Sky Tv Arrives and Vegetable Patch Started

Monday 28th

Excellent start to the week with a round of golf at the Machrie – I even managed to start par, birdie, par before it all fell away a bit. However my partner and I beat our opponents after a great comeback over the inward 9. There is a regular group of retirees who play Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so I won’t go short of a game.

In the afternoon I recovered some of my old fence posts from the field and started to construct a fence round the eventual vegetable patch. Only got as far as excavating a big hole with lots of rocks before deciding I was too tired, especially as it was bridge club night. Bronwen meantime had had an eventful morning with the electrician’s mate tracking down the faults in the phone wiring. All working apart from two in the living room.

Tuesday 29th

Busy day between the garden – getting the rest of the posts in thanks to a borrows sledgehammer – mind you if this is to be permanent they’ll need to be cemented in, and watching the Sky TV installer at work, even fixing the phone sockets so that he could plug the Sky box in. It all took about 5 hours but we now have an excellent TV picture on both TVs, so it can rain when it likes.

Wed 30th

Did not spend all day watching TV, though tempted. Finished off the vegetable stockade and did some more of the “lawn”. Spent the evening being well entertained by two of our new neighbours who built a new house here a couple of year’s ago. Tested out the Sky+ box by recording the football and watching it (speeded up a bit) when we got back in.


Thurs 1st May
Chased up BT to find out that yet again one part has not told the other part that we are ready for the broadband transfer, so it will be another 5 working days. Spent quite a while putting up pictures on the walls including re-framing a few.

Friday 2nd May

Luckily was up in time for Peter to deliver the topsoil which Ian had offered us earlier in the week – two dumper trucks worth. The weekly shop thus included some vegetable seeds, and indeed plants (sprouts, cabbage & callabrese) and in a fit of enthusiasm managed to start the vegetable plot by planting parsnip seeds in the afternoon (you can see the area where the fork is - quite a bit of digging to go). I’m following the “gourmet” plan in Joy Larkham’s book on growing vegetables – 4 narrow beds each 1m wide and 7m long, just digging up the bits I need. Too late for seed spuds this year though.

Sat 2nd May

Spend the morning helping with a beach clean at Machir Bay – managed a lorry load between only 6 of us which should raise some money for the Lifeboat. Lots of plastic bottles and especially rope and twine. Watched yet another football match at lunchtime (its that time of year) and tackled the flat pack chest of drawers in the afternoon. Decided after seeing the forecast that my first competitive round of golf would not be tomorrow morning, though I now have the membership bits and pieces.

Sunday 3rd May

Good call on the golf – first really wet day we’ve had. So put up almost all the remaining pictures and started to sort out the “office”. First though I helped our neighbour try to rescue a large tree like plant which she has in here house. This thing (don’t know what type) is about 10 feet high and looks like its in trouble, so it was re-potted between myself and a Swiss visitor. Bit of a messy operation and I suspect we might just have finished the thing off.