sixoh8sixoh

If it were me, I wouldn't be going... Are Pink Floyd touring in rural France?

Morning all (just! - or at least it was when I started typing) from a currently sunny Scottish HQ. Made it back from Perth yesterday to a sodden Edinburgh, and got very wet on my way home. After changing and drying off, I headed out to my friends' for Christmas dinner. Had a lovely meal with them, 7 of us round the table. I prefer my beef well done, so I had the rather more cooked bits on the outside while everyone else enjoyed the slightly rarer meat in the middle. Need to go and pick the car up today, as I drove over there last night, but got a lift back from the non-drinker (as planned). Looks like tonight will involve going shopping for bathroom floor tiles (hopefully nice slate ones) for the GF's flat. Work begins on flooring next week and the bathroom the week after (touch wood!). The Forth Road Bridge has now been closed until New Year. That's going to cause absolute chaos in the Central Belt. There were 11 mile tailbacks this morning around the Kincardine Bridge. I may have to change my route to Glasgow over the next few weeks as I usually head up the M9, but that's going to be far busier with people taking the Kincardine Bridge instead of the Forth Road Bridge.

Looking across to Edinburgh in the first. It's very strange for me to see so many rigs moored in the Firth of Forth. I was used to seeing them when I went up past Inverness, moored in the Cromarty Firth but it's unusual for so many to be in the Forth. The closest is near Burntisland, then two further seaward near Leven.

Yep, it's a hard life.

Morning all from a battleship grey Scottish HQ. Firstly, thoughts are with Jock and Is. One of my closest friends (who's in the bunch I'm having Christmas dinner with tonight, and who I give a lift to on Wednesdays to skiing) told me last night that her Mum was told on Monday that she has bowel cancer. Thankfully it hasn't spread, but she's being whisked in next Monday to be operated on. I'll offer support as much as possible, obviously. She's not letting it stop our Christmas celebration tonight, I'm pleased to say. Everything's prepared at my end for the Christmas dinner - the pud and cake are done. All I need to do is find a little sprig of holly for the top of the pud! I'm off to Perth shortly (thankfully by train, given that the Forth Road Bridge is down to one lane in each direction with major delays...) for a meeting. Roll on Christmas dinner tonight!

Afternoon all! 13 pages to catch up and I can safely say that's fairly unlikely in the present dearth of time! Happy Birthday Bob! Hope you're recovering from the head injury. Been a busy few days, a bit of tidying and baking on Friday. The Christmas cake for Thursday's Christmas dinner with friends is iced and decorated, just needs its ribbon around it now. And I taste-tested one of the mini Christmas puds last night, which was a success. Also had HN&T for St Andrew's Day with a nice whisky cream sauce. Between that, the brandy in the Christmas pud and the best part of a bottle of Hobgoblin, I was nicely toasted last night... Talking of which, toaster needs to be replaced soon as it didn't automatically spring this morning, cremating my toast in the process and leaving the flat stinking of burnt toast. Hope everyone's well!

Evening all from a dark Scottish HQ! Tomorrow is our St Andrew's Day holiday (bizarrely we don't get the Monday which is St Andrew's Day just so that we fit in better with the Parliament, apparently...). Been a busy day and I've not quite caught up with posts in free moments... At my skiing lesson last night I'd made it about 3/4 of the way down the slope on one run and was concentrating on crouching as I went across the slope, standing tall as I turned, pole plant... and thought I'd caught my skis together behind me. I have no memory of falling but went from vertical to horizontal in a split second. I looked down at my feet - one still had a ski attached to it, the other foot was ski-less and a few feet down the slope from me were... two skis! I was confused! One of the other members of my class had fallen about halfway up the slope, and lost a ski which travelled down the slope like an exocet missile taking me out in the process! Thankfully no damage done to me, and I saw the funny side! Today I've been out for a bit of the day at the Scottish International Policing Conference, listening to presentations about protocols for finding people who have gone missing from residential care homes. Most interesting! You've had this place redecorated... I don't like it! Happy Thanksgiving to all those ERs in the USA.

Yup, that's the one! And that's the livery of the model I bought too. I couldn't source one in the UK (Hornby's website being spectacularly unhelpful for trying to buy Jouef models) so I had a nice conversation in French with a lady somewhere in Brittany who sent me one!

Afternoon all from a dry and variably sunny Scottish HQ. Had to pop down to the Parliament this morning for a meeting with a Labour MSP and one of his constituents. I'm keeping an eye on the Spending Review statement as well, there are some interesting developments in it for my policy area. My Christmas cake is underway - I soaked the fruit last week, made the mix and baked it on Monday. The marzipan needs to be done tonight probably, as it's meant to have a few days to dry out, then I need to ice it on Friday or Saturday. The rush is because it's for a Christmas dinner with friends on Thursday next week. Mine was a Mary Berry Great British Bake Off recipe. Here's hoping it tastes as good as yours clearly did! Dom - 648 335 looks a very similar design (though obviously a 2-car design!) to a single car unit used by the SNCF that I spotted when I was in Carcassonne earlier this year. I was rather taken with it, and ordered a Jouef model of it... One day I might even have time and space to make a short French plank... Off skiing after work tonight - thankfully the weather and the forecast are a vast improvement on last week's.

Maybe he was caught in a Disco Inferno?

Sunderland won an away game! Afternoon all from a sunny Scottish HQ. Got very little done last night as GF had to go to B&Q to sort out cancellation of the order for her bathroom. An hour's driving in total for a two minute conversation in the store "Oh, there's no-one here now who deals with that, can you phone in the morning?". We did get close to finishing our jigsaw when we got home, though! (the rock'n'roll lifestyle of the civil servant...) Just popped out to post some coaches I sold on RMweb Buy and Sell. I posted them when it went live at the start of the summer so it was a nice surprise to get an email yesterday morning to say they'd sold. I've still got 2 Maunsell Southern coaches on there if anyone's interested! Going to try to thin out the collection a little bit, get rid of some impulse purchases that I'm never going to use. Can't decide whether to use RMweb Buy and Sell again or Ebay. Both have pros and cons. Glad to hear Jemma's recovering from her op. And as I missed a page out, I must find out now what it was that Gordon started...!!

Afternoon all from a mostly dry Scottish HQ. Ian, fingers crossed for Jemma's op going well. A busy weekend has been succeeded by a busy Monday... Was out all day (in what felt like sub-zero conditions) on Saturday at the Edinburgh Christmas market with the GF and a friend of hers who'd come up from London. Then was back again yesterday with Jamie as she wanted to go too! We stayed for the lights to be switched on by Susan Boyle at about 5pm, along with a good firework display. Thoughts to everyone else as I've not caught up since my last visit on Friday!

Afternoon all from a (currently) dry Scottish HQ. Yesterday I took the train across to the West for Jamie's parents evening. There was quite a bit of hanging around before and after, as I was collecting Jamie from Rainbows after the parents evening finished. On the plus side, she got a good report and I was impressed with her attitude afterwards as she asked me to tell her what she needed to do to improve. Not a lot else to report from here today. Hope everyone has a good weekend. And Happy Birthday Pete!

Morning all from a (gasp!) dry and sunny Scottish HQ. Had a message from the GF while I was at the ski slope last night to say that B&Q have been in touch to say that after all they can't do the bathroom before Christmas. GF has now told them to place their bathroom somewhere in the perpetual shade... They did offer to take a few hundred pounds off the cost, but she's rather fed up with the very poor customer service, and as a result has had to cancel some Airbnb guests over New Year, which has lost her another sum of money. Off to a meeting now. Good luck to all ailing and get well soon.

Thoughts and best wishes with you Simon. Skiing lesson was abandoned after 40 minutes as the wind got up. I was nearly blown off the tow by a gust so probably the best decision! The water was rolling off my jacket and salopettes.

Which?, Moneysavingexpert or perhaps OFGEM if not satisfied?

Afternoon all from a wet Scottish HQ. I didn't (stay warm and dry). Got thorough soaking on the way home last night. Spent several hours drying out slowly as the heating in GF's new flat isn't up to much at the moment. We were there for a chap to measure up and give a quote for fitting engineered flooring. I used them as a cadet (the Cadet GP rifle is the single shot version of the SA80) and hated them with a passion. They continually jammed leaving me in fear of my life on a number of occasions! The recoil was fairly powerful too, if I remember correctly. I much preferred shooting with air rifles, .22s and deer rifles (probably .236 but my memory is hazy!). I'm booked in for a skiing lesson tonight at Hillend (the outdoor dry ski slope on the edge of the Pentland Hills just south of Edinburgh). The forecast is for heavy rain and 50mph gusts, so I'm waiting to see if it's still going ahead. Can't say I'll be too disappointed if they reschedule tonight's lesson and add it on the end of the block...

Afternoon all from a dry Scottish HQ (that's about the best I can say about it!). (Or at least it was when I started writing this!) I'm having a Christmas dinner with friends on 3rd December and we're all supplying a course. I've volunteered the dessert, so started making Christmas cake and Christmas pudding. Slightly miscalculated my timings last night (unfortunately I rarely have 7 waking hours at home these days) so the Christmas pudding had to cook overnight, with me having to wake up twice to add water to the pans where it was simmering. We received a welcome bit of good news this morning at work. The court case we were involved in has found in our favour, which means we've been doing the right thing for the past few years!

Thanks Ed! She was swimming from the shallow end towards the deep end, but I was swimming alongside her, within arm's length at all times and I'm a reasonably strong swimmer, so was happy that she was safe at all times! Once she got tired at the 3/4 length point she was able to get hold of me and get a tow back to shallower water!

Morning all from a very wet torrential but sunny(ish) Scottish HQ. Bit of a weird morning so far, weather-wise. Saturday's tasks involved emptying cupboards and removing rubbish from bits of the GF's new flat. It's not habitable yet, and won't be until this time next month, as the bathroom will be ripped out from 7th December. She's bought through B&Q, they told her (towards the end of the 14 day cooling off period) that they couldn't fit it before Christmas. She told them that she'd have to cancel, so amazingly they've managed to slot her in for the 7t. (That may mean some other poor soul isn't getting theirs before Christmas...) Yesterday was swimming lessons for Jamie (I got 38 lengths in while she had her half hour class), then we swam for another 45 minutes after that. She managed 3/4 of a length of the big pool doing back stroke so she was quite proud of herself! Then bits and pieces of shopping. Was hunting for quince for the Christmas pudding without success yesterday but I've laid my hands on two on the way to work this morning! It's now sunny and stopped raining. All in the space of about 20 minutes... Have a good Monday all...

Abigail has brought snow to Edinburgh. Nothing settling, but there was a mini-blizzard for about 20 minutes of sleety snow at about 12.30.

Morning all (properly this time!) from a bright Scottish HQ for the final time this week (I did get some drops of rain on me as I walked to work, but nothing major). Managed to get home last night in one of the dry interludes between the squalls. Little else to report this morning so far. Yesterday's one meeting developed into two, but the second was pleasant. Will pop into Harburn Hobbies on my way home this evening as today and tomorrow is their Bachmann/Peco pre-Christmas weekend with 20% off. Off to find something that contains bacon sausage...

Great news. Celebrations definitely in order for Is.

On WWI poets, can I add a little known one? I hadn't heard of William Noel Hodgson until a year or two back, when I sang a setting of his poem Before Action in Durham Cathedral. Hodgson attended Durham School (you'll all be aware of my attendance there from my username!), and died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916. The musical setting was first performed in 2006, and is written by Will Todd, another former Durham School pupil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._N._Hodgson Before Action By all the glories of the day And the cool evening's benison By that last sunset touch that lay Upon the hills when day was done, By beauty lavishly outpoured And blessings carelessly received, By all the days that I have lived Make me a soldier, O Lord. By all of all man's hopes and fears And all the wonders poets sing, The laughter of unclouded years, And every sad and lovely thing; By the romantic ages stored With high endeavour that was his, By all his mad catastrophes Make me a man, O Lord. I, that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of thy sunsets spill Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, Ere the sun swings his noonday sword Must say good-bye to all of this; – By all delights that I shall miss, Help me to die, O Lord.

Morning all from a slightly sunny Scottish HQ (it was nice but it's clouding over). Went swimming with the GF last night. She's only just started learning to swim so I didn't get that many lengths done as I spent a reasonable amount of time holding her shoulders / back / legs... Today seems a little calmer in SG land. I have one half hour meeting today which shouldn't be too onerous. I can clean things badly very well... I can also clean things well really badly. Jamie - I can also recommend Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. She's the author of the Vera books (played by Brenda Blethyn on tv). I've just finished the most recent one, Thin Air. I'm now in the middle of the new John Rebus novel, Even Dogs In The Wild. I'm a big Ian Rankin fan, I really enjoy his writing. The Rebus novels never quite live up to expectations when they're televised - the books are a country mile better! Happy Birthday Ian! And hope everyone else is well / improving...