Joan Morgan has recently started attending the Zumba classes at Allendale Village Hall, and sends us a report: “Although ‘Zumba’ sounds like a character from ‘The Lion King’, it is in fact a fitness programme created by Columbian dancer and…
Category: Healthy Living
Buddy rides too!
I could have picked any of numerous photos from the BuddyRider website, as kind of a holding image for when I capture a photo of dear Doris, the cocker spaniel who lives next door, safely perched on her own Buddy…
Leaving so soon?
Not quite 48 hours by the sea, and now it’s time to return home. This mini-break was really only conceived as a test run, in relative safety and proximity to home. There are pets to feed, garden to tend, and…
Just cheerfully pottering about . . .
I think I’m getting more used to the retirement lifestyle. Instead of filling our days in a rather frenzied rush to accomplish all the tasks we’d set for ourselves, we’ve retrenched, with a longer schedule pushed further and further ahead,…
Communal vs solitary
It takes all kinds to populate a world. Every possible niche is filled, and diversity helps to ensure species survival. Today I’m thinking about the pleasures of social interaction, as well as the delights of quiet iconoclasm. We’ve thought, in…
A handful of spuds
Yesterday we dined like rural royalty on wonderful Scottish moules, an enchanting salad from the polytunnel, and the very first handful of potatoes from our little patch. Actually, there were only enough spuds for the one helping (I pulled the…
Rural loneliness; an easy trap to find oneself in
We were out an evening or so ago, just for a drink with friends, but Sylvia Milburn made the evening for me when she offered an opinion about how easy it is to become a virtual recluse. Because she’s absolutely…
Allen Valley Bowls Club
Penny Little emails me a few notes to help with today’s diary entry, which I will try to supplement with what I know of the past two decades, anyway. The Allen Valley Bowls Club was formed in 1953, on its…
Deneholme Wood and/or Allen Banks and Staward Gorge
To get to woodland now in Allendale, the easiest and best thing to do is to traipse cheerfully down the birch tree colonnade in the Recreation Ground to the new entrance to Deneholme Wood. Enjoy the wooded view before navigating…
Getting things ready for the job . . . and doing it
It’s beginning to feel like a crescendo of anticipation here, with the stuttering arrival of the various components required for a couple of jobs around the place. But first came the planning, putting the new systems together in my mind,…