vaguely productive

 Still the hunt for a box proceeds....there is one in the local Emporium...but it is a vintage article with an ink pront on the end showing company details etc. Too good to paint over. I went to a few shops....no luck...

Then a double check at the opticians to be sure that the drops have worked...all ok, one more day of drops to go and a scrip for hydrating eye drops after that. It is probable that the spray for my sinuses is drying my eyes......ENT and all that!!

Home, and a couple more paint tests....

I'll take another photo in daylight. Each colour has its good points, it is a difficult choice!!

Now it is leçon and lights out time.

All this "peopling" is tiring!!

constructive

 Today was the collective's meeting in the gallery...get together, see where we are and what needs doing!

The set out of the gallery is changing. Making it more likely, hopefully that people will come in and browse at least...

Then lunch at the cafe there and off to a certain DiY store...more paint samples and a set of legs to lift a plinth to a better height. 

Home again, and I might be getting a few sales of bike equipment. They needed listing and photographing

It feels odd....even though I wont race again..I know there are some my age and older still racing.   But obviously their body doesn't say "Why?" when they go to race and train!!  And racing is their hobby.

Whereas riding s bike has been something I've always done...and the racing was fun ..but extra....and I am a potter who wants to pot...a needlewoman who wants to ply her needle...a gardener who needs to grow.

You can't do it all....especially when you are alone.

not much

 Another wet and windy day...not much going on outside..or indoors....

I had a short walk just before dusk....and got back just as it started raining again...good timing!

I did get a batch of yoghurt started...that is making itself overnight.

I must remember that there is a meeting in the gallery tomorrow. 

A few things will change...new members, plinths to be organised...and good to review how we did last year. Plus set a date for repainting!

Glasgow Saturday #2

 I took a different route from the bust stop today..not along Sauchiehall Street, but the next one up..it goes out from BuchananStreet where the bus station is....past the College of Music.....and building sites..and buildings of all ages...

and the Glasgow School of Art....to Garnethill..and to Charing Cross...

Then the footbridge over the junction to the more "genteel" area...

and the lovely building of the Alliance Française and Goethe Institute

and the lesson...which went well

Baltic!!

 It was bitterly cold as I waited for the bus today...Baltic, as they say.

Checked in at the Dancing Thistle...reassuring her that the latest money from Sales went through ok. She is settling nicely in her new premises.

Lunch in Waterstones and I saw that I had a missed call...from the Opticians that I'd phoned first thing....walked along to see them and instead of missing part of tomorrow's lesson to get back to Ayr, they had a cancellation.

Time to walk over to the other side of the river where I'd bought the laptop...for instructions on how to find accents...go to settings...change language!!

Back to the opticians...I have the beginnings of conjunctivitis...so five days of eye drops four times a day ..and check back next Tuesday. You never realise how difficult it is when the inside of the upper eyelid needs to be looked at.....

Which left time to finish off with the French Conversation group. Just five of us and our teacher was away...but we managed ok!!

Clearing the way

 I read about clearing energy pathways in the house, ready for Chinese New Year..the Fire Horse on the 17th of this month I think.

Daughter said it was just common sense!

Whichever way you look at it, it feels better. 

I've done the hallway and stairs..

shoeracks and linenbasket will stay...

As it was cold wet and windy out there...Baltic in other words...this was good exercise!!

the wheel in the Saltire bag is on its way out, the bag of sprockets and chainrings need to be taken to the track again, hopefully to sell.

bedroom, living room and kitchen are inching towards improvement.

study and sewing/bike room have had bike stuff returned to them for now...but they are still usable rooms.

Then I put my feet up.....and researched basic hotel prices....

13 nights in a budget Ibis hotel in Limoges...£530 or so... a little discount for longer stay and a little more for being a member...which cost me nothing. Not the one I wanted right near the station....but only 5km out...a decent walk...and there are buses.

Then I looked at one night near Edinburgh airport on the way home....from £160 upwards....and not the nearest....so I went for the second nearest...a five minute bus ride...good old Travelodge...and even that was £122. Monday is an expensive day....

I'm booking direct with each hotel group...far better than the various booking sites..which take a considerable percentage and are not the easiest to work with when you run a hotel.

Landing back after 9pm means that the furthest I could get by bus at that time of night would be Glasgow....

I think that is all I need to organise now...apart from my bag!!

Adding the expenses up it feels a lot in a way..but then I look at what I could have easily paid without being careful....and it is for two weeks. I know how to be frugal too...and the emphasis will be on photography, drawing, relaxing....and a lot of walking!!

online......Ha!!!! with update...

 I am completely failing to download my coursework and homework..let alone open the download.

I've emailed the course tutor...in French of course.....

They are using powerpoint presentations....I've just had a thought....I wonder if that is Windoze? Although usually if that is the case the tablet and phone DO download it and show the W.....which means that I can't open it...

Seeing as I printed off my flight schedule for May and the  SNCF Carte+ with no problems....

You can seriously go off computers......

Brother reminded me...you can open Word docs with Libre Office....

so at least I could read it....and use the reply bit on the AF course page to send the answers. I suppose that proves you either knew them or copied the answers off the powerpoint slide after the one with the exercise!

But....I don't know where the accents are on the laptop keyboard....which is a problem in Welsh as well as French..if not quite as much. On a touchscreen you can choose é..or ê...et cetera.....on a keyboard you get eeeee when you hold it down 😄

So they got an apology....

This has taken five hours of screenwork and my eyes are complaining!!

online !!

 I did the ironing yoday...the smell...and the satisfaction!!

However just really distraction strategy...

Organising trips is bad enough....and having to do it online is worse!!

Still, I managed to get a membership...and so a 10% discount...on a budget hotel at the airport, on the first night in France...

and I got the printer talking with my tablet and phone....

Flight schedule printed

SNCF Carte+ for discount on the area TER trains printed. I've got a bank card holder that can live in.

Then I tried to order the course book for the AF French course....computer fail, the bookshop wanted you to open an account, but the password setting failed....so I did it by phone!!

All this meant that lunch was at nearly 3pm....and my brain had had enough!!

Logging on to the AF website and doing my homework....will wait until tomorrow. I hadn't realised that homework would be online....

So nothing of much use was done after 5pm today...certainly not after dark!!

Washday

 A definite achievement at this time of year...three washes through..the ironing is "ironing dry"...ie a little damp...and the rest is on the rack in the kitchen in the alcove by a small radiator with a dehumidifier ticking over nicely, sucking the damp from the air.

I had a bigger lunch..I'm trying to change back to that...then the light drizzle started at 2pm as forecast!! A quick dash to get the linefull in then feet up for half an hour. perusing blogs and messages.

A friend over in Aberdeen has bought a SAD lightbox in Aldi for £20...so I thought..at that price...why not?!

Walk down leisurely to the bus stop for 3pm...3.01....realise that bus pass is not with me.....cue brisk walk back up 500m to home and 500m back again!! I just missed the bus, but fortunately it makes a circuit of the schemes on both sides of the village..and does it in 7 minutes ..I arrived at the bus stop just in time!!

At least that was 7 minutes less of being bumped and jolted around...local roads are awful....abd the buses can't avoid them, so they and we are being jolted to bits!!

A successful shopping trip...one "wellness" light box, then in a different shop some well reduced glass boxes with plastic clip on lids.

This means that I can gradually reduce the plastic "carry out" type boxes as they wear out.

A light supper..rounded off with galettes of course! After all it is Imbolc...St Brides day ..when the milk starts to come in for the lanbs not yet born. When we really notice the lengthening daylight. Halfway between the Solstice and the Equinox....already !

A long text chat with the Oily One. Nice to know how he us getting on and that all is ok...apart from the fact that his big van is running on 3 pistons...which probably means an engine rebuild ...about £500 for all the parts for the job...so he'll be working on his own vehicle instead of other peoples' for a while!

A different sort of teef!!

 Another trip to Glasgow today!!

This time by car ..in the drizzly showers..and it was a home game for Celtic football club...they are over the road from the velodrome and can use "our" car parks...but it isn't reciprocal when there is a big cycling event on..."it's nae fitba' " !! I was lucky to be allowed in and found one of the few spaces!

It isn't just cycling in our building...there are gyms, fitness suites, indoor athletics track, offices....and a health spa!

The Womens Track Fund had a two hour session on...I wasn't there to take part, just to see a couple of friends..and make a new one...she bought a chainring...

and is borrowing a wheel later this month..which hopefully she will buy!

I left at 3pm...apparently Kick off time for the game but people were still walking towards the ground from the local station.

Plenty of police around on motorbikes...I turn onto the motorway after about a mile..and one was just in front of me.  

The speed limit there is 50mph...and it needs to be, and urban motorway with junction after junction...quite satisfying to see the speed hogs' guilty consciences kicking in as they notice the police motorbike minding his own business a few cars ahead if me....

After 5 miles , near the edge of Glasgow I can turn off and there is a Waitrose supermarket..I'd forgotten carrots in my shopping the other day...then I can carry on on the old , quieter road home!!

Glasgow

 Up before dawn today and out just before 7 as the moon was setting

A chilly wait for the connection at Ayr bus station . I thought that I'd just missed the previous bus but heard someone phoning to say that he was running late as the previous bus had been cancelled.

Arrived in a damp Glasgow...and I couldn't work out which bus stop I needed...so I walked down Sauchiehall Street and up to Park Circus where Alliance Française and the Goethe Institute share a pair of Georgisn buildings.

The course went ok...It is covering my weak points...translation ( I've always tried to think in the language that I'm learning, which makes translation difficult dometimes) grammar and spealing to people!! I think I'm at the right level, but it will be a lot of work...but worth it

I liked this diagram...

Then a walk back in the dampness...

The new building and the old church tower are one property

window tax

the Glasgow school of art..still not rebuilt after the two fires. it isn't the one right on the street, but the "wrapped" one just behind.

another construction site further near the centre along Sauchiehall street...I think that they are retaining an amount of the facade.

I had lunch in Waterstones' café..it is the biggest branch that I have seen...on five floors!!!!!

and at the end of the street...

and just before the bus station...

True dat!!!!

No waiting on buses on the way home...and I'm shattered!!.....as the Oily One remarked as we messaged...."brainwork" !!!