Sort of slowed me down a bit - so

Bit boring these past couple of days, not at the pub , hurt my back so I could not go too far afield. Yesterday I made it to see the lovely Cruella@ Sabrina, who administered pain in the name of trying to help me - which in actual fact she did, but I have to keep moving or I seize up again.

The quiet time gave me the opportunity to get stuck in about a mess of paper for a while - so I suppose that was good.

I had an interesting chat on the phone last night, with a former school friend !! who had tracked me down on face book and who I have not spoken to since we had a reunion about fifteen years ago. So, now settled down again in Edinburgh she has once again managed to make contact and we will meet up, along with another friend sometime soon. Interestingly she was telling me that there were quite a few from that class of 62/63 who have since "passed away" - sort of thought provoking - so maybe I had better dig out the Insurance policies.

This morning I spent ages in the local Doctor's surgery, probably about three hours in all between seeing the Doctor, waiting on some results and then having to go back to get blood drawn - but the nurse did offer to let me sit in her hot tub to ease my back - best offer for a long time !!!

Never mind, tomorrow I will have a nice quiet wee run down to Runcorn and back via Glasgow - so that will keep my mind occupied.

For Karen in Italy, things are getting a bit violent here in Penicuik, in the past two weeks we had a young soldier from Glencorse Depot beaten up by a gang of local yobs, it looks as though we could be going back to the good old days here in Penicuik in the late 60's when there were regular running battles between the "squaddies" at the Barracks and the local youths, and last week there was a stabbing after a fight in one of the local pubs, and also a man was the victim of an apparantly random attack as he walked home up a quiet path and was smacked over the head with an implement.

In the big bad world, our airports are closed and planes grounded again due to the ash from the Icelandic volcano - and the experts predict that if its sister volcano blows its top we will have ten times the devastation and disruption - not a problem for the Icelanders who can fly out from the north of the island if the winds continue the way they are, they will just pop over to the USA to shop instead of coming to Glasgow.

In the Gulf of Mexico the engineers have built a seventy ton funnel which they plan to drop onto the burst pipe on the seabed and "sook up" the escaping oil - the old simple methods are the best!! PB will have to hike up their prices again to help cover the cost of the clean up and compensation pay outs - I am sure these lawyers around the Gulf Coast are rubbing their hands.

I see that Adam Montgomery our local councillor and Provost of Midlothian, hit the front page of the News last night when one of the opposition leaked the fact that he had bought a new kilt for about £700 from a shop in Kilmarnock and had also charged the local ratepayers for the fuel costs. Adam , as always up front, said that he had nothing to answer to as this was well within his annual clothing allowance !! the other councillor was wondering if he would give it to his successor when he lost his seat at the Elections - Might not fit!!!

Only fifteen earthquakes / tremors in the state of California / New Mexico since midnight. I was reading something last night which sort of dispelled the myth that California will split and slide into the sea if there is a massive quake along the San Andaes fault, seems that the ground is moving more north/ south than east /west.