It was very nice rice. I don’t think I have the vocabulary to say any more, but yes, Bil or Ali, it was the good stuff. We had a wearing afternoon. The Professor, trying to write, upstairs, me, trying to read (mostly ), downstairs. Miss Dog had had a proper walk in the forest, […]
We were relieved to welcome poor Olga back today. As it turned out the first and simplest explanation was the right one: she had had the winter vomiting virus very badly, and couldn’t tell us because she couldn’t muster enough English to do so in terms which would not offend or alienate us (there […]
We are having a splendidly quiet time here in the Deep North. It was a beautiful sunny day for a nice change - I took Miss Kit out last thing last night, and while it wasn’t actually raining, I found the ground had got so wet that it was like jelly. Miss Dog was walked […]
The wind is blustering round the house as if it was the equinox not the solstice. The country is saturated - a brief expedition to buy smart knitting wool for a friend’s daughter stuck in hospital was over roads running and sheeting with water — though not, we gather, as much water as there is […]
It’s always a good moment, when you begin slowly to realise that battling the weather, traffic system, bus schedules, etc. to meet the first lecture of the day is over for a while. Seventy-odd lectures have been more or less successfully given - given, at any rate. The weather is vile: as promised, it has […]
I am currently in receipt of the full force of canine disapproval, the Professor being at the moment, in Edinburgh. I managed (just) to get back from work in time to take Miss Dog for a roam in the gloaming, so I felt I’d sort of done my duty by the animal. We then got […]
We still haven’t had the promised rain, with the result that the snow is lingering about in a discouraging fashion. Much of it is slush, but not all of it. We left the little car with our patient friends at the garden centre, because we thought the track was too icy when we got back […]
Today we awoke to a blanket of snow. Miss Cat is disgusted, Miss Dog thinks it’s lovely. We’re hoping it gets rained away. It’s already caused considerable difficulties since someone was supposed to be coming to stay and we weren’t sure we could get down the drive: we suggested the visitor in question might […]
It was an absolutely rotten summer for growing vegetables. Last year, the box we get from the Two Nice Girls had quite a bit of cavolo nero and what they call braising greens in it, even in December, but this year, the weekly box is very heavy on roots. The Professor has developed a sideline […]
This week it was Miss Dog who decided that our lives lacked variety. There is something nasty in the wood, we have come to believe. She has developed a tendency to whine at the door, and when let out, vanish for some considerable time, with a great deal of placatory wagging on her return. I […]
Well, dearies, things are a little better than they were last week. We retrieved my computer on Wednesday; it’d cost an unrealistic amount to repair but has been equipped with a keyboard and mouse. I don’t use it to travel with so that will work perfectly well even if it looks a bit awful. […]
I still don’t have my computer back. The latest word is that it would cost north of two hundred pounds in labour to repair the keys. Solution two, as I had rather thought it might be, is to attach the machine to a keyboard and a mouse, at a total cost of about forty quid. […]
Miss Kit has been having an unnecessarily heroic week. After the scrambling over the keyboard debacle (my main machine is still with the computeristas who maintain an ominous silence), we had a difficult moment last night after it became clear that the chicken with her painkiller on it had dried up uneaten. The stuff has […]
I had a day at home, most of which was spent writing exam papers. I’ve always found the only way to do this is take a run-up at the whole paper and free-associate, cover a couple of pages with questions, then make a list of the topics to be covered, tick off the topics you’ve […]
The Professor and I both had a day at home today, which, given the amount of work which had to be done last Saturday and Sunday, constituted the weekend. Among other things, we picked the rest of the grapes, and the absolute last of the apples. The grapes have become grape jelly: I left then […]
We did have our evening party on the Friday. It took quite a bit of organizing: on Thursday and Friday I need to be in to the works by 11 and not homeward bound till after 5, so nothing could be left to last-minute improvisation. The freezer was groaning with stuff, but the great facilitator […]
We had a very wearing Wednesday, which in retrospect, was due to a significant extent, to Twisbies. Or at any rate, an individual in human guise which only revealed its twisbotic nature as events proceeded. An ancient and exotic keyboard instrument specialist. We have a square piano, which has been unplayable due to the […]
Miss Kit’s new health regime seems to be working. She was quite poorly the last time the vet saw her, and is now a lot better, though she still can’t manage the serpentine twist which allows a cat to lick its lower back. I comb her, for which she seems grateful. But movement generally […]
We have been worrying about Miss Kit for some time. She was at the vet’s last week, but didn’t seem to be a whole lot better, so while I was at work, the Professor took her back again. Having been alarmed by an unruly dog in the waiting room, she threw her occasional but most […]
When we were all in Cromarty, the Professor was hanging out with the Queen of Cracked China, while godpapa and I racketed round the countryside looking at unsuitable cottages (a different story), when a stranger came into the shop and proved, on inspection, to be no stranger at all, but a woman last seen twenty […]