A thaw

Not a big thaw but a thaw all the same!   Yesterday was positively warm after the day before!  No, not really but it was actually above freezing point!  I didn’t need the new fleecy gloves I had to buy on Wednesday, or the hat that falls over my eyes if I pull it over my ears – haven’t got the right shaped head for hats!

The snow had dripped off the trees and the river was looking pretty steely grey – with a trail of ice through it that I hadn’t seen yesterday!

 

 

The street below my windows was beginning to look slushy and mucky where cars had started to be moved after being buried for so long and no doubt it will get worse if the thaw continues.  The forecasters are saying it will get cold again in a couple of days so if all this slushy wet stuff freezes it will be lethal.

Linda and I arranged to meet at Leadburn Inn for lunch.  I wasn’t going to take the car out but take the bus up over the moor to Leadburn crossroads where an inn was built in 1777.  A few years ago it was burned to the ground in a terrible accident, but in the last year a new inn has been built, not a replica but a new modern one.  Nice food!  Afterwards we visited a nearby garden centre on the edge of the Pentland Hills mainly to pick up some wild bird food but a cup of tea in the cafe went down well too.  I took this photo from the cafe window of the last of the daylight at around 4.00 p.m.

It was very pretty despite strong winds blowing those clouds along. 

Coming out of the garden centre, I just missed the Peebles bus, so Linda took me into Edinburgh for the next one, to save me waiting.  She dropped me off  and all I had to do was cross the road to the bus stop.  Oh oh!  Just as Linda drove off, and me still waiting to cross… There goes the 62 to Peebles!  Rather than stand waiting for another half an hour for the next one I decided to take a bus to Penicuik.  If the Peebles bus was due when I got there, well and good.  If not I’d go and see what Lidl’s store had to offer!  However the bus I caught didn’t take the direct route but detoured to Loanhead and then off round a housing estate on the edge of Penicuik.  I hadn’t a clue where I was going but knew I’d get to Penicuik centre eventually!  And I did, only to discover that the 62 I had hoped to catch there had gone – just a couple of minutes ago, I was informed by someone at the stop!  I checked on the time of the next bus – 1805 – and trotted off to Lidl’s, getting back  in time – by my mobile phone clock.  1810….1815…..1820…… no bus!  I must have missed it-  again!  This time I stood and waited, and finally got the 1835 bus back to Peebles!  I can’t believe I actually missed 3 buses!  Linda, don’t laugh!  Actually I did laugh!  The buses only run every half hour, so it was just as well I was in no hurry!  Three buses!!!!  Good grief!   I must change the time on my mobile phone.  It must be slow!

Talk again soon.