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!