29th December

That's Luca safely snuggled up in bed.
I think he will have gone out like a light.
And his granny won't be far behind him.
He didn't have a sleep this afternoon so there was no 'down' time for Granny either.

We walked into the village in the late morning to pick up my prescription from the doctor's surgery and do a little bit of food shopping and Luca sang the whole way there and back ...

'Jingle Bells' was undoubtably the winner of 'most frequently sung' song on the way to and from the village, but one that occurred on a more than regular basis and must certainly have taken the second spot was:

Piggy on the railway
Shouldn't be there
Along comes the engine (this is accompanied by bent arms moving vigourously in a circlular motion imitating the wheels of a train) - enthusiastically carried out by Luca!
Piggy take care!
"Hey," shouts the driver,
"Get off the track!"
Piggy ran away
and never came back!

Hotly followed by that oldie but goldie - 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'!



Nice photo, huh?
It was taken the last time Luca stayed over but I've only just put it onto my hard drive so I thought I'd pop it in.
I thought I'd call it - 'Grandad get off luca's sofa... you've got your own!'

Hello Kelly!

This is the snapshot Ian took while we were on Skype with Kelly on the morning of her last day up north .

It's 7.30 am in Adelaide just now. I've just checked my Kelly clock!
And 1.00 pm in Grants Pass. I got that time off my Lucy clock!

I guess you'll already be up and out, Kelly. Are you at a class before work on a Wednesday morning? And Lucy, lunchtime? Working today?

Ian has just tracked me down. He thought I was still in with Luca! It's taken me an hour to write this little entry... I must be more tired than I thought!
Time to head to the kitchen, I think, and clear up the mess from teatime and then go to bed.

That's the turkey finished - apart from the stock I made with the bones, today. It'll make a bit pot of soup later.
We had turkey stir fried with black pudding and mushrooms, tonight - yes, I know - unusual. What's wrong with being a bit adventurous. Ian said he liked it!!

...
I'm not going to rise to the base accusation of my older son that I gave his child chocolate for breakfast...

I share my chocolate with nobody!!

27th December

It's been a while... what can I say, I've been so busy!!
For the life of me, I can't think doing what? But there you are... the time has gone!

Would you like to see some of my photos from St Andrews and Crail?
Seems such a long time since we were there!

Best to skip over getting lost in the fog with Ross - really don't want to feel the stress again. So I'll start by showing you the photos I took of our hotel room.

Tarrah...

This is you facing into the room.

Check out the wall facing you -

it divides the room into bedroom on the left,

and sitting room on the right.

The bathroom is to your left as you come in, followed by the wardrobe area with tea/coffee making facilities and a wee fridge...

and here is Ian demontrating using the kettle!!

Followed by Ian, ready to go to Crail on Saturday morning.

It was just as well that I decided to take this photo before we left because I discovered that I'd left my handbag in the room when we had checked out... imagine if we had been half way up the road when I'd realised that I didn't have it!!

That's why Ian is smiling so broadly... on my initial request for a photo, he had grumped rather a lot... but once he discovered I had forgotten to lift my bag when we'd left the room and now remembered, he was so happy!!
Weren't you, angel!

This was my first visit to Crail... and I liked it!
Check for yourself:

This is where we parked the car, close to the harbour.

And here's Ian getting his gloves on in preparation for our little coastal walk - Anne suggested it and it was very nice.

I can't understand where the colour all went in this photo!! But I've included it because I thought it was quite atmospheric.
What do you think?





And I just loved this house...


Having left the coastal path we headed up the road that led you back to the main street.
By this time the sun was sinking and the light was golden.
It had that unreal, magical quality that you only get now and again.

You should have been able to see it in this photo of Ian striding out up the road,

and in this photo of this field which was breathtakingly beautiful bathed in golden light but sorry folks... it didn't come out in the photos - so you'll just have to take my word for it! Try using your imagination!

We completed our circuit by walking along the main road...









and ended up back at the harbour.
Say, "Good bye," Ian!

Friday 11th December

Today is the first day of the West church postal service and as yet, I've still to write a Christmas card!

Mind you, I think I'm going to have to buy some more cards - I bought cards from the Red Cross shop the other day but I gave them to Ian!

In hind sight, I should have bought more than I did!

So, I've decided.
I'll head into the village this morning and get more.

I think I'll give the Sue Ryder shop my custom today - Anne's mum says they have some nice ones!

Usually, I get my cards from TradeCraft but this year, the girl put in charge of ordering them, for the Third World shop, forgot :( so dead end there!

What do you think of my new picture?
Charity shop special... cost me £12! I got it from the Red Cross shop.
It's of Aberdeen harbour in 1991, when the tall ships vsiited during 'The Tall Ship's Race'



I think it's lovely!

Thursday 10th December

A short entry just now as I'm taking Anne into the hospital this morning so I need to get showered and dressed soon.

I thought I'd share these photos with you before I went.
I took them yesterday when I noticed there were little green shoots peaking out from the compost (to be honest I thought the bulbs were dead and gone since I had ignored them since last spring).

However, next years daffodils are on the way!
Take a look...



The weather forecast is for snow by the middle of next week but this morning, I took the bin out wearing my dressing gown!
It's December, for goodness sake.
I should have felt the need to hurry back indoors at the very least... but instead I stood there in my jammies quite happily admiring the morning sky!

Tuesday 8th December

It's seven o'clock in the morning... and it's still night time outside.

We had Pete (remember the wedding in Rome that Ross went to) staying with us for a couple of nights.

He was back in Scotland to sort out his finances - he's buying a small private school in Tuscany for adults who want to learn English so being here, he took the opportunity to meet up with his old school buddies.

We got to see the photos of Leo, his wee baby who is just a wee doll and Pete says next time he comes he'll try and bring his wife and baby too - so that'll be lovely.

I said they could stay with us - we've got plenty room.

Thought - I should hang onto that pram we bought for Luca.

Talking of whom - Gary skyped us last night!

There they were, the pair of them, not exactly as clear as day but once I turned the speakers back on (!!??) as loud and distinct as you could want!

The image was more akin to a cubist impression of life - a little bit of work needed there.

Here's a better picture of Luca taken a couple of weeks ago

Luca was delighted - at first - to talk to us but eventually the novelty wore off and there were other more pressing and interesting things for a two year old to do so he was keen to take off.

But not for Granny and Granda to go - ooh no,
"Granny not go!"
"Granda not go!"

I said to Ian later, I think he thought we were the television and that we should simply be there whenever he wanted to watch us.

Changing the subject completely, I manged to swim 26 lengths yesterday - not bad for an old fogie, even if I do say so, myself!
Not all in a oner, I hasten to add.
But I only stopped every so often to get my breath back.

Jill (her children are Howard and Janean King - not sure if any of you were ages with them) managed to do 24, but she was making up for having had a buttery at a friends house in the morning.
Actually, not just a buttery but a warm buttery dripping with melted butter. Ooh no - horror of horrors - don't listen little arteries!!

Anne's making good progress, I popped in to see her on Sunday on my way back from coffee with the girls. Her colour was much better and she had straightened her hair!

For those of you who don't know her, Anne has curly hair which like mine becomes a fuzzy wuzzy entity with a mind of it's own if not battled into submission on a daily basis.
Well you can imagine how she looked after a week of not caring - so it was a relief to see it calmed and submissive again!!

And how much better we all feel when our hair has been brushed and combed.

I used to love when I was ill as a wee girl.
I don't remember ever feeling ill - you know actually having any symptoms, I just remember feeling very tired all the time.
Well my Granny Bananghan always seemed to be around at these times and I remember she would say to me (very sympathetically), "Sit up a wee bit, hen, and I'll brush your hair, you'll feel all the better for it."
And you know what?
She was right!

Monday 7th December

Here we are again!
I seem to have huge gaps between entries just now and I don't understand why... I told Ian that it was because I had nothing to say, but on reflection that isn't true.

My current theory is that I only think of writing when I'm reading my emails and there have been a lot of distractions in that department at the moment.

Ancestry, for example, has been sending me emails alerting me to things they have found for me.
The most recent was this morning when they found Daniel Owens in the poor house in 1891.
Susannah, his wife, must have died somewhere between 1881 and 1891 because he was listed as a widower.
What a shame - ending your days in the poor house.

I must let Mary know because she is still convinced we come from money on that side of the family.
It all stems from old Uncle Frankie Banaghan (my grandfather's wee brother)...
He always told the story of going on a trip down to Liverpool with his mother as a wee boy to visit the family and how he remenbers going into this huge house with a great winding staircase!
Oh yes?

Here's the 1891 census for Daniel! No sign of money here!


Great Granny Charlotte Banaghan was brought up by her Granda and Granny Owens.

Interestingly, I can't find Great Granny Charlotte Banaghan in 1891.
She disappears in 1881 ... at that point she was living with her big brother Job Sutton (you know, the lad who ended up in jail Census 1901 - another piece of the jugsaw, courtesy of Ancesrtry) ...




and resurfaces (getting married) in 1893 ...


During the missing years she had married a lad called Evans and had had a little daughter Charlotte mark 2!
The family said her first husband was a sailor just like her father and both died at sea... but we all know they tell lies, don't we!!

Wednesday 25th November

It's past eight o'clock!

... and what does Wee Willie Winkie want to know?

It's been a long day:
It started off dark.
Then it rained and rained and the wind blew a gale.
Now it's dark again.
I'm ready to curl up in bed again and dream of bright sunny days.

... I'm coming wee Kelly - make room in the bed.

Aunt Mary has just sent me a text to let me know that the Cart has burst it's banks and Seedhill is flooded (for those of you who don't know, Seedhill is an area of Paisley - Aunt Mary and Uncle Brian lived there for many years).

She says she's fed up being soaking wet!

I was going to say, "Aren't we all!"

But that would be to diminish what the west coasters have been going through.
They've had it much worse than us.



On a lighter note, the beautiful picture below arrived last week with Luca.
A picture to grace the fridge of his Granny and Granda.
His mummy helped with the glueing and the sparkles - lovely job, Carole!



What do we think?
Do we see an artistic bent?


When I opened my emails this morning, there was one from Ancestry.com!
They wanted to draw my attention to a certain Job Sutton - brother of Granny Lottie's grandmother on her father's side.

Oh great, I thought another piece of the jigsaw!
And so it was...
... but not what I expected!

In the census of 1901, they had found him in jail...
... the Walton Prison in Liverpool!

I wonder what he had done?

I checked out the prison on the internet - no clues there.
In 1901, it served as a prison for both men and women and for any crime committed in the area - including murder.
It even had it's own gallows till the middle of the 20th century!

This is the Walton Prison where poor old Job Sutton spent some time.