Catching Up

We've had some good weather. Well, when I say 'good' what I mean is that it wasn't raining and the wind was absent or a tolerable whisper instead of the usual eye-watering gale. In fact on a couple of days we had sun as well. So I've spent a couple of weeks in the garden. I've cut down bushes and spent hours removing the roots to make way for a wild flower bed. I trialled one last year and got lots of pleasure from the colour and the increased bee and insect population.

Many of the plants in the garden are Alpines and they are not in suitable conditions so I've dug out an area and am making a rockery of sorts with a more suitable growing medium.

I have also been moving lots of tubs of daffodils and tulips as well as humping 100litre bags of garden compost etc around.

One thing all this has taught me is that I'm not as young as I was this time last year. Then I could actually pick up 100l bag of compost and put it in the wheelbarrow. This year I struggled. So now I'm planning the garden on the basis that there will come a time (if it hasn't already come) when I have to ensure that things are done in such a way that it minimises lifting large, heavy things.

At 0500 yesterday morning my body sprung (well as springy as my body does anything these days) into action and I set off to be on board MV Loch Seaforth for the exciting journey to Ullapool from whence I would drive to Glasgow for my 16-weekly three days of scans and my drugs trial review.

The main arterial road through the Scottish Highlands from Inverness to Perth and thence towards Glasgow is the A9. As you can imagine it is a very busy road carrying most of the freight to and from the North of Scotland.  However most of it is still 2 lane with occasional 4 lane dual carriageway. I have been travelling up and down it for nearly half a century. I think that I can safely say that I have never seen it as quiet as it was yesterday. It is a road controlled by average speed cameras so people rarely speed on it. Heavy goods vehicles, however, have a speed limit 10 miles an hour less than cars and one often gets stuck behind them until the next dual carriageway or overtaking lane. Not so yesterday.  

There are no toilet facilities open anywhere in Scotland so I made no 'comfort stops' either.

As a result I was in Bishopbriggs in a record time of about 4¼ hours after leaving the ferry in Ullapool.

Today has been shopping day for all the messages I've been asked to get for people marooned on the Island plus, I have to say, some odds and ends for myself.

The next few days will be spent having scans and my drugs trial review. Hopefully. I'll be home on Thursday evening.

Apologies

The weather has been perfect for the garden. Well, not quite perfect but very good for getting the winter damage cleared away and the basics of the alterations I want to make done. So I've been absent from Blogland most of the time.

However, I did read Robert (Bob) Brague's recent post entitled 'Sorry or Not Sorry'. It's brief. Basically it gave a politician's purported apology and an an analysis of whether it was an apology. It's worth a read because we see the same thing every day and probably let it go without thought or comment. In short when is an apology an apology. 

I have no idea what offence the apologiser had given but it did make me think.

My question, though is 'When is an offence for which an apology is demanded due an unconditional apology?'

I was brought up in a family of strong women with fairly 'modern' views on the role of women but also on the respect that women were due from men.

I was taught to walk on the road side of a lady. I was taught to open doors for my elders and for ladies. I gave up my seat for a lady on public transport. I was taught that compliments were acceptable and that flattery was not. Above all I was taught manners and respect.

I have during my life been complimented on occasion for being a gentleman (thank you, Parents).

In the last few decades though things have changed. I have been told on occasion that I am a chauvinist (and less complimentary comments) for doing all of those things.

To the extent that when I was in hospital a few years ago I was aware that one of the female nurses (who, as it happens I knew 30 years ago when she was a youngster) had a particularly friendly smile when she was attending to patients. I told her, quite spontaneously and without thinking, that she had a beautiful smile. As the words left my lips I realised that men these days have been taken severely to task for such things. I hastily apologised (unconditionally) even though I had in my mind, and in the minds of many I'm quite sure, done nothing wrong but was aware that some might take severe offence at my words. As it happens she responded by saying that I could tell her that as often as I like and thanked me for the compliment.

Bob's argument was that if I had said "I'm sorry if I have offended you" it would not have been an apology. My argument is that things are often not that straightforward.

Printers

There can be few more mundane subjects than printers but they have become part of our everyday lives and also, for many, part of everyday frustrations. Has any one of you reading this never had an irritating moment induced by a printer?

Printers now seem to have changed little from printers in the 1990s except that they are almost all on wifi and not direct cable link. Some also have larger refillable ink tanks and some have monthly ink charge arrangements. The basic paper feed mechanism seems as unreliably antiquated as it ever was.

Manufacturers tempt buyers with very cheap deals on printers (which now have almost empty print cartridges - just enough for the set-up and a few tempting photos) and then charge a fortune for the ink. To make sure they get their pound of flesh, they focus all their efforts on making sure printers only work with proprietary ink cartridges.

So life with a printer for most people runs something like this:

• Buy a printer.
• Set up the printer (if you're lucky this might not raise your blood pressure).
• Honeymoon period - printer works as it should.
• Poddle along.
• Need an urgent print job.
• Printer won't cooperate.
• Waste a day trying to get it to work.
• Get the urgent job printed by a friend or a local copyshop.
• Dump the printer.
• Buy another printer.
• Repeat.

On the other hand your experience might be like this:

• Discover printer won't work.
• You're pretty handy with gadgets so you sort it.
• Start the job and printer absolutely refuses to cooperate.
• Decide printer is dead.
• It's Saturday. Urgent print job. Argos is open. Buy new printer.
• Complete job.
• Monday, ring help line for first printer.
• Get software upgrade.
• Printer back in working order.

So you (I) now have two printers. This is handy because when one printer decides to throw a wobbly the other is usually in a good mood. 

I make photo cards and post cards. Mostly for my own use but also for other people (not commercially). So almost all the printing I do is photographs ie colour printing, and decorated envelopes and the cards on which the photos are mounted. So I use a great deal of ink. So I have chosen a monthly ink purchase scheme. So for a few £s per month I get an unlimited supply of ink to enable me to do all the printing I need and don't have to worry about a sudden outlay on expensive cartridges which can run into quite a hefty sum.

PS If the weather wasn't so bad I'd be in the garden and not writing posts like this.

Storms and a Beautiful Aria

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday and I was going to post about Scotch Pancakes. They have nothing to do with pancake day but a few people had asked about them and I was going to make some and share the experience. Some other time perhaps.

I had to go into town to the dental practice at short notice. There were gale force winds from the South but the high tide was about 40 minutes previously so the Braighe was not closed to traffic and I duly got ready and set off. There was a police car at this end but he was just keeping an eye on things and I drove across. It was still a bit hairy and there were stones on the road so it must have been bad at high tide.

I listen to music much of the time when I'm in the house. Usually in the morning it is BBC Radio 3 Essential Classics. Otherwise I choose from BBC iPlayer or my library on Apple Music. I rarely use my huge CD collection directly any more because it is held in my Apply Music library.  I often hear pieces that I've not heard before or I've forgotten about. Sometimes they have an great impact. A few days ago one of those was Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheeba) - Assad's act 2 aria "Magische Töne", recorded in 1967 by Nicolai Gedda with the Orchester des Bayreischen Staatsoper, Munich, conducted by Giuseppe Patanè. It will probably be of little interest to many of my readers but for anyone who enjoys opera I think it is one of the most beautiful pieces of singing I've heard for years. It's available on YouTube here.