Long Time No Blog

Wow. Almost 3 weeks since a blog entry. I blame Facebook.

It's not as if nothing happened in that time.

One Scrabble tourney. The Scottish RR in Perth. I won all my games on day 1. And then set about finding somewhere to stay. No problem, I had thought - Perth has streets that are B&B heaven. So I walk up the Glasgow road. No Vacancies after No Vacancies. Okay, I will try Pitcullen terrace (or was it Dunkeld Road) - I'm not sure which but I knew roughly where it was so set off in the car. I saw one which did not say 'No Vacancies' so stopped. An oversight on the owners behalf. 'You'll not get anywhere to stay in Perth tonight - try Scone or failing that Blairgowrie'. Hmm. I tried Scone but no joy. I decided to bite the bullet and drive home. So I headed back into Perth trying to recognise where I was. Aah! That could be the Glasgow Road up ahead. BANG! I had completely missed the fact that there had been a red light just after the roundabout I had negotiated. The driver of the taxi that I hit called the police. After being accused of drinking or being on drugs, that I resolutely refuted, he calmed down and actually turned out to be quite nice. My car would start and then die. The steering wheel had locked so it was pushed to the wrong side of the road. The police arrived. I did my first ever breath test - it took me two attempts and I was doubled up with effort before it bleeped on the second go. Negative. I know some people think Scrabble is a drug - well, it can be addictive - but luckily it is not tested for. It took quite a while for everything to be sorted out. 3 points, fixed penalty fine for failing-to-stop at a red light. So now it was about 9 p.m. and I was still accommodation-less and now carless. The police set about getting me somewhere to stay. They tried the Dunkeld road - again, same story. So they head back towards the city centre. They parked the van and the police lady got out. She came back 5 minutes later - she had found a B&B with one room free but it was a double and I would be charged the full whack. At this point I was beyond caring - I took it. Luckily it was within easy walking distance of the Dewars centre as now I had to carry my board/clock, overnight bag and laptop. I managed to repack and squeeze my laptop into the bag. I was still a little shaken up but it didn't seem to affect my concentration, winning all but one and finishing second on day two, a few spread points behind Neil. Paul came to gather me and take me home.

I am still waiting to hear what is happening to the car. The police arranged it being taken to a secure compound after the accident - as they said, it would be all that the insurance company would do at that time (confirmed when I phoned them) and it would be a lot quicker if done by them. I set about sorting out the insurance on the Monday. I had a phone call from the garage on Tuesday - they were in York! I had a phone call from the insurance a couple of hours later - they would get a more local garage to take over. I heard nothing more. No courtesy car arrived. I phoned the insurance company on Friday - I had no news of car or courtesy car. Technical glitch their end. Hire car company phoned later - I would be getting a hire car for 3 days - so when did I want it. Well, I didn't need one until Wednesday as Paul's car was getting its MOT then. Okay - just phone again to confirm. Garage in Perth phoned on Saturday - 2100 estimate. That should mean that my car will be rescued from the junk yard in the sky - my insurance says write-off if cost of repairs > value of car pre-accident - scrap value... Of course, I have no idea of the scrap value but I am hoping. Reg and Diana were in Perth on Monday and had kindly volunteered to get all my stuff from the car so I phoned the garage just to let them know. No problem. I had heard nothing from the insurance company so I phoned them. They would not make a decision until they had an inspector inspect it and report back, and they wouldn't tell me that over the phone anyway. Courtesy car arrived Tuesday pm and therefore should have been taken back on Friday. However, they phoned on Friday saying insurance company had extended it for another week. Unprecedented in their experience. So is this a big hint that my car is saved or is it's fate still hanging by a thin wire?

On other matters I hit the top 20000 7/8s mark well ahead of schedule. I have been revising my fours - not too bad but I have committed the cardinal sin of making some up :(

Finished weeding the long bank. Re-weeded the planted bits of the LB extension. Penny has been around helping to weed the 'empty other than weeds' raised planter, topsoil hill and herb patch. I have planted the tulip bulbs removed from the trellis bed into LB 9/11/12. Work has resumed on the fruit-tree-bed-to-be.

Jean phoned on Thursday. Her declaration of potato blight in the veggie patch last week (Paul, Penny and I removed all the top growth from the entire patch in the afternoon after this announcement of doom) may have been wrong. It could have been blackleg! Do all potato diseases start with BL? What variety was it? Aaron Pilot. Sandy (in the background): Oh! That is prone to blackleg - why did she plant that variety? 'Cos they only had two bags of seed potatoes left. Anyway I dug up one of the rows - there still appears to be quite a large number of salvagable potatoes in amongst the rotten ones. Certainly more than we need in the foreseeable future.

Anyway, it is back to raining again now. So back to the studying.

Have Car, Will Travel?

Spurred on (well actually bullied for weeks by Paul) I got around to booking my car in for its MOT tomorrow. It doesn't actually  run out until Monday but I also need to sort out the road tax :(

This meant that I would actually have to drive it to the garage. The battery has been flat since the snow in February - I almost got to it in time for our battery charger to do the trick - probably just one day too late. So yesterday I called out our recovery service. Young chap arrived from Swinton, hooked up jump leads to his van and it started straight away. Ten seconds later and off he went, probably wondering why we hadn't done this ourselves from Paul's car. Well, that is because the last time we tried Paul couldn't get the battery cover off his and didn't want to use to much effort in case he broke it...

So I left the car running for about 15 minutes and then went for a pleasant drive in the country - lovely day to be in a car. Through Lintlaw and up to the A1 at Grantshouse, back towards Berwick diverting off to Coldingham. Past Edrom nursery which looked as if it might actually be open - it used to shut down over winter and open after Easter, but this may explain why the website doesn't mention opening dates. I would have stopped to find out but wasn't confident enough of the battery behaving at that point. Turned round and back home via Reston and Billiemains. 

Three quarters of an hour and 30+ miles later I have now parked it facing outwards just in case it was not enough...

Jim Clark Rally 2007

It was the Jim Clark Rally over the weekend.

Paul's parents arrived on Friday afternoon, shortly followed by Colin and Maureen. We had arranged to eat out at The Wheatsheaf in Swinton in the evening, as it was the latter two's wedding anniversary.

The rally was due to go past our house twice on Saturday, in the late morning and then again in the late afternoon. I had been watching the weather forecast as it had been raining all week leading up to it, but the BBC had been forecasting sun. Come the day it had switched to showers...

Luckily it was dry albeit cold in the morning. We moved the benches to the front of the lawn to get a grandstand seat. There was a small film crew on the other side of the road from us - apparently we were exactly the midpoint of the stage.

The rally got underway on time, but there was a large gap after the first few cars had gone past. We later heard that one car had failed to take the right-hand turn at the end of the Billiemains road and ploughed straight into the ditch at the other side of the road. James, one of our neighbours, had been spectating at that location, and described it as 'awesome'...

I took the opportunity to take the dogs out and wandered around the corner to Margaret's. She had erected a small marquee and had quite a few guests there too. Paul had walked down to the end of the bridge to try to find out whether the stage had been cancelled, but could not find anyone who knew. There were a couple of young 'safety' marshals there, who were kicking stones onto the road just to make it interesting.

After about half an hour the rally got going again.

Luckily the rain was still holding off so our planned barbecue went ahead. We were just finishing when the first of the showers started so we packed up and headed back indoors. There were still a couple of hours until the second stage past us was scheduled.

The rain had stopped by then and we headed back out wrapped in jumpers and jackets. The road was now quite wet...

Surprisingly the dogs are not too concerned about the noise, and on the whole were happier to be outside with us than left on their own indoors. There was only one occasion when a particularly loud series of bangs from one of the cars misfiring sent Jen heading purposefully back towards the house. Poncho had no worries whatsoever.

We spotted Anne, Neil and Jenny on the other side of the river, and then shortly afterwards on the verge on the corner - they had waded across. I nipped down the side of our cowshed and across the road to say hello. The rain started up again, so I decided to head back home for the shelter of an umbrella.

It then started bucketing it down, and we all, except Colin and Paul, decided to go back indoors until it eased. Paul invited Anne, Neil and Jenny over to get out of the rain. However, they were happy standing in our garden under umbrellas still watching the rally.

It eased off again so we ventured back out for the last few cars and land rovers.

On Sunday we all walked the dogs to Edrom. About half-way there, just around a right-hand bend, a large section of hedge has been taken out on the left and a little further on an abandoned wheel arch and bumper are propped up against the fence on the right.

Paul has just spotted that the rally is going to be shown on Sky Sport 3 at 3 p.m. today and again later on Sky Sport extra... I will be looking out for my garden :)