Friday morning, 27th May

Happy Birthday, Lucy!
Although, technically, Lucy, you can't start celebrating your birthday till nine o'clock tonight!
Hope you have a lovely day!!

Never dreamed for a moment all those years ago that you would end up living in the land of the cowboys, sob sob :(

I've been looking through the old photos from when Lucy was young and apart from the fact that the composition of so many of them is terrible, many of the photos are starting to fade or disappear into an orange haze :(
New technologies always throw up problems, I suppose. And colour was definitely a new technology back then. Why, Ian's and my wedding photos are in black and white. . . we weren't willing to cough up for expensive colour ones and on reflection I'm really glad.
So here we go. . . the best of a bad lot!!

Ian and Lucy in the back garden of our first home together. We lived in Chryston in Lanarkshire.

By the time this photo was taken, we were living in Broxbourne. You were such a wee cutie in those days :)

I played around with this one. It was taken in 1979. This is an easy one to date because it was definitely the year that Kelly was born so that would make you six, Lucy!

And this one was taken the day Dawn married Michael. That's us outside Dawns house in - I think it was Coatbridge.

I know the quality of this one is dreadful, but I thought you might like to have it, seeing as your Granny and Granda Stewart are in it. It must be a Christmas - check out the party hats - but when? Sometime in the late eighties? I'm not sure.

That's key lime pie that you're eating and you are sitting in Orlando Airport waiting to catch a flight home. Do you remember?

Carole, Liz and Luca are heading off to Lochinver today for a wee holiday. Liz travelled up on Wednesday and she and Carole were going to get organised yesterday so's it could be anchors away this morning.
When I was in Inverurie on Tuesday night, Gary came in with a wee bucket and spade set for Luca :) . . .  fingers crossed they get good weather and the bucket and spade get lots of use.

Saturday 21st May

Made it at last. It's been a struggle getting back here again!
It feels as though the more the time gap between entries grows, the harder it becomes to actually sit down and begin writing.

But I've had my roll'n'sausage with squirty mustard for lunch and I finally managed to watch the final CSI episode in the vast collection that had built up on the hard drive since that fateful day that I thought, "I think I'll start recording CSI because I'm always missing them."  !!!!

At one point, there were 14 waiting to be watched and the memory was running out of space!

However, here we are. If wee Kelly can finally hit the keys again then so can I! :)
Talking of Kelly, I can't let your birthday go unmentioned, can I? So here's some images of you, bonnie lass :)

Scarborough beach.
This was one of the few dry days we got. Ask Gary about this holiday and he will tell you it was one of the best he was ever on.
I loved that wee dress, by the way - you look so cute in it, Kelly :) And look at those little chubby wrists :)

Kelly's fifth birthday. Can you see the green tupperware cup on the table. Does Tupperware, the business, still exist? you never hear about it these days. Used to be everybody had cupboards full of the stuff. I've still got my Tupperware orange peelers! :)

Do you remember asking for this photo to be taken? Kelly and the flowers! Gary was more interested in getting into the jelly :)

Norway.
I loved this holiday! We travelled a lot in the red Volvo which was Ian's car at the time and since we aren't good travellers, everybody except Ian took pills every morning. Ian reckons he was on his own for the whole of that holiday. He drove through Norway with a car full of folk totally zonked out.We don't look zonked out in this photo, do we?

At home
Two wee cuties and a plant that's long since died off! What age were you then, Kelly? About 16, maybe?

The wedding! :)I can see Aunt Mary in her 'pink fascinat' in the background - is that how you spell it? The cross between a fascinator and a hat?

Picked Luca up on Tuesday from Nursery as usual but this week, he was staying the night because Mummy and Daddy were going to the cinema after work. 'Were' being the operative word. They didn't actually make it because Gary was called into work so poor Carole got a quick stop somewhere for tea and ended up back at home all on her own:(

 Thursday had Luca back again. Vomitting all over the Nursery school carpet gets you a 48 hour suspension so Granny Jo took the Thursday shift and Mummy took the Friday.
And Luca bounced his way through both days.

You do realise, don't you, that this is a family of giraffes. Please note the beautiful flowers on their heads. You should hear Luca saying - beautiful - it's a hoot!

Note the multi-tasking. . . watching Tom and Jerry and playing with lego :) Watching Tom and Jerry and working on the computer :)  Choose your character!! :) Luca or Granda Ian :)

This picture was taken on Wednesday just before lunch time on the day he vomitted all over the nursery.

Sniffs'n'sneezes and dripping tap noses are abounding just now thanks to the very pretty yellow crop in the fields all over the shire . . .

And here's the culprit - rapeseed oil. The only thing I'd say on its behalf is that it is stunningly beautiful when you see a field of it bathed in sunshine. Yes?

Saturday 7th May

Ian at Aviemore a while back!!
He's roller skating. "That's it, Ian!" I cheered - from the side :)

It's nine o'clock in the morning and I'm sitting here in the front room looking out of the window at sunshine!

.. . .  And yes, the cloud is lifting and we can just about say that the sky is blue!

Which in one way is good but in another is a bit disappointing. You see, Ian should be playing golf this morning. He set off earlier in heavy rain only to come back soon after with a newspaper, some rolls and a bag of currant scones.

No golf.

"At least I won't have to go to all the bother of drying out all my gear before tomorrow." (he's off to Boat of Garten - and the forecast is for rain)

Ever the optimist - how I LOVE that man :)

I came across these old photos this morning.
Lucy's facebook entry talking about what she's arranged for Braeden's birthday celebration started me thinking and look what I found! May 2005 :)

 THE BIRTHDAY BOY

Love the hat, Mum. Did you make it, yourself?

Is my birthday hat going to be ready soon, Mum? I want to look cool just like you!

Do you think cellotape might keep it on?

And so to the most important part of the day. . . THE CAKE!!

Look at all that icing and check out the little chubby fists just at the edge of the picture :)

Spoon? No need! And while I'm about it, maybe if I smeared the cake and icing all over my face and head, it might be an interesting experience. What do you think?

With my last entry being on Easter Monday, a lot has happened I'm sure but what with my goldfish memory I really can't remember much!

I lay in bed the other night thinking.

So. . .  Alex Salmond is the leader of the Scottish Nationalists.

Deputy?

She's also got a fishy surname.

Right. . . what is it?

I spent the next ten minutes going through all the fish in the sea -

haddock, cod, plaice . . .

Eventually it came to me - sturgeon! Yes, yes - that's it Sturgeon!!

Now what's her first name?

Twenty minutes later, having gone through the alphabet without success but knowing it was 'bum bum bum Sturgeon' -  you know, three syllables - it finally popped into my head. Nicola or is it Nichola - it doesn't really matter - they both sound the same and tired but relieved that I'd beaten the memory gobbler, I went to sleep :)