Getting There

It has been almost a year since I last put pen to pixel, and a bit like childbirth, the pain of the previous occasion has subsided and the mind now believes "that was nice, let's do it again!." And so, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "to blog or not to blog, that is the question". Or from the point of view of the target audience, it is more likely to be "to read or not to read ....."

As you might have surmised, another family holiday beckons and the creative juices are (hopefully) stirring. Four nights in Ayrshire with Kevan, Laura and our 4 older grandchildren, Ben, Lucy, Maia and Isla (names appear in chronological order to avoid any suggestion of an expression of preference). It's hard to pin down exactly where we are staying and attempts to do so have included Dalyrimple, a wee bit inland from Ayr and somewhere near Maybole of electric brae fame (more of that later). Hailing from Dalkeith and heading for "somewhere near Dalrymple" I was musing that a lot of Scottish place names start with Dal and wondering about the meaning. According to Google (other search engines are available), 'Dal' comes from the Gaelic word 'dail' which translates as meadow or field. So the town where I live must originally have been built on Keith's field. I do hope he got a good price for it.

Our home for the next 5 days is a large, 5-bedroomed farmhouse with a separate games room (pool, darts, table football and table tennis) located in a converted cow byre. The house is finished to a very high standard, so much so that almost every bed is made up with feather quilts and pillows. Sounds luxurious doesn't it, but it isn't ideal for someone with a feather allergy who forgot to phone ahead to inform our hosts. Some frantic post-midnight searching ensued and at the cost of wakening an already sleeping Lucy, I managed to find the only hypoallergenic quilt and hollow fibre pillow on the premises. Fortunately Lucy took her rude awakening in good spirits and Isla was happy to trade bedding with me.

Day 1 of a holiday can be a bit of a non event for a would-be blogger, consisting mainly of logistics around getting packed / unpacked and getting there. It can also be a bit full on, hence the delay in posting (and writing to be completely honest with you) although I think I can revise the date of posting so no-one will notice. So with your permission, I will use the remaining bytes to document a very precious memory. You most likely already know I love rugby. I always have, ever since playing at school. I wasn't very good and I held onto my team place mainly because finding 15 boys in Bellshill Academy who actually wanted to play the game was a tough call. We would run out each Saturday morning with exactly 15 players (no substitutes) and on at least one occasion I remember us having to borrow the sub from our opponents so we could field a full team.

The Six Nations Championship is my all-time favourite sporting event and every year I count the days till the first kick-off in early February. I have been to a number of Scotland games at Murrayfield, dating back to the days when you got to stand on the hill behind the posts, although being short in stature, my view of the game was often restricted to the up-and-unders or Garry Owens as they used to call the sky rocket kicks. Sadly the popularity of the men's tournament (or M6N as it is now called) has meant attending the home games now comes with a hefty price tag, so imagine my delight in discovering the W6N tournament in recent years. Not only do I get to watch twice the number of matches, but tickets are easily available and very affordable. So yesterday (or Sunday if you don't buy my date altering trick), I went with Lucy and Maia to watch our national team play Italy at Murryfield's Hive Stadium. As we stood together to sing our national anthem this proud grandpa might just have had a wee tear in his eye. No matter that we were defeated by a better side, it was a very entertaining match and an absolute joy to be sharing the experience with 2 of my favourite people in the world.Read more