Chocolate Cookies

Our fire pit was in use again today, when Marjory, Forrest and Jenny came round to celebrate Marjory’s birthday with us. Again it provided sufficient warmth, and a cheerful focal point on a grey afternoon which was almost, but not quite, raining. We had birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday and chatted, and Cat made hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

We also scoffed the chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips which Cat had made. They were so delicious; absolutely the best that I have ever tasted. 

In the evening we watched The Crown, I finished my online Christmas shopping and I’m about to go to bed, although I’m loath to disturb Flora kitten, who is fast asleep on my lap. It has been a very pleasant day. 

The Fire Pit

Due to Covid restrictions we are only allowed to socialise with people outside, in a garden or a park. Only people from two households can meet, and must keep two metres apart. However, this is not very convenient at the end of November, since, even when it’s not raining, the temperature has recently dropped significantly. We had invited Tommy and Carol to pop round for a coffee on Friday, but on reflection we realised that this might be a bone-chilling experience for us all, under the grey and darkening sky. 

So on the spur of the moment on Thursday, we decided to invest in a fire pit. This consists of a large circular metal container, on short sturdy legs, with a mesh guard on top, in which you can burn logs. This provides both light and heat. An alternative would of course be to dig a hole in the garden to make a fire pit, but we’ll see how much we use this one before we think about anything more permanent. 

When Tommy and Carol arrived, James had already lit the fire and it looked very cheerful, and emanated a pleasing amount of heat. We drank coffee and ate biscuits, all wearing warm jackets and wool hats, with fleece rugs over our laps. There will definitely be days when it will be too cold or rainy to sit outside even with the fire pit, but it considerably extended the time that we felt comfortable sitting outside. We had a very pleasant chat, and Flora was very excited to see our visitors, because she likes to go round and watch them when they are in their garden. She miaowed loudly and rolled about on the rug inside the back room, no doubt wondering why we were sitting outside! We discussed how many new people have moved into the street recently; we all miss our mutual former neighbours (but still friends of course!) Alison and Hugh. 

When Tommy and Carol left, the daylight was beginning to get dimmer but it was still perfectly bright enough to see each other without any lights switched on. However, when we went indoors and switched on the lights in the back room, it instantly looked almost completely dark outside! Our eyes must have been gradually adjusting to the dwindling light. 

What to do in a rainy lockdown

The weather has continued to be dreich and we are in Tier 4 lockdown for the next three weeks, but we are not downhearted at Casa Anderson. I have been doing the kind of tasks that I usually put off because I have more exciting things to do. I have found and filed my Dad’s short stories and poetry; of course I re-read them all and they are absolutely excellent. I also collated a bundle of letters sent to my Mum by her Art School friend Heather, who emigrated to Australia, which are very interesting. The boys’ schoolwork and stories were already filed but there were a few stray items which are now in the correct places. It’s very satisfying.

There have been entertaining things to watch on television; we enjoyed watching The Queen’s Gambit with Ally and Cat, a miniseries about a chess champion that was really good. James and I are in the middle of watching Series 4 of The Crown. As usual it is fascinating, but we have now arrived in the 1980s, which I remember well, so I’m finding its inaccuracies rather irritating. To be fair, it is meant to be a drama rather than a history programme, but it still jars somewhat. And Cat and I are watching the latest series of The Bold Type, which is great fun. We have a great time discussing the plots. 

I have been doing quite a bit of reading, both on my Kindle and listening to audiobooks. The trouble with an audiobook book is that (for me anyway!) it’s very easy to lose concentration. I have just finished Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) and it was excellent but the audiobook was thirty hours long - a narrator speaks much slower than I read. This is fine if I’m driving or out for a long walk, but if I’m in the house I tend to start pottering about, and then I get engrossed in my pottering and end up having to rewind a bit of the book. 

I’m keeping in touch with people by Zoom and phone calls and messaging, and have a few walks with friends planned over the next couple of weeks. Meeting outdoors is still allowed as long as you stay within 5 miles of home. The cats don’t like the rain much, especially Flora, who stares mournfully out of the window. Tom keeps coming inside absolutely soaking wet and leaves a trail of muddy paw prints across the floor. 

I’m being more careful with my sore wrist. I kept using it too much and too carelessly, which made it hurt. For the last few days I have made more effort to use my other hand to do things, or to ask for help in carrying stuff, and I think it’s definitely less painful. 

The Only Way is Up

My wrist continued to be very sore over the next few days. James bought me a wrist support from Boots which helped. We stayed on in Ullapool until last Thursday, then headed south, meeting Alison and Hugh for another very pleasant lunch on our way. On Friday morning James dropped me off at Hairmyres A&E. There was no delay and they sent me through to the minor injuries clinic and thence to the X Ray department. I certainly know my way along that corridor, unfortunately, due to my several broken ankles! Sure enough my wrist is fractured - it’s the radius bone. I was given a splint which I have to wear for six weeks. The good news is that I can remove it when I take a shower. The bad news is that my wrist is still sore - I hope that it stops aching soon. 

When we arrived home on the Thursday evening Cat made a delicious meal for us which was lovely. And we had a relaxing (although rainy) weekend, we watched a couple of good films with Ally and Cat. 

On Tuesday Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement that we had been expecting. 11 Scottish councils, including South Lanarkshire, have been moved into Tier 4. So cafés and restaurants and non-essential shops will all close again from tomorrow, and travelling outside our council area (unless on urgent business) will be illegal. So we can’t go back to Ullapool for a while. It is hoped that these restrictions will be relaxed again in a few weeks. 

Oh dear oh dear. I feel that this has been rather a gloomy post! Did I mention that the weather has been terrible too? Oh well, as my Mum would say, I should be grateful because we are all warm and safe and have good health. 

Walk from Ullapool Lighthouse

After not making it all the way to the lighthouse in the dark on Sunday, I decided to give it another try in the daylight on Monday. Armed with my audiobook I walked to Rhue from the dump (James gave me a lift because he was disposing of various garden rubbish) so that I could do the walk in reverse and end up at the cottage. I walked down to the lighthouse and looked out at the summer isles, then set off back along the coast. I was very careful as I negotiated the natural obstacles on my way. Despite the walk being advertised in the local guidebook, several fences go right down to the edge of low cliffs without any gates or stiles, so it’s unavoidable to have to climb over them. I picked my way across big slabs of slippery rocks, walked across stepping stones, and followed the faint path through bushes and over rocks, all without incident. I enjoyed the views of loch and mountains as I walked along the coast. The last part of my walk was along a pebbly beach below the golf course, and, inexplicably, it was here that I tripped on a rock and crashed to the ground, landing heavily on my right wrist. I lay on the ground shouting in agony, but there was nobody around to hear me, so eventually I got up and made my way back to the cottage, cradling my arm and feeling mightily sorry for myself. 

I’m not sure how badly I have hurt it, because the pain comes and goes. Hopefully it’s just sprained. I don’t understand why I keep falling, it’s very annoying, often painful, and really quite frightening when it happens. 

Two walks

I met up with David in Dundee yesterday which was really lovely; we had lunch together and then went for a walk, chatting all the way. He is getting on very well at work and is very happy with his flat. He showed me lots of interesting buildings around the docks area and a really old frigate, and pointed out a plant from New Zealand that is growing out a crevice in the riverside wall; it’s amazing where things can grow. I listened to my audible book on the drive there and back and all went smoothly, except that the sat nav took me northwards a very strange way, perhaps because of hold ups on the A9. It directed me via Coupar Angus and Dunkeld. I found myself driving along narrow country roads in thick mist in the dark. Eventually after about an hour I emerged onto the A9 just north of Perth; to my despair I had lost at least half an hour. Luckily I felt alert and the rest of the drive was fine. 

This morning I held the ladder for James while he cleared out the gutters on the cottage. Leaves and bits of moss kept falling on my head. It was Remembrance Sunday so like many others in this Covid year we stood in our doorway for the two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. After lunch it rained for a while, so I went out for a walk when it dried up later in the afternoon, while listening to my audiobook - it’s “Troubled Blood,” the latest Cormoran Strike book by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) and it’s excellent so far. The golf course was deserted so I decided to just have a walk around it, and then I noticed the coastal path that heads towards the lighthouse. James has walked there with Russell and with Heather and Ewan, and so have David and Chanel, but I haven’t, so I decided to give it a go. It was a bit stoney underfoot but I enjoyed the loch views and saw the ferry going past all lit up in the twilight. The light became dimmer and dimmer, and I found myself climbing over big rocks and fences, and at one point wading through a stream. I had several scary slips and slides on the wet rocks, but worst of all, by about quarter to six it was completely dark and I couldn’t see the way ahead at all. There is a torch on my phone but my phone was nearly out of battery and anyway the torch couldn’t show me the route further ahead, it actually made the night seem darker outside the immediate area. I phoned James who was back at the cottage, and we both looked at OS maps on our phones. I was already at Rhue, not far from the lighthouse, and I was in fact not far below the road. James (my hero!) drove along to collect me while I literally crawled (and I do mean literally!) up the steep slope to the road and used my remaining torch battery to signal where I was to James. Phew. I was so glad to climb into the car and we immediately went to pick up a curry. I was so happy to take off my wet trail shoes and enjoy my curry in the warm cottage. 

Mistle thrush

When I was walking near Dechmont Farm on Tuesday, I heard a loud racket emanating from a couple of trees beside the road. It was so loud that I could hear it clearly even though I had my iPods in my ears, listening to an audiobook. I craned my neck and could see two speckled birds flying about among the branches, and managed to take a rather blurry photo of one of them. The mystery was solved a couple of days later when we met up with Alison and Hugh for a coffee on our way to Ullapool. Alison is very knowledgeable about birds and she had a look at the photo and a short clip I had filmed to capture the loud noise, and later messaged me to let me know that they were mistle thrushes. The loud rattling call that I heard is their alarm call, although I’m not taking the blame for alarming them because I heard the noise when I was still nowhere near them. 

The reason for our trip to Ullapool is to check on the cottage and make sure that it is ready for winter, because we may not be back for a while. Currently the Scottish Government is advising people not to travel around Scotland, and we have obeyed the guidance. However it’s possible that from next week it will become illegal to travel out of our local area, so we decided to visit the cottage this weekend. We brought our food from home and have not interacted at all with local residents.

We went for a walk today up Ullapool Hill and then extended our walk by descending down to Loch Achall and walking up the hill behind Glastulloch. Just below the farmhouse we passed television presenter Ben Fogle, who was filming an episode of a Channel Five series called “New Lives in the Wild.” He said a very pleasant hello to us as we passed. On the other side of the hill we crossed a rather tussocky and soggy area to a farm track which eventually took us past the dump to the coast road leading back down to the village. It was a really good 15 km walk and we were treated to a beautiful sunset as we approached the coast road. 

I had a delightful bath while James very kindly made our dinner.

Election in America

The Presidential Election in America took place yesterday, 3rd November. The results have been very different from four years ago when we woke up the next morning to find out that Donald Trump already had a definite victory. This time the results are much, much closer, and this evening it is still not clear who is going to win. At the moment it looks like Joe Biden and the Democrats might just scrape through in first place, but it could still go either way. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump is already preparing legal challenges and demanding recounts. 

England is just going into a four week lockdown to try to reduce rates of Covid infection. Scotland seems to be sticking to its five tier system so far, but there’s a general feeling that we might lockdown further soon. 

Meanwhile at Casa Anderson we are getting on with life as contentedly as possible, given the uncertain times that we are living in. We had brunch at House for an Art Lover with Heather and Ewan on Sunday and then a walk around Bellahouston Park. It was so lovely to see them. Cat and I have started to do a 30 day Yoga challenge throughout November. I’m also trying to do more walking and am enjoying listening to audiobooks while doing so. And I’m spending thirty minutes on the exercise bike per day. My legs are sore, particularly my dodgy knee, and I’m hoping that they’ll get stronger soon. I’m only four days into all this so we’ll see whether I manage to keep it up! 

A Blue Moon

Sean Connery died yesterday. The best James Bond. He was 90 and had been ill for some time but it was still sad to hear. Also yesterday there was a blue moon. Not actually blue, but according to one definition, the second full moon to fall in a month. This isn’t actually all that unusual; I looked it up and, strictly speaking, the proper definition of a blue moon is the third full moon in a season which has four full moons. However I was excited enough to go out and see it with the clouds scudding across it on the windy night, and I called James, Ally and Cat outside to look at it too. 

Hallowe’en was quiet because this year children are not allowed to go round the houses because of Covid. The four of us decided to watch a film and Ally suggested Lawrence of Arabia, one of James’ favourites. Cat hadn’t seen it before but was happy to watch it, and the rest of us were delighted to see it again. It’s so good, and we had a great evening.