January 2018

Warming up!

House is warming up as the new efficient radiators go in. Surprisingly a key element of the new system arrived only today - individual thermostats for each room. No wonder I was frustrated almost to death last night with them!

On the upside, a new season of Grace & Frankie has started on Netflix and the one liners are as fab as the first three seasons. That should keep me occupied in the next week or so.

Anthony is back from Spain today on the 1830 train so it is back to normal in the house once more…

Smallest man, largest van

The world's heaviest German engineered wifi radiators (I kid you not) arrived at last this afternoon, delivered in the biggest lorry to ever navigate up Old Faskally hill and on to the drive. Driven by the shortest man in the universe (Tom Thumb towered over him I am sure).

Of course it was left to me and the 70 year old electrician to off-load them and sign for them. Thankfully I have my man-loader delivery trolley (every time I use it I think it was the best purchase of our first year in OFH). I have now downloaded the app for my phone and will start setting rooms up on the app later this week. Not only are they wifi programmable, but manual too, so they will be on, On, ON in the first rooms later this afternoon and I can start to thaw out.

Anthony is going to LOVE the amount of cardboard we will need to take to the recycling later this week…

2018-01-23_14-58-19

Still off work

Doctor has signed me off for another four weeks as I have so many appointments. However I am well on the way to recovery now that it was all identified as a rare complication of the drugs I was on before Christmas. The new regime has given me amazingly normal blood pressure for the first time in 30 years so I cannot complain!

However for some reason I am without a voice and not even a croak escapes from my mouth at the moment. I am sure this is not helped by the new heating system being installed (radiators taken out on Saturday when it was -06C) and electricians started work on Sunday (-07C) with all the doors open. I am spending my time in the dining room where the log burner is on full blast as the rest of the house is Baltic. Anthony is in Spain at the moment and missing all of this fun!

Will this snow ever stop?

The snow has come and remains beautiful but it is stopping real life from continuing! I am still off work because of the old kidney/heart issue that all came on suddenly just before Christmas.

Christmas and New Year I was spoiled rotten by visitors doing all the cooking and entertaining and whilst that was great and I am happy to have been on the receiving end, my kitchen drawers will take until Easter to get back to normal!

Killiecrankie1689

Our local neighbours who are upset about the A9 Dualling programme have started a media campaign to raise awareness that the Battle of Killiecrankie site will be destroyed by the current plans for widening.

The campaign started off with a website http://www.killiecrankie1689.scot and has a Change.Org campaign, Facebook and Twitter account too. We are pleased with the campaign as it has meant TV interviews, international radio interviews, local, national and international press coverage. Not bad at all for a little village in the Highlands! You can read of our campaign on the website and access the press releases and news.

The deadline for submissions at this stage is 23rd January but the campaign will have to go on, perhaps at a less frenetic pace thereafter.