Left hand down a bit

Reversing with a trailer - what a job!

I could do it but only if no one was watching.

Pansy is born!!

Messy but cute!

Working on the chain gang!!

Well thats one whole done. Does'nt half make your teeth rrrrrrattle!!!

Whats this... Oh my god, I've started thinking!

Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.

- Erich Fromm, "To Have or to Be?", 1979

Leaving Scotland may be more difficult than we thought.

Dave makes a start on the escape tunnel. Only another hundred and ninty two miles to go and four weeks to do it in!!!

Seriously ... I think we'll both find if difficult to leave laurieston.

Its a hard life...

I would'nt say the sleeping arrangements are basic but.... its a bit rough when you have to share with the cows..... When at least they fart less than Dave. :-O

Singing with the gang.

Shapenote singing on a Saturday morning. I also joined the town choir and performed in a nearby Hotel for a couples aniversary do.

Plus Argentinian Tango clasess twice a month and then a weekly ballroom/latin workshop that I run. Busy...busy...busy!!

"Take your partner by the hand......"

Contra- dance, great fun and loads of physical contact - I love it!!

Still waiting for winter to arrive!

Ahh! just back to the peace of the country after four days dancing in Paris. Still waiting for the cold weather to hit. We've had a couple of cold days but now the winter sun is back. This isnt normal for february -but I'm not complaining. Back to Leeds tomorrow for MORE dancing.

The dangers of the countryside

I know they say the countryside can be a dangersous place... but you don't expect bother from a hosepipe!!!

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK".

Spent yesterday helping

"Dougie" with the ongoing job of felling three sycamore trees.

To be honest I only tidied up the off cuts but they said that was because I only had a small chopper!!!!

Steve x

Getting more butch by the day!!!

Finally drove the tractor toady ----Hurrah!!!

As I said to Dave, "That was easy, its just like driving a ...tractor". (Well it makes sense to me).

Must dash... off to my first choir practice.

Steve.

Blog Time!

Finding time to blog isn't as easy as I thought it would be!
Anyway, we're a few more days down the line and I think we're both starting to settle in slowly now we sort of know where at least some of the things we need on a daily basis are!
I went to get the stitches taken out of my finger last Friday, but was sent home again as the nurse "didn't have time to clean it up before taking them out!"

Those of you who are squeamish don't look at the above photo! (sorry)

Anyway, then made me another appointment for Monday and told me to clean it up before I attended, which I did the stitches are now out.

I've now got a lovely leather finger stall personally made for me, and we were even treated to a bedtime story - both by friends of Sue's who were here for the weekend.

Sunday 13th.
Today the community got together helped one of the families move from one part of the house to another.

It's great to see how people come together at times like this & many hands made light work. Sue looked after the children and Erica cooked lunch in big kitchen for us.

Tuesday 15th.

Had our first frost last night, which was welcomed as the garden has been too wet to work in, we dug a bean trench, lined it with cardboard, added compost and then put the soil back on top, leaving it to mulch ready for planting later in the year.

Steve has been doing loads of dancing, and another thing we are doing is playing 'tambourelli' -pictures to come - which is quite like badminton except you use round bats that look like tambourines! It's great fun!

More soon...

Hugs from Dave & Steve.

Cooking - the Archers way!!

Well, Cooked my first community meal yesterday. Strange having to go round the garden looking for ingredience rather than popping down to Tescos. Spend a while feeling stupid trying to figure out what the plants were!!

Finally managed to tell my parsley from my carrots and made enough food to feed us all for three days instead of one!!

And as for cooking on a Raeburn – its like stoking up the blood Titanic trying to get it up to temperature to cook on. I had heard Star trek’s “Scotty” in my head saying “She canna take it Capt’n – she’s gonna blow”!!!!

Anyway another task completed and another tick on my list of skills to learn.

Bye for now – the kettles whistling…
Steve

First few days

Well, where do I start!
I spent ages doing an entry on our first night, but lost the Internet connection and all the blog I'd done, so I left it until the next day.
The next day turned out to be very eventful & involved visiting hospitals in Castle Douglas (CD) & Dumfries, so I didn't get a chance then either.

So, I'll backtrack to our first night...

Wednesday 3rd.

We arrived late due to Steve's car not starting, a bit of exhaust dropping off my car, a road closure and real bad weather. But we had a warm welcome and made to feel at home.


Thursday 4th
Up at 7am to watch and help Sue milk the two cows.

(click on picture to enlarge it) We helped out where we could, and Steve had his first experience of mucking out.

Then we chose our rooms & started to move in. Also it was the day of the 'collation', the day when all the residents (ressies) get together to assemble the annual Laurieston Hall (LH) newsletter, ready for posting out. It was a great way of meeting people again, plus some we haven't met before.
After spending more time preparing the rooms, chatting with our LH 'guardian angels' - 2 ressies who volunteered to be our 'guides' during our stay - cleaning out and preparing the wood burning stove, we then had an early night ready for some hard work next morning.

Friday 5th
Today started off OK, we got up and helped Sue milk again. Then after breakfast it was down to the woodshed for 'woodtrip' work, which is where LH ressies get together to do various work involving the processing of wood for use in the house stoves.
I went got to work splitting logs and was doing really well until I stopped paying full attention and to cut a long story short trapped my finger end between a heavy log and a metal plate.
It was worse than I thought, and Steve & I ended up first going to CD hospital, only to wait an hour to be told to go to a health center somewhere else in CD. Another hours wait, again only to be told they couldn't deal with it, so we were then sent on to Dumfries A&E where I had to get the finger Xrayed.
The bone was fractured and the nail & finger end were hanging off, so then dosed me up with hefty pain killers, injected my finger several times with local anaesthetic and then the took the nail off & stitched the finger end back on. Finally, having stitched the nail bed which was also split, they replaced the old finger nail pushing it back into place as protection for the nail bed as it is healing.

If I were to say this whole process was incredibly painful, you might quite correctly imagine I would be understating things somewhat!
All I can say is I now understand why finger nail pulling has been used as an effective form of torture!

Just so it is clear, this was a completely random accident, it could have happened to anyone, and if there were anything at all which could have even slightly altered the odds against it happening, that would have been me concentrating more carefully on what I was doing!
I'm lucky to still have my finger and learnt a lesson.

Saturday 6th

Managed to get a good nights sleep, even if it was lying on one side all night with my arm our of the bed.

It's been a good day, and I think I'll be able to do a lot more than I thought I would as long as I'm careful not to knock my bandaged finger.

Steve & Gail went to Carlisle dancing for the day and met 8 of us in CD for a curry in the evening.

Well I'm tired now & the finger is throbbing a bit, so I'm gonna sign off now.

Hugs to all...

Dave.

Dave Is Here

Well I managed to talk him into letting me share his Blog!
So I'm just testing that I know how to make an entry...
We are very nearly packed! (like hell!) and ready to set off loaded to the gunwales tomorrow.
Attached is another picture of where we will be living.
Please add any comments you like, keeping us informed about goings on in Leeds.
Cheers.
Dave.