Sunday / Monday , mixed events.

Sunday started off weatherwise quite nice, however it was not long before the cloud came over and my bright morning turned out ever so raw and dull. My plans for a coupe of hours in the garden were shelved and instead we headed into Edinburgh to my "favourite" shop, Matalan !! Yes, not being a fashion guru, I am happy enough to get many of my every day clothes there.

Home again and onto the computer to try and get on with my London Project, however, I was just not in the mood to concentrate, so it back to Plan B, a nice bottle of wine and an excellent steak for my dinner.

Biggest farce of the day was watching the X -Factor on the TV, some of the acts made a mockery of the word entertainment, especially Cherly Cole's performance - there were better singers in the competition, and the public's voting ever so biased.

Another bad night, up early and into The Mercat bar again, everything was relatively straight forward - I had a nice wee surprise with a small gift waiting for me from my four visitors last week from Ohio and Kentucky - Parky and Helen Thompson, and Larry and Phyllis McAtee.

I left early, had a look at the tramworks and found that while some holes had been filled in other were now ginormous, one in over ten feet deep, with some massive valves and coupling being put in place. I feel sorry for some of the shops on the south side as the workmen are lifting some of the pavement and are right up against the wall of the building where they have had to make connections into the cellars.

Into Torphichen Street where one of the mobile Traffic wardens must have thought it was x-mas, he found a van, unloading timber, but on a red line - so while he was parking his scooter and trying to write a parking ticket on his machine, the driver was closing up his van and trying to move into traffic held up by a red light - race against time for both parties, however, the driver was fortunate enough to get away before the warden could get the ticket on the vehicle.

I had another session on the computer , and this time, thank goodness managed to get my mind in gear and produce some paperwork to show for my efforts.

I am sitting watching this latest BBC documentary series, "Life" with the commentary by Richard Attenburgh, the programme is just fascinating, the photography totally outstanding and the whole thing mesmerising - this is sheer brilliance.

My sad bit of news of the day was to learn of the death of Wallace Meikle, a friend of many years, who was very keen supporter of Town twinning and with his wife Alice had visited our twin town, Lisle Sur la Sorgue, Provence, France, on several occasions. He took the whole thing very seriously and had studied French to the extent that he was extremely fluent. he will be sadly missed within his community of friends in Penicuk North Kirk.