Good grief - its 2 months since I updated this blog, though at least Bronwen put something in a few weeks ago. However the weather has turned rather nasty this week - lots of gales and rain, indeed the hail is thumping down as I type, so it must to time to update with what I can remember. One of the main reasons things did not get updated was that the hard drive on our PC went bang - so we've got a new PC, and I bought a new drive for the old one, so I've spent a few weeks restoring stuff and tackling Vista. Luckiliy this co-incided witha week's visit to Glasgow & Edinburgh to sort out Roz & Pam's flats a bit, so I was able to pick up the PC etc when I was over (only my second trip away since we got here).
We have not been idle, even without the PC blowing up - indeed our retirement seems to have come to an end as we both now have part time jobs. I'll let Bronwen explain hers (central administrator for Quakers in Scotland) which seems to largely comprise fighting with a FilemakerPro database. I heard that I'd got mine last night - general secretary to Islay Golf Club. This is basically subscription administration, organising things (but not golf events), and the usual minute taking etc. This of course means that I'll just have to turn out to all the dinners, golf outings to the mainland etc as I am being paid (not a lot) to do so!
As Bronwen mentioned in the last blog, then end of the summer was taken up by festivals. I went to three concerts in the Jazz Festival, the two local ones at Bruichladdich, so that I coudl stagger home, and the lunchtime one at Portnahaven, where is nearly got killed in the rush for the "famous home baking". It was a great weekend, though I did depart the last concert as the amplification was just way over the top (for a trumpet).
A couple of weeks after that was the Small Isles Film Festival where we went to a showing of The Maggie (which was filmed largely on Islay) and to a session showing several small films featuring the island. Some of these have been put up on Youtube, for example Portnahaven in 1948. While you are there look up Donovan singing "Isle of Islay", which he manages to rhyme with "stay" - it is truly terrible (unless you are a Donovan fan I guess).
A week or two after that I was a late substitute for the Machrie Team Challenge which was good fun, although Bronwen had the car on the mainland, so I was dependent on lifts and thus missed the dinners, quizes etc in the evenings, which was probably just as well.
On top of all that the usual round of regular golf, bridge and gardening has continued. We even gave a joint talk to the local church seniors lunch club, which we take my dad to each week, on the Internet for Beginners. It seemed to go quite well. That's all I can recall, except that we've figured out that the pump on our solar panel is driving the water the wrong way round the system, so we are not getting the real efficiency from it. Now we're just waiting on the plumber to turn up and fix it.
Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Friday, 24 October 2008
Sunday, 4 May 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, 27 April 2008
The first hectic week
Monday 21st April
Continued to clear out the garage and put up more shelves. Had a chat to John about something to use as a water butt and also rough grass seeding for the plot – he will source the seed and sow it for me on the back of the tractor.
I went to the Bridge club in the evening to meet my partner for the big match at the weekend.
The technology has changed since I last played with bidding cards etc, so it was a rapid learning curve. My partner, a retired major in his ‘80s, was great and very tolerant of my errors. We had a bad evening though with lots of funny hands with bad breaks. The only hand I played and made was the very last one!
Tuesday 22nd
Clearing out the garage, I decided that a trip to skip was justified with a completely full car. This meant I could buy the mushrooms required for tea, saw Kenny, our builder about a few items (and getting the keys he still had). I also filled up car (£1.29 a litre for diesel), in view of the impending Grangemouth refinery shutdown, and bought hollow wall fixing screws. In the evening, wrote some letters for dad to various building societies the (he has nothing in his name at this address yet which is proving a problem). Bronwen at special female choir practice - apparently in Gaelic choirs they have completely separate parts and the women have more to do for the upcoming local Mod.
Wednesday 23rd
Some overnight rain, (first since we got here), so decided to start to dig the bit of garden which will be the “lawn” (i.e the rough grass which I’ll bother to mow, photo shows what we're dealing with). Hard going and we gave up after a few hours and two wheelbarrow loads of rocks & stones. Put the first coat of paint on “shaker style” hooks for bathrooms, shelf for larder and the bit that was missed under the bath panel. No sign of BT so I rang the man in Cambeltown who said he’d chase it first thing in the morning. Had an admin evening sorting out tax stuff re our Preston house and wrote to the taxman about capital gain on dad’s house.
Thursday 24th
Phone call from BT – looks like something fell down a crack, however an hour later I’m told they will arrive tomorrow morning to complete the installation. Put a 2nd coat of paint on the hooks and shelf and was just leaving to meet the fish van when Argyll & Bute council arrived to assess the house for council tax. Left him to it and managed to get the fish van, though nearly got drafted onto the RE-JIG (recycling) committee while I waited.
Tackled putting up the drying pulley, but decided half way through on a better way of doing it – however don’t have enough long screws, so they are on the shopping list for tomorrow. We were just about to start digging the “lawn” again when Keith Farvis rang to arrange to come and see us, so spent a nice afternoon doing our local little walk over the hill behind the house and having tea. Keith and Helen, who are our first visitors from the mainland, are here for 5 days or so and are regular visitors to Islay. Bronwen at Choir in the evening, so dad and I watched the football.
Friday 25th
BT arrived nice and early, however it turned out that our internal wiring is faulty (ring wire is wrong, so the phone was not ringing). The BT man fixed one of the outlets so we have a working landline phone. I took my father for his first chat with the local doctor – and chat it turned out to be (no great rush here and he got a good 20 minutes with the doctor). I then chased up BT on the broadband front (it should happen by the end of next week) and arranged for Sky to install the satellite dish (should happen Tuesday). In the middle of all this the deadline for bids for selling dad’s house passed – and we had nine bids (highest I’ve ever heard of) and are very happy with the winning bid. Entry is wanted quickly though so Bronwen will have to return to Edinburgh a week earlier than planned, thus missing most of the Islay Whisky festival week.
The afternoon was taken up with the weekly shop, along with getting longer screws, a new
doorbell, a chat to Kenny the builder, who just happened to have the electrician with him, so I had a chat about the telephone wiring (half hour to fix), and a return trip to the doctor to get part of dad’s prescription. It also turns out that the bathroom heater/towel rail we wanted is no longer manufactured, so we’ll need to select something else. Finished the day by cooking the sea bass I picked up at the fish van yesterday to a Rick Stein recipe and a nice bottle of wine. Photo shows our local shop/cafe.
Saturday 26th
Entire day given over to bridge for me. We had an excellent morning, lying 2nd at lunchtime, but could not keep up the mental effort in the afternoon and our mistakes cost us dearly. Still it was an excellent day against a combination of people from Hamilton and Dunoon bridge clubs, both of which have links to the Islay club going back some years. Bronwen meantime had a long chat with one of our new neighbours who called to invite us round, and was most amused that we out to dinner tonight with the bridge event, and Monday was bridge night and Thursday was choir night. We managed to leave the dinner just before the serious drinking was about to start (even won 2 bottles of wine in the raffle).
Sunday 27th
Cracking day weather wise, so after some
gardening (on the “lawn” again, photo shows the locals waiting for the grass to appear) and another shelf put up, and the doorbell installed, I accompanied Bronwen on our bikes down to Portnahaven (9 miles or so), where she was going to the Gaelic church service. I pottered about meeting a couple of local cyclists and via one of them and the owner of the pub I was introduced to the golf club secretary, who will send me the necessary direct debit bumf – and promptly invited me to join the regular cronies who play Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Came back by the hillier west road and was interrupted by a call from the Sky engineer who was quizzing me about cables etc for the installation. He will now phone Bill, the electrician, to find out just what has been installed, sp he does not have to poke external cables through the walls.
That’s the end of week one, got to go and get the golf clubs cleaned up.
Continued to clear out the garage and put up more shelves. Had a chat to John about something to use as a water butt and also rough grass seeding for the plot – he will source the seed and sow it for me on the back of the tractor.
I went to the Bridge club in the evening to meet my partner for the big match at the weekend.
The technology has changed since I last played with bidding cards etc, so it was a rapid learning curve. My partner, a retired major in his ‘80s, was great and very tolerant of my errors. We had a bad evening though with lots of funny hands with bad breaks. The only hand I played and made was the very last one!Tuesday 22nd
Clearing out the garage, I decided that a trip to skip was justified with a completely full car. This meant I could buy the mushrooms required for tea, saw Kenny, our builder about a few items (and getting the keys he still had). I also filled up car (£1.29 a litre for diesel), in view of the impending Grangemouth refinery shutdown, and bought hollow wall fixing screws. In the evening, wrote some letters for dad to various building societies the (he has nothing in his name at this address yet which is proving a problem). Bronwen at special female choir practice - apparently in Gaelic choirs they have completely separate parts and the women have more to do for the upcoming local Mod.
Wednesday 23rd
Some overnight rain, (first since we got here), so decided to start to dig the bit of garden which will be the “lawn” (i.e the rough grass which I’ll bother to mow, photo shows what we're dealing with). Hard going and we gave up after a few hours and two wheelbarrow loads of rocks & stones. Put the first coat of paint on “shaker style” hooks for bathrooms, shelf for larder and the bit that was missed under the bath panel. No sign of BT so I rang the man in Cambeltown who said he’d chase it first thing in the morning. Had an admin evening sorting out tax stuff re our Preston house and wrote to the taxman about capital gain on dad’s house.Thursday 24th
Phone call from BT – looks like something fell down a crack, however an hour later I’m told they will arrive tomorrow morning to complete the installation. Put a 2nd coat of paint on the hooks and shelf and was just leaving to meet the fish van when Argyll & Bute council arrived to assess the house for council tax. Left him to it and managed to get the fish van, though nearly got drafted onto the RE-JIG (recycling) committee while I waited.
Tackled putting up the drying pulley, but decided half way through on a better way of doing it – however don’t have enough long screws, so they are on the shopping list for tomorrow. We were just about to start digging the “lawn” again when Keith Farvis rang to arrange to come and see us, so spent a nice afternoon doing our local little walk over the hill behind the house and having tea. Keith and Helen, who are our first visitors from the mainland, are here for 5 days or so and are regular visitors to Islay. Bronwen at Choir in the evening, so dad and I watched the football.
Friday 25th
BT arrived nice and early, however it turned out that our internal wiring is faulty (ring wire is wrong, so the phone was not ringing). The BT man fixed one of the outlets so we have a working landline phone. I took my father for his first chat with the local doctor – and chat it turned out to be (no great rush here and he got a good 20 minutes with the doctor). I then chased up BT on the broadband front (it should happen by the end of next week) and arranged for Sky to install the satellite dish (should happen Tuesday). In the middle of all this the deadline for bids for selling dad’s house passed – and we had nine bids (highest I’ve ever heard of) and are very happy with the winning bid. Entry is wanted quickly though so Bronwen will have to return to Edinburgh a week earlier than planned, thus missing most of the Islay Whisky festival week.
The afternoon was taken up with the weekly shop, along with getting longer screws, a new
doorbell, a chat to Kenny the builder, who just happened to have the electrician with him, so I had a chat about the telephone wiring (half hour to fix), and a return trip to the doctor to get part of dad’s prescription. It also turns out that the bathroom heater/towel rail we wanted is no longer manufactured, so we’ll need to select something else. Finished the day by cooking the sea bass I picked up at the fish van yesterday to a Rick Stein recipe and a nice bottle of wine. Photo shows our local shop/cafe.Saturday 26th
Entire day given over to bridge for me. We had an excellent morning, lying 2nd at lunchtime, but could not keep up the mental effort in the afternoon and our mistakes cost us dearly. Still it was an excellent day against a combination of people from Hamilton and Dunoon bridge clubs, both of which have links to the Islay club going back some years. Bronwen meantime had a long chat with one of our new neighbours who called to invite us round, and was most amused that we out to dinner tonight with the bridge event, and Monday was bridge night and Thursday was choir night. We managed to leave the dinner just before the serious drinking was about to start (even won 2 bottles of wine in the raffle).
Sunday 27th
Cracking day weather wise, so after some
gardening (on the “lawn” again, photo shows the locals waiting for the grass to appear) and another shelf put up, and the doorbell installed, I accompanied Bronwen on our bikes down to Portnahaven (9 miles or so), where she was going to the Gaelic church service. I pottered about meeting a couple of local cyclists and via one of them and the owner of the pub I was introduced to the golf club secretary, who will send me the necessary direct debit bumf – and promptly invited me to join the regular cronies who play Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Came back by the hillier west road and was interrupted by a call from the Sky engineer who was quizzing me about cables etc for the installation. He will now phone Bill, the electrician, to find out just what has been installed, sp he does not have to poke external cables through the walls.That’s the end of week one, got to go and get the golf clubs cleaned up.
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