As the song goes, "Early One Morning"

etc.   so here I am 5 a.m.,  not as bad as 2.3- a.m.which was Thursday morning,  sitting waiting for the sunrise.  Hopefully we might get a nice day like yesterday, which gave me the chance to have a potter in the garden, hose down the conservatory, re pot a couple of plants, and fiddle with the "steed of steel".
Thursday was a long day, down at the grill all day, and in the evening joined twelve other members of the IPA for a meal to host a couple of visiting officers from Canada. Caused a bit of excitement in the Conservatory at the  Mercat Grill with John McIntosh, the piper piping in the haggis and doing his "address to the haggis" albeit slightly later than Burns day.

Great excitement and confusion as I have now acquired a new "Smartphone",  no idea at all what I am doing with it, just hoping for the best.  BUT  I think I might be doing the old fashioned , belt and braces job,  by getting an address book to use as a back up in case this one gets lost, damaged or put through the wash !!

News tonight, "Oh how the mighty are fallen"   as Max Clifford, the great PR guru who quite happily destroyed many peoples lives, begins his eight year jail sentence for historical sexual offences.

Edinburgh Trams will commence carrying paying passengers at 5 a.m. on 31st May - being hailed as the saviour of the City (bit late - methinks).   I for one will not be standing in that queue as I will be getting ready for the off- with IPA group heading south and into Europe on the motorbikes.

According to Alex Salmond, we Scots are a nation of drunken louts -  no comment -  but I hear he is regularly nine sheets to the wind, in his tax free residence at Bute House, no doubt swilling the odd glass or two compliments of the tax payer, as I cannot see him or Mrs. S. nipping round to the local Tesco Express in Shandwick Place to purchase a cheap carry out.

Big headlines about the possibility of staff from Mortonhall Crematorium being charged and possibly prosecuted for forging signatures on papers relating to the deaths and cremation of babies - as a result of the recent investigations.     Seems to always be someone at the bottom of the pile who gets into trouble, whist those at the top of the tree blatantly get away with "murder".   Tittle tattle about the MP who travels all over the World, business class, at our expense, accumulates Air Miles,  which he then uses to take his family on holiday - naughty.

There is currently an advert on the radio for "Randolf Hill Nursing Homes"  with an actor talking about how nice it is to be a resident there,  In the final lines she says-  " and if we ask nicely, we even get cream cakes" -  every time I hear it I cringe as it sounds so condescending,  the thought that an elderly person, has to ask the staff nicely, before they get anything.    I did write and received a nice reply along the lies that I had misinterpreted the advert and that the do maintain the highest of care standards -  but the advert is stopping shortly.     Just a pity that some of the staff who featured in the recent expose about the ill treatment of elderly residents in Care Homes, did not have the same caring attitudes and high standards - the ones caught out by the hidden cameras should have been flogged.

However - a new day dawneth as they say- need to wait and see what it brings.