Le Tout P'ti FC

A ground very close to home! It's a lovely ground indeed. A wee shame all of the trees around the perimeter have been felled now. Safety first, since they were showing a nasty habit of falling over. It was Bonnyrigg again for me today. Four weeks in a row now, with a fifth to follow next weekend. Not so random perhaps!

Hope you got parked OK.

Fantastic result! Well done Bonnyrigg.

At Bonnyrigg Rose again. Three weeks in a row, am I now a Bonnyrigg fan? Superb crowd inside New Dundas Park. Cagey game so far, as expected.

This will be worth a visit. The Dreadnought is a superb pub, their offie will be equally good I'm sure. Can't wait to visit. On Leith Walk, opposite Elvis Shakespeare.

Bus is quickest. #31 from city centre (can get on either Polton Mill or Bonnyrigg services). Roughly 30 minutes from centre of town. Get off at High St, ground is at the Toll bang in the middle of town. Also the #49 from city centre (to Rosewell), but takes much longer as goes via Dalkeith. Or get train to Eskbank, then either 25 minute walk up to the ground, or catch the #49 or #141 buses from Hardengreen Tesco beside the station. Enjoy the game!

Passing through town today on my travels. Thought I'd take a wee detour by Claggan Park. Can't get too near the pitch as they have finally locked the gates. The pitch doesn't look horrifyingly bad to me. The grass is a touch long but I'm sure they own a lawnmower and could have used it prior to a game. Hard to tell from a distance how firm the surface is. I'll just say I've seen plenty of games this season played on similar looking surfaces. Couple of brown patches which look like they could become a issue in wetter weather. My overall feeling would be the pitch issue was not insurmountable.

MONSTERS.

You can go wherever you please. There is an informal segregation whereby visiting fans are asked to gather in one half of the banking behind the dugouts but nobody will mind if you go for a dander around the ground. Uncovered standing in the away section. This information for the Fraserburgh game will be pretty similar to the Cowdenbeath game I would imagine.

Have you been in Barrels on Bridge St yet? Excellent pub. Right up your street.

Excitement building at the Broch / the Burry as the Bonnyrigg team bus has rolled into town and the locals can resume their favourite sport of body shaming prolific goalscoring and well respected Bonnyrigg strikers. I have warmed up with a trip up a lighthouse and a four mile saunter along the beach. But as I'm a couple of pounds over my ideal weight I did spot a couple of lithe statuesque locals watching me eating my cheese scone in the museum cafe and mouthing fat bassa at me. May the best team win. [emoji257]v [emoji1655]

Orphans at Eden Court tonight was a triumph. Going to put it up there as my favourite play since I saw Local Hero at the Lyceum. Usually have a slight fear about entering a Musical Theatre space, think a very ill-advised trip to Mama Mia has left some deep psychic wounds. However, I really enjoyed the music in the show tonight. Track 4 in particular due to the sudden onset of tutting near me as it was belted out by the cast. A worthy successor to the film. Got a few good belly laughs and struck the melancholy notes just right as well. Would say I would recommend, but I think its national run has more or less finished now, maybe one more show only to go. Found the use of the BSL signers on stage really interesting tonight. Instead of plopping them at the side and telling them to keep out of the way, they were popping up in amongst the cast in all sorts of places, joining the chorus for the big songs, and were the butt of one of the funniest scenes in the pub. Really inventive, not intrusive at all. Great to see this kind of thing, the signers being integral to the performance, as they well should be. Ps. Those seats at Eden Court are not the comfiest for a three hour play!

Also at Bongo! Enjoyable game, once it got going. The Fraserburgh goal keeps it interesting for next weekend.

If he's so Sumo, how come none of the Fraserburgh defenders spotted him as he sauntered in to nod in the first goal today? Must be his Ninja Stealth.

Picked up a few cans from a new brewery in Fort William. Was on a walk and spotted a wee sign beckoning me in. This one is fantastic. Will buy more next time I'm passing.

I've travelled a fair bit today. Here's the scores on the doors: Train Glasgow Suburban: 0% (hardly anybody on board). Glasgow Central: Starbucks: 0%. Train GQS-Fort William-Banavie: 10-15% (rising to about a third at FW when a load of tourists got on to do their Harry Potter thing). Cafe Neptune's Staircase: one person, pointlessly wearing her mask under her chin. Bookshop Fort William: 100%. (Quite busy shop too.) Pub: one guy (who also walked into the women's bog, by accident presumably). So masks clearly already on the wane, unless you read books. Cheers!

On display at Kelvingrove, photo by Eric Watt of Scotland fans on Buchanan St, heading to the 1974 game vs. Them. 2-0 Scotland. Jordan, Todd OG. Att 94,487. Oh to have been at Hampden that day...

I'm headed to Lewis in July. Looks like I've got a weekend round of the Co-op Cup and a midweek league card on whilst I'm there. Excellent news! Can't wait to share this news with my family, who will be truly delighted, perhaps even thrilled, at the prospect of me dragging them off Uig Sands to go and watch fitba. Of the league games (at Back, Point, Westside and Ness for that round of fixtures), which grounds would you recommend as the better choices? (All seem broadly 45-60 minutes away from our digs in Kneep.)

Wee pitstop at Bavaria Brauhaus in Glasgow. Looking to avoid the Old Firm on TV crowd. Nice pint of wheat beer.

Trip to Eskbank Trading tonight to stock up. Chose a Loch Lomond I hadn't seen before; a beer from a Northern Ireland brewery for novelty value; a wheat beer for guaranteed decency; and something very strong from Verdant based on quality artwork on can. Will keep me going for a good few weeks. Quality selection in the Trading Post these days, really up there with Barry's Cathcart and Cornelius Easter Road in my eyes. Ok, lacking the walk-in beer fridge and the humorous social media presence of Barry's, but the beer selection is pretty wide (including a wheen of Overtone).

Back from Islay today. Even hitting Glasgow dead-on the football traffic leaving Hampden, and then crawling along the M8 at a painfully slow speed resulting in my total journey door-to-door from Islay to home exceeding nine hours hasn't dampened my wee post-Islay glow. Showing some degree of self control this year (i.e. bought about twice as many as planned), this is my wee haul. Particularly pleased with the various "drivers drams". The trio from Bunnahabhain (including a 25yo were an absolute bargain), and the Kilchoman pairing are distillery exclusives. These drivers drams are a rare affordable luxury good. New to me are the 5yo Ardbeg and 8yo Bruichladdich. Those will be opened shortly when I come to my next empty bottle of current openings. The 2021 Feis Isle Bunnahabhain will likely be held back for my wee boy to inherit (or tan when he's old enough), the year of bottling marks his year of birth. Visited all of the distilleries this time, with exception of Caol Ila which I presumed remained shut for the new VC construction. Was a particularly good week to pass the reconstructed Port Ellen distillery, as the stills were being installed on-site. Loads of visible progress throughout the course of the week, would imagine it will be up and running fairly quickly now. Whereas the mooted new distillery just outside Port Ellen (name escapes me) has had a lot of site clearance undertaken but not a single brick laid yet as far as I could see. No signs of life on-site there, don't know if it is going the way of Gartbreck (?) near Bowmore (i.e. stillborn), or if it is just about to ramp up construction. Whisky bar inside Port Ellen Hotel was a delight, but sadly the nearby Ardview Inn is now closed (albeit I belive has been sold to new owners). Great trip, thoroughly recommend the place to anybody. Whisky, beaches, wildlife, walks, history, golf etc. All within a mere nine hours from home, ha! No doubt returning soon...

Week on Islay delayed from 2020 and finally taken this week. Always an enjoyable place to visit. This week's trip has been with the wider family, and three kids under 10 in tow has kept us mostly away from the distilleries this time. Hatching a plan to come back to hide out here for a week of the World Cup!

I've exported a wee case of Overtone to my wee holiday cottage trip to Islay.

Twilight Sad. My first gig since December. Trying to be objective here, but it's either tonight or Mogwai 20th 2015 going out there as my favourite ever gig at the Barrowlands. Booked tonight 865 days ago, feels really cathartic to get it over with. One rescheduled gig (Pictish Trail) and one rescheduled holiday to go, and then we're back on an even keel...

Was there an orange ball? It doesn't count as real snow in Penicuik until the @penisnow twitter account rates it. No mentions this week.