getting chilly

Today has been beautiful, but cold.  Some ice and slush a quarter mile down the road, where a ditch overflows and runs over the road, hadn't cleared completely before it started freezing again.   Many patches in the fields haven't seen the sun atall.

Today the Pirate had his second four weekly injection, so we had a leisurely walk around Maybole.

The main A77 road, from Glasgow to Stranraer goes right through the middle....carrying heavy lorries all day every day.   It gets quite "interesting" when you get lorries going both ways....and perhaps a car parked, or a van doing deliveries.....!!

The bypass route has been set since 2008....the little town is being shaken to bits!!

After a late lunch it was fortunate that a friend arrived to see The Pirate.   I went to do some gardening- pruning raspberries, loganberries and currants- in the next village over.    He had only intended to play foreman and watch me working, or sit in the car....but he has to learn when enough is enough.  Not easy when you're used to being active every day.

By 4pm it was too cold to work- it had got up to 4 degrees C today, but felt not much above freezing.  Home to the farm, and the furniture maker who rents a barn in the yard was in a pickle....he had mixed some plaster in his workshop, went to clean the bucket and his water supply had frozen.

I'm glad I stacked two trailerfulls of wood yesterday and we've been promised another of ready sawn wood.      This is in exchange for doing two days of painting and decorating...barter lives!!

maybole

Maybole is our nearest small town, blighted by the main trunk route to  Stranraer going straight through the middle, despite the bypass plans having been agreed four years ago.

Everything shakes as the monsters pass....

The Pirate likes to walk on the kerb side of the pavement when we walk together.....here, he insists upon that!!

Looking the other way, you see the Town Hall.

This was built in 1887, grafted on to a higher 17th century tollbooth tower which was once part of the town residence of the lairds of Blairquhan (by Straiton).

There is another old building at the bottom of the high street opposite the post office and that and many of the older houses along it are blighted by the heavy traffic.

Many of the roads around here are potholed and badly patched.    You would never believe that when Mr Macadam invented his road surfacing that the aim was then to have the roads in England as good as those in Ayrshire!