Carrying on as usual

 Monday was gallery duty..I changed my route again slightly...no walking hills,  even small ones!!! So a decent time for the ride despite a stiff headwind. A big plus was just a small light shower half way and no real rain until after I had arrived!

A quiet day there due to the weather, until an hour to go...many people either take a quick look after arriving and return before they leave, or just come in at the end of their visit to the castle and park.

I was glad of the tailwind home!! Walking the sharp hills at the beginning and end of the ride...but I expected that!

Naturally nothing else gets done on a gallery day! And the following day is low key!!

Yesterday I'd tried to check bus times online...so confusing! 

A trip on the bus into town and the bus station sorted that..there is no longer a travel centre there. Sadly the nearest is Glasgow...but there is an enquiry window by the drivers' office. 

All sorted, information simply gathered.

A snack in the bookshop café..and home on the bus!

More fruit was gathered and frozen. The gooseberries are beginning to ripen at last!

Then a visit over the road with a present of a box of Alpine Strawberries..

I wonder why we call them that...but in French they are Fraises du Bois ? Woodland Strawberries....

A nice chat with neighbour and niece before home to make supper.

A quiet evening... and after a mainly grey day a soft sunset

Although when I happened to wake briefly at 3.30 am this morning...it was surprisingly light, although still lightly cloudy.

Rainy day

 Heavy showers passed north and south of here first thing this morning, and the wind was buffeting the trees..but then as forecast we got the first rain at 11. And it was very wet!! It carried on , off and on, all day and is still going as I go to bed at 10.15 pm..

Indoor jobs have been the order of the day.

Open freezing fruit then boxing it up so that it is easy to use a little or a lot.

Alpine strawberries, or in French Fraises du Bois - strawberries of the woods..

Potting on and pricking out seedlings in the greenhouse.

But mostly sewing. The patchwork is coming along.

One corner constructed

And about to be added to the central square.

I've done that now and I'm a quarter way to corner number two!

PS. 

Just carrying on with normal things while the unbelievable and indefensible happens.

Just an incredible sadness.

Year turning and planning

 

Beautiful roses...the first a delicate pink that fades to white..the second a Bourbon rose with a heavenly scent...Compte de Chambord, named for Napoleon Buonaparte's grandson.

I'm still picking a little fruit most days 

I'm going to leave the rest of the redcurrants for the blackbirds, and I've started on the blackcurrants...while the blackbirds have started on the Jostaberries, which have hardly started changing from green. I have a feeling that I won't be seeing many of them!

I've lifted half of the garlic crop, before the hot weather disappears ..We have rain forecast for tomorrow.

The sky seventy minutes before solstice...and then almost there..

This morning was quite hot...after a little fruit picking it was time for a bus trip to town...a little shopping.... actually buying clothes!! Not a lot...just a couple of things that will pack small for the French trip....and next week's trip to Wales by train will be a good test run!!

Goodbye friend

 https://youtu.be/F3QsZSUsgC0?si=hdhRU9W3Ck9V09oi

The funeral of a good friend today, and a beautiful celebration of his life.

He had been a heart transplant recipient many years ago...called his donor a hero....and after a cycling accident became a hero himself as his liver saved someone else.

The most generous and caring and helpful person...very much like Pirate...but twenty years younger...he was training hard for the World Transplant Games in Germany this year....

The celebration was broadcast globally....friends watching from all around...

He had been staying in Spain half every year, and his local bar there was full of friends there watching, and the local chip shop there was closed.

People were watching in every hospital where he had been treated over the years....

Plus friends he had made while competing everywhere when young, and after his transplant.

That is me going off the back...in front of the escorting police car..,driven by two police officers who are also cyclists.

And where the guard if honour is at the crematorium I'm the first on the left..being the last one in!

The drone couldn't operate by the crem as it was being attacked by a pair of Oystercatchers....their young were walking and flying around the grounds.

Gallery day and travelling

 No photos taken yesterday...

Changed routes there and back...and I must be getting fitter....took less time and didn't walk so many hills!

It did rain a little...but thankfully on the way home!!

I do need to ride and walk...but I'll be glad to get my car back!!

Let's hope the big national company has offered our local bus drivers a sensible deal...they are back driving...ballot on Friday.

Why can't they say, you do this job for us....these are the rates and conditions wherever you are? I understand what has always been called "London Weighting", a bit more in expensive cities....but....

Tuesday constructive

 

This rose was sown here by a bird..

And I've added a couple of small troughs of geraniums..they should look good once established. I sorted through all the pots in the back garden and emptied a few redundant ones.. . 

Yesterday was a slow start but things got done eventually.

Getting the old bits of inner tube working again!

And reviving the carpentry skills that dad taught me sixty years ago..and that youngest son refreshed with me twenty years or more ago!

There is a clay wedging bench in construction 

Old cycle wheel rim tape.. who knows where Pirate put the G clamps?!

Not the eventual top...but it is level and the legs stand straight.

The aerial peloton on their afternoon training flight..

And sunset at 10.15

Monday in bits

 Sunday dusk...

Beautiful sound, but really defending his territory!

A night of fitfull sleep....but a lovely day to follow. Three lots of washing through,dried, ironed and kept by mid afternoon!

A little more grass tidying and sorting of pots.  Catching up after the past couple of years.

A walk to the shop..tatties needed, and cash...I have a gallery duty on Wednesday and we carry our own float for change.

Any cash sales we pay into our own banks then transfer to that of the collective.

Finished off the day with some quilt sewing.

So not feeling the most rewarding or satisfying of days...but a lot of bits got done!

Sunday by bike and a garden surprise

 A local group had a club run this morning...I didn't get ready in time, but decided to ride down to the meeting place. This would give me an idea of how long before the meeting time to leave in future.

The twelve miles...just under 20km...took me 1 hour and 15 minutes....yes, I walked one hill....I need to get a lot stronger again and do more riding before I can keep up even with the slowest of them!!  I'll stick to riding out to the end of run coffee stop for now. At least I won't have to be up and out so early!!

As I was going past on the way home (I wasn't going to go back up the hills I'd rolled down!!) I packed my pannier bag and pockets with shopping...How can one run out of dark chocolate AND cheese on the same day?!

Then made my way to Ayr and headed out towards home... meeting an old club mate of Pirate's after crossing the main road south...he was just on his way home to Ayr..a brief catch-up and welcome stop! Before heading east on the bike path (glorified pavement...and only just wide enough to be called that in places!) turning off at the last village before the main turn off to home. That avoids a mile of busy road , not the easiest on a bike.

It is a little longer, but quieter. 

And the surprise....as I went to put the bike away, what was waiting in the greenhouse....

The courgette plants have started flowering! I've put them in bigger pots which probably prompted this...I need to decide where they will be planted!!

I haven't done much since the ride... apart from recover!! 

I am getting stronger... slowly...

Saturday, village walking..and a wet garden

 Wet after overnight rain...so even before it started again there was nothing I could do.

It isn't that big...just that most of the back is growing area....or sheds!

When I think what I left in Cwmcarn, it is decidedly small in comparison! That was a pair of skull size allotments, 100 x 22 feet....a shed at the bottom of one and a greenhouse at the bottom of the other...going down to a stream at the back, where The Carpenter built a bridge to the other bank!!

Anyhow..this is home now...

A wide angle lens is a help...but excuse the slight distortion.

Too wet to garden,,,but not for a walk....down Ladies Walk

A new estate at the bottom...

A mining village history 

More new houses...but just look at the pocket hankie of a garden...this is a semi-detached house 

This was the Welcome Inn..or rather the lefthand end of it...there is another semi you can see on the right, there will possibly be another two pairs behind it eventually 

One of the few original houses of the old village that are left..they even renamed the village Drongan...it was Taiglwm...after a farm which is still on the village outskirts 

The old smiddy.. still a workshop.

And the Wee Free church hall...now a house.

The local bar...not a pub or inn...

And it started raining before I got home!

Friday gardening

 Before..and after 

Finished just as a short shower arrived.

The Gean has fruit this year!...only about half a dozen, but it is a start.

The blackbirds have started on the currants. So I picked those nearly ripe...and the alpine strawberries. Birds don't do sharing..peck and run merchants!! I wouldn't mind so much if they did eat the fruit, but much id just spoiled and on the earth.

I'll get plums....this year, next year...?!!

Rosa Mundi. ( Blogger seems to have stretched the image,!)

Then the Clydeside sky at almost 10.30...what a difference a clear day makes!

Thursday

 Not quite so warm to start with...back into jeans... although by the time I'd wrangled the housework into submission ( after a late start) it was pleasantly warm outside!!

The car is still sitting out there....so plan B will be next week.  Weekend cancelled.

This afternoon was gardening again...edge trimming the front path, clearing, edging by the side of the house and tidying around there.

It is back to hoolie-gan weather, moving up from the south for a change. 

If I get a break in the weather tomorrow there will be more garden tidying!

I need to radically sort the plants in pots...those that have survived two years of neglect!!