PUZZLES

On a Tuesday after school we have Alastair (7) and Ishie (8) for a couple of hours. Now that the days are dark and it is too wet for the playpark behind the house we light the fire in the living room and get out the jigsaw to help pass the time at the wrong end of the day!

When Mairi arrives with Harriet (2 1/2) and Ellie (9 months) they are keen to 'help'!  Iain is in the centre.

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I have been very busy preparing material for various publications for the yachting scene.  This photo, for public use, came across my desk; it is of a lovely big classic yacht Mariquita sailing in the Mediterranean last year.

Using Photoshop to make a mosaic tile effect I thought it would make a good jigsaw.

And the same thing goes for this photo I took at the Prizegiving and Dinner Dance held last Saturday. That is the Clyde Cruising Club burgee placed on a side table which functioned as the Photo Corner. The red and green tartan fabric underneath is a pipe band piper's all wool plaid (2 metres in length) three of which I had purchased in the Barras some 40 years ago!  

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And talking about puzzles ...  I couldn't understand why after the family left on Tuesday I heard some weird noises when I put on the washing machine the next morning.

In amongst the dirty bibs, the two Betty Crocker Icing-covered kids' aprons were .... a fistful of teaspoons. (M-m-m-m ... I wonder what the collective noun is for teaspoons?)  

Let me guess ... a Little Harriet Person seems to be able to get into the cutlery drawer now!

 

A TIME AND A PLACE FOR THE TRICOLOUR

We think of our friends in Paris and join others around the world in expressing our horror at the bombing of 129 innocent people.

Tonight at Wembly stadium the football match between England and France is more about a show of solidarity for peace and accord.

A crowd of more than 70,000 sang La Marseillaise, the French national anthem,  in front of the Duke of Cambridge and Prime Minister David Cameron. 

A BAD SOCK DAY

It has not been a great week. Iain and I both feeling under par as we have colds, coughs etc etc.  Half the population seem to have it at the moment. I wonder if is related to the very claggy, damp West of Scotland weather which has featured these past weeks? 

If you're 2 years old I guess all that rain is quite immaterial!

I thought we might be seeing a budding ballerina yesterday as Harriet, Our Little Beauty, gets ready to go the the playpark.

FOR THE LOVE OF DIRT!

Today John notified me of a wonderful item that was on BBC Radio 4 yesterday.  It is about, broadly speaking, gardening. The 12 minute program looked at the question: "Why are so many people drawn to gardening?"

 

There were several threads covered but I will expand on one, only, here. It related to the fact that in the field of neuroscience researchers noticed something, namely, "Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Dirt Makes You Happy".

I have always responded to people who ask "Are you a (keen) gardener?"  I always reply "Well, I do a lot of it because I just love being out in the garden puddling about, getting my hands dirty!"  Yes, I sit out in it from time to time, and I certainly cut flowers for the house, but this article (reference below) had me nodding my head in agreement as I listened the iPlayer podcast over a cup of coffee.  (Funnily enough, my 85 year old neighbour, from a farming background is exactly the same; that is why we spend a lot of time together!)

Tthe BBC Radio 4 programme is on iPlayer here:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nq1fb

For people not in the UK I found this article on the internet which relates to the topic in the first half of the programme:

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm

Maybe all those microbes help gardeners come to terms with gardening failures .... like my strawberry crop this wet summer!  Nothing that a good bottle of vino couldn't sort!