The River South Esk alongside River Street, Brechin, Angus, Scotland.
I think it rained here in SW Scotland overnight, but I wasn’t spending a lot of time looking out of the window in the dark – but certainly the window was well splashed with wet. But by morning the rain had stopped for some time and we had a dull but quiet time with some sessions of “Scotch Mist” – not the alcoholic sort – but the sort which doesn’t seem to be raining very much until you go out in in whereupon you are instantly wet all over. By midday the rain was finished and the Tesco delivery was accomplished in the dry. There after the clouds cleared and we had a very pleasant, sunny, afternoon.
Man in Brechin, Angus, sandbagging a doorway.
But, the forecast is still dreadful for eastern Scotland in the area of Angus and people in Brechin are being told to leave their homes – and if the TV News is to be believed some, quite understandably intend to stay put and keep an eye on their possessions even if they get very wet. One lady had built up a tower of furniture and got her enormous TV set on top of it. Get your priorities right ! So, we await events, and shall see what tonight and tomorrow bring to that unfortunate part of the world.
Here is an addendum to my last paragraph issued by Angus Council . . . it begins, “Angus is in the middle of a very serious emergency.”
The weather forecasters have warned us and warned us and warned us about Storm Babet -and it certainly looks as though parts of the east coast of Scotland are going to get a good wetting.
And yet – and yet – so many times we have had these warnings, psyched ourselves up, and then had a bit of a blow, a few drops of rain and its all over. Then, a week or two later, we say, “Coo, that winds getting up !”, and then the rain starts and we can barely see out of the windows on one side of the house, and a small river runs down our wee road. No mention of any such thing on the forecasts. It blows away in time and we sort ourselves out, pick up the things that have got blown about, and carry on as normal.
On my way into town this afternoon, for my monthly blood letting – why take blood OUT when you have a low haemoglobin level I ask myself – I noticed that our garage of choice, which has had red cones in front of its pumps and and an apparently shut petrol office, now had its for sale cars lined up right across it frontage so that you can barely even see the pumps. I do not know why this is, nor have I asked, but my guess is that the margin on its petrol sales was so low that the cost of paying an office person outweighed the petrol profits. Fortunately we have another garage in the town which is still selling petrol so we are OK pro tem.
Crosby and Bateman, now showing “Gulf” petrol signs and evidently quite busy
On my way back I saw that the old Bank of Scotland branch building was sporting a Bank Hub sign. This tickled me as I had had some time back a conversation with the Bank of Scotland manager in Castle Douglas where I suggested that the banks should get together and take a less costly office and put all their reps in one place whilst sharing the cost. He laughed and said that they has been having discussions along the same lines. So, evidently the discussions have become fact.
Chippy and Restaurant was on the right, fish and vegetables via the left doorway, once upon a time.
The old fish and chip shop and restaurant and the fish shop next door are being torn to pieces without actually being demolished, so hope fully a new shop or shops will appear. It is amazing (to me) to see the butt end of an excavator like machine standing in the street while its business end is invisible within the depth of the building. I have a hunch that West Coast Sea Products had signs in the windows for a while beforehand, and if they opened a proper fish shop it would be excellent. We live in hope !
I opened my eyes. he clock said 5.45 am or thereabouts – I wasn’t too switched on at that point. The alarm was set for 6.00 am so I lay and watched the time count down and then switched it off before it leapt into action. Being deaf I have an alarm which operates a shaker under the mattress, but I felt I could do without that. I stumbled around the bathroom for a while then went into the kitchen to brew tea and to get two Belvita Chocolate Chip cookies for my breakfast. My OH also stumbled into life soon after and went through the same processes except that she forswore breakfast as we had an hour’s journey ahead of us.
By 8.10 am we were more or less ready for the taxi to call. The taxi driver put my three wheeler into the capacious boot of his Skoda Octavia and off we went. There had been a hard frost overnight so that, although the road was not icy, being dry, the fields all around were white. At the hospital we made our way through that great entrance hall – a modern NHS (Scotland) cathedral – a testing walk in itself, and then set off up the corridor to find ‘Bay 2’ There, fortunately we were able to have a few minutes peace and quiet as we waited which allowed our hearts and breathing to catch up.
Soon a voice called out my OH’s name and we set off again to the room where the Doctor was waiting for us. After a deal of chatting the Doctor carried out her examination, announced that she would take a biopsy, did so, and we were on our way out again. A brief pause in the Cafe for some pill taking and then back to the waiting taxi and so home.
However, this was not the end of our jobs for the day. Yesterday my OH provided a sample to go to our local Health Centre where it would be sent off for examination. We took it down there only to find that the Health Centre was closed – which, on a Monday, is unusual. There was a notice on the door about public holidays, but when we got back home and consulted our calendars and diaries no such public holiday could be found. It therefore fell to the writer of this blog do do some web searching. It turns out that NHS employees are entitled to a certain number of holidays during the year, the dates of which are to be decided locally. And – you’ve guessed it – Monday, 16th October was one of them. So, once we had returned fro the DGRI and turned our selves around we were off to the Health Centre to deliver this specimen and to find out whether it might be too late and that another one would need to be taken.
We comforted ourselves by going to Scran-tastic and getting something for lunch.
We have, alas, been off the air for a few days due to a technical hitch now solved with the assistance of Heart Internet support – to whom, many thanks.
Asparagus from the fertile fields of the Tesco Plain, served on a heated, specially selected china plate with a butter dressing. (Asparagus from Tesco with a blob of Country Life Spread.)
Lightly dusted pan fried Haddock served as above with Gherkins and Capers in a white sauce. (Tesco lightly dusted Haddock with Ocean Spray Tartare Sauce.)
Ice Cream a la Vanille. (Tesco Vanilla Ice Cream, melted in the freezer when the contact breaker tripped and re-frozen.)
Dear Diary,
Its been a funny few days. On Friday evening last, the lights by our chairs went out. My initial reaction was to prepare to change the bulb in mine, but on realising that the other light which has an LED arrangement had gone out too, I began to see that there might be more to this. It then became apparent that everything plugged into the extension socket by my chair was off power too. So I trogged all the way out to the garage in the spotting rain and examined the breaker box. The breaker labelled “Sockets” had tripped – I pushed it up, and it bounced back down. So then began a long series of trips into the house where various items were progressively unplugged and then back to the garage to try to reset the breaker. In this I failed every time, so eventually we gave up because we were tired out – it was knocking on for 10.00 pm by this time – our bedtime drinks consisted of hot water from the tap (fortunately the gas boiler did not get affected) and so to bed. FYI, hot water ain’t so bad.
On Saturday we telephoned Stuart Ross our local electrician who really doesn’t work at weekends. However,on hearing what had happened and that the fridge and freezer were off line, he came round, went straight to the garage, reset the breaker and all was well !!! It turns out that to reset the thing you push it down hard, and then put it up again. Simple when you know how. He advised us to plug things back in one by one and wait and see each time. This we did, and all was well, until my wife plugged in the micro wave and tried that – whereat “phut” – everything off again. This time I was able to reset the breaker myself, and we now assume that our microwave oven – a mere 40 years old, is defunct.
And then . . . . my wife announced that her little kettle that she uses (because it is light in weight and easy for her to lift) was leaking. So, that is two things which have gone wrong – what will the third one be ?
October is the treasurer of the year, And all the months pay bounty to her store; The fields and orchards still their tribute bear, And fill her brimming coffers more and more. But she, with youthful lavishness, Spends all her wealth in gaudy dress, And decks herself in garments bold Of scarlet, purple, red, and gold. She heedeth not how swift the hours fly, But smiles and sings her happy life along; She only sees above a shining sky; She only hears the breezes’ voice in song. Her garments trail the woodlands through, And gather pearls of early dew That sparkle, till the roguish Sun Creeps up and steals them every one. But what cares she that jewels should be lost, When all of Nature’s bounteous wealth is hers? Though princely fortunes may have been their cost, Not one regret her calm demeanor stirs. Whole-hearted, happy, careless, free, She lives her life out joyously, Nor cares when Frost stalks o’er her way And turns her auburn locks to gray.
The Campbells are comin, Oho! Oho! The Campbells are comin, Oho! Oho! The Campbells are comin to bonie Lochleven, The Campbells are comin Oho! Oho!
Well, the Campbells have been this week, but not to fight any battles on this soil.
When we moved in here thee was a summerhouse in a corner of the garden. Us, being who we are, and Scottish weather being what it is, we never used it as a summerhouse (afternoon teas, strawberries and cream) but as a general store for things we could not find homes for elsewhere. It has dome well in this role, although it was showing signs of age when we arrived. Six years later it had become positively decrepit and bits of it began to fall off or out. So, in came (at our request) Andrew Campbell of Kirkcudbright, plus assistants and between them they demolished the whole thing and carted it away in short order. This left an octagonal concrete base on which one of the men placed our garden bench – which was my father’s retirement gift after 40 years with the Employers Limited Liability Assurance Company Ltd.
Then, it was the turn of the potting shed – seldom used for potting, let it be said – and in reality more of another junk room. One side has sloping glazing to let the light in and this, facing south gets sun and rain in quantity throughout the year and simple began to fall apart. In came a joiner and in little more than a morning’s work replaced the whole glazed area. And then two of them gave the whole shed a coat of preservative, so hopefully it will last a bit longer yet.
St. Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station near Loos. A Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.
No doubt, dear reader, you will have read something of the First World War. You may even have visited the Western Front, or at least that part of it held by British and Commonwealth (“Empire” in those days) Forces and made use of some of the excellent guides and maps available before you arrived on site. My son came with me on a Battlefield Tour when he was in his twenties, and at some point in the trip he said, “Every young man should visit this place”, and he think he was probably right, but its no good going there unless you know why you are going and what it is you are going to see. And you cannot possibly do the whole length in one go, you need to concentrate on a portion, or a particular event. When you have seen your bit, recollect that when you reach the British eastern end, the front continues eastwards in French hands (its their country after all) all the way to the Vosges Mountains and the border with Switzerland.
Even if you have read it up a bit there still come times when the reality of that War strikes you all over again. Tonight I was looking at Instagram and there was a post abou this particular cemetery, so I looked it up on the CWGC web site, and this is what I found . . .
LOCATION INFORMATION
The cemetery is located in the vicinity of Haisnes, which lies between the towns of Lens and La Bassee in the Pas-de-Calais. Although the Cemetery lies in open farmland, there are neighbouring towns of Vermelles, Loos-en-Gohelle and Hulluch. The Cemetery can be reached from the D947, Lens to La Bassee road, and a CWGC signpost is visible on this road. The Cemetery is on the D39, Hulluch to Vermelles road.
HISTORY INFORMATION
The village was reached, or nearly reached, by the 9th (Scottish) and 7th Divisions on the 25th September 1915, the first day of the Battle of Loos; and parts of the commune were the scene of desperate fighting in the Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt (13th-15th October, 1915). No further advance was made in this sector until October 1918, when the enemy withdrew his line. “St. Mary’s Advanced Dressing Station” was established, during the Battle of Loos, and the cemetery named from it is at the same place. The cemetery was made after the Armistice, by the concentration of graves from the battlefield of Loos; the great majority of the graves are those of men who fell in September and October 1915. The only defined burial ground from which graves were brought to this cemetery was:- LOOS COMMUNAL CEMETERY, on the South-West side of the town, in which nine soldiers from the United Kingdom were buried in February 1916, and which was subsequently ruined by artillery fire. There are now nearly 2,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this cemetery. Of these, over two-thirds are unidentified and Special Memorials are erected to 23 soldiers from the United Kingdom, known or believed to be buried among them. Six other special memorials record the names of soldiers from the United Kingdom, buried in Loos Communal Cemetery, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery covers an area of 6,097 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall. There was at one time a French cemetery of 800 graves on the opposite side of the road; but in 1922 these graves were removed to Notre Dame-de-Lorette French National Cemetery.
The bold print is my doing – about 1300 of those buried are “unknown soldiers”. They died, some will have been buried, others would have remained where they fell, and when they were subsequently collected up and brought in to be given a decent burial there was no way of telling who they were. Even today, along the front, farmers uncover the remains of yet more soldiers and they are buried in a CWGC Cemetery somewhere. And sometimes unknown soldiers are identified (DNA analysis helps here) and a new headstone is made and erected over their grave. Reflect that there are several memorials to soldiers who have no known grave, the most well known of which is the Menin Gate at Ypres, or Ieper, “Wipers” as the British soldier knew it.
“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”
