Category: Personal

Well – had the grass cut yesterday. It looks a bit better now.

Been using Zoom quite a bit over last few weeks for various bits of charity work but missed the Tayside MERG (Model Electronics Railway Group) meeting last night as was on phone with my sister for around an hour, and family always come first, especially in these difficult times.

Today is a day of pottering around in the house doing some domestic chores, but tomorrow i’m thinking of going out for a little exrcise and taking my camera with me. Hopefully will post a few images later when I get back tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to Colonel Tom Moore on reaching the grand age of 100 today. What an inspirational man. £30 Million raised (and still rising) so it was a well deserved flypast from the BBMF Spitfire and Hurricane to mark the event and to have a GWR loco named in his honour. What a fitting tribute to the hero of 2020 amidst the doom and gloom spread by Covid-19.

Well, we are at end of week 4 of lockdown.   Just been out to supermarket for the weekly shop.  Arrived at 06:55 and 2nd in queue for opening (Hurrah).  Done and dusted in quiet shop by 07:30 and home by 07:50.

Trip out to Chemist this afternoon to collect prescription and that’s it for another week.

Must say though, the house cleaning is coming along very well over past few weeks, and in addition I’ve been busy getting 2 sets of charity accounts sorted out, so they can be audited sometime later on.

Garden is going to need some attention soon, but I’m certain there will be plenty of time in future weeks for that.

Had been doing lots of photography since I retired, and rather enjoying the exercise combined with taking snaps outdoors, but that came to a sudden stop at the end of Feb, when this crap all kicked off.

It’s been a while since I last posted.  The last 18 months have been quite hectic.  Mum had a fall and a series of recurring infections in early 2017 and was quite poorly.  Hospital investigations revealed Bile Duct cancer which was inoperable and given her age and general health chemotherapy / radiotherapy were also not advised.

They managed to get her stabilised and she was returned home in early June 2017, but only lasted 2 weeks before another fall and infection saw her back in hospital.   At end of July prognosis was not good, we were told 2 to 3 months (4 at best) was the medical forecast.    She was then in Ward 5 at Queen Margaret Hospital, and we had her transferred to the long term stay ward (Ward 7) at Queen Margaret.

The care of the nursing staff was excellent, so much so, that by end Nov 2017, she was recovering so well, they were talking of transferring her to either home or nursing care.

However in early Oct 2017, my Dad, who was in a care home with dementia, suddenly took unwell and after 5 days in a comatose state he quietly passed away on Oct 5th.  Organising Dad’s funeral and dealing with his estate took up a lot of my time at the end of last year.

At the end of October, we lost our family pet Tipsy, who was 18 years old (a good age for a cat).

In December we kicked off the process of getting my mum moved into a nursing home with a 4 week trial at Abbotsford in Cowdenbeath.    She saw Christmas in the home and in January decided that she would be happy to remain there so she became a permanent resident early in 2018.

She had her 89th birthday there on 23rd Feb.  Not bad for someone who wasn’t expected to see out 2017.   Although now immobile, she is still alert and quite healthy, given her age and condition.

The house was quite empty after Tipsy’s demise so on Hogmanay we got two kittens (Deanyo and Mizza) who are settling in well and keeping us on our toes.  They are now 6 months old and very couthy as we say in Scotland.

Now that things have kind of settled down a bit I hope to continue blogging of my journeys and other musings during 2018.

Drove back to Galashiels on Sat 29th Oct to pick up the item of furniture that we bought the previous saturday during our trip by rail to the borders.

Also went back to the bakers in Gala for a couple of large “Selkirk Bannocks” which are absolutely delicious.

Didn’t have a lot of time this visit as we had to get my Mum to hospital for hearing aid fitting in morning and didn’t leave Fife till around 13:30 to head down.

Got to Gala around 14:50 and parked for an hour whilst we had a quick look round the shops.   Tried to find a cafe to get a cup of tea around 4pm but all were closed by that time so we headed back to the car and left at 16:15 to return home.

Will go back nect year I think to have a proper explore around this part of the borders.

Joined the Scotrail Club 50 last month to take advantage of their £10 anywhere in Scotland return Anniversary offer.     Decided to go to Galashiels from Dundee on Fri 21st Oct and stay over returning on Sat 22nd Oct.  Left Dundee at 11:30 on Fri morning and arrived at Gala Station around 14:10.

With all the fuss recently about Scotrail Abellio’s record for punctuality and service, I was pleasently surprised to find that both journeys were bang on time (Dundee -> Edinburgh and Edinburgh -> Galashiels) and were also clean and tidy.    Although busy, the trains were not crammed.

Stayed Overnight in the Watson Lodge Guest House in Galashiels, which is a short distance from the station and located right in the centre of town.

Very nice stay, friendly and comfortable, and would recommend it to anyone thinking of stopping off in Gala for a break.    Also Gala boasts many restaurants but Turnbull’s where we ate on Friday evening is an excellent choice.

Gala is a nice town with a good variety of shops, so we had plenty to do and see on both Fri afternoon and Sat morning.

Ended up buying a bit of furniture that was too big to bring back on the train, so a future trip by car will be needed to get it home.

Return journey just as good and punctual as the outbound, although there were some standing passangers  from around Gorebridge to Waverley on the Tweedbank service on Sat Morning.   We left Gala on the 10:40 Service as it started to rain and got back to dundee about 13:30.

I am chairman of a local Dundee based charity called TCCL (Tayside Children with Cancer & Leukaemia) and I will post here updates on the charity amongst other things.