July 2020
Lockdown was relaxed as the month began.
Actually, in practice, it relaxed rather more
than was intended … it looked like everyone
pretty much got back to normal. In England anyway
– Scotland was a bit more careful and things
reopened rather more slowly there and as a
result, people took things a bit more seriously.
Here, people just got back to their business,
congregating in huge numbers as the seaside and
following football matches where they also
managed to deposit a huge amount of litter; I
suppose if someone disregards a social distancing
rules, they will also disregard littering rules.
Traffic noise pretty much got back to normal. And
Ian and Hannah had visits to the hairdressers!!!
Ian had a terrific “big Zoom session”
as an old school reunion, which was great fun.
Hannah also visited the school where she’ll
be undertaking the majority of her teacher
training course next year and came back full of
excitement and wanting to get on with it NOW!!
Travel, as we said, was getting back to normal
and so we were able to go across to Runcorn for a
funeral of one of Lois’ distant cousins and
we were able to have a lovely post-interment
lunchtime meeting with a large number of her
family. It was very nice to congregate in groups
again – although we both found it a little
overwhelming to start with. Then we got to
revisit the caravan – Scotland lifted its
ban on tourist travel. Mind you, most of the
motorhomes in England also came up the A9! It was
nice to get back up there for a while, although
the weather was awful and so were the midges.
Having said that, we managed a couple of nice
walks that included the a beach which was quite
crowded … 5 or 6 people were there (see
photo above). Tara got introduced to the sea by
doing a bit of paddling but wasn’t really
impressed. She was very intrigued by the sea and
its sparkly bits, though! Once we got home, it
was all hands to the pumps to prepare the tourer
for Hannah’s forthcoming trip to Edinburgh
… but more of that later.
We spent a lovely afternoon attending a
"socially distanced social event" at
HoG near Hartlepool. It was a get-together
organised by Lois for the Trustees in the
hospital grounds. It was the first time we had
attended any sort of big get-together for many
months and felt a bit odd; very pleasant, just
odd! We had to keep well away from the buildings
of course and over 2 metres from each other, so
there was quite a lot of shouting ... and there
wasn't any drink (or toilets) but apart from that
it was great. It was actually a highly successful
and enjoyable event!
Thanks for the nice comments about the
"family roo” video.June
2020
As we entered our fourth month of lockdown, June
was an interesting month of contrasts. We had to
cancel a lot, but also did some extras that we
wouldn’t have done otherwise. The
cancellations included our long planned for trip
to Devon to try out Mike Green’s
stone-circle solstice calculator – a stone
circle in a field in Devon. We mentioned it in
the travel blog at the time. We booked a cottage
a year ago ... cancelled it as a result of
COVID-19 ... and rebooked for next year. More
positively, we held a fantastic Tarot exchange
over Zoom, including a breakout “room”
for the readings themselves. We’re getting
good at this videolink stuff! The Sunderland
Faculty of Education and Society wouldn’t
let viruses get in the way of their research
conference and continued it – very
successfully – over MS Teams. And court
sittings kind of resumed, although they were
different and sometimes over Skype for Business.
The weather was lovely at the start of the month
and we got some great barbecues in ... although
it then turned to winter weather! We had an
anti-Christmas dinner (“anti” in the
sense of opposite rather than against) on 25th
June, including a Christmas tree, beef from
Campbell’s with all the trimmings and we
were even allowed a guest! Even more positively,
Ian took an on-line course in amateur radio
(something he’s wanted to do since he was
14), took the examination on video and passed so
he’s now a licensed radio amateur (callsign
M7IGN). He is dead chuffed and is now learning
Morse code!
Last month we included the throwaway remark
‘We even have a "family roo" on
most days.’ and as a result we’ve been
asked “What on earth is a family roo, when
it’s at home?” Well, rooing is a bit
like a howl that some greyhounds use to let
everyone know they’re there. The pose is a
full-on
“howling-at-the-moon-nose-in-the-air-and-neck-fully-extended”
look. And the
sound is lovely. With Tara, the tail is
wagging like mad. She (and we) love doing it
together, hence the family roo remark, and we can
start it off by one of us rooing ourselves so
that everyone joins in. It’s a remarkable
noise... goodness know what it sounds like
outside, mind you!
May 2020
May was ... well, May really. The
weather crashed from arctic to sweltering and
then back again. We took advantage of the warmer
bits by having several barbecues which got us out
of the house ... albeit only onto the deck!
We got on with our third month of lockdown,
although there were some minor adjustments. We
all got used to a wide variety of
videoconferencing platforms. Our preference
remains with Zoom - it being, in our experience,
the best functionally, the most reliable and
easiest to use - but we've also had to cope with
MSTeams, Skype, Skype for Business and Webex, all
of which are different in their setup and
operation, all behave differently and all have
their idiosyncrasies. We’ve learned that
running two video sessions simultaneously across
our broadband is only JUST possible and not while
a Netflix stream is also going on. However,
we’ve also found how to share a connection
on one PC between broadband and mobile data which
solves the problem. It went through bizarre fun
to just “what we do”.
Hannah had a super birthday given the
circumstances, having a couple of Zoom sessions
with various groups as well as a pizza meal
including Ben who joined us virtually –
picture above. We think she deserves a proper
party some time ... when we can! Tara perfected
her stair work and can now run up and down with
some panache whenever she wants to! She has got
into the habit of wandering up to the landing
when she wants a bit quiet time or to check out
what’s happening next door or across the
road, taking advantage of a high vantage point
and floor-length windows! No fools, these
greyhounds. She really is part of the family now
– or is it that we are part of her pack
– and is becoming a champion member either
way. We even have a "family roo" on
most days.
We took advantage of the variations in rules by
going for a picnic during the warmer part of the
month, which was just lovely! And Hannah had a
properly socially distanced meeting with Ben.
April 2020
April ... well, what a month that was!
We all learned a new way of living. For archive
purposes: we all had to stay in our homes except
for specific designated activities (shopping,
exercise, medical, key working). For us, we got
into a routine pretty quickly – Hannah did
Tara’s morning walk as exercise for both of
them followed by a bit of yoga or a workout for
Hannah before breakfast. We had a quiz session
after our family breakfast to get the brains
going. Lois and Ian did either a long walk early
afternoon or later in the evening with Tara,
depending on the weather, and we went shopping
when we had to. The evenings, we have to admit,
have been taken up utilising our Netflix and
Amazon Prime subscriptions, BBC iPlayer and so
on. Any platform where we can avoid interminable
adverts, really!
Shopping
was interesting – while we are not
vulnerable, we fall into the “at risk”
category so are trying not to go to places where
other people are ... as we’ve been advised
– the government has asked us to use home
deliveries whenever we could. However, Tesco were
completely overwhelmed and their home deliveries
and click and collect were simply unavailable a
month ahead. This appeared to be so right across
the country. They didn’t give any
information or any help ... availability simply
stopped. Morrison’s and Iceland kept going
pretty well with a much better web portal than
Tesco, as did Sainsbury’s - and Lidl were
fantastic. Our concern has been that if we had to
isolate for a fortnight, we couldn’t have
eaten! But Morrison’s and Lidl, between
them, came up with the goods – literately.
Loo rolls became available as the month went on
as did pasta, both of which were simply
unavailable for the first half of the month.
What
are the up-sides of our month, then? We had
planned to go up to the Highlands for Easter, but
that wasn’t within the rules so we
didn’t; so we had a lovely Easter at home
... the supermarkets near to home having a
surfeit of chocolate eggs! We also had a couple
of barbecues when it was warm (Lidl did well for
those) but apart from those days we were in an
arctic airstream (literally) and it was cold.
Above all, though, it was quiet – it still
is. Lovely and quiet! It’s quieter than our
Highland retreat now! Very few cars go by and
going for walks has been lovely; indeed we have
found some beautiful places to walk close to home
(see above right). Brandon Woods, for example ...
we didn’t even knew that they existed before
and they offer some fantastic walks in near
solitude! There are also lots of open spaces
– grassed, lit and maintained by the Council
... wonderful. The air itself is fresher and
cleaner that we’ve ever known ... and the
clarity of views is fantastic too. It just shows
the crap that we pump into the air normally.
Oh,
and Tara has learned to go up and down stairs.
She sounds a bit like a drunkard coming down, but
greyhounds are hardly built for stairs!
Perhaps
the most uplifting of all the activity going on
at this peculiar time is the “clap for our
carers” on Thursday evenings at 8:00. We
took part in them – from a high platform on
the deck in the garden so that we could see over
the hedge. At first we felt a little guilty at
our surprise of the enthusiasm of the people of
Brandon, but then felt quite emotional at the
solidarity of the support for those who are in
the “front line”. We haven’t used
pots and pans to make more noise yet (as some do)
– we’ll keep that for next month.
Towards
the middle of the month came the news that the
lockdown would continue for another three weeks
at least – no surprise there. Settle in ....
March
2020
WOW! Well, how things have changed since
last month. And it's all happened since the
latter half of March. For those reading this as
an archive - Covid-19 hit the UK hard and serious
controls had to be put into place. Around the
middle of the month, the government gave strong
advice to everyone to stay indoors and not
congregate. That was just before a nice weekend
when everyone went to Snowdon and Ben Nevis, thus
congregating. People went to pubs, some
restaurants stayed open. It was exactly what one
might have come to expect, really. On top of all
that, lots of people with camper vans tried to go
to Scotland to isolate and one story had it that
30 such vans turned up at the Ben Nevis visitor
centre car park (where there are no facilities)
demanding to stay there; police were called and
it was all a bit messy. So the government had to
get heavy, putting out a direction, rather than
advice, that we all had to stay indoors apart
from very specific listed reasons. Schools
closed, clubs, pubs and restaurants closed, and
so on. This was all backed up by law which was
hurried in.
For
us, we settled in to a routine which included
outings for only getting groceries and exercise
(which included Tara of course). The huge news
was that we managed to get some toilet roll on
Friday 27th March! The first available for weeks.
We still don't know why everyone panic bought
toilet roll - Covid-19 causes neither diarrhoea
nor sneezing - but the nation ran out. We're a
funny bunch aren't we! The joke of each morning
saying in a Geordie accent "Day 4 of
lockdown in the house" quickly became stale.
Two interesting things struck us. First, just how
quiet it is without traffic. Round here rivals
the Highlands for quietness now. The loudest
thing is the birdsong! Some would regard it as
spooky or even scary - we think it's the silver
lining of all this. The other is the lack of
sociability. We understand the social distance
requirement but we hadn't expected people that we
see on out daily exercise walk to avoid eye
contact or any greeting! That's a bit odd and
maybe will settle down as we all get used to this
strange way of living.
But, in common with just about every
other monthly update since we began them, this
month we had some work done (and like just about
every previous report, it was the last bit of
work to be done). This was to streamline the
garage storage. Ian of ISWORX got it done just
before the lockdown and it looks fabulous!
January/February
2020
After the rigours of Christmas and New
Year (which in fact were not all that rigorous at
all), January and February have been much
quieter. The high point was a trip to the
Highlands, a Travelodge stay. Full details about
that on the Travel Blog in
“Adventures”. Apart from that,
it’s been very quiet indeed ... apart from
us having incorporating our open stairs closed
in. Ian from ISWORX did a great job as always.
Picture below.. We had our birthdays too, which
was nice. February was even quieter ... looking
back I think we kind of hibernated! One point of
mention is that Hannah found that her role with
Orangebus/Capita was not as billed ... it was
market research rather than product research! Not
even close to her desired career pathway, so they
parted company (amicably). She's now decided to
follow mum and dad's footsteps and go into
teaching and in the meantime is concentrating
full time on her PhD writeup; as a result it's
going very well indeed now. She has also started
working p/t as an intern at the UTC which is
really great experience for her and is retaining
her role as a STEM ambassador at the UTC in
Newcastle. All very good indeed and she is
looking forward hugely to getting under way with
her new career direction.
December
2019
Looking back on December to summarise it
for you is quite tough … because not very
much happened, really! A glance through our
diaries shows that Lois and Ian spent nearly
every day doing some sort of voluntary work
… Hospital Trustees, Research Groups,
Patient Groups, Judicial work, Advisory Committee
stuff and so on. It was, depending on how you
look at it, either a mad week or one that showed
a marked lack of diary control! Hannah continued
with her job – which has now graduated away
from “new job” to just “job”
as she settles in to professional life and the
joys of commuting and, towards the end of the
month, a Tyne & Wear Metro strike which was
carefully timed to hit end-of-year festivities as
well as a key NUFC football match. Season’s
Greetings to the RMT!
More positively, Tara gained Kennel Club
recognition as Flomur Tara, her “posh Sunday
name” after a protracted email discussion
between Ian and the KC followed by a really,
really helpful telephone call with Lesley from
the Club who painstakingly and with enormous
patience talked Ian through a whole new world of
terminology including “sires” and
“dams” which previously he had thought
were about mediaeval kings and irrigation
control, and “stud book” which is a
phrase not well served by Google searches!
It’s a long time since Ian was fazed by
terminology and he found it refreshing … or
maybe another word. Also, the Christmas food
started to arrive … by van from Tesco,
another van from Iceland and a courier also in a
van from Campbell’s Meat in Linlithgow.
Might’ve overdone it a bit … indeed we
had to nip out and buy another freezer to
accommodate everything.
We also went to see “A Jazzy Christmas”
at the Sage which careful readers will remember
we saw last year. We’d booked the tickets in
the “BT era” (ie Before Tara) and were
now a bit stuck because she’s not yet
confident enough in us to be left for several
hours … not without us (although probably
not her) “worriting”. However, Hannah
and Ben volunteered to look after her while we
gallivanted. And we had a fabulous time. And then
there was the Strictly final …
Christmas itself was wonderful – mostly food
orientated of course – but terrific. We all
had a brilliant time and Ian got a pie in a tin
for Christmas. Nuff said!
November
2019
November was a nice, quiet month (for a
change!) We have been enjoying getting to know
Tara and she us. We have established a reasonable
routine, now, which makes for an easier life for
us all. Hounds like routine, we find, and Tara is
no different. She goes to bed and sleeps through
without hassle and, like us, doesn’t really
like getting up in the morning especially when
it’s cold … and certainly not when
it’s raining. She enjoys her walks on a set
route for morning, afternoon and evening
“pee and poo” sessions. She also loves
going for rides in the car and we have had a
couple of lovely visits to the Greyhound Trust
people one of which was their Christmas Fayre at
Hardwick Park. We have also had a super session
at home with Vicky from Have a Good Dog
(www.haveagooddog.co.uk) who started us on basic
training (in fairness, it really was us rather
than Tara who needed training). Vicky really was
great and we got a proper set of notes, handouts
and references as part of the fee, as well as a
very enjoyable session. Thoroughly recommended.
There
is now a link in the menu on the left for
Tara’s background data including her
pedigree and race results before she retired. And
some photos too.
Apart
from that, the month has seen a lot of
interviewing for new JPs – Durham &
Cleveland are right in the middle of a
recruitment campaign at the moment and we’ve
also had a couple of excellent events at the
University. And Ian had a very enjoyable
“black tie” dinner at the UTC to launch
their new STEM initiative.
So
all in all a very pleasant month with enough
interesting things but a lot of enjoyable stuff
going on too.
Oh,
and the Christmas trees are up … in
November! I know!!
October
2019
Well, what a month October has been! We
had the last bits of the new kitchen fitted and
the decorating more or less done. In amongst
that, Lois had a few days on holiday in London,
visiting her family and catching up on some of
the genealogy stuff she’s been working on.
We got the rubbish removed from the old kitchen
(a truck full) and the old but still good fridge
and freezer as well as a whole lot of other
superfluous stuff went to the BHF charity shop.
Later in the month, Ian did a quick run up to the
North West Highlands! Alongside all that we
attended an excellent Lieutenancy dinner and got
on with our usual Judicial business; so all in
all a very packed month!
But
we know you don’t want to hear about any of
that! You want to hear about Tara don’t you!
It’s a while since we had someone in the
household that needed lots of care and attention
- 25 years, in fact! Rescuing a greyhound is
remarkably similar to having a baby! September
saw Tara settle in, understand what a house is,
what stairs were and what a hoover is like.
October has been much more about getting her into
routines to that she feels comfortable as a new
member of the family. What they say about a
couple of hours’ snooze for each half-hour
walk is about right and we have found some lovely
routes round about that keep us clear of the main
roads. We have been pleasantly surprised by the
amount of green space there is around here –
loads of it. All of which makes for a wonderful
smellscape to be created for a hound. We
daren’t let her off her lead, though ... she
finds rabbits very attractive and will go for
magpies like a shot; well, she did race at
Sunderland after all (that’s a local joke).
But other dogs rattle her ... unless they are
other greyhounds. We attended the monthly Sunday
walk organised by the Darlington Greyhound Trust
where she linked up with some of her old friends
and we made some new ones!
September
2019
September was dominated by the arrival
of Tara. But that wasn't the only thing that
happened, so before we tell you about Tara, here
are the other highlights ...
We
spent a wonderful week in Shetland. We've done
Orkney before, so wanted to go a little further
afield and do the northernmost extremity of the
UK. Details are in the travel blog, of course,
which you can access from the Adventures link in
the menu on the left or by clicking here.
On
our return, we prepared for a lunch to which we
invited some friends. It turned into quite a big
"do" with about 20 people coming. We'd
originally envisaged it being a barbecue but the
weather was a little unkind to us - maybe not a
surprise for mid-September, but annoying
nevertheless. Instead we did a roast dinner
(beef, lamp, pork, chicken, salmon and a veggie
option too). It seemed to go down well and we had
a very relaxed afternoon eating, drinking and
chatting; it was very pleasant. In parallel, we
had emptied the kitchen because, yes although
we'd said we had finished the renovations for
now, we got an excellent deal on a new kitchen so
went for it. Not great timing, but ...!
Alongside
all that was the arrival of Tara who we adopted
on 12th September. Tara is a four year old
ex-racing greyhound, rescued by the Greyhound
Trust at Darlington. Tara’s first race was
on 21st July 2017 in Kilkenny, Ireland and she
raced 5 times before coming to the UK. Since she
was trained in Ireland she has an identification
tattoo is both ears. She raced at Sunderland 48
times from 8th September 2017 to her final race
on 30th June 2019, winning six times.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for her) she
wasn’t all that good at keeping to her lane
as she raced and there are numerous notes in her
record about bumping which means that she bumped
into the dog running beside her or crowded them
– she didn’t baulk them, which would
have meant that she interfered with them, she
just wandered a bit. She also has notes about
being slow away and running on. In other words,
she wasn’t a very good racing greyhound
which presumably is why she went for adoption at
quite a young age.
She's
still settling in to life here - we've had a few
sleepless nights and some "accidents"
too, but things are improving by the day as she
learns to trust us and enjoy her new life with
us.
August
2019
August has been a month of getting on with life,
really. There have only been a couple of
excitements! We have both been settling in to our
volunteering, catching up somewhat on things that
have drifted by. For once we didn't do much in
the way of holiday ... we didn't need to because
we can go any time (did I mention we're retired).
And anyway, Scotland is currently sinking under
the sheer number of camper vans on its roads -
best to stay away unless you have a camper van of
your own. We nipped up to Edinburgh to collect
Hannah from university - for probably the last
time. We've done this for seven years, what with
her first degree then her PhD, and it was a bit
of a "lump in the throat moment" to
drive away after we'd loaded up. We'd intended to
have a "final breakfast" at Frankie and
Benny's in Fountain Park, but they don't open
until 9:00 and we were ready to leave at 8:10, so
we went to McDonalds in Berwick-upon-Tweed
instead which was very nice and a fitting
"full stop" - or maybe a semi-colon -
in Hannah's educational journey. Next month she
starts her first full time job!
We
spent a few days up at the caravan, which
alternated between very hot and pouring rain on
what seemed like an almost hourly basis, but
which was actually only daily. The key
entertainment was watching the croft owners using
a mini-digger to remove rhododendron bushes
(which are weeds up there). It ranks alongside
"Bones" in entertainment value. Ian
also had some work with UHI so than necessitated
a trip to Inverness which is never a hardship.
We've
kept the big new until last, though. You'll
recall we we're considering adopting a rescue dog
and we have spent a good deal of time in July and
August visiting rescue centres, seeing all kinds
of dog (often embodied in one animal). After a
lot of thinking, an interview, a home visit and a
great deal of reading around the subject, we have
reserved Tara - pictured above with Hannah - who
will join us in September. We'll begin yet
another chapter of our history as a family ...
and we'll tell you all about it here.
July
2019
Last month I promised to tell you about
the photograph of the Forth Bridges, above. Well,
here you go!
In February 2015, Lois was in Scotland visiting
Hannah in Edinburgh and decided to drop in to
South Queensferry to see if she could find out
about the building of the Forth Replacement
Crossing, as it was called then. Construction had
been going on since 2011 and it was due to open
in 2016, so it was close to opening around the
time of Ian’s 60th birthday, she thought.
Something linked to the bridge, like a visit to
an exhibition about the construction might make a
suitable additional birthday event. While
wandering along the narrow road through South
Queensferry and admiring the existing bridges
that reached so high she spotted a small shop and
studio on the High Street called Words &
Pictures. Along with wedding and family portraits
there was a nice print of the Forth Bridge and
the Forth Road Bridge, plus another photograph of
local architecture. These took her eye and she
called in. She met Alistair Pryde, the studio
owner and chatted with him. Between them a plan
was hatched that involved a commissioned
photograph of the three Forth bridges, to be
taken once the new crossing had been completed.
This was agreed and then the wait for the perfect
shot began.
Alistair
quickly realised, based on our brief and his
creative knowledge, that a night-time photograph
would be best, but even after the formal opening
by The Queen the work on the bridge was still
going on. There were overnight lane closures
(with all the orange flashing lights necessary
for those) and the bridge’s own lighting
design was still under discussion so was not yet
in place. Furthermore, there were still lots of
construction paraphernalia on the bridge –
portacabins, plastic sheeting and so on. It
didn’t make for a good photograph, so we
waited … sort of patiently. It wasn’t
until November 2018 that the works were finally
completed and the construction paraphernalia
cleared away. So Alistair had not been able to
take advantage of the autumnal light which he
favoured. Meanwhile he had been hunting around to
select the best spot from which to take the
picture. We waited for further news. The winter
weather, however, was very poor which led to more
delay. January 2019 Alistair had chosen the
perfect location, but now faced another problem.
The newly installed lighting to complete the
bridge was an issue. Alistair wrote:
“The lighting on the Queensferry
Crossing continues to frustrate us because it is
so much more intense than the lighting on the
other two. So shooting at dusk is the solution to
this dilemma and will give us the contrast that
Ian wants, and will look spectacular in black and
white.”
On
9 July 2019, we collected the print!
The
picture hangs on the end wall of our dining room,
alone and spectacular. The causeway in the
foreground takes you as you walk into the room
from the other end and leads you forward into the
picture. On the left is the new Queensferry
Crossing, to the right is the Forth Road Bridge.
Look beneath the Road Bridge and you can see the
Forth Bridge.
Apart
from the picture (which obviously took over the
month, really) we've fitted in another couple of
things. Ian had a very enjoyable couple of days
at UHI sitting on their assessment boards. Always
very good discussion and an excellent group of
people. He also had a day at the University of
Sunderland Graduations - it's always lovely to
see the students crossing the stage.
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