Two loads of washing done so far!!
A day out on the bus instead today...sorting a change of provider for the phone and internet...was BT....now EE...which is also BT....
So how come I have almost halved what I pay per month??!
Then a walk along the coast...just two miles...
Lunch in our favourite café, check up from the dentist, then home on the bus.
The garden is looking good...if a little jungly!!
New to us anyway!! Four years ago we saw the building covered in scaffolding as they began renovation and adapting the building to be a gallery. They have done a good job on it..the building has retained its integrity, and they have changed as little as possible but it is now a modern usable gallery and space.
The exhibition is very interesting, showing not just most of the hoard items but also short videos of the processes involved. One piece is far too fragile, but with scanning of various kinds they have been able to investigate the contents and create a 3D printed model of the small jar without unwrapping the delicate textiles around it.
It is there until 10 July 2022.. not sure where it will go after that.
We had a mooch around the town, seeing the window dressing left from the day that the cycling elite championship came to town...
Clann is a very good café in an old bank. Clann means children in Gaelic.
We saw people playing bowls...and old buildings being renovated.
The old harbour building, saved and turned into a gallery over a hundred years ago, and a fishing boat by the quay.
We left "Artists Town" for Newton Stewart, just to have a wander around the town and a local (of course!) made ice cream.
After last week's rain the river was running high..not as high as when it came over the banks and demolished a long section of river wall...but still high and fast!! There used to be a footbridge over the river as well as the road bridge, but that hasn't been rebuilt.
Home over the upland road to call in at the pub where we were married four years ago in May...good to see friends and chat.
Then home again.
Now we are in July already!!
Yesterday we talked to the carpenter who will be helping us fit the conservatory roof, and Pirate started cladding the front...and I saw where it wasn't quite right....He isn't happy, but at least the wood from the first side will do the job properly on the other.
Thanks be for buildings that are not perfect!!
Monday is my pension day so I should be able to order the roofing materials..this job is taking far longer than hoped, but at least it is all slow steps in the right direction
Day off! After delivering a bunch of flowers to a cousin..who was out with her daughter so we missed her...we headed for Faversham and a picnic lunch on the recreation ground where Pirate used to race grass track on his bike.
Coming back was more of a problem...the M2 was jammed because of Operation Brock sorting lorries to Dover..and as roads and lanes have changed with newer big roads being put in, what should have been straight back on a lane ended up being via Whitstable and Canterbury!! Still, we managed it and it was a good day.
We were so lucky that it happened to be market day!
We had a day off yesterday and headed out, mindful of the price of fuel, aiming to do as many things as possible on our journey.
I had a parcel to send and inadvertently drove through Sanquhar....as I was aiming for Thornhill, a small town an hour's drive from here with a large sorting office. The post office had moved from the front of that lovely building to in the Spar shop over the road a few years ago....
No. No post office counter...and the next small village down we just missed it, the counter only being open for a couple of hours every weekday morning.... We carried on towards our next aim, delivering some firewood to friends in Southerners, passing two ex post offices....then back through Dalbeattie. There is a stand alone Post Office there....on a narrow road going through the town. No parking nearby....so we carried on to Castle Douglas!
It is a good small town. Bravely resisting the large out of town warehouse shops...big shop T is just off the top of the high street, and wasn't allowed a café or fuel selling..as there are plenty in the town. The Co-op is on a back street and lets anyone park in their car park. Big shop A has just got permission to build... but they will be backing onto big shop T, their main competitors!!
There aren't too many empty shops there and there is an active Community Group in the town ...we did fancy moving near there a few years ago but couldn't find anything suitable or affordable. So we enjoy visiting!!
Shopping done too we headed off to the Gallery in Lauriston...good tea, locally made cakes including an improved chocolate cake..and good craic with the photographer who lives there and runs the gallery.
It was shocking on our way to Lauriston and back up by the shores of Loch Ken on the way home just how many trees have been felled by the storms.
We heard on the radio this morning that one estate in the northeast of Scotland lost 70,000 trees in the 1953 storms. This year so far it is 100,000 some of them the older trees but quite a few those that were planted in 1953 or naturally regenerated then.
So a good day off.
Today we go to the velodrome in Glasgow.
There is a get together for a couple of hours to remember John Paul, a brilliant Scottish sprinter , junior world champion in 2011, who has just died in his sleep....at 28. The track cycling community has been totally stunned, so getting together to remember such a generous, caring and talented young man is a good idea.
We posted a shiny bike bit. Then went to the village where we lived nearly six years ago and bought rolls made fresh in the community shop and cafe where I volunteered.
Good to see them doing well.
Then a bike ride around part of the Girvan valley in Spring sunshine....and a walk along Maybole Shore where Pirate used to walk his dogs....ice cream sitting by the harbour at Dunure in the sunshine...then home to watch the Giro d'Italia!
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