Tag: Scotland

Posted on

dear diary ~ space clearing

It’s been a while, it’s also been quite frantic here and as usual it’s been stressful and joyful in equal quantities….well almost, perhaps a little more on the stress and a little less of the joy!

I just thought I would pop by as I can’t believe it is the latter part of February already and I have only completed a few tasks on my long, long to do list. I decided that the beginning of the new year called for a major declutter in our house to regain some lost space. I intend for this mad clear out to also include the loft, shed and garage….though at the moment it is far too cold to be in any of those places for any length of time.

I am hoping it is a case of it will get worse before it gets better as the whole house is in a mess now with piles everywhere destined for charity or recycle or a friend or craft group. Hardly anything is rubbish, very little has gone in the bin – it just needs rehoming…. either at my house or hopefully someone elses.

As I go through every drawer and cupboard, every box and bookshelf I am finding that as I remove more and more I am loving the space and it is becoming much easier to part with things.

After Christmas I sorted through all the decorations before I packed them away and took a bag full down to the charity shop – I have found as time goes on I am putting out fewer and fewer decorations each year.

I did have a box full of lovely cards that friends have handmade for me over the years – I picked out the best and then photographed the remainder before putting them in the recycle. Such a shame but I can’t keep everything.

Christmas seems a long time ago now. We had a large family gathering at my sister’s house for Christmas dinner and we managed to get my mum there too though the one little step at the front door was quite a challenge for her.

The grandchildren were busy before Christmas making their traditional place name cards which were wonderfully decorated and have now gone into my keepers box with the others.

I even managed to make a few cards myself and had a bit of a production line going one day. Thank heavens for rubber stamps as they are quick and easy to use when I run out of time to do my own lino cut.

Since Christmas it hasn’t been all work and no play…. during January we celebrated Master Freddie’s 5th birthday (at one of those ear splitting play gyms with a party room) and my mum’s 98th birthday – a much quieter affair. The weekend after her birthday my sister and her husband took mum out to a posh hotel for a meal during which mum suddenly stopped eating and went unconscious at the table – her head slumped but her eyes remained wide open staring ahead and they could not get a flicker of a response from her for over 10 minutes, it was only the fact that they could detect a faint pulse that they knew she hadn’t actually died! During this time my sister got reception to call for help – they wouldn’t send an ambulance – obviously not thought urgent enough but passed her over to a 111 person who asked my sister a load of questions to establish mums condition.

Eventually, mum finally rowsed and started talking as if nothing had happened and finished her meal – she didn’t even realise anything had happened. The 111 person then ended the call as they thought she sounded OK and said they would refer her to her GP who did actually go and see her next day and take some blood tests. The results showed a blood abnormality but the GP said they would not do anything because of her age – so far she is a write off then and so far no-one knows why she went unconscious for so long!

For her birthday I bought her one of those large button TV remote controls as she was having difficulty changing the channels with the tiny buttons on hers and was always pressing the wrong thing. She had been intent on getting a new TV just to get a different remote (her mind works in a mysterious way these days) even though I told her it would not be any different to what she already had. The new remote has been wonderful – it has fewer buttons for her to press so she can’t press something she didn’t intend to and end up on the shopping channel or mute it by accident and best of all she doesn’t get it muddled up with the telephone anymore either and try to call me on it.

So far this month we have spent a good deal of time researching a new but used car for my daughter. It is unknown territory for us as we have only been used to new ones – DH had a company car and we always saved up to buy my small car outright and traded in the older one in part exchange. The big question was who do you trust …..we do not know much about cars to buy at one of these auction sites or from a private individual so we resorted to a local Kia dealer as that was the make she wanted with the 7 year warranty….or as in her case the remaining years of a 7 year warranty.

After two days of trawling websites and a spreadsheet to capture all the information we fnally found one that ticked all the boxes at Perry’s in Rotherham. It was a 2020 reg with only 11,000 miles and one owner. It looked like new with good quality Michelin tyres hardly worn. We took her and the girls down last Saturday to pick it up. It is a long story but she had only driven it for 14 minutes along the M1 northbound when we got a call from her saying mum I have broken down!!!!

It was no joke.

Whilst driving the tyre pressure sensor suddenly came on the dashboard at the same time as the rear passenger side tyre blew and went completely flat. She couldn’t even make it to the next exit to get off the motorway.

Of course she rang her breakdown company but they had failed to mention that by switching the cover from her old car to the new one there was no immediate cover and it would not kick in until the next day.

Perry’s in Rotherham could not recover the car but they gave me a number to ring for a local recovery man. Imran came to the rescue – he was so lovely and got my daughters car on his breakdown truck and off the motorway so he could swap the wheel for the emergency one in the boot – that was the first expense of £200.

The next day my daughter got the tyre examined at our local Halfords – it had a few holes in it and one still had a visible nail head embeded in it. Halfords showed her where a nail must have popped out when she was driving and had been the cause of the sudden flat. On examination it was found that the tyre had already had a repair in the past so it had to be a new one – another expense of £99 ….luckily only the one was needed as the other rear tyre was like new.

It is yet another mystery as my daughter did not notice anything on the road at the time and had only been on a normal A road before getting onto the motorway – she had not been down any rough tracks. Once my daughter is back from her holiday Perry’s are going to look in to it but as it is a punctured tyre I expect there will be no come back on them.

We are now in Scotland to rest and recover for a few days and where I can plot and plan for more space clearing when I get home. I have brought some bits and pieces to do up here along with my knitting in the hope of finishing baby Chocolates little hooded jacket.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying 2024 – many apologies to anyone coming over on the 15th for the ScrapHappy Challenge I will try my best to show something for March, and welcome to new readers – as you will have realised by now my blog posts are a bit hit and miss!

How is your new year going so far this year?

Posted on

beaching ~ homeward bound

Our time at the cottage came to an end, as it inevitably does, all too soon with many gardening tasks left unfinished or not even started but we just have to accept we do what we can in the time available.

Of course in hindsight travelling home on a Bank Holiday Monday was not the best of ideas but one borne out of the fact that our half way overnight stop in Carlisle at the Premier Inn was so much cheaper on the Sunday night.

It was exceptionally busy, both in the hotel and on the roads.

Once I am orientated towards home I suddenly get a longing to be back and reacquainted with all my own things, especially my bed, so we didn’t have a leisurely trip down this time. We left Carlisle at about 10am and as we neared the top of the Lakes the traffic had increased considerably but no queues had formed and we seemed to keep rolling. Our main stop was when we pulled off the M6 at junction 36 (Crooklands Interchange) and headed for Burton in Kendal, hoping to find a cafe for a drink.

A very interesting village with some grand architecture which I thought had quite a French influence in style.

Some interesting street names too.

Sadly, the little village only has a shop with a coffee machine and no tea, the Kings Arms is presently closed for a refurb and the main road through was like a race track and parking non-existent for visitors……I took a few pictures on a quick walk around – it is a long drawn out village and halfway along we decided to cut the exploration short and never made it as far as the church as the noise level of the through traffic drove us back to the car and we moved on ending up at the notorious Lancaster motorway services with a hundred other fellow travellers lunching at Costa. The queue for service was long and the vegetarian selection limited but luckily we managed to grab the very last two mushroom, egg and spinach baps to tide us over – but again with all the noise and grubby tables we didn’t stay long.

Once we arrived home and unpacked I realised how exhausted I was but a quick walk to our village was necessary to pick up some fresh milk and rolls. We came across the end of the village Scarecrow Trail and stopped here and there to admire the ‘Royal’ scarecrows.

The ‘quick walk’ took much longer than we thought and once back home again I prepared a nourishing lentil and leek stew for tea and then relaxed in front of the TV for a while….promptly falling asleep while the tea cooked itself on the hob.

I promised pictures of the cottage garden. As we left many plants had grown over the fortnight we had stayed there and were just about to bloom. The ferns had grown so much in height unfurling as they go.

I was surprised at how many primulas had sneaked up around the pond as I thought we had lost a lot under the heavy leaf fall from the sycamore it lies beneath – they might be a spectacular sight that we will miss by our next visit.

Looking down from the lane it all looks under control but believe me in a garden like this with the wild flowers like red campion and blue alkanet poised and ready to invade nothing is under my control….we only manage it.

This is the view from below looking up toward the lane – doesn’t look so good now from this view does it!!

DH has still to finish the staging – but it was never going to be this visit and I had to content myself by removing as many of the overgrown wild planting of campion, buttercups, alkanet, some extremely viscious nettles and the straggling goosegrass, as I could – uncovering the few actual plants that had not been nudged out or given up. It was a place I didn’t get to weed last year and the results are always the same – the invaders move in swiftly.

These old terracotta drainage pipes I use for herbs. I had to clear them of the old ones as they had become huge and woody. The rosemary had reached 5 feet with a four foot root and had lost the will to live – probably through exhaustion a couple of years ago and no amount of pruning back encouraged it back to its former state. It is a sheltered and sunny and spot by the conservatory and the open ended drainage pipes act as a deep rooted bed and the soil here is very fertile so I will set some herb seeds at home and plant fresh ones again this year.

The solomon’s seal is one of my favourite plants in the lower wood and they continue to spread and march along quietly interspersed now with the bluebells – well, unfortunately they are the Spanish variety set by the previous owner and there is no hope of ever getting rid of them to replant with the English variety so I just have to tolerate them – but they look equally as beautiful at this time of year covering the wood floor.

I left a little patriotic contribution to the Coronation celebrations next week.

The dicentras are spreading nicely again and the white have now merged with the pink.

The cherry tree keeps going – it needs attention too but we keep thinking it will not survive much longer – it must be getting on for 50 years old, has some form of hard fungus at the bottom of the trunk and has had to undergo some rather extreme pruning in its time but it merrily carries on flowering each year although the striking pink candyfloss that looms up over the weeping larch is not as abundant as it once was.

The tale of our latest confrontations with the new site owner will be told another day. As always it tainted our visit somewhat – my head says to leave but my heart is still drawn to our little tumble down cottage with its wild garden looking out over the sea.

Posted on

meandering ~ Portpatrick

We took some time out on Thursday to go over to Portpatrick, a little harbour village known locally as the Port. It was an overcast and grey day with a cool wind coming off the Irish sea. The fields were full of baby lambs of various sizes and markings – these playful ones came to the fence when we stopped the car to look at them.

Very little was open but we had a look in the Smuggler’s Cove and the Lifeboat shop. I always try to buy at least a card from them – the lifeboats are mainly funded through donations and every little helps.

We had our picnic lunch of homemade mushroom soup and fresh rolls in the car (the only warm place) and afterwards braved a walk around the harbour and then along the back roads past the putting green and eventually coming out again on the main road.

We headed for the old parish church, abandoned long ago in 1842 and now just a ruin, and situated on the north side of St Patrick Street in the centre of the village. Strangely the church is dedicated to Saint Andrew rather than Saint Patrick and was built in 1628-29 to serve the newly created Portpatrick parish. The building is in a cruciform or Greek cross plan and may be the earliest cruciform church in Galloway.

The adjacent graveyard continued to be used for burial until the later 19th century when it was replaced by the New Cemetery on Portree Terrace. Below must be one of the earliest graves.

I am always drawn to this little forgotten church as the graveyard is full of relatives on the maternal side of DH (who was born in Stranraer – the nearby town) and whose family are of the Kerr clan and lived throughout the area. They are said to be left handed and their clan towers had circular staircases that spiralled in an anti-clockwise direction rather than the usual clockwise.

The warlike Clan Kerr trained to use their weapons with their left hands. Scottish Poet James Hogg (1770-1835) wrote, in The Raid of the Kerrs:

But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none

and Walter Laidlaw wrote, in The Reprisal:
So well the Kerrs their left-hands ply
The dead and dying round them lie

And if you are wondering DH is right handed but two of the grandchildren are quite markedly left handed – maybe skipped a generation.

Many of the graves contain a whole family of people and at the top of the gravestone it gives the length and breadth of the plot.

On close inspection there are numerous spelling mistakes and whole words left out like on this one where the actual length is omitted.

I love this gravestone that resembles a doorway into a secret garden. At the moment the grass is covered in a sea of bluebells – who wouldn’t want their soul to rest here.

We continued along the North Crescent – GR postboxes are quite rare to find and this one warns of a revised collection times. Thankfully it is still in use – I always think it is so sad to see them in disuse with a piece of wood blocking off the posting slot.

And of course no visit is complete without taking a photo of my favourite little house beside the harbour lighthouse. I just love the striking colours and brightly painted wooden shutters that protect against the raging winter sea.

We have spent most of our time in the garden whilst the weather has been good but there has been a change today with some heavy showers and quite a damp feeling. There have been days when it has felt like hard labour and we are now ready for a rest. It is almost time for us to pack up and leave and we will of course miss so many of the plants about to burst forth. We have had upsets too from the new owner of the little caravan site beside us – it is becoming all too frequent now – but more about that later when I put some pictures on another day of the work we have done.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and welcome to all my new followers. xx

Posted on

beaching ~ the rhythm of the waves

I have been embracing my time here and the slow quiet days listening to the rhythmic sound of the breaking waves; it has been something akin to a retreat, which in hindsight we both needed. Our days have been interspersed with hard physical work too in the garden (but only as hard as my back allows, though it has stood up to the constant bending and stetching quite well – there is hope on the horizon it may be going in a positive direction).

It is only when I am away from a situation that I can appreciate the fact that my life has become far removed from any natural daily rhythm and I often feel that I have just got through a day rather than enjoyed it and in turn this becomes quite unsettling and I feel rather out of step with the world.

Changes, I think, need to be made.

Away from the hussle and bustle and demands of daily life back at home I have been able to spend time just thinking. Seeing life from a different angle and pondering on what changes might prove useful. Having time just to sit and be is as hard as it is rewarding.

During our time here there has been plenty of nurturing food – homemade soups, bean stew and lentil curry – we are still enjoying warming foods and not quite ready yet for the start of the salad season. So even though an odd biscuit may have slipped into my hand at elevenses, generally our diet has been good but I am still niggled with one or two health problems – sleep (too much at the wrong times) and a lack of vitality. In other words I seem to be lacking well-being rather than having any major illness.

During our downtime I have been listening to podcasts, mainly interviews with leading UK consultants and GP’s who are passionately trying to convey their take on well-being which is now backed up by science. It is heartening to know there are so many small changes we can make for ourselves to keep healthier, and equally disheartening that many GP’s still just want to offer the quick fix pill that will only relieve the symptoms and not investigate the cause.

Anyway, I have learnt a lot and as I am fast approaching seventy which I see as a kind of threshold when the illnesses of older age can take hold and from which there is no return, I want to do all I can to delay such health problems from creeping in. There is no doubt that once you hit 65 many of our bodily functions struggle more – we lose muscle tone and muscle, our energy seems to deplete rapidly, bending stretching and balance becomes more difficult and we may start to suffer with hearing and vision impairment, high blood pressue and so much more.

I am already planning on implementing some of the suggestions from the podcasts which I will share with you as I go along. Some may prove beneficial others not so.

Today we will have the pleasure of a visit from the ‘tree people’ contracted to Scottish Power who take care of the power lines and make sure that no tree branches are in the way. Such a visit will always guarantee a rise in my blood pressure as it is never an easy time with them; rather than dealing with professional tree surgeons we find that they just prefer to get out their chain saws and get on with the job cutting off limbs here and there as they think best and leave you with a very misshapen tree and a pile of shredding! We always have the ‘is it really necessary’ conversation to try and preserve what we can but in the end these people want to hack off as much as possible so they don’t have to have so many return visits.

Having a piece of woodland is not as wonderful as I once thought.