A few recent events

A week or two ago, I went along to our local theatre with friends to hear the Borders Boogie Band. Although we arrived in good time - we thought - to get a table with a good view, others had anticipated the rush too and were there before us, so we could only find a free table at the very back! Still, there you can stand up or even sit on the table without blocking anyone else's view, so that was how I got this photo of the band playing and the dancers boogying to their music.

This one didn't turn out too badly, but when I zoomed in for another, because the flash was off, and I hadn't a tripod to keep it still, it was blurred. However, I put it onto the computer and began to play with filters - it's amazing what you can do with a duff photo!





I rather like this effect! Click it to see it enlarged. I think it looks better larger!!! Anyway, it was a great night. Boy, was the band good!!! Excellent music! It's a while since I have been at a gig! I think I should try and get to a few more!



Then the other day Linda and I drove through to West Linton, an interesting old village not very far from Peebles, firstly so I could visit the fireside shop to find out if someone could come to fix my gas stove that I bought there a few years ago - and which the gasman who fixed my central heating pronounced unsafe -and then to have lunch in the Old Bakehouse. As its name suggests it was once the old village bakery and baker's shop, though for as long as I can remember (back to childhood) it has been a tearoom or restaurant.

The old bakery is the restaurant with wooden ceiling and the original old ovens still intact. The walls have been painted terracotta and with low lighting around the room and pieces of antique furntiture it looks very inviting and comfortable. I couldn't photograph the old oven doors as there were diners sitting in front of them, but here is the far corner that you can't quite see in the last pic! I just love that old Dickensian desk - reminds me of my dad's office when I was a child!





Here's a link to the Bakehouse website where you can see a photo in the opposite direction with the ovens etc. http://www.west-linton.org.uk/the_old_bakehouse.html





In what must once have been the baker's shop there is a comfy reception and seating area with open fire and comfy armchairs, and a small bar counter with reception area. They already had their Christmas tree up on the bar!







This is a bit of West Linton's winding main street. The bakehouse is on the right with the lights on the menu boards outside. Further up the road at a corner - lights on here too - is another interesting place, the Bookshop! What a place to browse!



Shame about the car parked on the left blocking the view of the Fireside shop! You can see how the street meanders, with buildings quite higgledy piggledy along it! There are often small squares to left or right, and little lanes going off to further houses. I love some of the names! One in particular gets me! It is Moubray's Slap. Imagine telling somebody you live on Moubray's Slap!!! I think the word Slap may be an old word for a path. It certainly isn't much more than a path.


Isn't this a sweet wee dog, waiting expectantly for its owner to come out of a shop. I just had to include this pic! Doesn't he remind you of His Master's Voice? (HMV)



http://www.flickr.com/photos/26022506@N08/3083193270/in/pool-westlinton I'm hoping this link will take you straight to a wintry photo of the village, which must surely have been taken a few years ago! I don't think we have had snow like that for a while now! The West Linton website (west-linton.org) has a virtual tour that shows almost the same view taken in summer.

You can see it was rather a grey day - dreich, we'd say in Scotland. It covers damp, dull and grey weather all in that one word - but here is the village clock, built over the old well, and displaying a small statue, on the right side as you look at the clock from here, of Lady Gifford, a very early benefactress of the village.







I love this very solid looking grey stone house with its triangular garden enclosed by stone walls and ... railings! You don't see too many like this any more, as so many iron railings were cut down during WWII to go towards "the war effort"and just weren't replaced. Sadly, so many were just dumped as they were surplus to requirements. These look like the originals!

At the bottom of the village is St Andrew's Church and at the edge of The Green, the old tollhouse tearoom. The road off to the left between the two buildings takes you alongside the Green to the wooden bridge over the Lyne Water from where you can look down on the ford, the original crossing point most likely. That's Linda on the left. She didn't know she was in the picture - but she will now! Hope the toothache is better now, Linda! Wee story there! While we were eating lunch - potato wedges with our meal - Linda suddenly thought she had broken a back tooth! It hadn't quite broken but was wobbling about somewhat precariously! After a weekend of toothache, today she saw the dentist who said the tooth had just about sheared off its root, so he removed it, leaving the root which he then sealed! The same thing happened to me last year - twice! Our teeth are getting old! Just a thought - we are even older than they are (not by that much!)!

OK, time to finish off, though before I do I must thank Bondman and Dido for dropping by, and recommending another Edinburgh photo website. It's great too - http://edinburghlook.wordpress.com/ Take a look! I rather like this idea of doing a photo a day of the one place! I think I might start doing a photo a day of Peebles )and area)! It would certainly make me look harder at things! Watch this space, as they say! Night night!
Talk again soon!