Project 365+1: Days 226 - 231

I've got more or less caught up with myself this last week. For the first time in about six weeks I've not had a million and one things to do, I've been settled into a good routine for work, we've not had people visiting, a hundred different places to go and I've been sort of organised. This has been quite nice.

Day 226: Boxset

After our Lord of the Rings marathon at the weekend we finally got to start watching Band of Brothers, which we've had on blu ray almost as long as we've been married (so almost three years). It's one of my favourite TV series though I have to admit, I've only seen it once and Mr Click hasn't seen it at all.

For years he's had a book of music from various TV series, one of which was the Band of Brothers theme music. I love the music for this series, it makes my chest go all tight. It's such a brilliant series and it's made all the more poignant by the fact that it's not just characters, these were real people. I'll try not to say too much about it here because I'm planning a review post when we finish it (which shouldn't be too long because we're already halfway through the series just now).

The boxset is beautiful though, it's in a tin and the sleeve pulls out like this, on one side there's this fantastic picture and the other side the six blu rays. We've got a similar set for The Pacific which we'll hopefully be watching in the next couple of weeks.

Day 227: Tree Cutting In Progress

I may have mentioned (once or twice) that we had a pretty severe storm at the beginning of the year which led to rather a lot of trees blown over around the island. Considering that a large portion of the estate we live on comprises of woodland, there were a lot of trees down here. These have been gradually been cleared over the last few months, beginning with the ones which were either blocking the roads or otherwise ever-so-slightly dangerous (such as the ones leaning over a road and the only thing that was holding them up were other trees).

While I was walking Tara after work the other day we came across a sign telling us that 'Tree Cutting was in Progress' and found lots of big chunks of tree beside the road. This was one of those chunks. The photo doesn't really do it justice, it was almost as tall as I am and there were a couple of these beside the road. If a lump of tree can be photogenic, this one was, it looked quite pretty with the ivy and plants growing around it.

Day 228: Asking Very Nicely

This is Tara asking for a biscuit, you can tell how much she wants something based on how high her paws go. Obviously, she really wanted this one, if she was any more desperate for this biscuit she would have done her kind of jumping thing where she gives both paws as tried not to fall over. It's quite funny, but hurts if she catches you with her claws.

You can also tell that she's being offered something yummy because she's licking her lips. I have no idea when she started doing this, but if you're offering food for her and it's taking a while to get it, she sits there licking her lips. She has such a long tongue, hehe!

Day 229: Bye Bye Brambles

A few weeks back I noticed that there was a bramble bush slowly creeping its way across the garden, of course to deal with it we needed some snippers and gardening gloves, neither of which we had at that time. Then when we did have what we needed the weather turned and I decided to hold off doing anything about the brambles until we had a dry spell. Unfortunately the brambles quite enjoyed the wet and sunny weather and sort of exploded, so it became a slightly larger job than we had previously anticipated.

But they're all gone now (more or less). You can still see the endy bits of some of them above. I also cleared all the stinging nettles along the fence as well; I was very glad of the gardening gloves, believe me!

At the same time I started clearing some of the gunk that had accumulated at the bottom of a down pipe. I had noticed this black stuff at the bottom of the pipe before and thought it was part of the pipe, but on closer inspection discovered it was old mouldy leaves. Using the hoe I scraped away what I could and hoped that with the next heavy rainfall the rest of the blockage would be forced down until we could clear some more away and gradually we'd be able to clear it ourselves.

Well, yesterday I went out and noticed that there was a little pile of leaf mould at the bottom of the pipe again, so I took the hoe and tried scraping it away. It came away followed by a little trickle of water which I was quite pleased about so it was obviously working. The trickle was followed by a squelchy sort of noise and this semi-liquid ooze came out. I scraped that away and then there was a sort of popping noise. Mouldy old leaf flew across the garden, water gushed everywhere and my trousers got soaked. It took about ten minutes for all the water to drain away but at least the pipe is clear now. Just be grateful I didn't take a photo of the leaf ooze for my picture of the day.

Day 230: Graduation!

Mr Click officially got his degree with the OU the other week. Unfortunately the nearest graduation ceremony with the Open University this year is in Manchester which would be rather expensive as we'd have to travel down there and stop at least one night. The only other option would be to wait until next year for the Edinburgh graduation ceremony, but that would be a bit of a delay so since he's already officially graduated from the course, we decided to just go ahead and get photos taken locally by a professional photographer.

We found the gown on eBay and had hoped to get the hood from the same seller but it had been misplaced so we did a bit of hunting and found the correct hood in OU colours elsewhere online. The fact that we've bought these is good because I'll be able to reuse it when I graduate (hopefully) in a couple of years time, saving us a bit of money on the rental costs.

I couldn't go along to the photographer to see Mr Click getting his photos taken because I was working, so when we got home he got all dressed up for me so I could see what he would look like. I'm hoping to be able to post a copy of the official photo some time next week (once we've got it in the paper of course).

Oh, and see the scroll, I made that. Amazing what you can do with some cream card and a bit of ribbon. ;-)

Day 230: Highland Games

And so we come to yesterday, which was our Highland Games. It's been some time since I last went to one, I've certainly not been in the last eight years. Now that I'm in the Red Cross I get to go along and do first aid there so no excuse for missing them now. We pulled the afternoon duty at the games and so toddled along after lunch to do our bit. It was a lovely warm sunny day (with plenty of wasps *shudder*).

When we were walking across from the car park to the area where it was all taking place, past all the tartan and tents I couldn't help but nudge Mr Click and whisper "it's just like Brave". It was. There were all the traditional sports, Highland Dancers, and lots and lots of Pipe Bands. Our first aid tent was right next door to the area where the Pipers waiting to go out were lining up and practicing which meant that I had a constant stream of pipe music drifting past.

It was a very good atmosphere though I suspect that some people have been suffering for it today, both alcohol after effects and sunburn. I caught the sun across my face so I've got a lovely pink nose and cheeks. I love events like this; despite being born in England, I moved when I was fourteen so in the next couple of years I will have spent over half my life in Scotland. I definitely feel more drawn to Scotland than to England (despite my pesky English accent sticking around). I felt very proud to live here yesterday, it's nice to think that gatherings like that have been taking place for hundreds of years. Even the sky was feeling patriotic.