02 Oct: Looking out of the window at a crispy autumnal morning with sunshine and mist - very beautiful August and September saw lots of adventures including me going on a mushroom course at Glen Tilt (very good) and MiL and Ken arriving for an extended stay. Always lovely to entertain. All year we have been looking forward to the Enchanted Forest which did not let us down. Since Anthony is in London doing lots of things I attended myself, and some images are here. What a great show! Very lovely and thoughtful and completely magical. Images are here. Click on the video below for a few seconds:
15 Aug: What with Adam and Ian here, and a trip to the Tattoo in Edinburgh at the weekend, it has been busy, busy, busy! We also had a great overnight visit from Simon and Sharon Smith, with their lovely children George and Jennifer - who were most taken with the dogs of course. So this means Vincent has been spoiled rotten by Siobhan and David in Rosyth whilst Catriona, Adam and I went to the Tattoo. He was very well behaved indeed with Peggi and Keith, although they seem to have taught him some new tricks!
Click image below for Tattoo images.
08 Aug: Lots of visitors recently, with Georgie McMahon working hard for his summer spending money with Anthony in the garden or in the annex. All is now ready for workmen to commence their tasks in early Sep. We had wonderful visitors from Denmark for a week, which was great fun and our tour up and down both sides of Loch Ness was great, but no sign of the Beast. The Loch Ness experience centre is well worth a visit. Then we had MarkG and John and Adam which was a scream. How lovely to entertain so many friends here in Killiecrankie.This weekend we had Mary and Noreen from Milton of Campsie, again a great visit and much laughter, even though we did not venture far from the front door. Of note, the music nights at the Blair Atholl chippy have been fun, the Soldiers of Killiecrankie was a huge success but we won nothing at the raffle (but huge Brownie Points for the number of tickets we bought) and Vincent and Alfie were well behaved as the cannon shots rang out. Off to the Tattoo this weekend wit Adam and Catriona which should be fun, as when I return from Edinburgh my old MMS colleague Simon Smith + family will be here on a stop as they tour the Highlands…
Below is a picture of us at the Soldiers of Killiecrankie, so click through to see the rest.
10 Jul:Already? June was just rain, rain and more rain, like the rest of the country. We had Pam and Talya and Dolce visit which was fantastic, and for one evening Pam’s sister Anne and husband Ken arrived adding to a weekend party in the country. Sunday saw even more visitors - all good. Anthony is counting down the days to his first day at University, so all getting exciting. Vincent and Alfie keep us on our toes, as the little Alfie is a real nibbler of Vincent’s saggy bits which means he ends up covered in drool most of the time. What a laugh. Vincent was not well last week, which was dreadfully upsetting for me, but I spent a good few hundreds at the vet in Pitlochry just for peace of mind and now he is back to normal running about the garden. Teething was the reason, so he is on doggy Ready-Brek for a while until all his adult teeth come in. He is such a babe-magnet down in Pitlochry and the shortest walk takes about an hour as everyone is excited to see him. The vet says we can space out our visits to Doggy Weight-Watchers now that he is getting well, and the last weigh-in he was 24.5Kg, ten times the weight of Aflie! This website will probably become a record of their weights and growth, so bear with me. Next week the house is full again, as with Young Georgie working his summer holidays here with Anthony, we have Adam on Friday and MarkG and John on Saturday - god help Pitlochry on Saturday night! Very excited to have them come up at last…
30 May: Great weekend almost over. Adam came up from London and the girls and boys from Paisley and Glasgow to attend the Atholl Gathering. Adam and I went to the theatre on Saturday night to come back to find that Anthony had fallen off the buttress of the A9 road whilst playing at being a teenager. All fine once we went to the fabulous A&E in Perth. Sunday we were up quite early (but only Adam and I were up in time to have breakfast!) before a convoy off to the Atholl Gathering at 10:00. What a beautiful day it was as you can see below! Great laughs and much fun and the visitors from the West headed home on the 18:05, totally exhausted! Click image below for more.
24 April: What a lot has happened in only a few months. We had our meeting in Copenhagen last week which was very good and Anthony got two awards and I got a promotion to Grand Croix, which was very moving indeed. Then the total excitement of bringing Vincent the Newfoundland puppy down to live with us. He is already getting big at 8Kg, and has a long, long way to go to reach his full size, but it will not be long! A trip to the vet on Tuesday was a bit distressing for me to see him getting an injection and I was struggling to speak in the surgery afterwards. I am glad Anthony was there to hold my hand!
We have had quite a few visitors in the last weeks, Wee Cath and her lovely children, James and Margaret, Kev Mayo and Adam arrived on the same day. We have both noticed how quiet the house is without visitors, and the week after MiL and Ken left was very strange indeed. The weekend Kev and Adam were here we had a night out in Pitlochry which was a laugh indeed. Great Ska band in the Old Mill as we dined and then a wee pub-crawl through the highs and lows of the town.
Anthony got accepted unconditionally to UHI, so that is all very exciting indeed and a new turn for him and his life. He is down in London Village this week visiting his aunt and out to Clan Hewson by the seaside, so it is an adventure for him.
I have been really busy with work and it looks to be a very busy late spring and early summer for me, but that is all well and good.
Here are some images of our areaOut and about in the new Domain.
Here are some images (click through to the albums).
And here are some images of the garden…
First Week in Killiecrankie: Arrived in Scotland in a F9 gale, then snow, then rain. Nothing much new there then! House is even more fabulous than we remembered, and we found an additional toilet on the Saturday that we did not know we had! Last week we spent a day in Edinburgh, with the highlight for me, but not for Anthony, being five hours in Jean Louis store, buying in multiples and bulk. I loved it. Also bought my first ever car, as did Anthony and his Banana arrives on 10th Feb. Everyone in Scotland will recognise him now!
Click image of a red squirrel below for other pictures.
10 Jan: Now well into January and in a matter of weeks we will be on the way to the new house. A bit of a change of plans in that the vendor wants us to complete the day before, so we have arranged with the buyer of No62 to complete a day early. I hope it all goes smoothly! We had a visitor on Wednesday, the most beautiful 6’ tall woman we have ever seen to do the survey for the removal company. She was absolutely stunning and we were all giggly. I guess that even the gayers can appreciate a gorgeous woman! Very busy at work just now, but at least the very early starts have come to an end for a while. Last night I spent my time very productively creating a Wish List on John Lewis’ site to remind me of what we still have to buy for the new address. Anthony was amazed at the cost of things, but I am sure he will get over it. Every day I keep changing my mind about what car we REALLY need for the weather and terrain up in Bonnie Scotland, but at least Anthony has remained focused on his banana-car, having had a personal tour of one in the Asda car park in Broughty Ferry at Christmas time! Excitement at work this week as I arranged tickets for my monthly visits to work, and now have my dates through to May. I will be a train-setter rather than a jet-setter for these visits!
01 Jan: After more than 20 New Year celebrations in London, I finally made it to the Parade! Click image for more.
