Good Weekend for the whole family

A good weekend for all of us. On Friday night I went out with colleagues to The Granary in Shawlands, it was a really pleasant evening, very relaxed and a good laugh. At the end of the evening I gave Scott, Gavin and Chris a lift home, but they had trouble fitting into my wee Peugeot 207 convertible - it was hilarious and I had to put the roof down! Chris found a toy guitar on the back seat and started playing it! Meanwhile James and the boys were watching Comic Relief on BBC which they enjoyed. Ally was up early on Saturday morning to go to his mini trial at the Sheriff Court, he had been preparing his case, he was defending a client so he had to cross-examine a witness. In the afternoon I got a triumphant text from him: "Hey I won, we tore the other witnesses apart - it was a bloodbath :D" - seems he enjoyed it! James persuaded me to have a healthy walk round Strathclyde Park, the weather was nice and sunny but still chilly - not quite spring yet. We had a good talk on the way round about all sorts of things, then we went straight over the Byres Road where we had lunch in Antipasti and got some shopping in Waitrose. We also popped into a couple of kitchen showrooms to get some ideas. James and I both hate going to showrooms and it often creates friction between us but this time was ok and we arrived home in harmony. By late afternoon three of David's friends arrived for an overnight, they were very self entertaining and they watched movies and played computer games all evening. Alasdair went out to a party and came back by train later, he wore one of his suits! Alison and Hugh came round for dinner and we had a great evening, they showed us their New Zealand photos, it looks so beautiful, I would definitely love to go there some day. James and Alison were planning hill walking for the summer; they are going to walk through Laraig Ghru in the Cairngorms, with Hugh and I dropping them off at the start and meeting them at the end. On Sunday morning James brought me breakfast in bed and I had a chat with Jennifer on the phone about her impending house sale. Jamie was texting about his bank details and told me he is spending most of this weekend in the library, it would be great for him if he gets through his 3rd year exams first time. David's friends were collected by Olivia and then the four of us went over to Heather and Ewan's for lunch. This was of course delicious, a Belgian stew which had been slow cooked with beef and little bits of bacon, with fluffy mashed potatoes and sprouting broccoli - I do love good food! Dessert was also lovely - yummy cheesecake made by Heather and pavlovas with summer fruits made by Andrew, who is doing Hospitality as one of his 6th year subjects. Andrew had been to a welcome day at Edinburgh University yesterday with Heather and Ewan, he was showing us where he will be studying Law and where his halls of residence will be. How exciting for him to be at the very start of the career he wants to do, I think he's looking forward to it very much. Then Heather made the suggestion of going for a walk, which was a very good idea and we went to see the new houses that are being built where Woodilee Hospital used to be, it is a surprisingly large site and they are building lots of houses, I think Ewan said 900. Then we walked much further on to a motorway bridge over the new M80, in the end I think we walked for about an hour and a half, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked that it was spontaneous, whereas sometimes when James is planning a walk for us I get a feeling of dread because I fell that I am going to fail, as in go too slowly and annoy him. But this afternoon was great; a good walk and a good chat. I would so love to be fitter and I'm going to try to take lots of exercise on Barra, weather permitting! When we got back to Heather and Ewan's it was 5.30 and Andrew, Alasdair and David were watching the very end of the Old Firm game, which Rangers won in extra time 2-1. Much rejoicing by the boys! Home and had a bite to eat, David was absolutely exhausted and went straight to bed after tea. The rest of us are watching Wonders of the Universe and are then heading for a reasonably early night after a very pleasant and relaxing weekend.