Haddington & Aberfeldy

August 2014

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We drove to Haddington, home of Avis and Graham Schofield, on Thursday 21st August, arriving mid-afternoon.  We faced somewhat of a challenge, we thought, in getting everything into the car for our travels, but we had managed it when going to Mochdre, and indeed we just about squeezed everything in here.  Including the jungle mat, which Gregory was happy to stretch out on after four hours in the car seat (albeit most of them asleep).

Daisy, too, was keen to revert to established practice, lining up the array of cuddly toy animals to await further instructions from their lord and master.

During teatime, Gregory kicked back in a pink donut.  He had not yet mastered the art of sitting up at this point and so needed some support.

After eating her tea up, Daisy was afforded the luxury of a mini strawberry ice cream (or so it appears), keeping Gregory company as she did so (I presume she is not just baiting him).  However, he does not seem that interested in this shot.

The next morning, Daisy took advantage of new faces to get in a 9am story.

We were soon on our way, driving to Beecraigs Country Park, south of Linlithgow (north of Livingston, west of Edinburgh).  The reason for this excursion was that we had been given advance warning that the Gillespies (who you may remember from here, and specifically Craig from here) were over in Scotland, which was excellent timing given our planned presence there.  The choice of venue was an attempt to find somewhere broadly in between Glasgow (where the Gillespies were staying) and Haddington.

It was a sunny day, although still a bit fresh, so Gregory was wrapped up in the pram.

This was the woodland scenery we would get used to as we wandered through to try to find the play area under my navigation.

The boys (me, Craig, Jason and Gregory) strode energetically ahead as the girls (Lynne, Julia, Daisy, Vicky and Claudia) sauntered behind (this is a zoom shot).

A little lost (ahem), we stopped for general snackage.  The photographers amongst us then faced the challenge of trying to get everyone to (a) look in the same direction and (b) smile.  This was not altogether successful and was no doubt confused by Vicky and I being at different angles.

This one is a little better - there are more people smiling, but they are looking at Vicky rather than me.

Here is one of Vicky's photos.  In this one, her girls are looking at her, whilst mine are looking at me.

We simplified things and left it to just the kids, who promptly looked in all different directions.

This is just about the best one of the lot, although Daisy looks anxious more than happy, as does Claudia.  They are all natural products, by the way - some kind of vegetable crisps rather than the standard potato crisps which we had purchased from the onsite shop.

Craig was busy making a connection with Gregory.  Look into my eyes...

Here is another angle of that shot, showing Gregory's reaction (if you can call it that).

The keen-eyed girls spotted this hanging in the branches.  We knew not of what it was.

Daisy, rather inevitably, got in a bit of a strop about something and wandered off.  She came back, though.

We then played a game of 'Who wants to hold the 20-week-old baby?', with Vicky winning the first round.  There also appears to be some sort of baptism going on as Claudia blesses him.

We then put Gregory's fate very much in other people's hand by passing him to the girls (although Julia seems content to let Claudia have a go).  You can see how closely Vicky's hands hovered in anticipation of any mis-balancing.

Whilst everyone was parked up, I then wandered off in search of where the play area was.  We had been going in roughly the right direction, but we had just taken a slightly scenic detour.  I came back to instruct them to follow me and here we were.  The zip wire provided the most entertainment for the Gillespies, particularly big kid Vicky.  Claudia valiantly does the pushing.

As sure as night follows day, Daisy bee-lined for the slide.

Gregory appreciated the opportunity to stretch out on the grass.

They had pretty sophisticated see-saws in the play area, with Claudia and Daisy on one side...

...and Jason on the other.

This is absolutely not out of the textbook, but does reflect the fairly daredevil style of both Claudia and Julia.  This is Claudia, of course, but later Julia can be seen doing some climbing.

Vicky and Julia came to join us; Julia sitting alongside, and amused by, a tired looking Daisy, or perhaps something is in her eye.

Next up, it was Craig's turn to give Julia some momentum on the zipwire.

This is about the best of the pictures of Daisy in the swing as she rapidly turned from happy to mildly concerned to please-get-me-out-now.

Here, Vicky appears to have launched Claudia, as I stand in the way in order to take an action photo.  This is about as close as I dared go.

It looks like that was quite a shove as Claudia's momentum flings her high into the air.

Julia was content to ride atop Craig's shoulders, gently scratching his forehead.

Ok, confessional time.  At some point during these photos, Jason and one of the girls were in a bowl shaped roundabout, which I span round for them.  Jason's sister then requested that I span it faster, which I did.  However, I woefully over-estimated the weight and inertia of the roundabout, whilst simultaneously under-estimating how little grip was available as well as centrifugal force.  When I put considerable extra effort in, poor Jason flew out of the bowl and onto the woodchip floor, grazing his stomach and forehead as he went.

He didn't cry, but he did look mildly distressed.  I hugged him, apologised profusely, brushed him down and checked he was ok, before taking him over to his parents feeling very bad about it all.  Craig told me not to worry and that he did similar things all the time.  Or something like that.

Later on in the day, after we had gone our separate ways, Vicky sent me the following photo, saying "you can add this shot to your porthole as a reminder of the events of yesterday, ha ha", the humour in which I took positively.

You can't really see from this shot, but he has the injury here.  He was very quiet for quite a while, which worried me, but eventually he started to come out of his shell, and then was soon zooming around on the zip wire.

In fact, as he got increasingly involved, he removed his coat and got ferried around by Claudia.  Which made me feel better.

Meanwhile, Julia was off being a daredevil in the large climbing frame, which seemed like a 3D version of one of those old children's TV shows like Knightmare.

Daisy contented herself with more grounded activities.

It was all too much for young Gregory.

Claudia soon joined her sister on the massive climbing frame...

...while Daisy watched.

She looked on, perhaps not that envious that she couldn't join in, but probably in awe nevertheless.

Craig and Vicky had brought Daisy a bag of presents, of which the most striking of which were these Dame Daisy Everage glasses.

We then drove to Dobby's garden centre (of which there are a chain, I understand) for some belated luncheon.  Craig was happy to unfurl his charmingest, goofiest smile whilst holding a seemingly-disinterested Gregory.

He was then handed round in the usual way, probably to give Lynne and I a chance to eat our lunch.

On the way out, I noticed the incongruity of the garden centre selling fresh strawberries...

...whilst also setting up a Christmas display.  Come on now, it's August!

As we said our emotional goodbyes in the car park, I asked for a Gillespie pose.  Here they all are.

I also wanted a photo of just me and Craig.  I look very proud, but one young scamp has crept into the shot.  Let's try that again.

I've exchanged my proud grin for more of a warm smile, but we seem to have another young whippersnapper creeping into the frame.

That's your lot for the time being.  Come back at a later date for some Edinburgh Fringe Festival action and Daisy's meeting with her cousin Becky.

After our daytime excursion, we hopped on the train to Edinburgh for some comedy action.  After a bit of street food, we saw David O'Doherty at the Assembly George Square Theatre, with his David O'Doherty Has Checked Everything show.  At various stages, including the intro, he used his keyboard to sing some brilliantly funny songs, and the stand-up in between was invariably very funny too.  I'd not seen him before but was impressed.

We also had tickets for Frank Skinner in the same venue for the following act, but we had to leave to come back in, although rather than joining the huge queue we just stood at a nearby bar and had a beer while we waited for it to dissipate.  His show was called Frank Skinner: Man In A Suit, and it had a similar level of inspiration.  It was amusing on occasions but was basically just a bit of an aimless ramble.  There was a distinctively different audience for Frank, as much as anything an indicator of just how long he has been going; but it also reflected the different nature of his stand-up compared to David O'Doherty, which had much more energy and inventiveness.

We got the train back, being picked up by Graham as I had done a year before, arriving home at around midnight, at which point it was always worth a quick check in of Daisy, looking very small in a double bed.

Moving on to the next day.