Into Autumn now, the tree leaves are beginning to furl and change colour in places, though nowhere near photographic delight yet. Sophie is back (I think) for a while, but has family health issues to contend with now, involving her spending a lot of free time in London with her Mum, so we won’t be doing many photo outings because obviously priorities!! Hopefully this weekend though, weather permitting.
The first week of September was just quiet but then in the second week our Queen died (which if you haven’t been living under a rock you couldn’t fail to know). I think everyone except ardent royalists were fed up to the back teeth of all the relentless radio, newspaper and TV coverage, which wiped football out (haha, tee hee, sorry, not sorry) I imagine soap operas and other things were cancelled as well but I wouldn’t know about those as we don’t do much TV. More annoying was any news about anything else going on in the world was completely ignored. Even more annoying was having my blood work appointment cancelled when they decided to Bank Holliday the funeral. I didn’t even get a free day off work as that was my holiday week! Pfft!
We have been entertaining the troops Chéz Nous, firstly we had Cal and Liddy for a sleepover
Liddy saw this on our dining room ceiling and wanted to know what it was
it’s possibly a Daddy Long Legs spider or a Harvestman spider, not sure and I don’t really care so long as it”s gone!
We also had Paul and Lorraine over for dinner, a Persian banquet, which I hadn’t tried doing before, but it all came together quite well. The Ottoman Puffs went down extremely well, and whilst they may resemble sausage rolls, really they are not. In spite of having sausage meat in them.
It was a good night, good food, plenty of liquid refreshment, a lot of laughing and music. Phil entertained us with his bass playing, but Paul let the side down by forgetting his guitar.
We had our trip to Scotland which I posted about a few days ago, click HERE if you missed it (looking at you Dix) and Phil has a brand new car which I drove to get us there. So much tech in new cars! There’s a huge screen on the front dashboard with buttons under it for Sat Nav, audio, and other stuff I didn’t bother with. It has automatic straightening if it senses you veering off the road (!) and beeps at you for this, that and the other. It’s a Nissan Juke and so quite big but only has a 1L engine, so you would think it slow to drag the weight of it about, but you would think wrong, it goes like the proverbial poo from a spade. It was a nice comfy drive, 6 gears no less, but I wouldn’t swap my 500 for it, it has no character. It was a sunnyish day so I took the scenic route up the A697 through Coldstream. Glorious scenery the whole way, passing by lush green hills and rolling fields of crop type things. Or grass. Whatever, it was totally green. Our hotel, The Murrayfield is only a long stones throw away from the stadium and was very nice. It’s restaurant ‘The Bothy’ was quite pricey, which we wouldn’t have minded if there’d been anything on the menu we’d really fancied, but there wasn’t, it all sounded a bit Masterchefy so we wandered down the road and got some good Scottish fare from Tang’s Take Away.
We snuck it back into the hotel and had it with some vino delecto and watched Andor, a Star Warsy series on Disney + that was much better than I thought it would be.
The cats are still assassinating the local rodent population and when we got back from Scotland on the Saturday evening there was a fair amount of bird poop to clear up as Winnie had a lady blackbird trapped in the conservatory. It was a bugger to get it to escape as she kept dashing into the big umbrella plant we have in there, and behind the furnitures, and the whole performance would probably suffice as a Youtube comedy sketch had anyone filmed it.
Of course I have cat pictures…
Winnie has taken to coming in to my study when I’m blogging and I have to quickly shift the keyboard so she can lie down for tickles. Her claws get stuck in the mat I have down to stabilise the keyboard so I’ve replaced it with some beautiful patchwork placemats (that I hadn’t been using as I don’t want to spoil them) that my friend Connie from the Adventures in every day life blog kindly sent me from over the pond, and Winnie is happy with them, and I get to enjoy them every day now.
Lord Vincent does not like the rainy weather, and spends most of his time asleep!
So September is just about over, and it’s chucking it down with a hoolie of a wind going on whilst I’m writing this. I was going to write about the sad and horrendous state of government here in the UK, but this chap says it so much better. There are 2 swear words in it so if you’re a puritanical type you’ve been warned. He’s a comedian ostensibly, but this isn’t funny, and it’s the truth of things here.
And so, on to October, fingers crossed for some sunny autumn days with lovely colours to photograph, preferably not on days when I’m at work!
Stay tooned dear reader!
Fraggle's Otherverse 
That comedian is great. I always enjoy his videos.
We have the heavy rain and wind here tonight, and I am already fed up with it after the dry summer!
I like the look of your Persian Banquet, but I don’t recall receiving my invitation. I know you must have sent it, so it can only be the postal strikes, I’m sure. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Haha of course it was down to the strikes. Wondered where you’d got to. 😊
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Help me out here – so was that fella for or against Kwasi/Truss? I couldn’t quite tell…
😜
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🤣🤣
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Um… that is a very odd looking spider! Never seen one like that before. Sorry you had to miss your bloodwork apt!!
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Done now 😊 yes spooky spider!
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Oh, it must be nice to be able to sleep all day or whenever you want. Some days I wish I was a cat…
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You’re as cool as one 😎😊
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Well, if Dix keeps watching fishing movies, I should be all set…
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I see these comments about me.
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I see you have disappointed me. Not much fishing going on in Hocus Pocus!
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I do too.
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What with the death of UK queen followed here in the US by the Florida hurricane, is a little overkill. Surly, there must have been other news during this time.
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There’s a lot of turmoil going on beyond that stuff.
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I don’t watch much TV either, having a real life to live, so I didn’t notice that there wasn’t anything else on. I’m sorry about your bloodwork. My houseguest was surprised to find all the shops were closed when she finished work that afternoon, even though I had told her why there was a Bank Holiday. I think she was far more interested in all the gossip about Harry and Meghan than in understanding what was actually going on.
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Oh dear, hope she’s gone now then!
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Lovely to see these pics; obviously I like to savour them as art and NOT rush to comment immediately. However, I shall adress any potentially negative optics right now….
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I have a hard time understanding British politics. But the cats seem to be OK with everything that’s going on.
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British politicians have a hard time understanding British Politics, no hope for the rest of us.
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The world is going bonkers, and the more frightening it becomes, the more we run to religion and right-wing demagogues. And the more nasty old men in power become impotent, the more dangerous they become. Trickle down economics does not work and the tax benefits for the rich, such as presented in the vid, only enslave and embitter those down the chain. Revolution could easily occur, unless your sense of entitlement is strong – and then you just wait and complain and fail to vote.
On the other hand, that is a spooky looking spider, and not one I would want to encounter – ugh!! I nearly ran face-on into a garden spider – big, big, big! – but managed to stop in time. The esposo came and removed her to a nearby tree and we were all happy!
Glad you enjoy your grand kids and have fun – that time is short.
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Cheers Naomi, you echo my thoughts exactly on the trickle down. A revolution would be good.
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It’s scary how fast time goes.
Loved the kitty pics!
I had to chuckle about an early comment in your post. A dear online friend is a Brit and she said the same thing you did–was there no other news happening in the world at the time of the queen’s passing.?So strange—while the rest of us (non brits) were glued, apparently a lot of you could have used a break from the coverage.
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It was well over the top! Thanks heavens for Netflix!
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Lovely month – sleepovers are so much fun! I’m glad the cats like the mini quilts too! That spider is something else though – I hope it was dispatched quickly. 🥺
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I love having the quilts on my desk, so nice to feel and look at. The spider disappeared, we usually put a glass over them and a card under and take them to the garden, but this one was on the ceiling. Not sure if it got past the cats and escaped!
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We have a rule: spiders, mice, etc. can stay outside, but they have been warned that once they cross the threshold, they are fair game!!!
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Hah the cats feel the same way 🤣
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