Well, it has been a long while. I have a tendency to hermit when I have a lot on my plate.

We have had a lot going on here, with no let up over the last few months.

I promise to do better!

I buy a magazine called ‘ Country Kitchen’ once a month. Its good old fashioned, locally sourced fare and has some interesting articles. When I’m done my mum gets it and we do a swap with any she has bought. This aside, a very unusual article appeared about eccentric cooking practices and festivities this issue. I read with considerable interest, bizarre goings on appeal to my sense of humour.

We have the christmas pudding race in Covent Garden, hare pie scramble and bottle kicking in Leicestershire, stilton cheese rolling in Cambridgeshire, the world nettle eating championships in Dorset and my favourite is the Yorkshire pudding boat race.

Apparently giant Yorkshire puddings are coated in several layers of yacht varnish to stop them going soggy and then sailed across a pond belonging to Bob in Brawby, North Yorshire while someone recites poetry! Barking!!

Anyway, here’s the link www.theshed.co.uk/boatrace.html

I had an early start on Tuesday this week with my father returning on an early flight to the south, leaving me with a retail therapy day in the city.

The M8 has serious roadworks from the airport junction to Govan and then very slow traffic to the central turn off J19. It took over an hour to get a few junctions, reminded me of a previous life and my probationary year spent travelling down the M40 from Kidlington to Banbury every day. How did I ever do it? Would hate this as a commute now.

Anyway, I started off in the music shop, new music books for pupils and myself. Get discount as a teacher so really worth the trip. Followed that with new boots, new clothes ( H&M were having a £1 day), a trip to Ikea, horse feed store, Lomond shores and Asda.

Got back at 7.30pm, 9 whole hours of therapy! Really don’t do that very often.

The trouble is living in Argyll that you have to make the most of a city trip and I surely did. Car was very low at the back and I got my own back on all those motorists that try to blind me with undipped lights. Very bad driving habit here.

Back to school today, no chocolate on the staff table, need to remedy that as soon as possible!

I know, yet again postings have been non existent. I have good reason, mainly the fact that my landy has given us a dreadful week with all sorts of weird and truly bizarre goings on. 

Landy’s have their own language and can be extremely frustrating. The gearbox is in fact OK but the clutch wasn’t and the spiggott bush was broken into little pieces. Simple course of action you would think, new clutch and new copper ring, great!

Ah,this is a landrover, things fall off daily, repair themselves overnight and sometimes just disappear altogether. We had a terrible week really, the gearbox took 9 hours to get bolted in and the transfer box took 4 hours.

The car is still on the ramps, a few tweaks yet before she is roadworthy but my not so trusty stead will be back.

My poor father spent his whole week under my landy but I did reward him with a continous supply of chocolate puddings in various disguises. Triple chocolate ice-cream, belgian chocolate sponge, bananas and chocolate custard, chocolate tray bake and cream!

My waistline is now suffering but hey! I was on holiday and deserve it every now and then.

I’m looking forward to this week, landrover heaven for me! My father is arriving this evening to help put my beloved landrover back on the road. I know, I know, get a proper car, I hear you say but hey, its a big tonka toy and I love driving it.

The gearbox died  on the last day of the summer term this year and has been parked in its hospital bay since.

Cars with carpets in are all very well but you can’t hose them out or drive them up mountains. Now, what I really want is a roof tent and a winch. Perhaps Santa will be good to me this year!

Well, another of my little friends died this morning after a desperate week. Arnie a very fit and healthy cat disappeared for a few days last week and came back very dazed and very thin. The vet suspected poisoning, followed by a stroke. On top of this the poor little chap had an epileptic fit.

We tried to give him some time in case he rallied round as cats often do but unfortunately that was not to be. This morning I had to make that decision that all animal owners dread.

Sorry the news could not be more cheerful.

Hi there,

Haven’t posted for a while again. Really had a lot on our plates, particularly sick animals and very late evenings at work.

Need to get back to tracing the family tree but time in the evening seems to have escaped me.

Will post some more over the weekend, nursing a very sick cat and a poorly GSD. Not sure how good the outcomes will be just now.

Had a really good sort out of boxes in the spare room today and found some documents I had long since given up hope of discovering. Remarkably, I found my family tree dating back to 1745 on my father’s mother’s side. The Richards family were huge with great, great, great grandad having fathered 13 children. He did have two wives however! There are also a lot of children called Solomon.

The most interesting fact is that several of my ancestors share the same birthday as me, only 200 hundred years apart!

I’ve been on the census this afternoon trying to locate a bit more information as some of the dates are missing and the spouse’s names are a bit vague.

 Had some very useful tips from a good friend who has a lot more knowledge and experience in tracing family history than myself, so I shall report back on my findings as I explore further.

Really excited about this!

Its always very sad when you lose a beloved pet. Some of ours have had terrible stories prior to settling in to our humble abode for waifs and strays.

Today, we lost a very big character and a  gentle dog. Simba died this morning, very unexpectedly, at the ripe old age of 13. A good age for a German Shepherd.

I wrote this entry earlier in the week but haven’t been able to bring myself to post it. Feeling better about it now.

I spent yesterday trying to cancel Sky movies, which we have had for the bargain price of £1 per month for 3 months. Well, it ran out yesterday. The average waiting time to be connected to a customer advisor was 12 minutes.There is a deliberate plot to prevent you from deleting channels. It worked, I hung up twice. Finally, I managed to get through to a very nice guy who after discovering my address wanted to talk about the Connect festival which was held locally at Inveraray Castle.

He paid a lot of money for the tickets and the only thing he really praised was the venue.

The festival was not my cup of tea, a lot of bands from my youth which I didn’t like the first time around, masses of mud and too many people.

I have some nice shots of the castle I took a while back. The great thing is that you can walk around the grounds at anytime, without having to pay to visit the house. The estate is extensive and the walks well kept. When something is on your doorstep you tend to take it for granted. I should explore more.