Corned beef hash - and an ear bashing.

Good job I am keeping a record now -   on the 5th I made Mrs B, her dinner,  and tonight I did likewise  (lovely creamy corned beef and onion hash), only to be told that it was at least six years!!!! since I had last made the dinner!! Once again a serious exaggeration, no wonder I am nearly bald and what little left is seriously grey.

Under siege once again,  cold callers on the phone who are now ringing in the evening -  so any withheld or unknown numbers are left for the ansaphone, then we call back. 
Now the snow as winter creeps upon us,  yesterday it was big boots and warm jacket with icebound roads around Penicuik, but it did clear up so I headed off to Crieff for the monthly meeting of RA 34 there.  Excellent meeting with three candidates (wise men) who had travelled up from the Midlands to go through all three degrees.  Had confirmation that Christmas had arrived when my car was nearly blocked in the car park by a sled and brass band as the locals switched on their X-mas lights.

Bigger shock to the system when I left to find Crieff and the rest of the County totally icebound, roads were like the proverbial skating rink, so it took ages to travel the twelve miles to the A9 in a convoy travelling at no more than twenty mph, however the main trunk roads had been gritted and were fine all the way home.  Only one car off the road at Dunblane in the process of being recovered, and later on I saw the emergency services en route, I think to a fatal accident which occurred at Broxburn.    That is about four different fatal road accidents in this area in the past few days.  No idea if alcohol had been involved,  but I did hear about a lady driver, who having left home using public transport to go out for a social, returned the same way, and then unaccountably left the house, drover her car a short distance and was stopped and found to be five times over the "new" limit.

At this point, while I remember, I have to confess to using the bus to go to a hospital appointment on Wednesday morning, we were in the midst of gale force winds and torrential rain, so I "wimped out" of taking the Steed of Steel, sorry guys - sense prevailed in this instance while I am still in the physical recovery mode, taking longer to recover than usual with even more appointments to follow.
Downside of the bus journey was when a "Jamaican" bloke got on the bus, mobile phone glued to his large lug, and treated the entire upper deck of the bus to a conversation with his friend in his own local dialect interspersed with the odd bit of broken English.   So, having bitten my tongue rather than get involved in a Breach of the Peace I went to the lower deck and stood for the last part of my journey - just pure ignorance,

Heard a snippet on the radio, unconfirmed so far, that Ally McCoist has  resigned as manager of Rangers FC., if true, a sad day for both him and the Club.  Really sorry for him as he has put his heart and soul ( man and boy) into that club and has done his best to pull it out the murk caused by thieving scheming businessmen -  potentially a bad day for Scottish football.

I see that the Mercat Grill, Whitecraig, is now in the final top ten of local pubs/bars/ restaurants in a competition being  run by the Edinburgh Evening News,  many thanks to our customers for taking the trouble to vote for the Grill.