Happy Christmas

Several things have kept me from posting lately. They can easily be summed up in three words - teeth, snow and work. Work has been very busy with training someone new. Ongoing problems with one tooth has meant 6 separate dental appointment, 2 different dentists and 2 days in bed very unwell. Thankfully things seem to be settling now and I have a dentist I can trust.

As for the third thing, snow. Well this has mostly been the view out of my window for the past few weeks. Britain has had a very severe winter so far. The snow is a little less deep now but its been very cold where I live - the high most days is around -7 C and its been falling to -12 C and lower at night.



I will leave you with some pictures of wintery Paisley. Firstly the view of Paisley Abbey this afternoon as the sun went down.



And a picture of the old mill building at the end of my street. The river is only partly frozen today but earlier in the week it was completely frozen over. I was hoping to catch site of the otter that has made its home in the river of late but no luck.



Finally I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

A day out to New Lanark

Today I've spent the day out and about. My aunt is visiting from Canada and my uncle and aunt are visiting from England so I joined them and my parents on a day out to New Lanark. Its a World heritage site village which had working cotton mills and was run by a social reformer called Robert Owen, who believed in better working and living conditions for his workers. The mill buildings now house visitor centres plus they also spin and dye yarn for sale.

I took a ton of pictures whilst I was there. New Lanark is in the Clyde valley and the falls of Clyde are nearby, making the surrounding area really pretty.

The view towards the mill.



Across the River Clyde.



Wool bobbins being wound



A huge carder for cotton fibres.



I bought some yarn whilst I was there - some DK weight wool. There's only one ball here but I did buy more than one - enough to knit a cardigan in fact.



Here's a slide show of all pictures, including some pictures of my various relatives acting a little silly.



All in all it was a great day and really interesting to hear about this side of Scottish history. It was also good to have a relaxing day as so far this week has been pretty busy. I was working nights at the weekend then I'm back on night shift again Thursday/Friday. Then its a couple of hours sleep and off to a cousin's wedding on Saturday afternoon so its going to be a little hectic for the rest of the week too.
Oh and back on to nights on Monday night. I think I might be a little worn out next week.