A whiff of victory

What I've been thinking about this week:

1. Smells
2. Narrow margins 

One of the things I learned early on about living with Ivie is that if I want to carve out quality time with him, I have to encourage him to leave the farm. A snatched cup of coffee here and chat over breakfast is all well and good. But sometimes uninterrupted time to hang out and talk about more than what's for our next meal (much as I enjoy that as a hobby) does us good. 

In case we forget who we are mid-cuppa
(thanks to Mairi Secret Santa)

As we're now fully paid up members of middle age, last week we went to the same hotel we went to last year for our pre-lambing 24 hour getaway. We already knew that the joys of Hetland Hall are many and varied:

• It's not far from home.
• They have good dinner, bed and breakfast deals in January and February. 
• We can both have a drink and not worry about getting home. 

Last Friday we added another plus to the list:

• They sort out any problems very quickly. 

They do say that if you have bad customer service, you tell one person, and if you have good customer service, you tell ten... 

Upon checking in we noticed that our room smelled a bit funny. As you can imagine, we've got a pretty high tolerance for less than rosy aromas. We opened the window, gave it five minutes but it didn't fix the problem. A quick chat with reception and we were instantly upgraded to a HUGE room with a HUGE bed and lovely views. As Ivie said, we didn't care how that one smelled, we were staying. 

It seems we got away just in time as we came back the next day to two lambs that had been born that morning. A quick turnaround and we were off out again for an actual night out with other people. 

Lorna and Dolly got engaged and were having a wee get together to coincide with Wales-Scotland in the Six Nations. You've met them in a previous blog here. There were quite a few farmery boots at the bar with farmery aromas but, as we've established, I can cope with farmers and their unique bouquet. 

Emotions were high (due to rugby rather than engagements) and the one point victory left many of us broken men and women, despite the fact that we were on the winning side. I've written before about the heroic efforts of Scotland rugby fans but this was a whole new level of torture. Luckily, more delicious food reduced the stress levels and reinstated some hope for the next game against France. 

So, now we're into lambing and rugby season where Ivie takes turns to shout at:

• endless sheep.
• endless referees.
• endless Gregor Townsend. 

While Ivie's blood pressure reaches dangerous levels, I'll be over here pretending I'm useful during lambing and daydreaming about king sized beds.