Monday Miscellany

Well last week was, from the point of view of Blogland, a complete write-off.  On Tuesday I was up before 0500. I got the early ferry from Stornoway to Ullapool and at about 0945 set off on the 270 mile drive to Ayr. As I'd come out of quarantine it was a question of go straight there without passing Go and without collecting £200 (I hated Monopoly but still use Monopoly analogies). 

I arrived at the Hospital and was immediately tested for Covid-19. I passed - negative.

Next day I had the kidney stent replaced. Unfortunately the fact that it was around 7 months overdue meant that the surgeon had a rather difficult time extracting a stone from some passage or other and the work proved a little sore for a day or two and it took a few days for the infection I'd had for the last few months to be conquered. Anyway by Saturday all was back to normal and I was released into the big wide world once more. I stayed overnight with a friend because I couldn't get a ferry until the Sunday evening on which, fortuitously, I was already booked. 

So today has been sort out and try and get back to normal day. 

The ferry on the way over was awash with barking dogs. What is it with people who can't control their dog? If you can't control your dog and stop it barking at every passing shadow then don't bring it on public transport (or muzzle it)! It's bad enough having a massive mountain dog 100 yards away at home that barks constantly but at least I can close the windows and go into the other side of the house. I detest barking dogs - in case you hadn't noticed. Rant over.

Social distancing on the ferry is very good and, unless eating or drinking their coffee masks are the order of the day. However a chap walked past me (duly masked) a few metres away and as he did so a massive wave of tobacco smoke from his clothes followed him. Apart from the distinct unpleasantness, it occurred to me that the aerosols that contain the smell are presumably the same ones that can contain the Covid-19 virus. Food for rather unpleasant thought. 

On a lighter note one of the chaps in the hospital had been feeding his neighbour's two dogs for a couple of days. He let them out into the garden (their back gardens were adjacent and could be accessed without going through the house) several times a day and fed them too. He was puzzled after the first night as to why one dog came out and then after eating and doing what it had to do went in and the other one came out. After this ritual had been repeated for the whole weekend he went in to see what was happening in the house. He followed the second dog into the house and it immediately went upstairs (they usually lived downstairs). He followed and found a chap on top of the wardrobe with the dog standing guard. It turned out that the chap was in fact a burglar and when he broke in on the Friday evening the dogs had chased him upstairs and he's been on top of the wardrobe all weekend with one or both of the dogs on guard! Yuk. The chap next door is a police dog handler/trainer.

Garden Addition

I am very content with my age at the moment. Which is a Good Thing given that I have absolutely no control over the hours, days, weeks and years as they march relentlessly on towards life's end. 

Today I moved the best part of a tonne of gravel from near the gate to my property to the other end of the garden. Oddly it wasn't walking with the wheelbarrow that was the tiring part. It was shovelling the gravel into the barrow.

When I bought the house 27 years ago there wasn't really a garden just some grass at the back of the house and bare croftland filled with builders rubble at the front.  I barrowed lorry loads of soil, gravel and debris over the years when the garden as it is now was formed. It was in the days when Sabbath manual work was 'forbidden' on the Island so most was done after work in the long summer evenings because I worked 6 days a week until 2005.

Somehow I don't remember barrowing being so hard and tiring back then. Today I was quite tired by the end of it and once or twice I did wish that I could be 20 years younger for the day. 

Why was I barrowing so much stone? I have had a new gardening aid constructed. A polycarbonate tunnel. I had to lay a new gravel floor.

Home and Isolation

I'm now home from my pre-op and in isolation (as compared with the restrictions of lockdown) for 14 days whilst I wait for my procedure to replace my kidney stent. 

I'm perfectly happy. I have enough in the way of provisions for 14 days and if I run out of anything (milk being the most likely) I am fortunate to have friends and neighbours who will shop for me.

It will give me the opportunity to catch up in Blogland and, if the weather will calm down a bit, get into the garden to start some autumnal clearing up. I last posted about my garden on the 20 July and it is astonishing to look at the photos then and the photos now. This is the garden as it was at the end of last week. Having said that the Lavatera has far more flowers and there are far more poppies now but the weather is too wet and windy to take a photo.

The rose is a 'Peace' and is the first tea rose I have ever grown. In fact this year is the first year I have ever grown roses. My Dad and my Maternal Grandmother were both successful rose growers.