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Hi, Rusty!
Are you back from your outing with your grandson?
Where did you go?
I hope you enjoyed your bacon roll!
I finished the Times Jumbo GK, but am struggling with the 15 x 15 as yet.
It is still wet here, but we are now about to go out walking, regardless!
Time and tide - for that, read "dog" - wait for no man!
(I shall wear the newly cobbled wellies!)
I shall post my Christmas cards whilst out!

Hello, Elle!
Home now.
We went to the Horsehoe at Inchture.
It is a roadside cafe, out in the country, favoured by lorry drivers.
Food is good and sensibly priced.
Friendly staff. I approve!
Still fine here and quite mild.
Hope you enjoy your walk.
A bit of rain wont harm you and you can road test your wellies!
I have done my crossword.
Even got the Cockney rhymed one!
Took me a while though.
Think the setter went up a gear for the prize crossword.

Hi, Rusty!
We are home again too, now.
Yes, it was good to get out and stretch our legs.......the dog had a good run....... despite the everlasting drizzle.
Wellies bearing up to the walking part - not really being tested by the wet!
Your "new" cafe sounds good - or had you been there before?
I don't know of Inchture?
Is it far from you?
I am stuck on four clues...but haven't yet found a Cockney one? Maybe it is one of the four that I cannot do!
Unfortunately, these are in two interlocking pairs, which is making it harder for me!
I shall persevere for a bit.......
Are you watching skiing...or racing....?

Hello, Elle!
Inchture is a few short miles away, on the road to Perth.
Inch is a Scots word for "island".
I think at one time the Tay may have covered where Inchture is.
Just my theory!
Yes, my grandson favours the Horseshoe, so that's why we go.
It is fairly basic!
Poor you with the drizzle. Fine here.
I have watched the skiing but left the horses alone.
You will come to a "rhyming slang" answer.
I hope you know it. It was vaguely rattling about in my head.
Did you watch the Harper Lee programme on YouTube?

Hi, Rusty!
Update!
I have finished the puzzle! All four outstanding clues now done!
I hadn't realised that 27a was a Cockney clue!
The one that overlapped it was 17d.
I had to look up "rude boys" to confirm that it meant what I hoped it did!
There are a few that I cannot fully parse, but even so, I am very pleased with myself!
Now...I received a letter today from a friend living in Nairn (I think it's up beyond Inverness , am I right?) telling me that she and her husband had been visiting Barra!
How is that for coincidence?
Considering I have been reading about it?
They thought that their surname "Nield " might derive from the "McNeils of Barra" so are investigating that.
I've not yet had time to watch the Harper Lee programme - but I will!
Maybe tomorrow.......
Have you watched it?

Hello, Elle!
"Rude boys" is new to me.
I guessed it from the anagram, but the name means nothing to me.
If you finished it, Elle, you have done well, so give yourself a slap on the back!
And I spotted your perfect parse of an answer on another thread.
"Nield" is not a name I know.
It may derive from Clan MacNeil, but I would not be too sure.
Barra would be the place to find that out, though.
They are in a nice part of the world at Nairn.
Beautiful beaches and fine golf courses up there.
No, I have Harper Lee programme saved in History in YouTube.
Now, how about this?
I was raking about in YouTube earlier, looking for "Bluegrass" music and up popped a choir of youngsters singing "Navy Blue Knickers"!
It was very good, but I had no idea there was a song called that.
I seem to have led a sheltered life!
I forgot to mention when you asked about Inchture.
It is supposed to be the first place outside North America to grow Giant Redwood trees. A man from Inchture had three sons in California at the gold digging, and he asked them to bring home seeds and cuttings, and the trees are growing there still.

Hey, Rusty!
Confusingly, Chambers gives "rude boy" as a Jamaican term for a member of a youth movement wearing smart clothes.
But Wikipedia says "rude boy " is a slang term in Jamaican street culture that describes fans of the Ska Punk movement.
I didn't see the anagram until you mentioned it! No wonder I was finding the clue hard!
I don't know the song "Navy Blue Knickers"! I shall search for it shortly!
Don't worry about leading a sheltered life!
Just be glad you didn't have to wear the wretched things!
I remember a lengthy discussion on the forum about NBKs!
A lot of us females had to wear them at school!
Now, wasn't there a reference to Giant Redwood trees in one of Mr M's books?
Which one would it have been?
( already I cannot remember!)
We can maybe compare "Harper Lee" tomorrow, when we have both seen the programme.......

Hello, Elle,
The choirmistress in "NBK" is very enthusiastic!
Have to get the choir on BGT!
I can't remember Mr M and Redwood trees?
I have seen some that Ansel Adams photographed and they were enormous.
I also came across the Chinese Women's Army, marching, on YouTube.
Their precision is superb!
As good as the Norwegian marching bands.
There are several tapes of them, so I may go back and watch some more.

Hi, Rusty!
Speaking of BGT....did you see that the Royal Variety Performance is this coming Tuesday, and, of course, the last winner of BGT features in it?
Lance Corporal Richard Jones - the magician!
I thought he was excellent!
I still think back and think how cheated I felt about whats'ername and the multiple dogs!
She had no right to the money and all the acclaim!
Grrrh!
I am reading Mr M's autobio still.... he is beginning to grate on me just a little.....
Don't get me wrong.....I am still impressed by the books he has written - and hope to read more of them - but his personality and attitude are becoming a mite irksome?
He is always "right"........ even when he has denigrated himself, he somehow redeems it!
Do you not find that?
Or am I being super-critical?

Hello, Elle!
The magic man was excellent!
Miss Jules, or something?
Possibly you are correct regarding Mr M.
I found him slightly right wing.
Another thing I discovered.
There is a discrepancy between the height of Queen Salote, that he gives, and what Wikipedia gives.
Wik says she was 6ft 3ins, Mr M says 6ft 8ins.
He is not to everyone's taste.
I am pretty sure I read that, when he married one of his wives they adopted two children from an orphanage.
When they divorced, the children were returned to the orphanage.
I think that was dreadful, if true!
But he wrote some good books, and to be fair, some mediocre ones.