Friday five:
1) I was supposed to go to a walking group today in about an hour, but we did a pantry inventory this week and were low on a few things, so the Daughter made a huge vat of chicken tortilla soup and I've got a crock pot full of Caroll Shelby's chili gurgling. So that has to be done instead. (Poor planning on my part - I forgot what day it was yesterday.) We have all the canning jars out and cleaned and will be putting all of that up in jars later this morning, since it shouldn't really sit out any longer before being processed. It's really handy to have pint jars of homemade ready-meals, basically, on the shelf. I think I'll just take a walk on my own later this afternoon. Hopefully it won't be pissing down rain then - it's sunny out now and beautiful walking weather.
2) So, we have the Daughter's fees residency thing sorted out for 2020 and onward. Still nothing on any of the other issues. I am half waiting for the HO to come screaming out of the blue with something unpleasant aimed at her. We still have not located a good immigration lawyer. The only one of like three I wrote to asking about fees and describing what we needed that responded seems more interested in the sale of the services than anything else. Hopefully it won't become immediately necessary to engage a lawyer. We really should have one identified in advance, just in case. I would feel just a bit more secure if I knew I could pick up the phone and call someone competent.
3) Have heard from several people in the States planning to come over to play tourist, this week. That's the first batch we've heard from in two years of our being here! One is braving it at Christmastime to come over solo and wants to basically tour the entire British Isles in 10 days, a few days in each country. And wants to know what to see and how to get there. Hmmmmm.
Given there will only be 8 hours of daylight and a lot of stuff will be closed, at least the available options are less than if they were coming next week. Will have to put my thinking cap on, for sure, on this one. They tell me they love trains, so that makes it a bit easier.
4) We need a trip out of town ourselves. I've been looking at places to go by bus and/or train where we can sort of get a B&B for a couple of nights, and spend a day or two looking through shops or visiting a garden or doing easy walking. Something very, very low key. With a decent place to sleep and nice (not fancy) food available. So far I've come up with Kilmartin, which is a nice place and we've been there before. It would be very restful. There's also a town in southern Scotland that has several bookshops and we could spend a day browsing them. That, unfortunately, means like two trains and two buses. Really don't want the travel to be that complicated. Have to keep looking.... The Daughter applied for a driving license and had to send her EU Family Member card in, and until it's back we can't go abroad, so it'll have to be an "in country" trip, I think. I'd kinda like to go somewhere new, but want to be sure we can rely on the accommodation/town/transport being decent.
5) We have our first baby tomato on the Berkeley Tie-dye tomato bush in the windowsill. I bought stakes for both plants and spent some time tieing them up yesterday. I'd forgotten "tomato plant" smell - yuck! But the plants seem happy. It will be interesting to see how they do. We still have an elderly pepper plant in the window, that we bought in June 2017, that is producing peppers, and our last-year's cayennes are still cropping. This years' batch got hit bad with spider mites, so they are slowed down, but they are starting to come back along. The Jalepenos have a good dozen fruits started on them. It's rather amazing how well peppers do here in Scotland! I wish I had a yard, so I could put a nice poly tunnel up and grow a proper veg garden. Perhaps someday....
6) Ok, there's supposed to only be five, but as an aside, I find it's best to not look at the international news, right now. Since there's nothing I can do about any of it. I leave BBC4 on the radio overnight for the background drone effect (can't sleep otherwise, it's too quiet!) and every morning there's someone grilling someone else about Brexit and who will be PM. And how the UK is STILL not ready for a hard Brexit. Etc., etc., etc. It no longer has much of an impact, other than serving as the "it's time to get up now" klaxon. The same one or two hosts doing precisely the same format... chat up the guest, then push them with something uncomfortable, talk over them, etc., then change tone and thank them very much for coming on the show, to which the guest always replies politely, "well thank you for having me on" or some such. It's so predictable. Like a ticking alarm clock. Very little new, lots of talk, some arguments, "get a better Brexit deal", etc., etc., etc. It's become a meaningless drone. With all the news going on everywhere else in the world right now, you'd think the morning drive show could talk about something other than their stock three or four internal, UK-only topics. (Brexit, universal credit, tower cladding, understaffed police, etc.)
