eventually getting around to chattering in the New Year

Hope you are all had good times over the New Year and the return to normal work has not come as too much of a shock.

The journey up to Galloway was smooth although quite wet/foggy over Shap. I stopped at Tebay and then drove through to Newton Stewart. I am finding however that I am deliberately taking alternative routes when possible as the driving along major roads for hours at a time is tedious. Yes the A75 is a major road and you can’t let your concentration drop although the monotony of driving tempts you to (Motorways are worse). At least on country by-roads, although you still have to concentrate, there is not the same monotony, you are always responding to the road and circumstances. I therefore drove towards Caelaverock but as it started to rain on route I did not stop, I also went through the Wigtownshire Machars. I am never sure if this refers to the whole penisula or just to the North West part of it, Whithorn and Wigtown seem to stand as separate identities and yet also interact with it.

Actual time was quiet, the car must have been used to the drive from the Mull Village to Maryport and back. I did not even get into Stranraer. The trip I had half planned to PortPatrick did not happen due to weather and tiredness. It was too windy to risk taking pictures of lighthouses when I thought I might. The Mull Village is really no longer a village but a collection of houses en route from Drummore to the Mull, however I suspect that a hundred years ago it was precisely that. A functioning village with school and shop (the school building is still standing), however then Drummore would have been very close on the size of a small town. Today it functions as the equivalent of a street name but retains the title Village for convenience.

Most days I took the dog for a walk along with the girls. We actually did a set walk, along Maryport bay towards Drummore. Only on the Tuesday did Morag join us with her taking the dog. I can see why the dog prefers me to walk her. I will let her off the lead more readily than Morag (dog pace is not human) but I also keep verbal contact with her. By the end she knew she was not allowed on the beach unless there were a human part of the pack there, and she was not to get to far away. I also called her back and put her on the lead if other people and especially dogs approached, it helps that her eyes are covered in dog hair and therefore I tend to see them approach before she does.. She tends to get excited and I prefer to know that she is reasonably under control. I also suspect that dog understands us wanting to get into tight formation in the presence of another pack.

Morag is still enjoying the challenges of her job and I suspect hoping for a continuation of funding past the present contract terms. This of course is dependent on the Charity that employs her finding the money. Cait seems to be doing well although she clearly hero-worships me. Not sure that is totally a good thing because in part it is built on an unrealistic version of me, the one that appears at holiday times and has endless times for girls and dogs and so forth. The everyday me is far more like her mum, short of time, struggles to fit in what needs doing and often too tired to give real attention. Jenny seems to be doing well. There are comments on how good a cook she is, I suspect in part this is a survival technique as knowing how to cook is one thing Morag is quite clear that she does not know much about. She is actually developing into quite a beauty if in more historical form than is currently fashionable.

Travelling down on my last day, through what I think of as the fairy glen I surprised a hawk sheltering from the winds which promptly got flustered and dived into the bushes. From my description of it my father thinks it may have been a Red Kite. About the only things I could accurately tell about it was that it had squirrel red tale feathers and a medium size, it probably had whitish breast feathers.

The day before I came back and the days I travelled there were high winds. I was fortunately in a heavily laden Vauxhall Corsa, Corsa cars are traditionally styled pretty low (not so good for deeply rutted roads, but good for winds) and the winds did not cause me too much concern. None of the roads I wanted to travel on were blocked (might have been a bit difficult as I went A712/713 through Galloway rather than A75), I think I saw one tree blown down. The Rhins are traditionally windy places so when they heard of gust in Edinburgh around 100 miles an hour every ones actions was “so what are they here!”. When I looked at the forecast about 50 to 60 mph I would say, in other words considerably less than in Edinburgh. Indeed the extreme South West of Scotland seemed either to have been well adapted or relatively sheltered (thanks to Ireland?) compared with elsewhere. Perhaps a combination of the two.

Anyway I got the car back in on Thursday and have spent the last few days trying to sort out things before I go back to work. Friday was spent in a mix of shopping and revising work that had been proof read, Saturday preparing for supervision and getting the papers off. I also had to submit electronically this time. This should be interesting. My experience leads me to think that the initial few times this happens there will be hiccoughs in the system as both I and my supervisor get used to it. I suspect that the system is really for record and that we will need to continue our normal sending of actual papers to each other.

Today I woke and during prayers started getting migraine visual aura. If you can imagine something like the following picture but not static, rather it was as if the tiles were changing fairly fluidly, and was in an arc across my vision you will get an idea. So it was back to bed, then when I came around doing brainstorming for my next chapter of my thesis.