MARGARET’S off to Stirling early to ‘observe’ a finance committee meeting relating to the local community trust’s asset transfer request for the village car park.

I was going to go too but there’s not really any need. Instead I wrap a pork loin in a bacon lattice for the smoker later and make a batch of poolish for weekend pizza dough.

Having splashed out ion DJI’s new autonomous (ie: doesn’t need a controller) drone I’m keen to give it a test whirl – not just for autonomous ‘selfie’ video which I’ll use for content for my socials etc, but also in conjunction with my phone as a normal – albeit pretty limited – drone. I take a short sample video of Balmaha from the air.

After lunch I load the smoker with charcoal and apple wood and get the pork loin on then start splitting a load of wood. The logs are big and heavy and take a fair bit ion manhandling but I get through the pile. The resulting bits will need cut into smaller pieces. That’s a job for tomorrow.

There’s time for a wee walk up the lochside and a wee livestream selfie test with the drone. I’m quite impressed with it and while it’s not exactly sophisticated, high quality or feature-rich it is great value and should do most, if not all, I need for my social content etc.