We got back on Sunday after a week spent in an actually properly heated house to find the temperature had dropped sharply, with yesterday bringing our first really hard frost of the season. It’s eased off a bit now (winter here seems to come in two flavours: cold and sparkly or less cold and dreich and for once this morning I was actually quite pleased to welcome the dreich) but we’ve switched into cold weather mode: moving out of our (damp, in the ‘north wing’ and with three external walls) bedroom and into the guest room (merely damp), digging out the thermals and dressing in front of the Rayburn. Oh, and we’ve had to break down and switch on the heating for a couple of hours every day.

If my calculations are correct, and it would help if our magic wireless oil-level measuring thing actually worked rather than simply blinked at us, we’ve used about 100 litres of oil a month since we re-lighted the Rayburn, but without running the heating. That compares with an average monthly consumption of oil of about 200 litres a month over the year (including the summer when the Rayburn was off). I was beginning to wonder last year if our oil tank was actually leaking, or whether it was the Rayburn that was consuming all the oil. Now I realise it was just that we were running our enormously inefficient boiler. Sadly, replacing the boiler is in our landlord’s hands and as they would bear all the cost and we would reap all the benefit, it’s hard to see how to best to persuade them to get it replaced so I’ve settled for glaring at it to see if giving it the evil eye will leave it irreparably broken. Sadly, it appears to be built like a tank and indestructable. British engineering at its best, bastard thing.

So that leaves trying to minimise its use, which means keeping the house as cold as we can bear it. These days, I prepare to go outside – on the bike or into the garden – by taking layers off, rather than putting them on. And this is only November. It’s not even officially winter yet…

… remind me, when was it last year that it started to get warm again?

‘Cuh, typical,’ I thought as the power company vehicle roared past me, only to immediately slow down to a crawl. Drivers do hate to get stuck behind a bike, even if they’re only going for another 100 yards because, God knows, those seconds saved may well be crucial. Only he didn’t stop, and continued to crawl along until I saw what the problem was. A red squirrel – in the middle of the village too – trying to make up its little fluffy ginger mind which side of the road it wanted to be on. On we went, squirrel, van, and bike in a short-lived procession until – boing boing boing – Mr Nutkin made it to the safety of a garden and White van man and I were free to speed off in our own fashion.

You see, I told you the traffic could be terrible round here…

Ah, home. We stopped off on the way down for a spot of second breakfast and as we were placing our order, the other half decided to investigate some unfamiliar aspects of the local cuisine:

OH: What’s blackheart sausage?

Man in Cafe: It’s made by our butcher – a lorne sausage with a heart of black pudding running down the middle (at this point, he went so far as to draw us a little picture on the order pad). There’s also braveheart sausage, which is the same thing but with haggis* in the middle.

OH: oh right, well could I have a slice of blackheart sausage in my roll?

MIC: No

OH: No?

MIC: No. It only comes in the full breakfast. Otherwise it would be complicated

OH: ?

The other half, poor thing, has only lived in this country for getting on for 20 years and still harbours fond delusions that some faint echo of a service culture will emerge. But, frankly, when you run a cafe at a beauty spot on a remote road with no other cafe for 40 miles in all directions, you get to make the rules.

And I get to eat my breakfast to the accompaniment of a disgruntled American muttering ‘No? Whaddaya mean “No“?’ at five minute intervals.

* There is nothing – nothing – the Scots will not put haggis into given half a chance.

Tales of country life will resume soon, but meanwhile, I thought I had to bring you this. Cyclists will probably already be aware of the car-on-giant-cycling-rabbit collision that made the press recently but really, rabbits get hit by cars all the time round here, so I fail to see why everyone’s so surprised. No doubt the cyclist in question – getting into role – just crouched in the middle of the road, caught in the headlights, before launching herself under the driver’s wheels.  But anyone thinking they might still be safe if only they can make themselves conspicuous enough for any driver with lights and scary yellow jackets should check out this.

I hope the elephant was wearing a helmet.

via Copenhagenize

…. would appear to be the last town in Britain not to be carpeted in mobile phone shops.

this is

1. a marvellous survival of really old-fashioned retail values in a world of high-street clones
2. quite a pain in the a*** when you have left home without your phone charger.

Blogging will be a little sporadic for the next few days as we’re remaining in Duns until the weekend. Please try and cope without me.

Things you expect to see in a field: sheep, cows, a farmer, grass …

Things you don’t expect to see in a field:

A large fish. A brown trout, to be precise.

Some context may be helpful here. It had started raining last evening, it had rained more or less all night, and all morning and it was still raining, albeit more lightly. Having been stuck in the house for most of this, I was out with a stick poking at the drains to clear the flooding on the road, which is my new favourite hobby (it’s the giant slurping plughole noise, I think). Having just cleared out the worst of the blockages, I looked into the field on the downhill side of the road and saw the fish.

My second thought (my first thought was ‘must blog this’) was to get someone else to come and see. The other half was out – and very miffed when he got back to discover that he could have had trout instead of leek and cheese pie for his supper – so I went up to the big house to get our landlady. She instantly recognised it as one of her fish (well, you would, wouldn’t you) escaped from the ponds in the grounds and which had presumably been swimming around happily in the road* until I came along with my interfering town ways. We got a bucket and scooped up Barry (the Brown Trout), as I shall not be naming him, and returned him to the pond with a cry of ‘be free, Barry, be free!’ whereupon he lay on his side gasping pathetically. It was never like this on Flipper, I tell you. I waded out and pushed him free of the weed and into deeper water and after a while he righted himself and swam away to our relief. Sadly, Barry, shall now probably be hooked out of the pond at the earliest opportunity by the son of the house – country folk haven’t a sentimental bone in their bodies – but I will have done my best.

Anyway, what with the airborne slugs, and land-based fish, it’s probably lucking we’re heading east for a week now. Lord knows what tomorrow would have had in store…

*Imagine explaining that one to the fishing police if you’d run it over…

Walking back through the garden this afternoon, I spotted something apparently hovering in mid-air under a tree. On closer examination, it turned out to be a slug, not hovering so much as dangling from a gossamer thread. I took photos but the camera couldn’t see the point of focusing on the slug when there was lots of lovely scenery to focus on instead, and the slug was swaying gently in the breeze anyway, so you’ll just have to believe me.

As a gardener, I can only think of one explanation for this phenomenom. The slimy buggers are experimenting with parachutes. Clearly their aim needs some work, as this was nowhere near the veg patch, but it’s a worrying sign all the same. Copper rings, egg shells, coffee grounds and grit will form no barrier to para-slugs with forward air capability.  And if this works, can mortars, IEDs and tactical nuclear devices be far behind?

Be afraid, gardeners. Be very afraid.

‘So much for their unerring homing instinct,’ I said as we stood at the falls, watching the salmon leaping. Most of the fish were doing the textbook thing of heading up the waterfall for their home tributary, but there was one that either hadn’t read the textbook or had mis-programmed its GPS and was repeatedly leaping out of the water in the wrong direction and beating its head against the cliff wall instead. I wonder whether if you stood at the right spot and caught one, it would count as poaching? ‘It just jumped into my hands, officer…’

Anyway, hopefully my own homing instincts (although not to my natal spawning grounds) will be somewhat better as on Monday we’re off to Huttonian’s and on Tuesday I shall be here as part of my two nations (well, Scotland and England) in one day whirlwind book tour.

A wanted poster appears on Noticeboard Tree:

Have you seen a grey squirrel?

This is terrible news. Only this week we were going gooey over the antics of one of our red squirrels on the feeder. We knew the dreaded greys were getting closer, but hadn’t realised just how close they were. Argh.

Apparently, the Scottish greys don’t carry the pox that is so damaging to the local reds, so the two may coexist, at least until the English greys spread up from the south with their nasty southern diseases. But even so, the reds would be driven into the conifer plantations and we’d definitely be seeing less of them in the garden and round about. In some ways, that might be a relief. But in all other ways, it would be a crying shame.

The weather’s been fairly grim these last few days – blustery, cool, raining and endlessly grey. Today looked like it was going to be no better but as the morning wore on we noticed a strange light in the sky and then – my God – enough sunshine to cast a shadow. The forecasts suggested we should get out and make the most of it while it lasted, and so we did. ‘Fancy a bike ride?’ I asked the other half, and curiously enough, he did.

There’s no other option on a day like this: the reservoir loop. I never get tired of this ride, although I do frequently get tired on this ride as, curiously, no bike lift has yet to be installed. But that’s what cameras are for: an excuse to stop and rest while pretending to take photographs of my favourite breed of cow:

We were nearly at the top when we saw this:

(and if you’re wondering, that impressive looking junction with the give way sign is actually the entrance to a farm track). Recklessly, we pressed on, pausing only to, once more, fail to capture the view from the top:

Twenty minutes of descending later and we found the roadworks, but the long delays were on their lunchbreak so we whizzed past without stopping (they were fixing the parapet on a bridge).

Then a quick stop at the waterfall to give the bikes a rest, and home for our own lunch break.

Rain forecast again tomorrow… oh well.