Haddington & Aberfeldy

 

August 2014

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Saturday morning sees Daisy reading her book (with her shoes on, strangely), as Gregory looks on.  Our plan for today is to head over to the Rowllings' household in the centre of Edinburgh.

And here we are!  Young Becky is almost 16 months old at this point, and generally tearing around the place (although not necessarily ripping it up).  Daisy is very happy to have a more mobile playmate (than Gregory).

One challenge of taking photos of Becky, or indeed children generally, is getting them to keep still.  I managed that here, but didn't manage to avoid the dribble.  Ah well.  Even though I have captured her essentially still, she does look like she is ready to be somewhere else.

A rare sit down for the eager adventurer.

Meanwhile, young Gregory, just the four and a bit months of age, settles down with a good book.  A Ben & Holly classic.

Daisy gets involved with Becky's piggy bank, all the while clutching to her beloved Kitty.

Hang on a minute, what's going on here?  Gregory has been ousted (presumably for a feed or a nappy change) by Becky.  Unfortunately, it ended in tears a little while after as her adventurousness got the better if her as it tippled back when she tried to climb further up.

Once the tears had been mopped dried, we headed out for a trip to the Salisbury Arms for luncheon, with Daisy on entertaining Becky duty.

I can't quite tell what Becky tucked into, but Daisy is clearly having pizza and salad items.

That evening, Daisy looked wistful in her superhero costume whilst eating her tea (sandwich and salad items - hmm, a bit similar to her lunch... never mind).

Avis holds Gregory at his most thoughtful.  Or most in desire of a cigarette.  One of the two.

It's a glorious day the next day, as Daisy hilariously runs for cover when Graham starts the lawnmower up.

This may have been when food poisoning or some form of stomach bug had claimed at least one of the Rowllings, and so unfortunately they could not attend.  That just meant more gammon for the rest of us, though.  Yum yum.  The Schofields, including Daisy, posed in their inimitable ways (only Lynne was really making a genuine effort).

With a belly full of roast and perhaps going a little stir crazy, I decided to investigate the local pathway, walking a brisk four miles in just over an hour (two miles along, two miles back, so I was more or less forced to do four miles once I had gone so far).  Gregory seemed to enjoy himself, before naturally falling asleep on the way back.  Later, Lynne and I went for a meal at a pub which was a reasonable drive away.  I cannot recall the name and only a blurry photo with Lynne looking a bit unimpressed survives, so we'll skip that, eh.

We can, however, rectify things with a close-up of the boy Gregory from the next morning.

Before lunch, we carried on to the next stage of our holiday, driving across the Forth bridge to Aberfeldy, scene of one of our holidays from last year, as well as a trip in 2010.  Upon arrival, we headed over to the farmhouse.  Nicky was there and I think she prepared us a spot of lunch.  We went out into the back garden as the weather was set fair.  Daisy appears to have secured a prime spot.

Then it was her turn on the trampoline, upon which she got some decent air miles (well, inches).  The kinetic energy generated was distributed throughout her hair.

I like this manoeuvre as it looks like she is pulling some surfing moves.  Or skateboarding moves maybe.

Daisy was getting a bit restless with all this slow transport and so decided to go for a spin in the yellow and green car.  She meant business.

This time we were in the Lyon lodge.

We had a quiet evening in on our first day at the lodge, settling down to a Simpsons DVD and pizza from the Co-op (with the local pizza takeaway joint which we went to last time currently being refurbished).  Gregory looked on, slightly enviously.

"Where is my pizza?" he demanded.

Right then.  This was the time that the Ice Bucket Challenge was sweeping through Facebook like a virus.  I had been monitoring my news feed, watching other people submit themselves to self-drenching with detachment, then amusement, then boredom, then mild frustration.  And the nominations got ever closer to my intimate circle.  When Liam nominated Eddie, I had a strong expectation that I would be one of the ones next in line, and so it proved.  I was grumpily intending to ignore it as I was on holiday.  However, I mentioned this to Nicky when we met up, who informed me that Calum had also been recently nominated, not to mention Matty.  When he appeared shortly afterwards, we decided that we wanted to do something a little different, as most people had uploaded a video which was quite similar to many others.  This being a farm, we had access to machinery, which made things a bit more interesting.

And so, as the clock past 7.30pm, with Daisy in bed, a tractor rumbled in.  It had been filled from an outdoor tap, which was plenty cold enough, but we added some ice for show.  Here is the vast amount of water that it held.  Hmmm, was this a good idea?

The tractor was wheeled into position.  Nicky was ready to assume drenching duty.

Inevitably, the noise had woken up Daisy, if she had ever been asleep (probably not). We allowed her to watch.

There was a slight flaw in that we had the tractor on a slight sideways slope.  That meant that, because Nicky understandably was cautious on the controls, it started in a heavy trickle on one side, straight onto Calum's head.  Eventually Matty and I got dragged into the heart of the pouring before suddenly it came out in a great big gush, as can be seen from the screen capture below.  From left to right, you can just about make out Matty, me and Calum.  It was cold, so cold, and the pressure of that vast amount of water hitting us pushed us downward but we stayed on our feet.  We felt that we had done a pretty impressive Ice Bucket Challenge.  I nominated a few people, including my brother Matt. On an overarching video I took of the whole thing on my camera, whilst left strategically on a nearby table (behind the scenes footage that will be available on the DVD release), also nominated Daisy (because she wanted to be - not out of child cruelty) - more on this later.

After the self-imposed deluge of the previous night, it was good to see some blue sky the next morning (Tuesday), gazed at whimsically by The Boy.

It looked like a decent enough place for a rest and a ponder, so Daisy popped herself into the uncontested section of the jungle mat.

Such is the British climate, though; the blue sky disappeared with the hour, obscured by swathes of grey, but as yet unthreatening, cloud.  Daisy consumed cereal and surveyed the scenery with magisterial abandon.

Our activity for the day was a trip to Blair Castle, which is situated near the village of Blair Atholl, which is north-west of both Pitlochry and Killiecrankie.  Wikipedia describes it as commanding "a strategic position on the main route (now the A9 road) through the central Highlands".  From the picture below, it can also be described as very white.

To get there, we had to navigate a bridge over a small stream.  This did not deter us.

We weren't allowed to take photos in the majority of the castle.  We had jettisoned the pram and switched young Gregory to the baby carrier.  He seemed rather lackadaisical about the whole thing.

We were, however, allowed to take pictures in the final room, where one could also try on a crown if one wished to do so.

Arise, Queen Daisy.

Her newfound status was well worth parading around the large hall.

Technically he didn't mention it, but we could tell that Gregory wanted to wear a crown too, and duly his wish was granted.

Lynne and Daisy then engaged in the age-old game Catch The Queen.

After our tour, we headed back outside, where Daisy pursued a pheasant and peahen with an apple and a bag as her potential instruments of torture.

Talking of instruments of torture, it wasn't long before someone played the bagpipes.  I don't know what this signified precisely, i.e. whether it was to denote the passing of an hour, or teacakes being served in the cafeteria, or something else.

We wandered around the gardens and happened upon this scenic pond, or perhaps even small lake, covered in lilies.

Daisy used one of her magic spells to turn some of the lilies into ducks.  And then promptly fed them bits of apple.

It was all too much, however, and she was soon lying down in the grass out of exhaustion and/or awkwardness while a duck circled menacingly.

In the grounds were what seemed like apple trees...

...and colourful bridges with people nearby.

And that's all from Blair Castle and, indeed, this page.  So time for a new page.