Family picnic at Edinburgh Zoo…a great day out 🙂
UP early for breakfast and to get our picnic made up…we’re off to Edinburgh Zoo for the day 🙂
Mikey comes with us and we meet Matty, Catriona and the kids there…Les arrives soon after and we’re in just after 10am.
I have no memories of being at Edinburgh Zoo before and I’m impressed with both the animals themselves and the enclosures. Thank fuck nothing’s caged up and miserable-looking.
We’re lucky with decent weather and manage to find a picnic table to accommodate us all.
It’s a great day out and once our visit is done we bring Mikey back to our place to pick up his car, Margaret gets on with dinner and I carry on with a West Highland Way Gifts’ order for the village shop.
After lunch I do some work in studio and prepare for tonight’s Wildcats’ livestream.
There’s a fair amount of admin to be done for some other bits and bobs then it’s suddenly time for another Zoom guitar session…then the Wildcats’ livestream.
Our pals Sarah and Mitch stop off on their Scottish trip to spend a night with us…
THE alarm goes off at 6am to get the pork shoulder out the fridge and the smoker fired up. Pulled pork tonight 🙂
Takes me an hour or so to get everything going nicely then I go back in to bed and enjoying a coffee when I spot a message from our pal Sarah. She and her husband Mitch are visiting from LA and coming to stay tonight…we were expecting them mid-afternoon, but her message says they’re on their way now!
After a bit of a scrabble getting thing ready, we manage to have breakfast out the way when they roll up.
We each up over a coffee then take them down to the bay and along to the old pier where they embark on a walk up the lochside. We stop in to see Betty then get back home to watch the smoker and get on with some work.
Our pals enjoy their walk and are back late afternoon. The pork’s ready before 8pm and we sit round the table, eat, drink and chat.
STILL pretty sore around my stomach today…but a lot better than yesterday.
I head to the studio after breakfast until Catriona and the kids rock up. They have some lunch and I have a coffee and we chat a while. Catriona’s brought one of Will’s bigger paperweights so I can make a bigger version of the stand I prototyped earlier in the week.
When they all had off to the swimming I get busy in the office and come up with a large version of the stand that works out pretty good. Catriona’ll take them back to Will to check he’s happy with them before I start on the a production run.
I’m still pretty knackered and sore so I have a wee lie down for half an hour on the ‘bed of nails’ therapy mat I have in the studio. It helps a little, if only relaxation then it’s time to go to Duncan and Irene’s.
We have a grand night with our pals and being ‘off the drink’ I’m happy to take on driving duties!
THE stomach pains mean I only mange to doze a little during the night…then we’re up at 6.30am to get ready to go to the hospital at Lambert.
We’re there in good time for my 8.30am colonoscopy appointment. The nurses and staff are great – no-one seems to perturbed by my stomach pains and I’m prepared for the procedure. The ladies in the colonoscopy suite are all great and after a thorough examination and removal of there polyps I’m sent to recovery for half an hour. First class care and support.
Back home I have a sleep before a lengthy Zoom meeting after which I’m done. The painkillers for the colonoscopy which had relieved the stomach pain a little have worn off and I;m feeling a bit sorry for myself. I lie on the couch with a blanket in front of the fire…
COLONOSCOPY – ass-cam – tomorrow and I have to start the Moviprep this morning.
I mix up the first batch and down some before mu first guitar student of the day arrives. Luckily it doesn’t take effect ’til she’s finished!
Once the first batch is finished I head to the studio and get on with some work, dashing over to the house to sit on the pan every so often.
No lunch for me today…or anything to eat – but by early afternoon my stomach is killing me. So much so that I cancel my afternoon guitar student an ahead for bed. I shivering uncontrollably and feel like my stomach has suffered a blow with a sledgehammer.
NO FRUIT at breakfast as I’m to minimise fibre intake in the run uo to Friday’s ass-cam adventure.
In the office I set about cutting down the big sheets of wood and acrylic that arrived yesterday into sections that’ll fit in the laser cutter. A bit time-consuming but quite therapeutic scoring and snapping to size.
Will had asked me a week or two ago if I could design/make stands for his paperweights…firstly for him to use at exhibitions and stuff and also perhaps to include with purchases. After sketching out some ideas and trying to make something as simple as possible I come up with a prototype.
Will likes it so I refine it a little and add his web address for prototype number two (pictured above). I quite like the way it’s turned out.
I hit the studio with the intention of editing some video but end up lifting up the guitar and jamming around for an hour until it’s past lunchtime.
I finally start some video editing after my delayed lunch then go back to the house to prepare some flank steak for sous vide – Betty’s coming for dinner tonight and I’m doping steak I. pepper sauce.
It’s not very nice outside so I try and make up for the lack of a walk by doing a session on the cross trainer. Legs like jelly afterwards!
Margaret comes home with shopping and after putting everything away I nip back to the studio until Betty arrives.
A REMINDER pops up in the diary – no fibre (ie: brown bread, veg, fruit) from now ’til ass-cam on Friday.
I can deal with this, the main thing that’s bothering me is not being able to eat anything after 10pm on Wednesday night.
First job of the day is updating all my websites on Google search console…I probably need to update the analytics too but at least I’ve got round to tackling part of it.
After that and the other routine admin is out the way I add a beard comb/beard oil bundle to my online shop then post some pix and links round social media.
Fiona pops in to collect a cake topper I made and we chat over a coffee.
Suddenly it’s lunch time. After my halloumi and chorizo sourdough toastie I edit the live thing are of Mr Bojangles from last night’s livestream and post it round my socials to promote the group and also the ‘proper’ recording of the track released on my Acoustic Roots of Dave Arcari EP released a couple years ago.
I spend an inordinate amount of time messing about with RipX to see if I can separate out tracks from a couple of live studio recordings to create instrumental versions. It works but the result is a little ‘garbled’. I mess about with editing the ‘tracks’ exporting the stems as midi…before I know it’s nearly 9pm and Margaret’s making dinner….
I TRY and get some more clearing up in the office before my first Zoom guitar student of the day.
Although cold outside, it’s beautiful clear, sunny day and although I’m busy and hadn’t planned a paddle, I get a text from Fiona saying she and David are paddling the river this morning. I have lessons to do but decide to go out on the loch and meet them later on.
I do just that and we have a grand paddle – it’s nearly 2pm when I get back.
Lots of work to catch up on and I need to replenish some of the sold out items in the merch store. Beard combs and earrings in particular. I’m still waiting on some raw materials, but there’s enough to get a few of each done.
While they’re in production in the office I do some clearing up then hit the studio and catch up on stuff as well as sorting some stuff for tonight’s Wildcats’ livestream.
Then it’s time for another Zoom guitar lesson with a student and straight into the livestream….
BREAKFAST burritos for brunch then into the office to try and clear some mess from the desk…the first stage in a clean up/clear out!
I take a break and work on tabbing out (ie: writing out a piece of guitar music in tablature – a guitar-specific form of musical notation) a song for one of my zoom students. I usually try and avoid this as my playing is very organic and it’s kinda hard to write down what I do with any level of accuracy. Also, I think it’s better for students to listen and learn by ear rather than rely on ‘notes’.
We’re in the middle of lunch when we get a delivery of wood. I move the car and it’s dumped in front of the woodshed.
Someone has ordered a custom cake-topper. While I’m busy doing that in the office, Margaret makes a start putting the wood away…and as soon as I’m done I go and help.
Next job is merch stock-taking. We’re almost out of some of my ‘home-made’ stuff (like earrings and leather bracelets) so I order some raw materials and will get production going later in the week.
There’s been no time for a walk or anything today and although it’s still light, it’s after 7pm so instead I hit the live room in the studio and embark my first session on the elliptical trainer (the one I picked up for free last week from a Facebook buy/sell/swap posting)…just ten minutes to start with.
