morning:

The history of the world in an afternoon

I am not really "collecting" Shipping Forecast areas, inshore waters and coastal stations. Not as such. But I do seem to have gathered quite a lot of them while I have been living in the UK. So when I realized that we were close to quite a remote coastal station I asked if it might be possible to go and look at Stornoway.

It's the largest town on the Isles of Lewis and Harris. I believe it has a population of about 9000. And it's quite cute. It's about an hour and a half from Paul and Carol's place. It has a large supermarket, several shops, a harbour, a castle - lots of things to amuse you. So we pottered about looking at it. We went to one of those shops that is filled with all sorts of things that you didn't know you needed until you went in so that Paul and Carol could get some wood for a new gate.

Then we went off to "do" the history of humanity in an afternoon!

We visited the Callanish Standing Stones, where we had lunch. The Builder and I had steak and ale pies which we had to wait some time for. But they were well worth the wait. Beautifully soft meat. After visiting the stones we went on to the Doune Broch and to the Norse Mill and Kiln and then finally to the Blackhouse Village. We drove around some spectacular countryside and were remarkably lucky with the weather. It was a great afternoon.

Paul's sister Ruth happened to be nearby this week. She's been doing a quilting course in a little hamlet not far from the Blackhouse Village. So we dropped round after her course had finished for the afternoon and scooped her up and we all headed back to Stornoway for an early dinner at HS-1 which managed to accommodate all of our various food allergies and requirements. I had one of the nicest local seafood plates that I've had in a very long time.

And then we took Ruth back to her holiday apartment in the middle of nowhere and mosied on back to Harris. All in all it was a great day

The Western Isles

We got up on Monday morning, had breakfast and then headed to the supermarket for supplies for the week. There's a railway station in Fort William. At the station we saw this

Alas, there was no time to go for a ride. We had a different ride waiting for us on the far side of Skye. We were booked onto the 2.30 ferry from Uig to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris.

The Skye Bridge

I have long pondered the actual existence of puffins. People assured me that puffins existed. I had never seen one. I would go to places where puffins were alleged to hang out. No puffins. People showed me photos. But I have seen photos of dragons so that wasn't evidence. Puffins on the Telly? Probably CGI. I have never seen a real live puffin. I believe them to be mythical creatures.

There were LOTS of puffins in the waters around the ferry. I think they must exist after all :-D

We misplaced the sunshine yesterday. Instead the weather was rainy and misty. That didn't deter us. We went into Tarbert for a little explore. We went to a sandy beach for a stroll. We visited a friend of Paul and Carol in his art gallery. We pottered around. We watched sheep and seabirds and seals in the waters at the back of the house. It was a good day.

It's windy this morning and it has been raining but it looks as though it might be clearing up a bit. We are off to Stornaway shortly, collecting bits of the Shipping Forecast

Walking on the misty Luskentyre beach

Rushing about

I got home from work on Friday to find that The Vixen had (more or less) been repaired.  There are one or two things that need doing but they can wait until we get back.  But at least she is now driveable which made the weekend a whole lot easier.

Nevertheless there was still much to be done.

The sun was shining brightly so The Undergardener donned a hat and headed out to pick more soft fruit.  It is unfortunate that we seem to be getting massive crops of soft fruit just as we are about to head off for ten days. I made things ready for the freezer. We organised and did things and remembered to have dinner and rushed about a bit more.

We did some more rushing on Saturday morning until Tabitha, Gareth and Cally arrived to pick up some keys to our place (what have they done with their set, I wonder?) and then we headed off to do our stint at Bishops' House for the afternoon.  It had turned into a lovely afternoon and we had lots of visitors.  After we went to Freyja's place in Nether Green, packed up our car with her stuff and took her and the stuff (but not Simon who was going over on his bike) to their beautiful new house in Woodseats, not far from T,G&C's place. They will, eventually, when it's ready, have the bedroom in the attic with its absolutely spectacular view over Sheffield and beyond to the hills and moors. A trip to Trsco and then fish and chips outside on the patio with perhaps a glass or two of wine.

And so to Sunday.  We were ready to leave at 8.15 and made our way to Paul and Carol's place, where we transferred our belongings and ourselves into their car.  Paul drove us up to Scotch Corner then across to Penrith, where we stopped to fill the car and take a coffee break.  Thence up past Glasgow and Loch Lomond, round and up through Glencoe (our house's official name is Glencoe ) and so on to Fort William, pausing for a late lunch at a fish and chip shop which is certified by the Coeliacs Association and does gluten free fish and chips, plus has a tasty vegetarian menu. I had wondered why we had driven and drive. And drive. And driven, well past lunch time to get to this place. All became clear once we got there!

And now we are in the Premier Inn in Fort William. It's a nice little place (the town, not the Inn, though that is perfectly pleasant too!). We went for a walk after dinner yesterday evening, down to the loch and around.  There's a seafood restaurant down by the loch and below that there were two young otters having a meal of some fish that someone had thrown onto some steps leading down into the water.  That was a real treat.  You very seldom see otters in the wild!

Marlo was very suspicious when we left yesterday with one of our big suitcases. That usually indicates that we are going to be away for weeks. I wonder if he will be surprised when we get back next Monday. And in the meantime he has Cally to play with for most of this week

Fort William

  

Oops

We got in the car this morning so The Chauffeur could take me to the coach station.  And an alarm sounded.  A message appeared on the dashboard. "Brake fluid exhausted.  Do not proceed. Brake fluid exhausted. Do not proceed. Brake fluid......." until The Chauffeur turned the engine off.

Now, you don't want to be driving with exhausted brake fluid, so I ambled off in the lovely early morning sunshine to the local bus stop and took the bus into town, leaving The Chauffeur in his guise as The Builder alone at home, pondering

The bus trip in itself was fairly exciting.  The main road was closed for some reason when you got closer into town and the bus had to turn off and go along a load of back roads - including some that I have not been along before, because they are bus roads only and I have never previously been on a bus that need to use them.

I had, of course, by the time the local bus got into town missed my usual bus into Sheffield, so I wandered from the bus stop by the church down to the coach station. There is a closer stop but why stand about waiting for half an hour when you can have a lovely stroll in the sunshine?  From my point of view it was all good.

Not so good from a longer term point of view.  The Builder had a dentist appointment in town this morning at 9:15.  That wasn't such a problem.  He too could take a bus.  But we are due to be at Bishops' House tomorrow afternoon.  We probably could do it by bus but we have other plans as well that make the buses not quite so convenient.  The biggest worry was that we are supposed to be in Loxley at 9:00 on Sunday morning.  Can't do that by bus, though I suppose taxi would be an option. But Nick, our mechanic, has been moonlighting repairing post vans lately.  We weren't sure if he would be able to look at our car between now and Sunday morning.

Fortunately for us, he was able.  And The Vixen is now in his hands, hopefully having her brake fluid replaced.  And the leak which had exhausted the brake fluid repaired.  I am told that there is brake fluid all over our drive, instead of in the Vixen's brake system where it should be.

One more afternoon at work to go.  Then I have 11 days off.  All being well we are off with Paul and Carol for a week in their house in Harris, in the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides).  It's very exciting. I've never been to any of the Scottish Islands (unless you count the tiny Inch in the Firth of Forth, where Ian, Lindsey and I went for a picnic lunch when we were staying in Edinburgh in 2009).  I do not, however, think we are due any of the lovely, sunny, warm, summery weather that we have been enjoying in Chesterfield and Sheffield this week. Must pack jumpers!

End of last week

From my perspective, the rest of the week proceeded in a calm and orderly manner.  There were, from my point of view, no excitements or alarms.  All was well - apart from the fact that I need a new favourite pub.

Mostly, over the past few days, the sun has shone and the weather has been balmy.  Apart from Sunday when it poured more or less all day, until about 4 pm when it was much too late to do anything useful with the glorious sunshine!

The new (toy) dog now has a name.  Lindsey suggested that we call her Martha but that didn't seem quite right.  Then it came to me that Molly was an excellent name for her.  I know it seems ridiculous to say this about a soft toy, but she is looking much happier than she did when she arrived.  This might be because she has fluffed up after being squashed, lost in a package for several days.  Or, of course, she may just like us :-)

Molly, enjoying the sunshine and some iPad time

I took some photos of the garden over the weekend.  It looks magnificent in the photos.  Ian called it "abundant".  I would say "rampant".  We have rescued two of the brick paths but the diagonal one across the middle of the flower beds has vanished altogether.  (I know that it's there; we're away next week but when we get back I shall rescue it properly).  The biggest issue is the bindweed which is rampaging through the beds and which I just can't get rid of.  I think we may need to resort to chemical warfare.  The under-Gardener is going to try cutting it off down to the ground so we can see what we are doing and then we'll napalm it when it starts to grow back.

Newly planted potatoes in boxes, seaside daisies and a small bay tree on the patio

Summer flowers

Rampant abundance

I made a big pot of Japanese style vegetable curry for Sunday lunch.  Even after we had had healthy servings of it you couldn't tell that we had been at it.  We had more last night.  I have set some aside for The Builder's dinner tonight.  And then I portioned the rest out into freezer boxes.  There are five, FIVE, double portions of vegetable curry in the freezer awaiting our attention!!!

So, as I say, from my perspective the week ended in a tolerably happy fashion.  It was slightly more chaotic at work (My poor colleague has had a massive headache trying to sort out the teaching schedule for an enormous crowd of Chinese students who are here for the summer).  But we won't worry about that now.  The sun is shining.  It's a glorious day.  And it's my last Japanese class tonight before the summer break.  I must make a much better effort this summer to do some studying and revision.  I didn't get around to doing any last summer and had forgotten everything when classes resumed in late September :-S

In the meantime, Tabitha, Gareth, Cally, Nate and Duncan went to the footy on Saturday afternoon. It appears that there is a little known Sheffield Aussie Rules club which plays occasional matches

Aussie Rules footy in Sheffield

Footy photos courtesy Tabitha

Mid-week - and things are looking up

... no thanks to Hermes, the delivery company, who have finally got back in touch and admitted that they can't find my parcel and here's a link to the claim form for compensation.

I can't say that I am in the least bit tempted to use this firm, should I ever find it needful to courier anything around the country. I was rather disappointed with the service and the response to my enquiries about my package's whereabouts.

At some point in the middle of yesterday evening, I went to put some things in the recycling bin in the driveway.  I was a bit surprised to find a black bin bag sitting next to it.  Neither The Builder nor I would leave black bags filled with stuff in the driveway.  I picked it up - and inside it was my package!!! I assume that the people to whom it had been wrongly delivered had looked up the postcode and dropped it round.  I wish they had rung the doorbell or knocked on the door.  I would have liked to thank them.

So my new Old English Sheepdog has arrived.  She is very, very cute, but I don't think she'll do as a substitute for Farley.  She's HUGE!  Much, much bigger than I had been expecting.

Here is Farley:

and here is the new dog

As I say - cute but huge.  I don't think I can carry her in my small backpack! But she needs a name ...

Now all I need is for Marcus and Sanford to have second thoughts and to re-open The Nettle and the week will end perfectly.  Alas - I don't think that is going to happen

The week is showing signs of improvement

Tuesday was, more or less, OK.

I took an hour or so in the middle of the day, abandoned my desk and wandered in the sunshine up to the Blue Moon cafe, where I met my cousin Penny for lunch.  We haven't seen each other for absolutely ages and it was good to catch up.  She is looking very well and things seem to be good for her and her family.  It was also good to hear that Joan (who hadn't been at all well when we joined her for her birthday celebrations late last December) has settled into her nursing home quite well and now has more good days than bad ones. So that was nice. It was not a bad lunch, either.

I usually bring the car into work on Tuesdays - I go to Japanese classes in the evening and having the car with me makes it much easier getting home after.  On Monday morning and evening the traffic was absolutely dreadful in the city centre. There were problems on one of the roads and the knock on effect was amazing.  So yesterday I made sure I left home in the morning a little earlier than I usually do.  This time there were no dire traffic problems - and I was in the office, eating my muesli by around 7:30!!  The traffic wasn't too bad in the evening either.

I had a lot of remembering to do yesterday evening, if all was to go according to The Plan:

• I left work a tiny bit earlier than I usually do and remembered to take with me the bundle of flattened-down boxes that Freyja wanted  :-)
• I remembered to go to Waitrose to pick up my shopping, which I had ordered online last week.
• I stopped in the Waitrose cafe for a cup of tea and a sandwich.  This was an addition to The Plan
• I remembered to go to my Japanese class.
• I even remembered, after the class, to take the boxes to Freyja's place.  I went up through Broomhill, Ranmoor and Nether Green simply because I hadn't been out that way for absolutely ages.
• I remembered how to get to Freyja's place from that direction (we usually come the other way).  

It was all good.  I even managed to hold my own in the Japanese "conversation" in the class.

I haven't heard anything yet from the delivery people about my parcel :-S

I did, however, get a reply from Marcus at The Nettle to my text message offering commiserations and thanks for many delicious hours in his company, so at least I have found him (and, by extension, Sanford).

It's quite fun unpacking a grocery order which you put in several days ago. I had forgotten exactly what I had asked for. I was certainly surprised to find a simply massive quantity of fresh ginger.  I had inadvertently ordered 1000g instead of 100g.  A kilo of fresh ginger takes up quite a bit of room!!

This week has not started well ...

... I think I might just go back to bed and start the week all over again!

I decided last week that I would keep an eye on eBay and see if my Farley ever turned up for sale (so far, he hasn't). But while I was there I ran across a fluffy Old English Sheepdog soft toy of roughly the same size and colour as Farley and decided that it would probably do as a temporary substitute while I wait for the FBoFW online shop to come back in July.  It was dispatched via a courier service which gave me a tracking number, and I tracked the parcel through its journey until the tracking website said that it had been delivered and "left in a secure place".

I thought this was a bit odd because I knew that The Builder was at home waiting for the parcel, but assumed that the delivery person had popped the parcel in the porch without bothering to ring the doorbell.  I sent The Builder a message.  "There is no parcel here," said he.  Hmmm.  Odd.  Not only was there no parcel but there was also no delivery notice.  Maybe the delivery person had made a mistake and put it through the letter box next door.  It's not unusual for people to get 2 Bridge Street and 2 Queen Vic Street mixed up.  But no. No package was delivered to either house to the sides of us.

I contacted the delivery company.  Yes, they said.  The parcel has been delivered and left in your safe place.  We don't have a safe place with that company.  We have never used it previously.  The person I was speaking to said it would have to go to the Investigation Team for an, err, investigation.  In the meantime, The Builder wondered whether it might have been delivered to Bridge Street in Chesterfield, so he came and met me at the coach station after work and we dropped by to see.  Alas, there was no one home.  So my package is missing and I hope that the Investigation Team gets to the bottom of it.  If it's gone to the wrong Bridge Street, the delivery person was paying no attention AT ALL to the postcode.  The big advantage of the British long and complicated postcodes is that they are very specific to a small number of addresses and should point you precisely to where you need to be.  2 Queen Vic's postcode is slightly different to ours.  The postcode of Bridge Street in Chesterfield is vastly different.



Then the week took a significant turn for the worse :-(

On Saturday we were driving out to the Marsh Green Farm Shop - quite early for us; we usually get there late morning and this was a little before 10:00.  As we drove past The Nettle I noticed that there was a sign on the side door.  There was a sign on the front door as well.  The sign said in large letters CLOSED, and then there was more writing underneath that I couldn't read.  We assumed they were closed for the weekend, or for a holiday or whatever and decided that we wouldn't after all go there for lunch on Saturday :-D  Yesterday I was moved to wonder how long they were going to be closed for and went to look at their website.  Their website was gone !!!!!  I tried again.  No.  Still gone :-S  So I investigated a little more and found that it has, in fact, closed for good. ;-(  Places like Trip Advisor had been muttering about the proposed closure for about 6 weeks.  But, of course, I hadn't had any reason to go looking at The Nettle's presence in any of the forums so hadn't noticed it.  And it's about 6 weeks since we were last in there.  We are very, very sad about its closure.  Partly because it is positively our most favourite pub ever, but mostly because we missed by only a few days the opportunity to say goodbye and thank you to Marcus and Sanford, who we are very fond of.  So thank you, to Marcus and to Sanford and to The Nettle for many celebrations, lots of very good food and many fun times.

Vale to a lovely little pub

There is no possible chance of it coming back as a pub under new ownership.  There is planning permission in place to turn it and its land into housing.  Sigh!

I must say that I am a bit worried about the health of the Marsh Green Farm Shop too.  I know we were there earlier on Saturday than is our usual habit, but the shop was very under-stocked with vegetables and bread, and the new fish counter has gone. It's hard to say whether we were just there before the delivery people had got there. But it's been quite quiet the last couple of times we've been in. Fingers crossed that our fears are misplaced. They have an extremely good butcher!

Greenwich

I had to go to a one day conference this week, which was based in Greenwich.  Central London is a fairly easy day trip from Sheffield or Chesterfield, but it would have been a bit of a push to have got to Greenwich in time for the start of the conference if I had gone down on Tuesday morning. So I went after work on Monday instead and stayed over.

And it was lovely.  The weather was glorious. The hotel I was staying in was a five minute walk from the river.  I pottered down past the Cutty Sark and had a lovely short wander along the Thames Path, and called in to Frankie and Benny's for steak and chips (very nice chips, I must say), before heading back to my room.

Cutty Sark

Sun setting over the Shard

It was a glorious day on Tuesday as well.  I enjoyed my commute to the day's "office"

Morning commute

The conference was in Queen Anne's Court at the University of Greenwich (in buildings formerly used by the Naval College).  A beautiful place for a conference

Morning tea time

Most people stayed inside for morning tea.
Why stay inside when you could come out and look at this?

Lunch time stroll

It was an interesting conference and a lovely day.

The only downer was that someone stole my dog from my backpack at London Bridge Underground station on Monday evening.  Only a toy dog, it's true - but MY toy dog. I was alerted when I heard a clatter behind me and someone ran up with my (brand new!!) water bottle and said it had fallen out of my backpack and did I realise that it was open?  I assumed that Farley was collateral damage and that the thief was after my wallet (not in the backpack - and of no use to anyone, there not being any money in it and only one credit card), or my phone (also not in the backpack but in a pocket that was difficult even for me to get into - also no money but a different credit card in the cover) or my iPad (safe in my suitcase and no resale value, it being an iPad 2).  Lindsey, however, has suggested that the thief probably was actually after Farley, who is extremely cute and obviously well made.  I shall have to keep an eye on eBay and see if he appears on there!  I have to admit that it hadn't ever crossed my mind that Farley might be stolen. Wallets and phones and things yes - and all properly secured - but not my toy dog.  I shall have to buy a new one.

Although that is proving to be more difficult than I had expected.  The shop in Canada where he came from is closed until July for a summer holiday.  And no Farleys seem to be available to buy either through Amazon or eBay (yet!) in the UK, America, Canada or Australia.  Clearly when you get a Farley, you hang onto it.  I'll have to wait patiently until July and order one then.

Farley has gone off on adventures without me

Still.  It could have been worse.  Imagine if I had had these two stolen from my backpack!!!

I wouldn't have dared come home!!!