Wee lead slippers

Well, you could hardly say they patter

I mean, once there's two of them running on wooden floors, in their wee clumpy shoes.

Aye so, I thought I'd revive the old blog and just pretend that it hadn't been dead for almost two years. The usual stuff and nonsense. Maybe a bit more general and less wean-centred.

The hotel of adventure

Aye, not very Enid Blyton. Four people go off on holiday and nothing dramatic, dangerous or unexpected happened. Came home to find nothing disturbed, broken or stolen. Where's the story in that? 

So, the holiday's over. Our week at Cravendale Hall, home of the twice-filtered crazy plastic cows and ancestral home of Lord and Lady CravenTory has come to an end. Not much to say about it really that hasn't already been covered in the Blipfoto posts but I suppose I can post some more pictures here to illustrate the general twee-ness and wean-good-timey-ness of the whole thing.

    

    

   
 
So, there you are. A selection of photies with the really crap ones filtered out. What's missing is photos of Ellen sleeping in a big bed for the first time. But then I'd need photos of her refusing to lie down in her big bed, repeatedly getting out of the big bed, needing to be taken back to the big bed, coming throught a half six now that she can et out of the big bed. Needless to say but she's back in her cot now we're home.

And the last day of the hols is rainy! Dammit. Nothing else to do but put away all the camping stuff, repair the wee hole that appeared in Ewan's thermarest and package up all the CDs to be shipped off to Music Magpie. Not great prices but very convenient. 

The stookie's off tomorrow

Aye, this is how the rot sets in. You don't post anything for a couple of weeks and before you know it, the month's almost gone. Blink again a year's passed and people are waiting in breathless anticipation to see what's been happening to the weans. Well, it's easy. Nothing that's what.

Ewan's gone through the pride in breaking his arm and the boredom at not being allowed to do anything in case he breaks again. Now he's waiting to get the stookie off so that he can get out and play on his new bike. It has gears and everything. A proper bike. Yes, it's bonus time again in the private sector. Nothing like a banker's bonus round here but enough to get the boy a bike, me a lens for my camera and Mandy an iPad when they are available. Nothing for Ellen. To be honest, she's not been pulling her weight and, you know, bonuses have to be earned. It's a tough lesson but needs to be learned. Even at two.

Actually, it's not true that she got nothing. She got chickenpox, which is grand on two counts (a) it gets it over and done with. It seems to be milder when they're wee and (2) I get to take photos of her spotty face and post them on the internet. This I will now do: the cherubic before and the festering after (click to see them in their full g(l)ory).

  

Here's her and Ewan having a fight over Spongebob Squarepants.

   

Happy now?
 
 
 

The Great Apple Tree Tumble of 2010

Aye, there's only one story this week - the Great Apple Tree Tumble of 2010. A day that will live in infamy. The day that a young boy's life was wrecked by the neglect, wilful negligence and the callous disregard of his own sister.

The whole matter is now in the hands of professional ambulance chasers at Claims Direct and we're suing Ellen for every penny she's worth. I think it's only reasonable compensation for the inconvenience, mental anguish and lost weekend that we've suffered because she failed to throw herself in the path of Ewan's tumbling torso, breaking his fall. The fact that he chose to leap from the top of a rope ladder is neither here nor there.

Anyway, the excitement started on Thursday with a phone call at work telling me that I was getting away early - "I'm at the hospital with Ewan. He's hurt his wrist. Can you come and take Ellen away?". I think at that moment she was riding round on a tricycle aiming at the legs of anyone changing a lightbulb.

I get there and this is what I see. The serene, slightly spacey look is thanks to the morphine. A few hours later though and he's settled in with one of the ward's DVD players using Distraction Therapy© (I'm not making this up, they've given it a proper name with capital letters and everything) to ease the pain. The following morning he Distracted© himself with a book before they took him into theatre.

  

And this is what they did (click to see it BIG) - inserted titanium elastic nails into the bones. They'll stay there for three months and then get taken out. Just a couple of small nicks to free the ends that are tucked under the skin and they'll get pulled out. They're quite flexible. There was a wee lassie in the hospital having it done when we were there and it didn't seem to dampen her appetite for crisps.

  

The anaesthetic takes a few hours to wear off completely, leaving him with an itchy nose. But after a wee while he was back to looking glum and wondering where the Distractions© were. He did fine keeping off the morphine and he was soon tucking into the toast - all the more tasty for being made with Sunblest white pan bread. None of that wholemeal, sourdough shite he's forced to eat a home. Home on Saturday. Fell asleep in the car on the way back from hospital so we drove to Glasgow to let him have a good kip.

So, it's been a weekend of Distraction© - TV, computer - anything that involves not using your right arm. He started off a bit glum and feeling sorry for himself but it hasn't taken him long to get used to it and the pain seems to have eased off to nothing. Hardly any painkillers today. Spot the transformation from watching TV on Saturday afternoon to eating ice cream in the evening. Finally, here he is struggling to have a bath this morning.

  

And, of course, we don't really blame wee Ellen. But naturally we've chopped down the tree, and every other tree in the garden and removed all items over 24 inches, just so that no other parent ever has to suffer the pain and torment that we've been through. And we've called for a full public enquiry into the dangers posed by unfenced trees.

So, here's some photos of the cheeky wee beggar.

  

Oh help, oh no! There's nae milk!

Aye, we seem to operate with at least a one week time lag between some established calendar event and when we finally get round to doing it. This week was Shrove Saturday. Actually, that's not quite true. We had no milk so it had to be pancakes (made with powdered milk) for breakfast. But Ellen kindly got us up at the crack of early 'cos she was already in our bed. Not that I'd noticed her coming in at 3am. A touch too much of the Laphroaig maybe. Anyway, Ewan joined in at 7am so then it was everybody up!

 
After Ewan's swimming, seeing as we were up and it was a grey day, we headed to Glasgow for Kelvingrove and then a visit to Castlemilk. Kelvingrove was a nice trip down memory lane. Most of the things there are just the same as they were when I were a lad, although they've tried to make it a bit more of an "experience" - fewer glass cases, more buttons to press and levers to pull. More "child friendly". More expensive in the café department. 

So it's all "new museum". They've got a novelty haggis, a big hairy beaver and a man with a huge organ. Nyuk, nyuk.

   

Tonight, Ewan read Ellen her bedtime story while I flitted around taking photos. It's weird - he's happy enough getting his picture taken but at the moment he wants to stare right at the flash because he likes the wee circles that the ring flash makes him see.

 

The Valentines Issue

Anyway, as I was saying before Typepad rudely lost my previous typing: my weeks these days are split between the work days and the non-work days. Interesting things only happen between Friday lunchtime and Sunday night. Friday morning has some potential since I don't need to drag my arse into Edinburgh and this week I finally got round to using part of Mandy's Valentine's pressie - a wee frying pan for making heart-shaped things (the chocolate disappeared instantly). I suspect they had something sweeter and more romantic in mind but I think it's just made for a cholesterol-choked fried egg (on homemade sourdough natch). 

 

Was off work sick on Thursday, finely catching the cold that the kids have been carrying around for weeks. I don't want to think that my decision to cycle to work on Monday, in spite of my spectacular level of unfitness, had anything to do with my snotting into work on Wednesday and collapsing on Thursday. Pure coincidence. But the day of nothing and sleeping was good and by Friday a.m. I was OK for the usual working from home.

Friday afternoon was a long-planned paddle with Jim in prep for our weekend of supervised paddling on the Tweed at the end of March. The original Ratho plan had to be slightly modified because the canal was pretty frozen up so we drove to Linlithgow and paddled around there for a while. Jim did a good job of holding a reasonably straight line.

   

Saturday finds the Crew off on a suicide bombing mission - err, no - a walk round the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park. The balaclava has a dinosaur on it - not some sacred text. And actually, since you're asking why Mandy's lugging the wee lump, Ellen spent most of the time on MY back but no one takes photographs of me being the family donkey.

  

Still, it only took about half an hour before Ewan started complaining of being too hot (true - we were all dressed for canoeing - there was two canoes on the car) and having sore legs (click on that photo and check the face). Games - I Spy (or the app iSpy or if you need therapy iPsy) and When Johnny Went Holidays - kept him going until Ice Cream.

  
 
Best photo of the day - Ninja Boy! Before the sore legs took over.

 

Dr Evil's small mistake

Aye, a weekend in the youth hostel at Minigaff (soon to have a lick of paint and be rebranded less literally but more sensibly as Newton Stewart) with some friens. Headed off on Friday morning stopping on the way in Alloway where the National Trust is doing its best to discreetly Disneyfy the cultural and literary colossus (aye, right) that is The Bard. Incidentally, I can only think of two other people known by a single noun - The Queen and The King. Ah the joy of the Burns Cottage. The sublime Tam O'Shanter Experience. The rubbish bins named after Tam's cronies.

But like a feckin' eejit I forgot to charge the camera before I went so the only photos that were taken all weekend were on film (aye, film. How retro is that?) so it might be another few months before they're seen - if they ever see the inside of Jessops. 

But Youth Hostels - how come they still exist? There's something wrong with accommodation when it's colder and less comfortable than camping. And it has to be said that youth hostels are a 1950s anachronism, created in the image of Enid Blyton heroes, wholesome boy scouts and bobble-hatted ramblers. Now they're slowly limping towards death. It's an old problem - for decades they haven't charged enough to maintain their old crumbling properties and now they're so crap that they can't charge any more than they do. So when death comes it'll be slow and marked by the fronts falling off of 30 year old kitchen drawers, unheated toilets and showers that either don't work or just dribble tepid water onto your shoulders as you stand shivering on the cubicle's cold metal floor. But we had a braw time.

Friday night was a laugh with Ewan being a wee card shark, playing poker with the men and actually winning some hands even though he was extremely reluctant to fold on some very bad hands. Luckily we kept him off the whisky so no one was shot.

Saturday was a nice wee walk around Galloway Forest Park with Ewan and Hannah on their bikes and Ellen and Malachy being pushed around in their buggies. A fine cuppie was found among the weirdness of Newton Stewart's Christian bookshop. The whole Jesus nonsense completely passed over Ewan's head so he had a bit of trouble understanding why he couldn't buy anything. Saturday evening, Ewan and a few of his wee pals learned to play Blackjack before their tea.

Sunday we head for home via the Cream O Galloway theme park, sorry, experience, err, farm. Not much to say about it. It's an adventure playground on a dairy farm designed to separate you from your money. And it does that pretty successfully.

But nae photies. Sorry.

The curious love of boxes

Aye, so, Friday and a trip to Costco. As usual the goods get loaded into cardboard boxes - apple boxes this time - and stashed in the boot. So far, so ordinary. Apart from the fine bargain that was had on the Macallan 10 year old fine oak. But that's another story.

So now we have two boxes. We also have two weans. The next bit's obvious. Yes, Ewan fills them with cushions to make them into seats for him and Ellen and the two sit in the boxes watching TV or playing Super Mariokart. Would you just look at the slack-jawed, dead-eyed expressions on those two. That's what TV does: keeps them docile and well-behaved. Love it.

 
 
But it wasn't all sofa surfing. Today was a family outing to Castle Semple to let Mandy have a go in the new canoe before her weekend of training in a few weeks. She did good. It's a lively wee bugger. Much more tippy than the big barge that I had Ewan and Ellen in. Ordinarily, paddling in circles wouldn't be considered a 'good thing' but when you're on your own for the first time, staying upright and dry is an achievement. Paddling in circles is great. Here she is flailing her big stick around. 'Fraid, I didn't take any pictures of the weans since it would only have been the backs of their heads.

 

York

Aye, so Friday was marathon trip from home to Lincoln (well, actually a motorway service station on the outskirts of Lincoln) to pick up a newish canoe and then back up to York to get Mandy and Ewan off the train before driving to Driffield for a couple of nights in a wee hotel. Phew. A ten-hour day in the car for me and Ellen and first class rail travel for Mandy and Ewan. Poor wee Ellen - where’s the justice? She seemed happy with chocolate and a Haahoo.

 

Woke up to snow on Saturday so obviously that means heading to the seaside. Bridlington has all the charm of a run-down seaside resort – the faded grandeur of the paint flaking Victorian and Georgian terraces that are now flea-pit bed and breakfasts; the long lines of gaudy “amusement” arcades with dance music blasting out of cheap tinny speakers; chip shops and donut stands with rancid oil in deep fat fryers that are just not hot enough to cook without saturating. Bliss. It looks even weirder with a dusting of snow.

      

It goes without saying that Ewan was entranced by the whole spectacle. If we’d have taken our eyes off him for a second he would have been straight into the hands of the Coachman and off to Pleasure Island.

York, on the other hand, reeks gentility and well organised history. The sort of place where philosophy students sit in coffee shops getting epistemological and discussing the extra characters available on an iPhone keyboard if double-tap and pinch. Turn any corner and there’s some 12th century relic, a massive bit of church or a section of the old city wall staring back at you. So you have to wonder why, in a place where history is round every corner, there was a massive queue at the bloody York Dungeon. Anyway, a lovely wee compact tourist trap though it does take some fancy footwork to avoid the Death Race pensioners on their mobility scooters.

 

Three little words

Aye, it's the moment that every parent longs for when their child utters those three magic, life-changing words. No, not "I love you" or any sentimental pish like that. She's too young and hardly knows me and anyway she's hardly qualified to judge. At two they love you in spite of your flaws. That'll all change soon enough.

No, the three magic words are, "Ellen need toilet" and with those words a life where you no longer need to scrape crap off a child's bum suddenly appears on the horizon and starts racing towards you. Happy days.

In other news, I put my lardy arse on my bike for the first time since I went to Jura with that Jim Glass. Mind, not outside. Weather's too miserable from that. Indoors, with the training bike. Only 15 minutes and then I was bored stiff and my feet were sore in those clip-in shoes. Still, it's a start and as soon as civil twilight allows, I'll be back to biking to work. That means 15th Feb for going to work and 24th for coming home.

The Weegies were in!

Aye, we had Gerry and June for the weekend so as is usual when they're around, the weekend has largely been about eating and drinking. Managed to get out for a walk round the estate. Here's Gerry and the wee lad out on his bike for the first time in ages, with Mandy and June in the background.

  

Saturday night saw us at the scout hall for a gala quiz night. It goes without saying that we won although not before the prize had been awarded to another team. They "scored" 94 out of a possible 90. Eh? Aye. Genuine error.

Toiling today after much drink and a late night. Four hours sleep I got seeing as it was my turn to get up with the weans. Ellen was up at 7 but was very amusing squeezing herself into a wee cardboard box for a sit. Cracking hair.