Thanks For The Memory

We got back from our stay at the caravan on Sunday in time for me to start on Jury Service on Monday. I can't mention anything about that of course other than that I'm scheduled to be there for a couple of weeks.

Last night we decided that it was time for us to start dealing with all the paperwork in preparation for the sale of the house. We're using an online conveyancer (very pleased with the purchase will elaborate on which ones we used and recommend them on here if we're still happy after the sale); one of the benefits of doing everything online is that you can scan and upload all the answers to questions and copies of guarantees , planning certificates and all the documents needed for a smooth transaction. You can't say that we aren't thorough and we came up with twenty-nine pieces of paper in total which I diligently started to scan into a single multiple page document at around 10.30 p.m.

At just after midnight Marion asked me if I was still planning on coming to bed; 'Almost finished now' I was relieved to say as the screen asked me if I wanted to scan another page. I fed in the final sheet and pressed the scan button. The scanner whirred and started to copy. Thirty seconds later a warning flashed on screen to the effect that my memory was almost full. I sighed with relief that the final document was being processed but then watched in horror as a further message flashed up something to the effect that  "the application has quit unexpectedly"and the scanning application disappeared from the screen. It was now about 12.15 a.m. and almost two hours worth of scanning was lost. I vainly reopened the application but it was gone. So thanks for the memory (or lack of it) Mac. I can't really blame the Mac as I suppose I should have made the document a more sensible size and split it into several smaller ones. There's no feeling quite like the euphoria of finishing a pile of hard work being vapourised by an onscreen error message.

Oh well. It's all done now after getting up at 6.30 and working flat out before heading off to the court. At least it's a job out of the way.

I got home yesterday to find this lovely bouquet of flowers had been delivered with a box of chocolates and a bottle of fizz. They were sent by Sarah and Duncan as a thank you for the help with stuff in St Andrews last week. They really didn't need to send them but it was a very kind and generous gesture. We're pleased to hear that Sarah did very well with her Boden party so perhaps we'll be helping her with another when the autumn collection comes out.

 

A Few Hours Detecting At Last

After a sad two months of funerals, executorship, putting the house up for sale and buying a new house I finally had the chance to spend a couple of hours out doing some metal detecting - a favourite hobby alongside reading, writing and cinema. Now please don't stop reading there. We aren't all like Paul Whitehouse in the Aviva ads; some of us are quite sane and I've had a pretty successful twelve months with my Roman gold bracelet link being voted the UK Detector Net's find of the year and The Searcher magazine nominating my medieval key as the Nation's Most Significant find. 

So I approached the field in the (somewhat blurred - sorry) photo above with an air of excitement. Not only was the field less than five minutes' drive from our caravan here in St Andrews but the weather was beautiful and the enormous site was close to two ancient routes into the medieval city. I was five minutes into searching it when I got a call from the estate agent asking if they could arrange a viewing - a good omen perhaps.

Maybe not as, after almost two hours criss-crossing the field in search of antiquities, this button was the sum total of my finds. It was not as if I had a pocket full of junk to go with it. No; this was it. Two hours of stumbling across unevenly ploughed land putting my replacement hip at grave risk resulted in zilch. So I did what any sensible detectorist would do and headed back to the car to lick my wounds and decide what to do with the other two free hours I had available.

I drove away from the lovely little city and,after a few miles, spotted a remote church with a farm nestling a few hundred yards beneath it. Hallelujah, the farmer was at home and, as I am finding almost every time here in Scotland, happy for me to look around his fields at my leisure. There was plenty of choice but I chose to search a large piece of meadow with an old doocot  (dovecot for those readers who don't speak Scottish) in the corner. I didn't have a lot of time but within minutes of entering the field I had already found an old spoon handle and an old spoon - a small improvement on the previous giant field.

An hour later I had this lot in my pouch. I know it's not exactly treasure but thirteen coins in reasonable condition are always fun finding. They started with Victoria and ended with George VI and comprised a sixpence, a threepenny bit, two halfpennies and nine old pennies. As you can see, there was a fair bit of rubbish too but it was refreshing to search a field that had clearly not been searched before even if the finds were no more than 120 years old. It reminded me of my early days detecting when signals were prolific unlike today when most fields have had at least one enthusiast giving them the once over. The farmer was amazed to see how many coins turned up and pointed out a ploughed field that locals used to walk through to get to the church - I'm going to give that one a go later in the week.

In the meantime we've got Sarah's Boden party to help with tomorrow and Tuesday. If you like Boden clothes and live in Fife, do come and have a look. Sarah will have five rails of clothes on display for you to try and there's 20% off orders placed on Tuesday plus free delivery and returns. I'll be there. Hope you can make it. You will be very welcome. 

I Missed My Vocation

We exchanged contracts today and will officially own the house in Framlingham next Thursday. We've got to get all our ideas together for the architect so I downloaded a brilliant free program to help us to get our project designed. It's called Sweet Home 3D and it allows you to draw the layout of the house and then add all the features you want. Once you've done that you can add furniture and fixtures and then view it from every angle in 3D. You can even create a video run through of the property. I've only created walls and played around with a few bits of furniture so far but it's starting to take shape. It's not only fun to do it's also extremely useful as we've already changed the size and position of openings in walls, moved a wall 700mm back and moved radiators around. Without the program we would definitely have an inferior set of instructions for the builders. If I was starting out on a career again I would love to be working on something like this.

After a flying visit to Suffolk on Monday we're now on a flying visit to St Andrews. I know I'm getting on a bit now and I do have the odd accident with food but I'm not sure that Sarah was justified in putting this table mat in my place at the table when we popped round for lunch today.

And on the subject of food, here's a bit of haute cuisine from our wonderful motorway system. I won't name the service station as the woman who served us this dog's breakfast did so with charm but £5.99? If she'd had the benefit of Sweet Home 3D I'm sure that it would have been obvious that that hash brown should have been presented just below the sausage and the bacon shifted up a little - not that any of that would have resurrected the fried egg that must have been fried some time last week.  

Sarah is so busy getting ready for her Boden home shopping party on Tuesday that I was allowed to take Rose out on my own. We had a trip to the supermarket - what a joy! Who needs round the world cruises when you can spend an hour with a grandchild?

She's fast approaching her first birthday and is starting to find her feet. She's not walking yet but it surely won't be very long.

And here's an invitation to that Boden party. There's 20% off, free home delivery (and return) and, of course, a chance to try the clothes - something that you don't get buying online. If you are in St Andrews on Tuesday and want a super new outfit come along, check out the wide range on show and share a few refreshments.