Ullapool journey with sore tooth

Sadly my tooth has not yet improved and I have had a day of pain, ameliorated partly but not completely by painkillers every four hours. Our plan of packing the car yesterday so that the cats wouldn’t be alarmed when they saw us packing up this morning went well. We set off at about 9.45 a.m. after Flora and then Tom came in from their morning constitutionals. I drove for the first two hours and as the painkillers wore off I started to feel very sore and strangely sleepy. I had to sit up very straight and bite my lip to stay awake. We had a short stop half way around at Ralia and got coffees and then pressed on with James driving, with one more very quick stop at Aviemore where James visited the Cairngorm Brewery for supplies. 
When we got to Ullapool we quickly unloaded the car, the cats went out for some exercise, and I dived into bed for a nap, it was blissful. My caring little cat Flora came upstairs and sat on top of me on the bed, staring into my face. I’m sure that she knew that I wasn’t feeling great. 
In some nice news, I have finally had one of my photographs published in the BBC News website “Your pictures of Scotland” section. I have never been successful before despite several years of trying so I was delighted.
I got up for dinner and watched an episode of “Black Mirror” with James (we have watched a few in the past but decided to watch them all in order. But I was glad to get back to bed. The endodontist told me that my tooth would be sore for about 48 hours so I’m more than half way through that. 

Root Canal

I had a funny old morning. I was absolutely dreading my root canal treatment this afternoon so I busied myself around the house and got a heck of a lot done! Silver linings! 
However inevitably the time soon came for my treatment and the procedure took two whole hours, which to be fair I had been warned. It wasn’t painful because my mouth was well injected with local anaesthetic, but afterwards I felt a little bit confused and faint. Luckily James had insisted on driving me over to the west end where the clinic is, and had passed the time walking in to the centre of town for some shopping. When I emerged into the daylight I phoned James and he was only five minutes away. The pain began when the anaesthetic wore off about an hour later. My whole tooth and the gum under it became very sore, and painkillers barely took the edge off it. The dentist had warned me about this too, that all the root canal treatment would have temporarily irritated and inflamed all of the tissues. I hope that it gets better soon because at the moment it is murder polis! 

A boy and a cat

Suzy and Harris came round this morning for coffee. That boy Harris is extremely intelligent and quite a live wire! He kept asking me about when I had been angry! “When were you mad with your husband?” “When were you mad with your cat?” and then rather searchingly; “When were you mad with yourself?” He went on the swings in the garden, played with Tom cat, drew pictures and sorted stones. Tom was really nice with him, staying close by letting Harris pat him. There was no sign of Floof but I knew where she was; I got her a wee fleecy blanket yesterday for the upstairs bathroom, where she likes to spend time for some reason, and she has hardly been off it since! She was so happy when I sat her on it! 
Tom however was a sad boy later when I took him to the vet about his baldy patches. He didn’t suspect a thing until James brought the cat carrier into the back room where he had been resting on the couch. He ran for the cat flap but I had already locked it, and he was soon on his way to the vet, crying all the way in his tiny cracked voice. It turned out that he has allergies (like Flora) which were sorted, I hope, by a rather expensive injection. Tom was very glad to get home, and I noticed him staring at me from time to time during the afternoon as if to say “What was that all about?”
He was distracted when James built and lit a large fire in the garden, to get rid of some twigs and branches. Tom and Flora watched in fascination from the safety of the back room. James used the fire pit that we bought during lockdown, but despite being kept covered it has rusted so much that the bottom literally fell out of it, so it will need to go off to the dump. At least it ended its life in one last blaze of glory! 

A dog, two cats and a squirrel

James came with me on my Vinnie walk this afternoon; we followed the usual route through Holmhills and Cambuslang Parks, and all three of us had a fine time. Vinnie was impressed that James can throw his ball much further than I can, and he was running about chasing the ball for ages. It was another beautiful sunny day, and we had a nice chat on our walk, and Vinnie met a few other doggies, he’s such a friendly dog. 

There was drama in the garden when we got home. Tom was full of beans after his dinner and chased Flora up the pear tree beside the fence, then he dashed up the other pear tree. There happened to be a squirrel already in that tree above Tom and it was absolutely furious; it was chattering at him loudly in its gruff voice. I think that it must have been angry because it felt trapped by him blocking its usual exit down the tree and across the grass to the other pear tree and the many trees in the Reids’ garden. So it climbed high up the tree and then gave an almighty leap to the other pear tree. This was no mean feat even for a squirrel, because it had to grab on to the very thin twigs high up, and we could see them bending way down like a springboard before it leaped again onto safer branches. But oh dear, our bushy tailed friend had not realised that Flora was already in that tree, and it did a huge double take when it realised that it was running towards her! Flora could hardly believe what was happening, it was so funny! The squirrel turned just in time and disappeared into the Reids’ conifers, what great entertainment, it was like a nature programme! 

Car trouble and coffee

Well it was cooler today after the rain yesterday, but I’m glad to say that it still felt warm and summery - there may be a few leaves on the ground but we’re not quite into autumn yet. I spent quite a lot of the morning arranging a car repair because one of the wheel bearings seems to be faulty again. Also an annoying rattle beneath the passenger door and a glitch with the display screen. I tried to hasten the repair by driving over to Land-rover south side to throw myself on their mercy but they were unmoved and sent me home to follow the correct procedure by phoning Land-rover assistance, who have to diagnose the car before it can be booked in for repair. This duly took place and the repair will not take place until October. Words fail me.

James had a guitar lesson after lunch, which he said that he enjoyed. I picked him up and on the way home we stopped for coffee and strawberry tarts at Hugo’s in Burnside. It was doing a roaring trade, the staff were really friendly and helpful. I’m aware that it is nearly the end of hammock season so when we got home I headed outside. It was so pretty in the garden; so green and lush, with a welcome little breeze after the hot, still weather of the last few days. 

In other news, Ally and Cat are safe home from Morocco, thank goodness. It’s now being reported that three thousand people died during the earthquake, many in remote mountain villages which were completely destroyed. It’s so sad. 

Flu jab

I went down for my flu jab at 8.30 a.m. this morning. It still felt quite warm and muggy despite last night’s rain. I reckon that the health services are trying to get all of us oldies jabbed as quickly as possible, because who knows what dreadful flu and Covid variants await us this winter. I won’t be getting a Covid jab though, because those are being given only to those over 65 (unless you have an underlying health condition.) I rewarded myself for my bravery with a good cup of coffee and pain aux raisins at Costa on the Main Street. 
Back home I dedicated a chunk of my day to some quite serious sorting and clearing out. I think that my ex colleagues would probably agree that one of my good points was being super efficient and organised and tidy. Well it’s a different story at home, and that’s a shame because home is of course the most important. In the past the house was full of boy stuff and I was always fighting a semi successful battle to keep the house in good order. But now I need to do that for myself, and somehow that seems more difficult, maybe because I don’t really have deadlines, or uniform to get ready or homework to check. It’s not that the house is in a terrible state; however there are little piles of messiness here and there, and I tend to shove things into my beloved study to get them out of the way. And that is also a shame because it’s the first time that I have had my own room since 1985, and I feel that the disorder makes me value it less. 
Anyway I worked very hard for about three hours, mainly in my study, and I think that I can really see a difference. I became extremely sweaty during this time, partly because of running up and down the stairs to fetch things or put them away, and partly because the muggy morning had turned into an extremely hot and humid afternoon. So I used my trusty method (first used on a hot day in Tuscany) of running myself a completely cold bath and immersing myself in it, in order to bring down my temperature. This worked beautifully and I felt very refreshed.
Meanwhile the clouds rolled in and it actually got very dark at about 3.30 p.m. Suddenly there was an almighty downpour, followed by the predicted thunder. However Jennifer told me on the phone that they had thunder and lightning this morning in Buckinghamshire and now it’s back to being very hot! But that’s the south of England for you; the weather forecast predicts that it will stay cooler here. And indeed it did feel cooler after several more bursts of heavy rain. 
James arrived home from his very sunny hill-walking weekend to Galloway with some hilarious tales to tell me, and we had dinner and a pleasant evening together with Tom and Flora. 

Earthquake in Marrakesh

I was reading my book in bed late last night when a message came through on the family chat from Ally; he was letting us know that there has been an earthquake in Marrakesh (where he and Cat are on holiday.) He wanted us to know before we saw it on the news so that we wouldn’t worry too much, which was very thoughtful. He and Cat are fine but their hotel has large cracks on its walls, so they were going to sleep under the stars on a double sun lounger. They sheltered in a doorway when they felt the earthquake, which was 7.2 magnitude, then went outside with the other hotel guests. When I looked on the news websites it said that there were no casualties, however when I checked again in the morning there were sadly 600 casualties, which rose during the day to more than 2000 deaths. How terrible.
Ally and Cat FaceTimed me in the morning which was reassuring; their hotel is just outside Marrakesh and is still operating, so they are going to stay put and follow instructions from their airline; they are due to fly home on Monday.
Meanwhile at Casa Anderson, today was meant to be the peak of the heatwave, and it was very hot. Hot and muggy; the washing was hung out for hours but still felt a little bit damp when I brought it in. Even the interior of the house, with its thick sandstone walls, has heated up significantly. The cats were mostly just lounging around the back room and the garden, as was I. But there was a unique occurrence just after lunch, when I was spending some time in my hammock. Flora approached me and spoke loudly to me, and I patted my knee to encourage her to jump up - which she never does, because she hates the unstable feeling of the hammock moving. But this time she did! And after a bit of shifting about she settled down on my legs, relaxed but not sleeping as she listened to the sounds of birds and various rustling and creaking noises in the trees. At one point we both watched in fascination as a squirrel descended from one of the trees and scurrying up another. The only problem was that Flora’s weight on my knee joints eventually made them feel as if they were bent backwards; I didn’t move because it was so nice to have here there, but when she eventually jumped down to the ground I couldn’t bend my knees at all for a painful few minutes! 
After dinner I heard the pattering noise of rain on the window which quickly turned into a heavy but brief downpour. I was surprised because rain was not forecast until tomorrow afternoon. I heard the cat flap clicking and in came Flora, with her fur absolutely soaked! She was miaowing very loudly, I think that she had been very much caught by surprise! I gave her a rub down with a towel, for which she was not at all grateful. I went outside later to check on the weather and the darkening sky was clear, but it did feel a little fresher, so I’m hoping for a cooler night’s sleep.