Hi All!!

How are you all keeping? Hope you are all well and had a fab chrimbo.  We had a great time - one of the best that I can remember! We spent it at home with my mum and dad.  Mum and dad brought a huge turkey for christmas lunch - 400 miles!!!  It was the size of our dog - so big, it wouldn't fit in the fridge (and anyone who knows us knows how big our fridge is!!) So I asked Nick to hang it from the rafters in the garage. So he bagged it up in 3 bags and then couldn't see why I had asked him to hang it and so left it on the side in the garage. At 2pm on christmas eve (sunday) Holly came inside asking if we knew that Bonnie the dog was eating the turkey and had dragged it up the drive and left it in the gravel!! As you can imagine, we didn't and so all hell was let loose. I stormed off to Oban at 2pm on christmas eve looking for the last turkey in town and lets face it, you would be lucky to find a skinny old chicken at 2pm on ANY sunday in Oban never mind Christmas eve! So Tesco had not a fresh item of food instore and coop had a titchy little turkey and a duck.......so that was our chrimbo feast - for 8 people!!

 

That evening, after a couple of glasses of the fizzy stuff and several jabs in Nicks ribs we were finishing wrapping the last few pressies when I remembered that we had left some in a box in the loft. When I fetched it out I was gutted. Mice had chewed through them all. A duvet cover, several items of clothes.....gutted!!!  Despite all of this, we organised a fantastic feast and the kids were thrilled with their HUGE pile of parcels from Santa.

 

 Holly & Joe had 'the killer cold' over chrimbo. Mum  and Nick also managed to catch it so it was snot city in our house...Kleenex and calpol did a bomb out of us over the festive season! The shops were shut for so many days that we were able to trade in calpol sachets over the bank holidays! My neighbours daughter had  'the cold' which was exacerbating her asthma and we ran out of butter so we traded butter for a sachet of calpol!! It became a valuable commodity!

 

It hasn't stopped raining here for a couple of months now. We have all developed webbed feet and our skin has become a strange white translucent shade...lacking sunshine I think! The scots are hardy souls!(Mind you, even the scots are whinging now!).

 

We had a new years eve party - Wesley style!! - it was a wild wild night...the weather not the party! Hurricane force winds but the hardy seil islanders weren't going to pass up on free food and booze because of a piddling hurricane passing through! We had attached a tarp to our house and above the deck which runs the length of the house so that we could spill out onto the deck...but at about 6 PM we had to take it down...before our guests even arrived. I was worried that the corners that were blown loose would take out someones eye! We thought it would be better to take it down then whilst we were all sober rather than trusting several drunken men with ladders and power tools later! It was a good night though. Our utility room was bursting with oil skins and wellies because everyone had at least a 2 mile walk  home! No streetlights and strong wind and rain!! That said, the wind dropped enough for a brief firework display at midnight. Well, the intention was brief...well mine was...nick had other ideas. 

 

 Never ever put a man in charge of fireworks....they become 10 all over again. The fire works were brill but after about 35 minutes out in the cold at midnight I think that folks were just being polite!! The deck outside made for a great viewing platform though. It runs the length of the house but is elevated about 4 feet up because our house is built on a hill. It has always been fine with the 4 of us and a couple of dogs on it. 50 revelling partiers is a different matter completely! It didn't take long for some caber tossing scot to realise that it 'bounced' when  he jumped and set off several other large chaps demonstrating that our deck needed better support....not sure that virgin house insurance covers us for 50 people bouncing on the deck.....god try explaining that one away!

 

Since it hasn't stopped raining since october.....I haven't missed having to go up to Ruffy twice a day. Holly is still riding up at the stables in Oban. She did her pony club mucking out badge the other day. I reckon that Alison (the owner of the stables) fancied a bit of a hand with the mucking out! She rang up on the Thursday to see if the girls wanted to go up on the Friday! They enjoyed it though and all gained their badge...it is quite amusing...a pile of pony poo embroidered on it!! That will look lovely sewed onto her pony club sweatshirt! She also did her poisonous plants badge....which she got top marks in so was very chuffed. Holly is riding right now as I am writing this. It is bucketing down and gale force winds...wonder what they will be doing?!

 

For the new year I have become a Brownie leader! I must need my head looking at. There are 4 of us who have volunteered to run them. It is a combined unit of brownies, cubs, rainbows and beavers. The first combined unit in Scotland....so basically we can make it up as we go along! Hehe!!! There just aren't enough kids here to start up just brownies etc....so a simple solution is for them all to get together.....first session was last week and it went well...not to bad. The leaders decided against the usual brown owl names etc....because of there being scouts and beavers and it was decided by the kids that  we would be called after birds of prey....so I am Kestrel (no not after the beer!), there is also, falcon, hawk and osprey. Unfortunately, my son, Joe called osprey - ostrich by mistake and it has kind of stuck!! Well, more jinx next week!

 

We will be back in good ole Keggers for half term - Feb 14th for 5 days.  So look forward to catching up with as many as poss of you then.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!