Is the Grass Greener?

Friday 6 October 2023 It’s 07:34 and apparently it’s 13°C. I have opened two of the kitchen windows as there have been two enormous flies buzzing around since yesterday. One has exited the window, the other has disappeared, but I know not out the window. You’d think, looking out the window, it would be significantly […]

Thursday 5 October 2023 When we first moved to Scottish Borders in mid-November last year, we only once drove in the dark and only a few times at dusk. We didn’t know the roads particularly well, there was a lot of rain and a lot of flooding and, worst of all, a lot of ice,

Wednesday 4 October 2023 I had a ridiculously productive day yesterday, though a less productive element was staring at the banister I had painted in five different colours but which is now – well, shabby chic, distressed or, my term, horrid. Due in large part to my not preparing the banister properly before painting it,

Tuesday 3 October 2023 A large formation of birds have just flown past, probably water foul heading south for warmer weather. Some time between my leaving Scotland on 12 September and Chris arriving back on 24 September, the last of the swallows left for Africa. I don’t blame them, it really has got chillier here,

Monday 2 October 2023 It’s 10:51 and we are awaiting the arrival of telecoms engineers to hopefully repair whatever is wrong with our WiFi and to get us ready for fibre broadband from 10 October. Fortunately, one of our three WiFi signals is working (the outdoor one) so we can do basic things online. It’s

Sunday 1 October 2023 October. It’s October already. It’s not quite 07:00 and sunrise isn’t for another fifteen minutes so it’s quite dark. For the first time since maybe April, I’m sitting in the kitchen with the curtains closed. I drove back to Scotland from Lewisham yesterday. It took me less than the ten hours