Saturday morning and the rain has gone off :)

Julie, Leo and Mary at the tearoom after Leo's graduation

Guy, Mary, Sam to te left and Tom to the right in Glasgow on the way to Queen Street Station to catch the train back home. This is not a good photo of Guy :( but I had to choose between a good photo of Mary or a good one of Guy and guy lost!!

Why am I posting photos of my last trip to Paisley?
Actually it's not technically Paisley anymore :( . Mary's in Elderslie and Julie's Houston.

Well, I'm heading back down for a few days at the beginning of October. Just after Mary's birthday actually. She's the third and I'm going on the fifth. Which reminds me I've still to book my train ticket.
Note to self - speak to Ian. Is he still coming down on the Friday?Will I need a single or a return? Life is so complicated, isn't it? :)


But, no that isn't the reason.
I got a text from Julie yesterday to say that the twins will be making their First Communion on the 20th May 2012 and she hoped we'd be able to make it down. 

It seems no time at all since they were christenend :)

Anyway, what else has been going on?
TUESDAY
Gary didn't have any football on Tuesday and appeared not long after Luca and I had eaten our tea.
We had prawns. Luca likes prawns so it was a safe bet. I ate mine on a baguette with some salad and he ate his with animal potatoes - Birds Eye frozen chips by another name - but I reckon they have more potato than ordinary chips :)  - and grapes.

"Have you eaten?" Gary asked. "I thought I might take the pair of you down to Morrisons for tea!"
The last of the big spenders!
Conveniently late, huh Gary?
I should confess here however, that this would have been something that Luca would have liked.

Luca and I had been into Morrisons to get a few things after school and had dropped into the cafe for a drink before we went home. Their coffee's not bad. And it's amazing how many people do eat their tea there!

THURSDAY
Thursday's swimming was hard going. I'm really not back into it properly yet since my holidays. I'm certainly still a bit creaky. But it was good fun spending time with Gill and Elizabeth and don't forget the cinnamon swirl danish pastry and coffee. . . guilt free because of the 30 lengths. My mantra as I swam up and down that pool on Thursday was, 'cinnamon bun. . . cinnamon bun . . .'

When I got home there was a white van sitting in the drive. Curious I thought.
I looked at the man in the van and he looked at me.
I frowned a question, "What are you doing parked on my drive?"
He smiled and pointed to the house with the question on his face, "You live here?"
I nodded and got out of the car.

He got out of the van and as we faced each other, I realised I came face to middle shirt button with one of the tallest man I have ever met. I felt like a child again!

It was Ian's chair's repair man. So that was fine. He was early. I hadn't expected him till six thiry and by luck I was home just after five. He said he'd finished his other jobs early and was settling down to wait till I got home.
I just had to share this with you because of the man's height. My goodness, he was tall!

FRIDAY
What a day!! What a terrible day. The rain never stopped. So after I got home from doing my turn at the West Church, I decided I wasn't going out again.

The realisation that tea would end up being ginger nut biscuits, the same as breakfast and lunch urged me on to go to the supermarket. I could always get a ready meal - wasn't in the mood to cook, dull rainy days can do that to a buddy.

So I got on the shoes and coat, picked up the shopping bag and headed out of the door to the car. Which wasn't there. After a moment's confusion, I remembered. I had put it into the garage on Thursday for a service and it was still there!!

Don't worry, the situation is resolved and Ross and I had Morrison's Chicken Korma and naan bread for tea.

I spent all my viewing time catching up with the serial I'd recorded and hadn't watched - The Killing. I was up till half eleven to get to the end and blow me - they left the ending open!! I still amn't one hundred per cent sure who the murderer was!!
"And a new series of The Killing will be coming in the new year," said the cheery voice as the credits scrolled up. Grrrr

And here I am. Up to date. It's half eleven and I'm still in my jammies.
It's been dry since I got up this morning and I do see a hint of sunshine on the back wall of the garden :)
Hope Ian's getting some dry time down in the Lake District.

Love to all :)

Saturday afternoon

I've come upstairs for a while to sidestep the temptation that is the custard doughnuts brought home by Ian along with rolls for lunch, after he discovered that the golf course was closed because of the rain.

I had one after my roll'n'bacon at lunch time. Delicious! Ian had two and Ross declined - he is going to be surrounded by cakes at work this afternoon (working one till close), he said. As though that was a reason not to have one?

So there are two left in the bag!!

Ian left about ten minutes ago to go to the Camra meeting up at The Legion and no sooner had the door closed behind him than my feet walked me into the kitchen and my hands opened the doughnut bag and my nose inhaled the aroma of deep frying and sugar . . .

And now I'm up here in Luca's room typing:
 I will not succumb to temptation!!

Ok here goes. . .
Tuesday was a success. I was amongst the first folk in the school playground and Luca and I spent some time in the park before heading home for tea.

"I'm a big boy now," he told me as we fastened him into the car seat. "This is a baby seat!"

Mum and Dad have upgraded to 'big boy carseats'
I guess that's me told.

We all know that Ross was 28 on Wednesday and that we sang Happy Birthday and blew out candles and ate cake. The photo evidence being on Ian's blog.

So, onto Thursday which was a bit of a worry. It was my first visit back to Weight Watchers since coming back from holiday and my free pass was on the line. . . the worry compounded by birthday cake on Wednesday and post swimming cinnamon swirl danish pastry on Thursday afternoon :(

Ten stone three and a half pounds. Safe but not much room for manouvering.

Enough, let's change the subject!
Here are some blasts from the past, Gary!
I found them in the folder I'd made called, Gary. Started it round about your birthday and had forgotten all about it! The seventies' photos I did upload but not these from the eighties

Your first Hogmany -at Granny and Granda Stewart's

From the look of you, we should have waited for another year! You're as white as a ghost.

 Our first Christamas in Edinburgh

You would have been about Luca's age then. I think that Christmas tree in the background might be the same one that Ian and I bought in 1972. Did we really keep it that long?

 October holiday in Majorca

Was that our first venture into the world of hotels? I think it might have been. Meal times in the hotel were buffet style which made for interesting combinations. Didn't it Kelly!!

Our first Christmas in Banchory

What is that your holding, Gary? I can't make it out. There's your piano to the right in the photo, Lucy. And check out the computer behind you all!

Northern Spain

This was the year we went to the South of France on holiday and drove along the coast into Spain on a day trip. Ross was very car sick on the journey. My abiding image is of us sitting on the ground at the side of the road in the scortching heat watching the ants carry off what Ross had just thrown up!

 Our First trip to America

You sat beside me, Gary on the flight over and even then you took up more than your fair share of room. At one point on the journey, you got a bit restless and in the course of shuffling about, my coffee landed on my lap! The big brown stain on the front of trousers was bad enough getting off the plane, but since our luggage had been delayed in London, I had to wear the same trousers + stain the next day :(    D'you notice how we're all squinting in the bright sunshine? Not used to it, you see :)

Time to go! speak to you all again soon, hopefully.

Monday morning

Couldn't get to sleep last night even though I was really tired and had gone to bed about tennish. Lay there tossing and turning . . . saw eleven thirty come and go :(

Eventually I must have fallen asleep but I wakened again at about four.
Now this in itself was not an uncommon event - but when I lay down again I became aware that my pillow was drumming like a machine gun. I lay there till it drove me nuts and then I investigated.
It wasn't rocket science to work out what was going on.

Ross.

I stomped down the stairs, found him on his computer playing some computer game and gave him a piece of my mind. He turned the volume down and I went back upstairs - still fuming.

But aren't we all our own worst enemy. Back upstairs I tossed and turned. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind started berating Ross all over again for staying up so late playing games, how he wasn't taking a responsible attitude to his work blah, blah, blah.

 And the longer I kept my eyes closed, the more I thought of  to add to my tirade and the more wound up I became.

D'you know what saved me and calmed me down enough to sleep? I sat up and told him everything I was thinking. Even the stuff I've never said but have thought. No he wasn't there but hearing my voice in my ears did the trick!!

I would definitely recommend this strategy to anyone :)

. . . and here he is, the present bane of my life at a less stressful time in our relationship :) A lot of water under the bridge since then!

This was one of the first photos I scanned and I hadn't learned at this point how to make the photo fit the page. I'm doing much better now :)

Sunday evening

Just a little cheery memory! Lunch at The Wild River Brewpub.

I need some sympathy, please. Ross has given me his cold and my nose is running like a tap and my eyes are on fire.
I'm going to have an early night and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

It's been a quiet week.
Tuesday, I was over in Inverurie to go with Carole to pick Luca up from school.
Carole showed me where to park the car and where to stand and wait for Luca to come out of school. So I'm all organised for Tuesday coming!

Mike and Val arrived earlier than expected at Carole's for a short break.
A happy coincidence!

Thursday afternoon I went swimming with Myra and Elizabeth. And boy was that hard going! I managed to complete my thirty lengths but it took all I had - I was exhausted :(

Last night, we went out to dinner at the home of Keith and Annette. I love going out to dinner and last night was very enjoyable :)

And here I am . . . CSI New York is finished. I've had half a bag of Moose Munch for my tea and I'm now watching an episode of New Tricks after which I shall take a hot drink upstairs with me and go to bed.

Tomorrow, the new radiator for the kitchen will arrive - another casualty of the Power Flush we had done last year, and then on Wednesday the gasman will come and fit it.

You know, the way things are going we may end up with new radiators throughout the house.This is our third one to spring a leak!