Diary: December 23

Continued 2/2.

8th

Some pictures of life at the farmhouse.

Herdwick sheep has settled into the polytunnel.

Lamb behind her is a Charollais cross Herdwick.

3rd

Between decorating the hallway of the farmhouse, I took some pictures of birds feeding from chaff and fat balls I'd placed earlier on our bird table, and later the Ettrick Valley, during a countryside drive via Alemoor.

Charlie wanted a pint of beer, but we overlooked the only pub in the area, the Tushi Law Inn, as the isolated establishment is very creep, akin to the Rocky Horror Show in a Monster Mash kinda way. The café at the Ettrick Marshes campsite was closed, but we enjoyed a double fireball in the evening whilst watching an Amazon Prime film about untimely deaths of Hollywood actors; so many of them.

2nd

Returning from a local bakery a short walk down Hawick high street we entered the Town house museum, I've lived in Hawick for well over a year now, and never been inside this place. I feel a real connection with my mother within this town, as back in the nineteen-eighties she trained and worked in the hosiery trade as a linker; then located in a small town named Shepshed, North-West Leicestershire.

A nineteen fifties linking machine, maybe a few years older than the machine my mother used.

A painting of the Burgh of Hawick.

Purchased a second hand camera from Facebook marketplace place for £50, the seller, a fireman from Selkirk, met us in Hawick. I've never made such an offhand, spur of the moment purchase; he came accompanied by his neighbour, who stood away watching the surrounding area of the car park, we were given half an hour's notice he was in Hawick and the location was arranged within minutes.

I wanted the camera, an Olympus SP-810 UZ for the 36x optical zoom lens; whilst my iPhone 14 camera is sufficient for landscape and portrait, I required an optical zoom to get closer to wildlife visiting the farmhouse that I wanted to snap. Initially I thought the camera a bargain, but it seems £50 pounds is the average price, cheapest SP-810 UZ second-hand I later found on CEX for a mere £30!

These two pictures of Robins were taken at the farmhouse, in low light, and at full optical zoom.

I've identified the bird below to be a Great tit; maybe I am thinking to change the aperture for these small, agile birds.

They need this food we have given to them during these colder times; after thirteen years of homelessness I know it's a tough time of year to be outside, and foraging for food, in a world that shuns existence, as unwelcome.

A few minutes leaving the museum, Charlie notice the high street, angering me; he claimed there was nothing provocative to see. Contesting I explained that many of these enablers had fed the beast of burden my life, and that after hundreds of thousands of the vilest encroachments; I had grown to utterly detested them with a cultured revulsion like no other. Charlie purchased an army kettle of £12.

Waiting days for Charlie to cut this cake, fruit cake supposed to taste better the longer the cake is stored.

I'm really pleased with the third fruit cake I've baked for Charlie; he needs the carbs during cold weather at work on the other farm. Tomorrow I am hoping to finish decorating the farmhouse hallway, Charlie has acquired more paint, a roller extension and a pack of three wallpaper scrapers differing in size. Three rooms have now been decorated, and the guest room is now furnished; upgrading fixtures and fittings next.

Driving back to the farmhouse earlier, I took a few pictures of the bonnie Borthwick Valley; there are so many places were I enjoy being here, more or less the entire valley. I haven't gained phobia's here, simply because they haven't had the opertunity to chase me down along this road.

1st

Temperture reached -5c last night, this morning the farmhouse is covered in whiteness, an awakening cold, that draws ancestral spirit ever closer.

Glad to see steam coming from the farmhouse boiler [needed a new pump], but the dog is looking sad, in the kennel, after he tried to bite me twice yesterday.

I went for a short walk in the morning, then a longer walk in the afternoon, disturbed by a scream I thought I heard.

I walked through the heather, five hundred yards to the horizon.

I overheard a few sentences but dismissed them as auditory hallucinations, there was nobody in sight.

In the evening we drove up a hill to see the rising moon, it is a place I regularly let go of stress and anxiety.