Don't open that closet, McGee!

The picture shows what around here might be called, for want of a better word, a "thingummy" (pronounced THING-mee and meaning anything that isn't easily associated with a particular word). I've been looking for a back-of-door hanging thingummy lately to help reorganize the utility closet in the hallway, part of the existing house that didn't change. The open area of the closet holds the extra TV table, the fold-up drying rack, the laundry baskets, the Hoover, the dust mop, and a few other odds and ends. It has one shelf above where we keep spare rolls of toilet paper and paper towels (called "kitchen towels" or "kitchen rolls" over here), extra boxes of tissues, the huge supply of household cleaning sponges our friend Karen brought us last year, and our other household cleaning supplies. The problem with putting everything like that on an upper shelf, is that I often had to move things to get to what was behind. Of course, several of the taller items always fell over and inevitably, at least one of those items would then fall off the shelf and onto the floor--or my toes!

Last week I noticed that the "cheap shop" in the village had one of these thingummies in the front display window. I thought to myself "I'll have that." So yesterday before meeting Liz and Nan for coffee, I popped in to buy one. It's a good thing I didn't wait any longer because they were sold out of their supply and the shopkeeper had to take my one out of the display window. When I got it home, I loaded it with all the spare lightbulbs, shoe care products, replacement vacuum cleaner bags, floor wipes, furniture polish, carpet deoderizer, and so forth. As you can see, the shelf is now much less cluttered. What you can't see is that nothing is lurking behind anything else as there is plenty of room to hold what's left on the shelf in plain sight.

The Howells left yesterday morning after a hearty bowl of Scottish porridge oats cooked with apples, sultanas, and strawberries. We all agreed it had been a great visit. They went away raving about how much they enjoyed warm and sunny weather, seeing gorgeous sights, and eating fabulous food in Scotland. They were very impressed with our meal out on Tuesday evening at The Deil's Cauldron. It was lovely and we all had a good time.

In the afternoon, Don went to the Comrie Course to play 9 holes as he hadn't been out to play since Saturday. In the evening, we were invited to Haig and Trish Hamiltons' for dinner. We had a most enjoyable evening but I'm not sure how we're going to cope tonight: we must cook for ourselves! Actually, we have enough leftovers that all we'll have to do tonight is heat things up.

Gradually we're getting back to our normal routine. Don went off this morning to play golf with Gordon. I am doing laundry and have set a loaf of honey-sunflower bread to baking. We're back to weather forecasts that call for today to be sunny to partly cloudy and for the next four days to be rainy--only the rain never comes. We really do need the rain now, however. There are great brown and yellow spots on the golf courses. They say in some spots it's almost like playing on asphalt because the ground has now been baked so hard and the grass is so dry. They hit the ball but have no way of estimating how fast it will roll because of these conditions. And here at home, the flowers really do need constant attention, which I haven't been able to give them while we were out sightseeing. So I've been back out there with my watering can and must use the hose later today, once the sun has moved off the front beds.