Yet another two weeks have passed

Quite frightening how life nearly passes you by, especially as you get older it seems.   So what has happened recently,  I would think that going to the launch of peter Ritchie's new book on Monday was very interesting, and no doubt exciting for Peter as there was a great turn out of his friends and fans.  so the relaunched book one is now out and the others will follow. lead character is now Grace McCallum  and not Grace Den Herder as was in the original trilogy.     Met up with my mate Dan (the man) for a bite to eat at the new Weatherspoon's pub in Lothian Road,  the Caley which was the old cinema,  beautiful transformation of a lovely building.   Similarly, attended a meeting of the E&SESALTA  within the The Dome, George Street, where again the owners Caledonian Heritable have done a marvelous job of turning a magnificent old bank into a beautiful restaurant.  We had afternoon tea there a few weeks ago which was first class, and had a peek into the Green Room which, for a party of twenty would be my place to go in Edinburgh.
masonic season now back in swing, so visits to 720 with the blues,   St Andrews, Honour Concorde and Fidelity: Acheson's Haven, in the Reds;   King David -  the KT's;  Persevere, Cockpen, Blantyre, and Ibrox with the OES.   and with RA  and Squarries kicking in properly lots to look forward to.

Motor cycling still to the fore, and as the Steed is in dock awaiting new front forks I have been out and about on the Time Machine,  good, but I do miss the Steed.

Strangers from foreign parts as Mr McInally appeared from French France and we had breakfast at Weathespoon's booking office at the top of the ramp from the Waverley station,  even met young Robert who is duty manager there, not seen him for ages so it was nice.

Enthralled with the latest series of Strictly Come dancing,  excellent entertainment,  unlike the news and current affairs programmes which are depressing.  Comedy with President Idiot Trump ( who must be a total embarrassment to the majority of the USA, and his opposite number , the manic Dictator president of North Korea, with his big fat finger on the button, all set to start World War Three. (shame his population have no idea how bloody crazy he is)    Hopefully there might me another wee earthquake and North Korea slip off the map.  Trump would probably not notice, thinking it was part of the African continent which he is not quite au fait with.
As an avid follower of the earthquake sites on the internet, the recent tragedies come as no surprise,  it just proves that man is no match for mother nature.   I certainly would not be cruising in the Carribean while all there hurricanes are causing chaos, so it pays to avoid booking during these months,  mind you, the cruise ships give the area a wide berth so it is just a case of hoping that the hope ports are open when needed.   Beats the Viking cruise where I came back with calluses on my hands and bum, and earache from that bloke beating the drum !!!!

Hollyrood , new venue for the comedy club, Edinburgh.

THe Edinburgh Festival has just finished with party pieces on stage by Alex (Slippery) Salmond and friends, and a guest appearance by Jeremy Corbyn during his whistle stop tour of "me and lefty pals will wreck your economy" .  Ruth Davidson , bit the dust and she was quite a nice person, far too nice.  However, Nicola and her pals seem to be doing pretty well on their own as well.  SO Nicola has stopped going on meantime about Independence, but looks like bumping up Income Tax !!   Diesel cars to be  phased out and electric cars the norm,  so we will need thousands of new charging points all over the country, maybe a windmill at each point to generate the lecky.  Journey times massively increased, and a nice touch,  no learner drivers over the new Queensferry crossing (Third Forth Bridge)! As it will soon be a motorway learners are not permitted on the Forth Bridge which is now for pedestrians and cyclists etc.   Why did we ask the Queen to open the new Bridge this week when Nicola had already done it?    Vote catching going on by placating the Greens, giving votes to prisoners,  who next, probably automatic voting rights for immigrants in the land of milk and honey.
THEN!  to keep the good folks of Edinburgh amused, the caring council plan on restricting older diesel cars from the City Centre within the next two years of issue £60 fixed penalty fines, add this to the extended 20 mph speed limit areas, we will all need massive pay rises to afford a 🚗.  the  public enquiry about the dreaded tram debacle is still underway and councillors past and present are all passing the buck left right and centre.  no lessons learned there at all as they are seriously considering giving the next phase the go ahead.
Really quite sad when these egotistical so and so's seemingly refuse to listen to reason.  WHere will it all end.

And we moaned about a wet August

Must say I was fed up hearing folks moaning about the weather during August, so now we have to realise how lucky we are compared to other parts of the World where floods , hurricanes and now an earthquake have been hitting headline since and front pages, taking our minds of the rantings of lunatic presidents, dictators and bampots.  Horrendous flooding in Asia with millions left homeless, hurricane Irma following hurricane Harvey through the Caribbean with yet another on its tail. total devastation so far caused by winds of up to 180 mph and extreme flooding by high tides, with large areas of Florida in the path over the next few days.  In Mexico a No 8 magnitude earthquake hit earlier today and residents now waiting on the aftershocks. God help those affected,  and PS.  Donald Trump does not think global warming has anything to do with it!!!

J K Rowling, Ian Rankine and Peter Ritchie all in one sentence

Peter Ritchie,  former Police Officer in Midlothian and now linked to the greats in Scottish modern crime writing.   Peter started writes crime thrillers on his retirement and after having his first four books published online. He has now been signed up by Black and White, an Edinburgh publishing house who have revamped his first four books and will launch the first one, now titled "Cause of Death" at 6.30 pm on Monday 18th September in Waterson's book store, 128 Princes Street, Edinburgh.    Hopefully many of his friends and colleagues will be able to attend and make it a memorable event.  Next three books will follow over three months and then he will start work on books five and six,  next thing we know will be a TV appearance.

SKY TV rip off, but is that my opinion!

Sitting here spitting blood as I have been listening to the BBC coverage of the Open Golf past three days on the radio as I do not have the rip off sky Sports package.   Interesting to see that during the day Sky are getting 330,000 viewers but the BBC are getting One million viewers on their Open Highlights feature. I received some bumf during the week from Sky who now want to break up the sports coverage and sell individual types of sports individually,  just another way of making money.  When I did work for BSkyB   they had league tables in the sales offices with winning sales teams getting all sorts of commission and rewards for boosting sales and their intent was to increase the cost to customers each year.   Apart from the cookery programmes and Nothing to Declare, time I also kicked Sky into touch.
Penicuik still having a partial boycott of Lidl after their new car parking procedure, so far I have not been back for five weeks, so Tesco is scoring.  Interesting to see that no such parking scheme implemented at the Lidl store in Musselburgh.

Mercat Grill busier than ever,  next wine night is 2nd September with a South African theme.

Steed of Steel running well, and have been out several times when weather was nice, had a quick run down to Duns on Tuesday to see Andy at Border Bikes and then back over the moors,  but today, fog bound in Penicuik, so no planes taking off from the public park!!!

My friend Lennie, who collided with a car who pulled out in front of him in Arrachar three weeks ago is still in the QE hospital, Glasgow with double fractures to the pelvis, is doing better than  expected and hopes to get home in a couple of weeks,  but recovery is slow, however he is determined to get a new 1200RT  to replace his wrecked baby and get back on the road again.   The lovely Catherine is recovering from her many bumps and scrapes and hopefully she and  Lennie will be out and about as a team sooner than later.
So another quiet few days for me till I have my NHS card stamped at my next appointment. Nothing but praise for the support and treatment I am getting.

Not confirmed yet, but no hose pipe ban this year so far.

I wonder why it rains so much in Penicuik, yet when you put on the weather forecast the sun is shining "down south". Not helped when Mrs B is watching Wimbledon and cracking up at the torrential rain filling our gutters. Was going to say that the only consolation is not having to water the garden, however, not true as the baskets need hand watering.

But the sun did shine on Wednesday and I had a run out on the Steed of Steel, down to Biggar and Coulter and round the hill to Broughton and back to Biggar via Hartee.   In the valley at the South of Biggar there was a super view of a Hercules transport plane drifting along above the tree tops, but not enough time for me to get a photo.

Mercat Grill is still busy, so much so that they have already closed their bookings for X-mas Day this year!!! Full House.

Probably like many, I lost interest in Wimbledon as soon as Andy Murray and Joanne Konta were knocked out.  But have just remembered that Jamie Murray is still keeping the flag flying for the UK.

I suspect that we are now beginning to see the effects of the so called "Nanny State", with young criminals running amok as there are little or no effective punishments, time to penalise the parents for lack of control, but if smacking is also forbidden what do you do.  Old adage,  bring back the birch, will never happen but it was a deterrent. Scots Law was once admired throughout the World, but hate to say that our politicians, no doubt pressured by greedy lawyers and the EU loonies have slowly been eroding the system.

I see our FM Nicola popped over to Brussels the other morning for a brief chat to one of the EU money grabbers,  if she had a £16 contract with unlimited calls from O,2 she could have made a call and blethered for as long as she wanted!!!  Probably spent more time in Edinburgh Airport than she did with the chappie.      I was dropping Sparky Mark off in the airport on Tuesday and t was a nightmare, queues trying to get in to dro off, no charges for drop off parking as they were pushing folk out the other end as fast as possible and queues trying to get back up onto the A8,  just as well the tram is there!!!

Friend from Dalkeith had her car stolen as she slept as the intruders broke in and took her keys, just heard of another in Newtongrange who had his new BMW car stolen under similar circumstances, and yesterday afternoon, one of our delivery drivers was overtaken in High Street Musselburgh, by two hooded youths, no helmets on, riding what was probably a stolen BMW motorcycle.

Bike wise, some motorists certainly are not, big time.

Despite all the publicity advising motorists to "Think Bikers"  my friend and his wife were victims of an eejit who pulled out of a garage forecourt just as they were approaching, the bike hit the side of the car and both were catapulted over the roof of the car  and down to earth with a hellish bump !!  Understatement,  Lenny has a fractured pelvis and is in hospital in Glasgow while his wife fortunately received only bumps and bruises.  So for a couple in their 70's they have been remarkably lucky, now for the long haul to recover  for Lennie, who is currently a long way from home but is getting a lot of support from the hiking fraternity including the Blue Knights and the Scottish Motorcycle Touring Group (IPA).

For me,  the Steed of Steel is back home, but being a bit under the weather had to give it a pass this last. Few days , however, all being well will be out in the morning.

Next,  a bit of a boycott taking place in Penicuik as Lidl, who own their car park, which is used by many of the patients from the adjacent Penicuik Health Centre, have introduced a parking ticket system, which if not used will mean that you automatically get a parking "invoice " from the English form who operate the system.  This means that if you are in the Doctors and run over the time you get a ticket, and even if you do not run over time you have to go into Lidl and make a purchase in order to cancel your parking ticket!!!  And Lidl, operating with fewer staff , can mean you have to stand in their queues.    It appears that may have been introduced after one of their senior staff came to visit and could not get a parking space !!   It also highlights the lack of off street parking in Penicuik which has been turned into a Park and Ride by folks from the outlying areas who utilise the excellent bus service into Edinburgh.

Had a visit from one of my Masonic  friends who came down on the train from Pitlochry on Monday to meet for lunch and a blether,  very nice to see him, so next time I have to head up there, perhaps on the Steed of Steel.

Great excitement, as Lilly the Labrador  is coming to stay for the weekend !

Trial by media!!  Time they got their act together - just watching the news and listening to the reporters speculating about major crimes, commenting on the fact that the police are not giving out information about crimes,   Why should they when it could be detrimental to a future trial?    And also a disgrace that two thugs from Glasgow who ran over two police officers and were charged with attempted murder,  however , one hours debate and the jury returned the Scottish "Not Proven" verdict - smooth talking lawyer or intimidation !!!!