Age Doesn't Matter

Unless you are a cheese. 

On the other hand there are advantages to being a senior citizen or and old age pensioner: you can get free bus transport throughout Scotland (if you are a Scottish resident) and you pay less for a haircut!  So today, mindful of our son's wedding at the end of the week I went in for a haircut.  The (23 year old) hairdresser, whom I had not met before this morning, was very chatty and pleasant and when it came to pay said something like "I'm terribly sorry and I hope you won't be offended but I didn't manage enough clues during our chat.  Are you over 60?"  Given that I'm 70 I was pretty chuffed.  

It reminded me of a day many years ago (I was around 50 at the time) when a barber in Liverpool where I was visiting my parents assumed that I was an old age pensioner (at the time 65) and I was so taken aback that I just accepted the insult, paid the reduced charge, and left.

Overall it's been a Very Good Day.  It's a shame that the two 'contestants' in the Scottish independence debate this evening are doing the usual debating thing and making complete arses of themselves.  Whatever else they are doing they are not increasing my knowledge.  They are, however, confirming my despair at the politicians that govern us.  There was a great deal of heat and very little light.

The Garden

Well not the whole garden just the 'front' garden which is on the east side of the house between the house and The Minch looking out towards the Scottish Mainland.  When I posted about the garden a few days ago some people have mentioned to me that they don't know what it looks like now.  So I thought I'd post a few general photos and also show the Lavatera (which may have been confused with a Hibiscus).

Looking South South East

Looking South

Looking East

Looking North

Montbretia (also known as Crocosmia and often incorrectly spelt Mombresia or Mombretia)

Lavatera - a seaside loving plant

I Hope Service Still Lives On

Somewhere around 1965 I was taken ill in the middle of the night.  I had completely forgotten about the incident until today when I was thinking about the department store John Lewis and the remarkable service I used to get from George Henry Lee which was their Liverpool Branch back then.  I had shopped there independently since I was 16 as had my parents before me.  The doctor was called in the middle of the night and the next morning an ambulance arrived to take me to the nearby hospital (where I had been born and had subsequently worked for a while).  This took me a little by surprise (I didn't even possess a dressing gown).  I rang George Henry Lee and asked if they could send a dressing gown and some pyjamas to the ward.  A couple of hours later one of the young men from the menswear department arrived on the ward with a green paisley dressing gown: the perfect choice.  I have no idea what the pyjamas were like (I have always had a detestation of wearing clothes in bed).   Many years later that young man was still working in the menswear department and I was still buying clothes from him.

When my Uncle who lived on Anglesey was taken in to Bangor Hospital about 9 or 10 years ago he needed extra pyjamas and a dressing gown and, as I was over 500 miles away I wasn't in a position to do anything immediately.  So I rang the M & Co branch in Bangor (in those days it was Mackay's).  I told them what I needed and said that I would try and arrange for a taxi to collect it (how I would manage to get a taxi to do that without cash I wasn't sure).  The assistant asked me to call back in a short while.  I did and she had arranged the whole thing.  One of her colleagues with a car was going home shortly after and she would go to the hospital and take the clothes to the ward for me.  For the record I wrote to the head office and expressed my appreciation.

I have never ceased to be loyal to John Lewis nor to M & Co nor to sing their praises.

I wouldn't mind betting that even with though sales are so the impersonal these days those two companies would still help out in a crisis.  I would like to think that they are not alone.  Just don't try and ask Amazon!

It's Taken 20 Years

When I bought this house in 1993 the garden didn't exist.  It was just bare croft land like the land on the other side of the fence with the addition of building rubble from when the house was built in the 1920s and extended in the '70s and again in the '80s.

Local customs made it impossible to work on the garden on the Sabbath and I worked six days a week as a rule.  So transforming the bare land into what I have now took a long time working mainly on summer evenings.  After 10 years of moving tons of soil and stones I had got this far with a retaining wall built and a level that could be used (it had previously been too steep to contemplate a 'lawn' area).  Most of you will have seen many photos of what the garden is like now but I'm not sure that the the work is any less: just different.

There is still lots of planting and alterations to do and it still needs weeding constantly.  So when friends come to stay (especially gardening friends)...

But it's worth it:

Lavatera

Lavatera

Primrose (sic) though they look like Primulas to me

Primulas (sic) though they look like Primulas to me

Geranium 'Rozanne': a low ground-covering geranium