{"id":7118,"date":"2026-06-14T22:19:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7118"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:33:08","slug":"slides-showing-their-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7118","title":{"rendered":"Slides showing their age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dot at the door of Logiemar Cottage<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday, June 9 – Sunny and warm to start with, but began raining at lunchtime. Showers after that, with thunder and lightning in the distance. However, Dot managed to finish her washing in time. Meanwhile I was transferring another large batch of slides to my computer, and have now finished. Some of them good, others disappointing, until you realise some of them are nearly half a century old. Tidied up the study by  removing slides: they are now back under the bed in the spare room. Tidied up rest of room as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This evening went to Cake and Compline at Bridget and David\u2019s. Gave Jude a lift. Claire, Phil and Nikki absent, and Vicki had to leave early to meet her brother at the station. Their mother is recovering at home from an operation to remove a benign tumour from near the top of her spine. Bit late home: watched part of a programme on the 2006 World Cup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday<\/strong> – Lots of heavy showers, occasional bursts of blue and rainbows. Mild. Went to Morrisons, bought enough food to cover rest of week, plus some petrol. Message from Tricia asking for help with computer and phone problems. Not enough time to go over there; so recommended she call Chris the computer man, which I believe she did. Suggested buying a cheap phone for Brian, possibly from Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kim called to ask us to take a sleeping bag to Scotland for her. We called in later and picked it up. That was after we drove to Salthouse to a Private View at the church: we go most years. Drink and nibbles. Spoke to vicar, Ian Dyble, who I know and who is also an artist. Also Tracy Ross and Charlotte Ashenden, who was delighted to see us. We kept trying to get together over last year but were never able to. Her husband is an Orthodox priest. She paints mainly portraits, and they\u2019re really good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drove back and picked up sleeping bag, then had late meal of salmon, which was delicious. Watched Amandaland<\/em> and a bit of another programme about Norfolk, during which I went to sleep. Woke up to clear stuff away and went to bed. I do that a lot. Earlier owner of Ballater cottage texted, and I responded. Also cancelled papers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday<\/strong> – Wet and rather dismal weather. Not too cold though. Moved car into small space on road – which has become very congested recently – so that Linda could park in our drive while she cut our hair. Later moved it back in drive so that Sam had somewhere to park when she came home. After haircut had a bath and then an unusual lunch – bacon on toast. Got a few things ready for holiday. Start of World Cup: three red cards as Mexico beat South Africa 2-0. England had beaten Costa Rica 3-0 yesterday in warm-up friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 3000 steps again, most of them indoors. Watched another episode of Clarkson\u2019s Farm<\/em>; not impressed by Christmas sequence, which betrayed appalling ignorance and some offensive elements too. Very sad. Watched a couple of episodes of The  Fortune<\/em>, which seems to depend on everyone, especially the lead character, behaving in an irrational way. Last episode tomorrow. Des came round earlier to check on plant-watering duties! Rang Ray, who didn\u2019t seem too bad: he\u2019d been out to lunch. Dave E\u2019s operation went all right, though he\u2019s on crutches for a bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday<\/strong> – Windy, threatened rain not materialising. Very windy but quite warm, especially in late afternoon and evening. Prepared for holiday with packing and sorting, and cut back ivy clinging to wall beside front porch. Felt extremely tired after that and lay down for a while. Street meet included Des, Chris, Mark, Jon, Ciara, Matt and new neighbours Simon and Josie (I think). We left before Sam arrived and had a meal at Gem – quite full, quite young, quite noisy.  I had some mezes followed by baklava, limoncello and Turkish coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we got home we did some final clearing up, and Dot finished reading her book. We also saw most of Canada v Bosnia in Toronto (World Cup).  Result 1-1 but Canada were better. Earlier saw final episode of The Fortune<\/em>, a drama containing two suicides and a murder but no police. Intricate plot not entirely believable and succeeded only because the lead character kept rushing round without talking to any of her friends or family, and taking time off from her job in a small restaurant, which miraculously kept going. Would you lend this woman your car? No, nor me, but the restaurant owner did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday<\/strong> – Cloudy, but only a few drops of rain. Chillier, though. Not a good night, but finished packing and set off at 11am, just half an hour late! No real hold-ups, though the unnecessary speed limits for non-existent road works became pretty irritating. Dot drove first, up to Cambridge Services (Boxworth), where she got a coffee from the Costa machine. I then drove to the M6 toll services, where we had sandwiches, and Dot took over. At the toll booth she got behind an idiot who blocked her lane while changing drivers – which they could easily have done after paying. Oh well – on to the M6 and good progress – we changed drivers and filled up with petrol at Charnock Richard, then on to Tebay Services in the Lake District – probably our favourite. Had a couple of scones, then back on the road to Annandale, which we reached about 7.30pm, having covered 380 miles. Interesting receptionist, but quite likeable. Had a McDonald meal after Dot persuaded assistant to explain how you ordered. Not great – the chips were practically cold. Took stuff up to room. Great view of the lake.  Watched long documentary about Harry and Meghan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday<\/strong> – Bad night for both of us, though the room was good. Really like it there. Had breakfast after 9am at the pastry place: two delicious croissants. Liked them so much we took two more with us. Dot bought some tweezers from Smiths. Discovered Scotland had beaten Haiti 1-0. Dot drove north, and all went smoothly till we hit bad congestion just before Stirling. Usual thing – about 400 yards of actual activity surrounded by miles of lane closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we got through it we called at Stirling services and bought some M&S stuff to go with pasty and sausage roll for supper. Then I took over and drove along the M9 through miles and miles of average speed cameras. Don\u2019t think they realise that by making everyone go the same speed means it\u2019s more dangerous to cross on to another carriageway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the usual trick at Perth and headed up the A9 then across country via Stanley until we reached the great hedge of Meikleour, where we ate our second croissant each. then onwards through Blairgowrie and to Braemar, where they are still mending a bridge after two years, thence to Ballater. Bought some more petrol, and even then were three minutes early at our cottage. Total of over 550 miles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not overwhelmed by cottage. Furthest distance from bedroom to toilet of any house I\u2019ve been in. Also owners eco-fanatics, which meant everything was very complicated. Still\u2026 it was fine weather, we looked at the river and a few shops and some menus. Bought a few things from Co-op and had our supper, finishing off the wine we brought. Unpacked and watched something about tigers, then wrote to Kim about her projected visit. Amy is in Verona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, June 9 – Sunny and warm to start with, but began raining at lunchtime. Showers after that, with thunder and lightning in the distance. However, Dot managed to finish her washing in time. Meanwhile I was transferring another large batch of slides to my computer, and have now finished. Some of them good, others … Continue reading Slides showing their age<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7136,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions\/7136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}