A Wee Update

Life has been getting in the way of Blogland yet again. 

The Good Thing is that we have had five days of (mainly) sunny weather which has, about half the time, been free of the bitterly cold and strong wind that makes working outside in the garden a bit of a trial even when dressed up to the nines for the occasion.

It has meant that I have been getting up well before 7am and spending the vast amount of daylight in the garden and the polycarb doing hard labour. Well, that's the theory. When possible it's been the practice too. I would spend 12 hours a day in the garden if I could.

It has been helped by the fact that some of my social and other activities (like the gym) have had to be cancelled because I've been forbidden to drive until I've had an MRI scan to confirm that the incident that saw me ending up in hospital in the middle of the night, yet again, was labyrinthitis and not a TIA. 

Needless to say people have been very good and I've had lifts to town when needed.

I'm flying down to Glasgow this week for an MRI scan but it is looking uncertain as to whether I will get the hoped for resulting confirmation that I can drive in time to get down to Ayr for my delayed uretic stent replacement. This could mean another delay or very inconvenient travel arrangements on public transport.

C'est la vie.

I found some accidental potatoes left in the grounds when I emptied the potato grow bags from last spring/summer. 

Over the years I've shown some lovely sunrises from my kitchen window. This was yesterday's view 

Wordle

A few weeks ago I mentioned 'Wordle' in one of my posts here. YP explains more about it in his post here.

I play it each day and so far have been reasonably successful and enjoyed it. I've never been unable to find the word but to be fair that's probably not a great accolade because I only know one person who had not had a 100% achievement record. 

I compare results and the words we have used each day with friends in New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. One of us, not me, seems to be just slightly better than the rest who are all pretty much the same standard.

However this game seems to have sparked international rows since it was taken over by the NY Times a few weeks ago, with claims that words have been Americanised,  simplified, 'properfied' (my own word for removing such abhorrent words as, 'wench, 'slave, and 'lynch') and that some were far too esoteric and unusual such as 'caulk' I have to say that the last one mystified me because I got it in 4 lines and thought it was a perfectly ordinary household word.

No doubt that’s the case, but just at this moment it’s difficult to imagine anything more exciting than five squares turning green – the most satisfying five-letter word of all.

Highland and Island Travel

I travelled home on Saturday. I had to plan it on the basis of the snow from Storm Eunice having gone and the lull in the wind between storms allowing the Saturday evening ferry to sail. 

Unfortunately my second lot of hospital plans (ie my stent change) didn't quite work out. I was supposed to have the procedure on Thursday but as I was getting into the car to drive to the hospital I got a call from the hospital to say that they had no beds. They could do the procedure but couldn't stick me in a bed afterwards. I'm now scheduled for the middle of March. Hey ho.

The drive from Glasgow to Ullapool was one of the best I've had. There was very little traffic.  The sun shone out of a blue sky and the hills, forests and fields were covered in snow. The ferry wasn't overly busy and the sea was reasonably calm.

Unfortunately I discovered that my dashcam had not been recording onto the SDD card so all the fabulous winter footage of driving through the Scottish Highlands doesn't exist. 

The weather forecasts all seem a bit out of kilter for us at the moment. The storms don't seem to be coming our way despite the predictions on the various weather apps. However, I don't think I'd be relying on the ferries for the rest of this week notwithstanding.

Hi Folks

Just to let everyone know that I'm doing my best to dip into Blogland when I can.

It's been an interesting week or two and I'm now in and out of hospitals for the next week. It's all routine with no need for any concern but it is very time consuming.

In the meantime here's a photo for Jill. I'm sorry it's not a magnolia but the jacaranda trees gave me extraordinary joy when I lived in New Zealand and we had them in the drive as well as in many of the roads in and around Napier.