Where's Schrödinger’s Cat?

In the 5 months up to the beginning of August I had used the car for a handful of miles - principally for medical visits in Stornoway. In the last three weeks I have driven around 1500 miles including two round trips to Glasgow. In the next three weeks I will make another two trips to Glasgow and Ayr to have my two pre-op appointments and my kidney stent replaced. In between I will have to isolate for 14 days at home on Lewis. I've gone from the peace and quiet of lockdown with no deadlines to meet or appointments to keep to a hectic 'up at 4am to catch the morning ferry' lifestyle again. I know which I prefer....and it isn't the latter.

So my recent visits to Blogland have been few and far between and my life is the poorer for that.

However I did visit Bob's post "I wish they would tackle world peace instead." which, as the title might not readily suggest, was partly about the Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox. 

I have, on several occasions, with Wendy (of my New Zealand Family) sat up into the wee smae hours with a bottle or two of New Zealand's finest red discussing the topic. So the post made me sit up and take notice. The first thing I did was go to a particular place on my bookshelves for the book entitled "Schrödinger’s Cat" or something containing those two words anyway.

To my puzzlement it wasn't there. A search of the rest of the bookshelves and the shelves in the loft all drew a blank. I'm not going to pretend that the loss of the book about Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox is going to change my life.  However the fact that a book, any book, is missing from its proper place is disturbing. What next?

Escape?

It wasn't easy. Saturday morning at 6am and the ferry was very busy with people and their cars leaving the Island. I sat in my usual part of the ferry by the now-closed-for-the-time-being Coffee Cabin. There were half a dozen other small family groups in the area all very well socially distanced and, initially until they started having breakfast and coffee, fully masked as is required by law on public transport in Scotland. It was a beautiful morning for a sail and I spent some time on deck enjoying the fresh air and the views.

It was my first time off the Island since early January. It was the first time I had been amongst people since early March. Because everyone was well spaced apart I didn't feel particularly apprehensive. The journey itself is 2½ hours and I was on my way down the road to Bishopbriggs by 0930.

I'm down for my drugs trial review. I can't think of anything else that would have got me off the Island at the moment.

A loo-stop in Kingussie and soup and another coffee from my flasks and I was in Bishopbriggs by mid afternoon. I was heartily glad I was not going North. The traffic around Perth must have seen delays measured in hours rather than minutes. Traffic in both directions was very heavy.  Presumably it was largely due to staycationers.

What had not been anticipated was family turning up at Anna's unaware that I was coming and that was a bit traumatic and I left to make a delivery I'd brought from the Island for another friend. Once I returned and had settled down with a sizeable g'n't in the garden the 6 months of isolation started to become a memory rather than a problem for me.

On Sunday we decided on a walk around Hogganfield Loch in Glasgow. It was a beautiful morning and with my recently re-awakened desire to know the name of every flower we passed was a very pleasant way to spend a morning. We had arrived fairly early ie around 9am but it was quite clear that that was late for many of the walkers, cyclists, runners and the rest. 

There are many types of waterbirds on the loch

I didn't envisage ice being a problem

I don't think it was personal

Too enthusiastic for me

It's quite sizeable