Thursday evening

Ian and I are home alone.
Lucy is at football practice with Braeden.
Scott is at football practice with Cade.
The little foorballers wear these cute little tops that look like string vests, baggy with with sleeves. I'll get a photo and show you.


Lucy is now on holiday from now till we leave, another week and Scott will be joining us too!
Well actually till two days after we leave . . . Scott says :)

Yesterday was Cade's birthday and Ian and I had agreed to take the boys to the Family Fun Centre. . .

However, I left this entry to take Holly for a walk and she ran me ragged so i'll tell you all about it tomorrow :)

Tuesday afternoon

Two o'clock . . . hot.
Lucy and Scott are at work.
Cade is in his room playing with his xbox.
Braeden is watching some cartoons and eating a lemonade ice lolly in the living room and Ian is sleeping on a lounger outside.
Nothing is stirring. Not even the dog. She's lying beside me out for the count.
So what better time to pop some holiday photos onto the blog. Let's go back and cover Saturday :)

SATURDAY MORNING

This one was taken at the farmer's market. Lucy, Braeden and I took a wee wander round it in the morning. That's homemade lemonade Braeden has in his cup. Gee, it was so sour!

It reminded me of the lemonade Lucy used to make when she was a wee girl from Jif Lemon juice. . . it made you shudder too!
Sorry Lucy :)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Cade's birthday party

Here comes the cake! 

The candles are fighting a losing battle against the gentle breeze.

 Lucy tries once again to light the candles. She's not doing too well. That gentle breeze keeps blowing them out again. Note for future - have the blowing out of the candles indoors :)

 So here she goes again. Give the girl her due, she's determined to light those candles!

 And still determined . . . 

Quick Cade! Blow out the few that are still burning. We're losing the will to live here!

This little cutie trying to climb onto the table below is the youngest member of the Lesina clan. 

Meet Lincoln! 

Second son of Scott's sister Laramie.

And here's first born - Davies. 

He's about four months younger than Luca.

That's Laramie you can see at the opposite side of the table to Ian. 

You can see Bill Scott's dad, in most of the photos above and if you look closely you can make out Laramie's husband Vic, but I seem to have cut Karen, Scott's mum and Cindy, her sister out of all these photos! 

It's just the angle. So here's one that they just about appear in. . . 

Cindy is closer to the camera on the right of the photo and Karen is sitting on Cindy's right. Note for future re action shots - often difficult to get a good look at folk!

Monday morning

We made it!

Aberdeen to Grants Pass. . . actually, the journey wasn't as bad as I'd prepared myself for!

Ross - poor wee lad that he  - and I hope I can use the past tense here - was, had come down with a 'shivery shaky, muscles achy' bug on Wednesday last, and he had volunteered to take us to the airport at five o'clock on the Thursday morning!!

"I'll manage," he'd said when Ian had suggested we should create a plan B, and he did :) Always knew that stubborn streak would come in handy some day :)

The flight to London was uneventful. The cooked breakfast of sausage, bacon and scrambled egg being squeezed in between taking off and landing. 

And the big flight?

We had really good seats. Front row in our compartment meant that we had more leg room than anybody. I could stretch my legs straight out in front of me. 

Overnight in Los Angelos. We set every alarm we could for six to make sure we got up in time for our flights on Friday and in the end we were both wide awake by five having spent the night waking up, telling ourselves it was still too early to get up and lying there willing ourselves to 'go to sleeeep again!'

But, I am so upset. . . I did it again :(

The song says, I left my heart in San Francisco, yes?

Well, guess who left her coat in Los Angelos?

Yep. Unbelievable isn't it?

Numpty now has a coat in Sydney and another in Los Angelos!

I think I left it over the back of the seat I sat on to have breakfast in the airport.

Ian has filled in a lost property form on line for me but the form states they will only be in touch if the coat is handed in and so far we've heard nothing :( 

Anyway, thumbs up for Portland airport. Do not be afraid to land there en route to somewhere else. It's bright and airy and has a really good eating place, Gustav's. Excellent German sausages and tasty beers. Dare I say, we had a nice time there?

Yes, we did!

So here we are! And here is Braeden!

A little aside? I have already put on three pounds since I got here. But don't worry. I factored this in before I came. I still have another two pounds to play with :)

GARY in the SEVENTIES continued . . .

Excuse the fingers at the left side of the photo!! I didn't notice them till just now - oops :) Sorry!

BROXBOURNE, HERTFORDSHIRE

-about 1976/77.

Lucy, Gary, me and Wee Annie who lived across the street. We're totally absorbed in a Ladybird book. The publisher of the day for little children. Anybody who had children at this time possessed a library of these little books.

I think we lost ours at the time of the fire :(

Gary, you were the world's nuttiest reader. You would have had me read to you every waking hour and you got so familiar with all your little books, you would stop me immediately if I tried to leave any thing out!

I got to know them so well that I didn't need the book. I could recite them while my mind was busy elsewhere. Mind you, on reflection, was that why you started getting me to read them from back to front!!

The big bug glasses are still a feature - they're awful, aren't they. I will never buy 'up to the minute fashion statements' in glasses ever again!!

BENODET, BRITTANY

1978

Look at that lovely blue sky! I think we had booked the holiday with Eurocamp. Camping in France was all the rage when we were young and because we were living in the South East of England, France was just a hop skip and a jump away.

Do you remember this holiday at all, Gary? You would have been just turning three then. Lucy talks about remembering the journey across on the overnight ferry. Was that Southhampton to St Malo?

My memory is of croissants for breakfast on the ferry with a view of France bathed in sunshine layed out before us. Lucy's memory is of devastation and tears when she thought we weren't going to get onto the ferry when the queue for the ferry started moving forward . . . but Granda Stewart's car refused to start!!

We were pushed out of the line to let the rest of the cars drive onto the ferry and a mechanic was called.

Relief . . . the car started and we finally joined the other cars on the car deck but despair again when we had to be pushed off at the other side? Am I remembering correctly, Ian.

The car managed to get going again but we had to take it to a little country garage and use your higher french to explain what the problem was.

It was a lovely holiday.




Here we are sitting in a cafe enjoying the traditional fare of the region - crepes! Yum yum :)
I was on a diet as usual and regret refusing to eat more than one crepe at a serving. I'm sure everyone else would have but were put off by my reluctance :(

Eight and a half stone. . . and I still felt fat :(
Pathetic isn't it.

BROXBOURNE 

1979

And here we are at the end of the decade . . .you're almost four, Gary, and there's wee Kelly with the familiar glakit look of the newly born.
Those are pyjamas, by the way, that you're wearing. We certainly got our money's worth from them - they just kept stretching as you grew!!

This photo was taken in the May of 1979 and by the September, we were settled in our house in Edinburgh.

Saturday afternoon

I'm back . . .

9th July! My goodness it's been a long time since I wrote anything.
But here we go. . .
I started to scan some photos of Gary intending to put some on my blog in time for his birthday. But our scanner only gives you 300 pixels by 300 pixels so they were rubbish :(

However, yesterday, it suddenly came to me . . . Mark - Scott's cousin, made copies of some photos for me donkey's year's ago. And he had photographed them and uploaded them onto the computer - so I tried that! And it worked - well maybe not brilliant but definitely much clearer that when they were scanned. So . . .

Happy Birthday Gary!

b.1975 weighing in at 9lbs 9oz!

When Gary was a baby, he had very little hair, so we started affectionately calling him 'wee baldy Gary'. Over time this was changed to wee Garybaldy - note the similarity to Garibaldi! And it stuck :)
Wee cutie, isn't he!

Here he is with his big sister and his Granny Stewart. They're in the park in Broxbourne. Ian's mum and dad were down visiting us with their caravan that year.

I loved Gary in that hat. It had a huge pom pom on it which you can't actually see in this photo . . . wait a minute . . .

This one is a bit better. You can just about make it out. 

This second photo of Gary in 'the hat' was taken in Hoddesdon. The bigger town next door to Broxbourne. It had a Sainsbury's supermarket which I used to walk to once a week to get my big shop. Ah happy days.
I thought I looked really cool in those glasses :) Of their time, yes?

I've got some of you in your middle years too, Gary! Watch this space :)

Friday teatime

It's been threatening to rain for most of the afternoon but hasn't quite managed it yet which is good because I think Ian said he was going to try and play a round of golf this afternoon.

What have I been up to? Nothing much.

My new dressing gown arrived this morning along with my new swimming tops - I bought two new ones for my holidays :)

And I've put on 3 pounds in the last fornight according to the lady at Weightwatchers :(
Mind you, I'm not surprised. I drank copious amounts of wine last week end - just because - I wasn't out anywhere. And yesterday I didn't go swimming and I ate nothing but scones and cake till Ian came home and I had to make him sensible food.

Kelly said, that she'd read somewhere that having a blow out is good because it increases your metabolic rate which tends to slow if you are on a strict eating regime and I believe her!!

So here I sit at the dining room table typing with my 'toby talls' because the 'peter pointer' on my right hand is sore for some reason. I asked Ian, this morning, to have a look and check if anything had slid in between the finger and the nail - that's what it feels like, but he shook his head and said, "Oh, I can't see anything that small.!"
To be honest, I was asking him because I can't see anything that small!!
Things are bad in this house :(

But here's a cheery photo. I can't remember what year it was taken.
How old does Ross look? That should give us a clue.
We're in Spain on a wee holiday!! :) And we are in the resort where we bought our timeshare. So it was after our 25th wedding anniversary which was in 1997.

And there's my mum, God love her. If she'd lived as long as her own mother, she's still be alive! My granny was a good bit over ninety when she died. I haven't actually got many pictures of her. . . just memories.
This was during my 'wash and go' period. I'm talking about my hair!! Wash, mousse, let it dry and then use an afro comb. . . oh happy days!!

Ross tried roasted suckling pig when we went out for dinner on one of the evenings. You could see all its little teeth!!
Not my favourite memory of the holiday, I must admit, but seered into my brain nevertheless :(

Sunday 12th June

The scent of the azaleas lining the side of the road as you come into our street,  has been gorgeous for a couple of weeks now :)

BLAST from the PAST

I thought, "I wonder what is in my file marked 2001." So I had a wee look. I remember this!!

We've had a lot of showery weather recently and are having sun and showers again today but yesterday was awful. It was pouring at breakfast time, bucketing at lunchtime and torrential by teatime!
Cold, dismally dull and wet :(

Carole appeared at lunchtime to pick up Luca and stayed till teatime which was lovely. Luca had stayed the night before with us to let Gary and Carole go to a fortieth birthday celebration at The Foyer in Crown Street.

The Foyer was, according to Carole, wonderful - well worth a visit but Gary was a bit of a let down. He was 'on call' (he's 'on call' every other week end) and as per usual  'was called', so Carole ended up at the dinner alone :(

Looks like you missed out on a really lovely meal, Gary!

Luca used his bathtime on Friday night to get to grips with volume. Here he is working out which holds more - the old plastic beaker or the empty mouthwash bottle :)

It's the bottle, in case you're interested. Of course that was a large mouthwash bottle. It would have been a different story had it been the medium size or even the small.  
Make note: buy 'other sizes' of mouthwash to complete the experiment.


I had chummed Carole to Luca's 'graduation', the other week. Yes, I know the kids probably didn't know what it was all about but for the adults it was so cute. . . their little morterboards had elastic around the edge to hold them on :)

My hands were obviosly shaking with the excitement of the occasion. Sorry :(

That's better. Now where is he? Brilliant I've snapped just as he's bent down :(

What on earth is he doing with his tassle and why is this photo so blurred? I give up!

 When it was Luca's turn to be presented with his certificate, all went well until he stood to have his photo taken.

He held his certificate right in front of his face. I can see the sense in that - he was thinking the photo was of the certificate, yes? So where else would you hold it?

This line of 'Luca thought' became more apparent when having been told to put it down, he did. . . right down on the ground - but still facing out to the camera.

So now the photographer has a view of the top of his head as he holds the certificate ready for the photo . . .
 People should be more specific, shouldn't they?