Category: Journal
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Her Majesty’s butler
Last week Victoria began showing interest in wanting to go outside. Being the softy that I am I conceded and now she wants to go outside everyday. This would be fine except that I have become the butler to Her Majesty as she constantly wants to come in and out all day long. She begs…
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Poetry in motion
One of my blogging friends, Geoff Le Pard, is an author and poet. You can see his list of ever-growing books at Amazon. His latest publication is a book of poems called The Sincerest Form of Poetry and in celebration of this I’ve invited him to write a guest post on my blog to which…
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Glasgow in autumn
We’ve come to Glasgow for the weekend to submit biometric data (fingerprints) for our permanent residency application. We’ve been waiting to do this since March when everything closed down. The centres began opening again in June and we’ve been waiting patiently for Aberdeen to reopen but as of this writing it still hasn’t. Every month…
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Falls of Dess
Today was Ben’s birthday and we had a delightful picnic with cake and whisky beside the Falls of Dess. I never knew these falls existed and what a wonderful find they are at only 40 minutes by car west of Aberdeen along a lovely forested walk near the quaint village of Kincardine O’Neil. Ben and…
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You have to murder to call it a burger
The Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach launched this satirical marketing video for the meat industry this week to highlight an upcoming EU parliament vote on whether to ban meat-related names for plant-based products. The marketing video starts at 2:47 so you’ll have to fast-forward to then as the first part of the video is in Dutch…
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I broke my phone and photos of the autumn colours
My last blog post I wrote and published from my new phone when I was out and about in town. As I walked back home, tragedy struck when I dropped my phone, smashing the screen. I had bought a spigen phone case for it because these had always protected my iPhone very well but they…
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Storm Alex, cycling, and cat-shaming
This weekend we’re getting the tail end of storm Alex which has brought a deluge to France and Italy and caused severe flooding. Yesterday we had heavy rain non-stop all day here. Elizabeth had highland dance in the afternoon and so I cycled her there in my cargo bike, Hoss. One of the nice things…
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Agent Sonya: the woman who nearly killed Hitler
I listened to a terrific podcast this week from Stories of our times called Agent Sonya: the Soviet spy who came in from the Cotswolds. It’s about a German woman called Ursula Kuczynski who spied on Nazi Germany for the Russians in the 1930s and 1940s. She was Jewish and soon had to flee Germany.…
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Pot-pourri from a Surrey Garden
This book appeared in the post today. It was addressed to me but I have no idea who sent it. Perhaps it’s a birthday present? Thank you whoever you are! It’s right up my alley. In the forward it says, “Through her writing, she [Mrs C.W. Earle] swayed a wide public away from geometric formality…
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The cold-blooded killer
We took the cold-blooded killer with us on our holiday to Aviemore last weekend. It’s the first time she’s been away with us so we were a little concerned about how it might go but it turned out brilliantly. She seemed to enjoy exploring all the nooks and crannies in a new house. We even…
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An Lochan Uaine and the BMW i3
I managed to tick swimming in An Lochan Uaine (green loch) off my bucket list today. It’s an emerald-coloured lochan with a sandy beach about 5 miles from Aviemore. It’s so inviting that even Daniel and Ben ventured into the water, despite the frigid temperature. I’m not sure what the temperature was exactly but it…
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Half my life
I’m 45 today. If I’m lucky enough to live to 90 then I have lived half my life. I hope I’m still riding my bike at 90. You’re only as old as you feel or, as Groucho Marx once said, “You’re only as old as the woman you feel”. I heard another quote recently that…
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Purple cardigan
A British mathematican at Imperial College London has won a mathematics prize worth £2.3 million. I had no idea there was this much money in maths. I’ve told Ben he needs to start proving more theorems. Covid-19 is on the rise again in the UK which means we need to be more careful than ever…
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Online schooling
The kids started back at their online school yesterday. Everything went very well and I think they even enjoyed it. They were both ready to go back. Elizabeth started labelling all her notebooks last week and transcribed her French dictionary into the new book. The school gives them a nice structure to the day as…
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Spuds
I’ve never been a huge fan of potatoes but it’s funny how when you start growing something yourself it takes on a new value. Potatoes are so easy to grow, they’re not affected by slugs, or pigeons, and they don’t need any special netting. All you do is bung them in the ground in spring…
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Some photos and switching country in the Google store
The avocado tree on our kitchen windowsill is getter rather large. It’s going to reach the ceiling soon. We’ve noticed in the past week or so that the trees are showing the first signs of autumn. The next two photos were taken in Duthie Park. One of the courgettes at my allotment got a bit…
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Samsung S10+ phone
Last month the home button on my iPhone SE stopped working. It’s just over 4 years old now. If you have an iPhone you’ll know it’s impossible to use without a functioning home button. Fortunately I discovered you can install an assisstive touch app which will let you access the home screen without using the…
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Cronyism
I’m beginning to think there’s a bit of cronyism in the Boris Johnson government. The inexplicable appointment of Tony Abbott as trade advisor is not the first suspect announcement. In May of this year, Dido Harding was put in charge of the government’s new track, test, and trace programme. Tracking and tracing is an important…
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The end is near!
Oh dear. The world really is conspiring against me. I woke this morning to the news that Boris Johnson has hired Tony Abbott as a Brexit trade advisor. This is grim news indeed. The only good thing to come out of the last Australian election was the news that Tony Abbott lost his seat in…
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Swimming in the Dee
I’ve been a bit grumpy this past week because sometimes it feels like the world is conspiring against me. Earlier in the year I planted lots of sweet pea seeds. Only one of them germinated and when it had grown to about 10cm tall I planted it at the base of the tree on the…
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