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Neil, enjoy! I'll be following in your footsteps part of the way tomorrow. Heading up to Drumnadrochit via Glencoe and Aonach Mor. Glenfinnan's a little out of your way for Strontian but it is possible, though the road around that side of Loch Linnhe is narrow and slow. The Glenfinnan monument is I think covered in scaffolding at the moment as it's developed Pisa envy but you should see the viaduct ok. I seem to remember that there's an ex-LNER camping coach in Glenfinnan station. The advantage with taking that route is that you avoid paying for the Corran ferry! Strontian's pretty, I've stayed there on a couple of occasions - watch out for pine martens. I've seen one just the far side of the main village dashing up a drive. Been giving the GF a quick lesson in pre-decimalisation currency. She's fallen asleep. I suspect the two things are connected. To my amazement, RBS still prints £1 notes though I've not seen one for a number of years. I remember regularly using florins and shillings, and ha'pennies, which were withdrawn when I was 7.

Afternoon all from a damp (and sometimes snowy) Scottish HQ. I did pass some cars on my walk to work this morning that had half an inch of snow on them, probably come in from the Pentland Hills. I remember snow in Durham in June too, though I don't think I was watching cricket at the time... The office is like the Marie Celeste today, very few of us in. Many don't work Fridays or work from home. I had my end year review this morning. No need to be packing my desk, thankfully! Popped out at lunchtime to post my A4 Empire of India to somewhere in deepest darkest Lincolnshire as it sold on a "best offer" on Ebay. Have a good POETS day!

Evening all from the Edinburgh Riviera! Been a mixed day but not too wet. Was in the office for a couple of hours then off to a meeting near Motherwell. Not a lot to report and can't easily add likes on the mobile version of RMWeb. Pleased to see BoD has a complete circuit - can we see pics? Dad spent 3 months in the USA in 1967 and arrived back at Manchester airport where his aunt collected him and let him drive back to Elsecar. He managed to get out of the airport before his aunt suggested it might be an idea to drive on the left... Best wishes to all!

https://www.facebook.com/entertainmentdailyfix/videos/1098858696801034/ For those of you on Faceache, here's a fab video of a Lego model railway... I've occasionally wondered if anyone with a loft OO layout has installed an outside helix to the garden railway...

Ian - sorry to hear your news about your brother. I suspect I would do a Jock (Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light" springs to mind) but not everyone has that fight. Speaking of Jock, I'm really pleased our good wishes have been passed on. Thank you! Dick - I'm sure you'll get Daisy to open up and I hope she can get back home to a stable family life soon but until then I'm sure you'll be a loving and stable support to her. I'm having issues with Jamie's mum at the moment, to the extent I've got an appointment next week with the CAB to get some advice about my rights (and Jamie's rights) as Jamie's mum won't allow her to stay overnight at my flat. It's been an ongoing issue for the last 3 years but GF is now giving me some support. Not pleasant though, and stressful.

Afternoon all from a sunny and at the same time snow-blown Scottish HQ. Manifesto launch has happened but we still haven't actually seen a copy, hard or digital... Happy birthday Andy! Great idea. Not had a Beano in years... Your office is Waitrose? I thought Elvis' birthday was January 8th!

Latest intelligence is that it's due tomorrow, but who knows... Nothing like cutting it fine!

Morning all from a dry but grey Scottish HQ. Calf's a touch tender from last night's exertions, but otherwise no other after-effects. Slept like a log until 6am and for another hour after that brief interlude to look at my watch! Nothing much of interest happening today, though I may be taken to a dance class tonight... Waiting on Scottish Labour's manifesto to be published (to do analysis), they're cutting it very fine, folk won't have chance to read it before the election, and postal votes are already out...

Was meant to be going running tomorrow night until my friend texted me about 4pm to ask if I could do tonight instead. We've normally done a maximum of 8k in our evening runs but ended up doing a little more tonight, I ran 2k to my friend's house, 11.3 with her and then 2k back so I've ended up doing more than a third of a marathon distance this evening! Plus my walk to and from work. And some of the run was in the snow/hail too...

Well, I guess if the top 'gate' was open to the upper canal and a ramp at the 'gate' at the 'free' end you could get a boat to jump off the end without lowering the gate and emptying the canal...

Afternoon all from an overcast snowy (!) Scottish HQ. Tiny flakes of snow coming down now, but not settling. Busy weekend and I've not caught up with posts yet, but I do have a PM from Mal to respond to! Was at the Falkirk Wheel, the Kelpies and Linlithgow Palace with Jamie yesterday. The Falkirk Wheel is quite amazing. I've seen it before but I'm amazed by how little power it uses to rotate it - apparently it now uses about the same as 2 and a half (modern) kettle boilings' worth of energy per half revolution (about 8 kWh). Hope all are safe and well!

Thanks Mal, will have to try that sometime! Happy anniversary to you and Gabe too. And to Mr and Mrs Stationmaster tomorrow. Feeling like I've been hit by a truck (not done much today really but just pooped). We've got Airbnb guests arriving at Anamaria's sometime about 11pm, delayed flight as they were meant to be here about 10. I have no interesting claims to fame on computers... My history is: Atari 2600, Atari 800XL, Commodore Amiga, Pentium P90, followed by more Windows machines until they introduced Vista and I moved to Intel-based iMac in 2008! We did have a Kray supercomputer (I think) in our computer room in our hall of residence. Two of the compsci students had bought it cheap and nearly broke the lift getting it to the 1st Floor.

Afternoon all from a (now) sunny Scottish HQ for the last time this week. (I may be back tomorrow but it'll be from home or elsewhere not HQ!). I had no idea the Sheraton had rooftop pools...! I was down on Portobello prom last night too, cycled along from Leith to Fisherrow Harbour and back. 11.3 miles, into a headwind on the way out but it gave me a nice turn of speed on the way back! I've maybe missed the contents of the parcel from China... do tell!

Morning Afternoon (it was morning when I started typing!) all from a sunny Scottish HQ (3 days in a row!). Blooming typical that I'm in work though... Went out for a run last night with the GF. Her first run in several months, so it was a slow one with lots of walking breaks, but I went off for a little extra loop after we reached home to add a little distance to it for me. Hoping I might get out on the bike tonight. I pumped up the tyres ready for a ride last night before having a run suggested instead - we're doing the Colour Me Rad run in a month's time, where we run 5K while being sprayed with brightly coloured chemicals... When I was in Durham a couple of weeks ago, I took Jamie to a fused glass workshop - her bowl has arrived in the post today. The owner does some fantastic stained glass work - http://www.crushedchilli.co.uk/commissions - her stained glass window that she designed for my old school is on this page. Anyone that's interested, I'm selling a Hornby A4 Empire of India on Ebay that's ending tonight... Best wishes to all and hopefully get to enjoy a bit of that gorgeous sunshine!

Morning all from a gloriously sunny Scottish HQ (sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight...)! One meeting down, one (or possibly two) to go. Will try to pop out at lunchtime and enjoy the sunshine. Went out for a run around Arthur's Seat again last night, 5 miles in about 55 minutes. Little bit slow but there's a lot of uphill and I'm just getting back to running fitness. Hoping to take the cycle out tonight for a spin - if it stays like this I may need Factor 15 on my knees, calves and ankles. Good to hear that BoD's operation went well this morning and back at home so soon. Fingers crossed for Jock too.

Afternoon all! Tried to post earlier but ran out of time. Went out for lunch with a friend, went for a (very swiftly delivered) coq au vin at Chez Jules on Hanover Street. Plan is to head out for a run sometime soon, then may be going to Ceroc this evening depending how much my feet hurt after running! Hope to hear from Jock soon, or some news via the investigations. Happy birthday to Andy too.

Morning all from sunny/overcast/sunnyagain Scottish HQ! Had a rather uneventful Saturday. For the first time in what seems like months, Anamaria and I had a Saturday with nothing planned, nowhere to be and food in the fridge meaning we didn't have to pop to the shops. Rather like Gordon, we binge-watched Broadchurch as Anamaria hadn't seen it. Yesterday was with Jamie - she just wanted a day at my flat so we brought her across, went for a short walk at Cramond, then back to the flat to make lunch, decorate biscuits and watch a bit of tv. A rare couch potato weekend for me! I really enjoyed the first two series of The Bridge, on which The Tunnel is based. I have the dvd of the first series of The Tunnel, but didn't get past the first episode - I wasn't impressed by either of the leads having watched the original! I ought to give it another go. I also need to get round to watching series 3 of The Bridge.

Afternoon all from the comfort of my own flat, working shirking from home! Planned a full day at home, then after booting up the work laptop realised I had a 10am meeting in the office. Dashed up, had the meeting and returned home without being seen by any of the team! Had to be at home to let Anamaria's Airbnb guests into the flat this afternoon while she's in the office. Two retired Floridians, who seemed very nice! We're off for a curry this evening and (for once!) have absolutely no plans for tomorrow. I will need to do a bit of flat-tidying as Jamie wants to come here on Sunday. As Mal's noted it's got colder and a bit damper this afternoon. There was some light drizzle in the air as I was at GF's flat. My cousin's sent some photos from her daughter's christening before Easter which arrived in the post today. Great pics - will have to scan them to send to my folks. Have a good POETS day everyone!

Morning all from a sunny Scottish HQ. It looks rather nice outside, so I might go for my Tuesday run at lunchtime. (I missed my Tuesday run as it was horrible weather). Little to report... Hope all are well and we hear some news from Jock soon.

I think he meant his own personal L&B themed project (though I could be wrong!).

Afternoon all from a grey and slightly damp Scottish HQ (though it seems to have stopped raining for now). We're now starting to get the manifestoes through to analyse. Joy... I took my new Bachmann Highlander set down to Mum and Dad's with me and Jamie had a go with a sound-fitted 37. Interestingly, she found it too noisy and preferred the model on silent running. She did pick up the driving reasonably quickly too!

Morning all from a grey (and now damp) Scottish HQ. Zero progress was made last night on whittling the photos down to a usable tranche... GF is away from today for 2 nights at a conference in London, so we've been a bit like ships passing in the night the last week or so! Time to top up the blood caffeine levels...

I ordered a D5107 which arrived on Saturday morning. Tried it using the Bachmann EZ command which gave me a few basic functions and was very impressed with the build quality, smooth and quiet running (without the sound on!), detail and the DCC sound. Once I have the chance to look out my more advanced DCC controller I'll give it a proper test of its sound.

Afternoon all from a grey and dark (as Mal says!) Scottish HQ! Back at work for the first time since before Easter. Have done initial triage on the inbox, culling it from over 250 unread to about 80 so far. Congratulations to Sherry, and hope everyone's well! Since last posting, I've been to Romania, back to Edinburgh and then had (nearly) a week in Durham with Jamie. Will try to post some pictures from Romania once I've done a little bit of trimming them down into a usable selection - at the moment there's a huge folder of them that need editing down.

That is fantastic! What a great, quirky building!